Jez Hughes » Blog

JLS Jukebox Facebook app

jez — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:15:22 +0000

7 days to build, limited budget, scalable architecture and one of the biggest boy bands in the world? Sure! Let’s go, JLS!

This one was a fun build, Facebook threw up a few API surprises and ‘Send Dialogue’ plagued this project all the way through.

We used Soundcloud to power the jukebox interface, via the playlist API. Users have the option to login with Facebook to create their own playlists Jukebox, or just continue to listen to the album as it is.

We put sharing at the heart of this, users can post their jukebox with up to 3 friends, and add a message to send with it. There’s an option to post it to their wall too.

We added a splash of identity by having the user’s Facebook profile picture as the artwork on their customised Jukebox.

This was a massive front end challenge too. For a young audience we wanted to keep the interface clean, all above the fold and bold, with the user journey seamless. We used overlay sliders for a lot of the UX. I think it paid off

Here’s some images from pre production.

My rubbish first sketch of the Jukebox (ha ha), working out how to make a interface make sense and not clunky…

Sexy buttons… Super sexy buttons… I really can’t stress how important buttons are to me.

Cute icon to go along with the app

And another awesome one which didn’t make it (WORLD EXCLUSIVE)

And there we go. One of my favourite apps so far. Check it out here. Was stressful but it came out super slick, kudos to my ninjas who made it happen.

Multi site goodness

jez — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:01:53 +0000

Just finished a big WordPress project for a multi site network for our new company, using 1 aggregator theme to pull news from 3 other departments, a blog template, and 1 parent site to use on everything else.

This isn’t a code palace so i’m just going to show some of the elements which are neat.

Main body of the site with custom menu configurations.

Custom category with rollovers

Job application page with custom contact form and new ‘Apply with LinkedIn’ button for quick submission.

Newsletter pop up and sign up with CSS3 goodness (Mailchimp)

A shot of single posts, custom fields drive the video embeds if needed. Tooltips give share options and shortlinks with custom lucd.co domain (using WP bit.ly).

Custom user list layout, lists all the users on the multi site but in this instance is serves as a reference to employees. Pretty cool! Needs some tweaking

Chronos/The Wanted, another Fb project

jez — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:31:36 +0000

Wrapping up another ‘chronos’ project for The Wanted. Not sure what to do with this app project yet, they’re so easy to do and build and work really well; just takes time to put some steam behind it to make it in to a sucessful product.

The layouts conditioned so existing fans see share options with Facebook and Twitter, and non-fans see a prominent ‘Like’ button to like the page.

I like how this one turned out though! I’m beginning to love the dark ‘Like’ buttons.

Suggestions welcome. I know i’m rubbish at page folds…

Did I rip off Reeder (iPad) for my site?

jez — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:23:16 +0000

Yes, yes i did. I’m not ashamed of it though, Reeder is one of my favourite iPad apps in terms of design, the paper cut feel is gorgeous.

New Site… What do you think?

jez — Fri, 27 May 2011 22:05:51 +0000

This must be the 5th personal website I’ve ever had, hello mr. indecisive!

Here is my latest digital representation of me though, and hopefully it will last longer than it’s predecessors. Building sites has become a guilty pleasure for me over the past year or 2 (this is probably the 10th theme I’ve built for WordPress). I’m not actually technically a developer or a designer, I’ve had zero training in either, but I suppose this goes to show on the world wide web, anythings possible and anythings learnable!

Anyway, hello!