“Curated resources for everything design related.” So?

“oozled brings together 586 curated resources in 41 categories.” Gaah!

“Subscribe to as many or as few categories as you want and create your own feed based on your interests.” OK. Now you have my attention.

Oh, and “Submit a Resource”… I’m in.

The story of oozled

Inspired by a talk he gave at his local college, web/user interface designer Dan Edwards compiled a list of books, apps and websites that would be a great guide for the students. It was when he posted that list of 80 items to Medium that he discovered not only did people value it as a resource, but also as something to be part of, and to contribute to (at launch, the article had over 50,000 visits and over 800 recommendations).

By April 2014, Dan had added over 230 resources. Some were his discoveries, but most were contributed by readers.

Propelled by the enthusiasm of the community, Dan partnered with designer/developer Ryan Taylor, and in May this year the beta of oozled was launched.

How it works

oozled appears to be primarily a mobile site, skipping a lot of standard wide-screen navigation and bringing you straight to an app experience. That said, I was able to explore the site on my laptop without becoming annoyed with the interface.

You can browse the resources without signing up, but you’d be missing a big chunk of the magic. oozled allows you to filter its content by a wide range of needs and interests, including tech (such as HTML6, CMS and JavaScript), business (Meetups, Legal, Payment Solutions, etc.), design thought (Colour, Motion Graphics, Responsive Web Design) and of course, inspiration (which they may have actually succeeded at making a less-unwieldy category group—go see).

Signing up allows you to create a personalized feed, and it’s easy to cull it any time: a checkbox near the filter title immediately deletes it from your feed page.

Notes

“Inspiration” tends to be too much like my kitchen’s “miscellaneous” drawer; that out-of-control collection of items I no longer feel safe putting my hand into. Pretty pictures, smart design solutions, influential projects… according to whom? Still, in the process of learning what oozled had to offer, it was the topic link I clicked first.

I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t disappointed. The expected websites were there, but so were a number of newer sites, with fresh perspectives.

Once I extricated myself from niice.com (though I may be leaving the tab open, like, forever), I went back to get a deeper look. The range of categories is relevant for designers and developers, freelancers and studios. There are a few I’d want to add though, and I wonder how they plan to scale their list as it inevitably grows.

I highly recommend the “Just Handy” category, with its collection of web design tools, such as a grid calculator, free placeholder images and a px-to-em conversion tool. The Latest 50 is an interesting category, but doesn’t provide an add-to-feed checkbox, and doesn’t show up in your personal feed. The rest of the categories will be up to individual tastes and needs.

One feature request so far: I’d love a way to filter individual items out of a category.

It was impressive to see that they already have a revenue model in place that integrates elegantly with the experience, and gives hope they’ll be able to make this project a sustainable one.