my blog. for you.

Let’s talk digital.

I’m an independent IT consultant and entrepreneur in the Internet and software business. I’m interested in design, enterprise applications, web apps and SaaS products. I design and develop business solutions and applications. I help companies in terms of software quality and knowledge transfer, e.g. with Angular and Spring Boot.

Maciej Ceglowski – The Internet With a Human Face

More videos of the beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2014 design conference are online now. This one is Maciej Ceglowski's talk about The Internet With a Human Face: Maciej Ceglowski – The Internet With a Human Face – beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2014 from beyond tellerrand on Vimeo.

Robin Christopherson – Technology – The Power And The Promise

Some time ago I wrote about Robin Christopherson's talk on accessible and inclusive design at beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2014. A video of this excellent talk is now online: Robin Christopherson – Technology - The Power And The Promise – beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 2014 from beyond tellerrand on Vimeo.

Sunday September 21st, 2014 by Bjoern in Design, Front End Development, Software, Web Applications

Zen Design Principles

Following up on last week's post about Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind I came across an interesting article on Co.Design about 7 Design Principles, Inspired By Zen Wisdom. These principles build upon a concept called shibumi: To understand the Zen principles, a good starting point is shibumi. It is an overarching concept, an ideal. It has no precise definition in Japanese, but its meaning is reserved for objects and experiences that exhibit in paradox and all at once the very best of ...

Sunday September 7th, 2014 by Bjoern in Design

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Recently, I heard designer Stephen Hay talk about the concept Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. The idea resonated with me. Now, I don't mean to delve into Buddhist teachings. I'm by no means an expert on that. What I'd like to broach is the more practical implications of this phrase - or at least one possible interpretation thereof. Maintaining a beginner's mind that's curious to learn, try and fail keeps you from getting into a rut. It means being open-minded, avoiding the well-trodden path. Such ...

Sunday August 31st, 2014 by Bjoern in Design

Atomic Design

Recently, I came across an interesting concept called Atomic Design. In a nutshell, Atomic Design favours systems of reusable components in lieu of monolithic pages. Now, don't get me wrong. This is nothing utterly new, of course. Style guides and brand guidelines always consisted of reusable and combinable components, fonts and colours. However, in traditional web design up to the mid-aughts designs used to be rather fixed, rigid and monolithic. It wasn't until relatively recently that due to the responsive design movement ...

Sunday August 10th, 2014 by Bjoern in Design

SEPA: Nutzerfreundliche Eingabe von IBAN und BIC

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.In 2014 wird die Nutzung von SEPA für Banküberweisungen und Lastschrift endgültig Pflicht. An sich ist gegen eine internationale Vereinheitlichung des Zahlungsverkehrs nichts einzuwenden. Allerdings lässt die Nutzerfreundlichkeit des ganzen Verfahrens deutlich zu wünschen übrig oder wie es mal kürzlich jemand ausgedrückt hat: "SEPA ist endlich mal etwas, das für Unternehmen und Privatleute gleich kompliziert ist." Die Eingabe und Prüfung von IBAN und BIC auf den meisten Websites ist kompliziert und fehleranfällig. Es gibt verschiedene Randfälle, die ...

Sunday October 27th, 2013 by Bjoern in Front End Development, Web Applications

Chosen – User-friendly select boxes

HTML <select></select> boxes can be rather unwieldy and don't exactly cater for a stellar user-experience. To alleviate that pain Harvest provide a highly useful jQuery plugin that's been adequately named Chosen. Apart from a nice CSS styling Chosen adds several user interface improvements to vanilla HTML select boxes such as search, easy-to-use multiple selections and option groups. Using Chosen is as easy as adding the following JavaScript code to your website: $('select').chosen(); This will automatically spruce up and enrich every select box on your website ...

Sunday July 14th, 2013 by Bjoern in Front End Development, Software, Web Applications

Über den Unsinn von QR Codes in der Werbung

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.Vom BMWi gibt's jetzt die Start-App mit Infos für Startup Gründer. An sich ja keine schlechte Idee. Was mich aber irritiert ist mal wieder der QR Code. 'Einfach über den QR Code downloaden'. Ja klar, Moment, ich suche und lade mir eben eine von Dutzenden von QR Code Apps runter, mach ein Foto, geh auf den Link, der mich dann über Umwege zum App Store weiterleitet, wo ich dann die Start-App runter laden kann?! Die ...

Tuesday May 7th, 2013 by Bjoern in Design

Great Review of ‘The Design of Everyday Things’

At UsabilityPost there's an excellent review of Donald Norman's seminal book 'The Design of Everyday Things' that not only describes the book but also tells a whole lot about user experience design.

Wednesday March 13th, 2013 by Bjoern in Design

Björn Wilmsmann

my blog. for you.

Let’s talk digital.