ArghWebWorks

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When Des Traynor says “Quality is Fractal he means that by examining one piece of a whole, one can pass a judgement on the whole. In his example of a steak, it doesn’t matter if the steak is terrific, if the gravy is served cold or the waiter is ugly and smells of cigarettes.

I’m not convinced. And this could be because I’m working on my overall consistency. I think this idea requires a consistency that may not be present in the end product. For instance, I might write a glorious function for part of a website but put it together with the rest of the framework and my implementation is less than glorious. You could examine the function and make a judgment that the whole is terrific — but the whole is flawed and weak.

I won’t argue that if one piece is great and another is not so great, that the lower “average” between the two drags the overall quality down. That’s true too; I think that inconsistency is a flaw in a product. ( That’s why I’m working on it myself. ) That’s not what I’m saying; what I’m saying is that it’s hard to judge the whole effectively when there’s different levels of greatness.

I’m fascinated with the CSS(link) (Cascading Style Sheets) sprites idea; that with a hole in one piece of paper, you can place it over another piece of paper to create different effects depending on what’s showing through the paper. It’s kind of an optical illusion.

Snook.Ca has some great ideas on how to use these optical illusions for a little pizazz with your site. I’ve reused their gradient/fade example over at this site: Footed Pyjamas (need some warm flannel footed pyjamas?) on the “Buy Now” button and it gives me a little thrill each time I slide my mouse over it.

I wonder what would happen with a wavy line, like stylized ocean waves, or maybe something else. I’ll have to play with it some more.