In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about the principle of proximity in visual design, discover what accessibility improvements are expected in WordPress 5.5, find a stunning portrait created completely in CSS, and more.
If you’re new to my blog, each Friday I publish a post highlighting my favorite user experience, accessibility, WordPress, CSS, and HTML posts I’ve read in the past week.
Hope you find the resources helpful in your work or projects!
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Tweet of the Week
User Experience
- Moderated usability testing is the preferred method for 80% of respondents in User Fountain’s 2020 Usability-Testing Industry Report, based on a study conducted in May 2020.
- I enjoyed reading how a remote summer internship on Figma’s design systems team provided Jenning Chen the opportunity to manage a feature update from inception to launch.
- User-based testing is crucial for successful UX tests, allowing you to make data-informed decisions about your service and product designs.
By identifying possible UX challenges, you can address them early on and reduce costs in the long term.
- The Gestalt principle of proximity in visual design says that elements that are near each other are perceived to be part of the same group; they are related in sharing traits or functionality.
Accessibility
- Clear and concise language benefits everyone who uses your service or product, says Eric Bailey in improving the usability and accessibility of a healthcare website by being mindful of reading level.
Making content easier to understand increases the chances that everyone will be able to understand it.
- The release of WordPress 5.5 brings numerous accessibility improvements, including a new editor design with better color contrast, fewer tab stops on the primary toolbar, and larger touch areas.
- Learn what the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0, currently in development by the WorldWide Web Consortium (W3C), will bring in The Future of WCAG: Introduction to WCAG 3.0 free webinar on August 25, 2020 hosted by LevelAccess.
- Mark your calendars! Inclusive Design 24 returns September 17, 2020 with 24-hours of inclusive design and accessibility focused online presentations. Did I mention it’s free?
WordPress
- Can you help test? The second release candidate for WordPress 5.5 is available for download and testing. The 5.5. version is scheduled for release on August 11, 2020.
- Our WordPress meetup members ask me this at almost every meetup event. Which is why I’m grateful to Automattic for updating their press page to clarify the distinction between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
- I only discovered it last week, but the WordPress block breadcrumb navigation bar has been a huge timesaver for me.
- With the block editor, the future of WordPress freelancing has opened up a range of new possibilities with add-on services for clients.
Even if you’re not ready to add more services to your web design package, start exploring your options now.
- I’ve been curious about the new Bing URL Submissions plugin and planned to add it to my site this month. After reading Ben’s Bing WordPress plugin review and analysis, I think I’ll wait.
CSS and HTML
- Another incredible work by Louise Flanagan, created entirely with CSS.
See the Pen
The Girl With A p̶e̶a̶r̶l̶ CSS Earring by Louise Flanagan (@louflan)
on CodePen. - Thinking back to when they didn’t exist, I’m always glad to learn about new features in browser dev tools. In his CSS-Tricks post, Umar Hansa takes a look at the newest features in Chrome DevTools highlighting Lighthouse and Inspect Element.
- Did you know there’s an equation for how flex item width is calculated? Understanding the shorthand and longhand details of the flex property is a lot easier after reading Ahmad Shadeed’s digging into the flex property.
- A new property only available in Chromium 85+,
content-visibilityboosts rendering performance by allowing user agents to skip an element’s rendering until it’s needed. Which means the initial load is much faster.
What I Found Interesting
- It’s hard to find good news during a pandemic. But this was news that had me smiling: the increase in birdwatching has caused a boom for birding stores and retailers.
- I’ve never cooked corn in a cooler, have you? Our state of Michigan has a bumper crop of corn this year and I’m planning to get some this weekend!
- I’m a longtime advocate for adding dates to your blogs posts. For a different perspective, check out what Darren Rowse of Problogger has to say about timestamping your blog posts.
If you like what you’ve read today, share the post with your colleagues and friends.
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Did I miss some resources you found this week? I’d love to see them! Post them in the comments below.
