Web design & development links

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 7, 2012

January 7, 2012 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

One of my 2012 goals is posting a weekly resource article on web design and user experience. Last year I started a weekly resource post, but didn’t manage to maintain it. So I’m going to give it another try. Hope you find the resources useful.

Wish me luck!

CSS

Seven things still missing from CSS: Excellent post from open web evangelist and web standards advocate Molly Holzschlag. Despite the advances seen in CSS over the years, we’re still missing basic options and have accepted concepts that force us to use kludges.
Fullscreen Background Image Slideshow with CSS3: Pretty amazing CSS animations; check the comments for suggestions for improving speed and code.
Introducing the New Cursor Styles in CSS3: Wow. I had no idea there were so many new cursor styles in CSS3. Did you know you can create your own cursor graphic?

Accessibility

An In Depth Analysis of HTML5 Multimedia and Accessibility: Good tutorial on improving accessibility in HTML5 multimedia with a focus on WebVTT.
PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0: Published this week by the W3C, 23 techniques for improving the accessibility of PDFs.
Wayfinding: Writing for Accessibility: Tips on crafting accessible content, using the Transport for London website as an example.

WordPress

25 Things to Do After Installing Your WordPress Blog: If you don’t have a checklist for what to do after you install your WordPress blog, start with this list.
Why You Shouldn’t Use Plugins: No tool is all-in-one. Plugins bring functionality and features that make it easier for you to maintain and upgrade your site in the future.

User Experience

Common Website Usability Mistakes: The worst thing to do is to ask someone to take a look at your just released website. Want answers? Ask these specific questions.
20 Free eBooks You Need to Design an Outstanding User Experience: So glad these are available as eBooks, I have many of them on my bookshelves. Now you can download them for free. Get your pick from books by Jenifer Tidwell, Shawn Henry, Mark Boulton, and more.
Customer Experience vs. User Experience: Leisa Reichelt recommends user experience practitioners could benefit from understanding the structure as well as the discipline and business focus that customer experience professionals bring.
How to Write a Great User Experience Resume: Include the basics, list your skills (wireframes, personas, HTML/CSS,) and list your projects with URLs.
It’s Complex to Make a Product Simple: A reminder to keep it simple for users, they shouldn’t be aware of the complexities behind the services and products we build.

What I Found Interesting

What Journalists Need to Know About SOPA: Confused about what SOPA means? Good article explaining SOPA.
SOPA vs. PIPA vs. OPEN: Excellent chart showing the differences between the three proposed US bills on Internet privacy.
Dropbox Automator: Automate your Dropbox with the many different features Dropbox Automator provides. Save your Word document to Dropbox and have it automatically converted to PDF. Upload a photo to Dropbox and have it automatically uploaded to Flickr. And many more options.

Deborah’s Weekly Links: September 18, 2011

September 25, 2011 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

The big news this week was the Facebook announcement of new features and user interface changes. There’s plenty of sites that have listed the changes, and I’ll include a few in my today’s list of resources and links. By the end of the week, many people were feeling like the comic below.

F8–Facebook Developers Conference: Mark Zuckerberg announced and demoed the changes of Facebook. One of the most impressive stats he shared: over half a billion people used Facebook in one day.
How to Enable the New Facebook Timeline Now: If you can’t wait for the new Timeline, you can take these steps to enable it now.
Netflix in Danger of Ruining their User Experience by Joshua Porter: While it seems Netflix is killing off its DVD rental service, they are missing basic fundamentals in how people use web applications.
Please Enter Your Password Again and Again by Khoi Vinh: We need to rethink digital credentialing.
Welcome to WebDepot by Mike Evans: Why your passion should be building products.
21 New Email Templates from MailChimp: he great staff at MailChimp don’t rest on their laurels; in the past three months they’ve released 95 new email templates.
A Roundup of Valuable Facebook Tools from Noupe: Excellent collection of tools for both user and developer
10 Ways to Be a More Productive Web Developer from Six Revisions: Create a library of code snippets, use a framework, and invest time in learning are just a few of the tips shared.
Presentation: HTML5 and Accessibility sitting in a tree by Bruce Lawson: Thanks to Bruce for posting his presentation for the Accessibility London unconference, along with an excellent list of HTML5 resources.
Create An Animated Bar Graph With HTML, CSS And jQuery from Smashing Magazine: The tutorial and explanation are very good, I only wish the editors had insisted on ensuring the markup was accessible.
Accessibility in Google Apps by me: My post from Google’s webinar highlighting accessibility in Google Docs, Sites, Spreadsheets and Calendar.

And as usual, my weekly list of interesting non-web related stories and posts:

Feedback: what it is and isn’t by Grant Wiggins: Focusing on feedback, not advice or praise, is challenging for all of us.
Brian Dickerson: It’s open season on your Fourth Amendment rights: Last week I was shocked when I read the post from the Ohio mother describing her ordeal at Detroit Metro airport on September 11. Brian highlights that story and other stories of Michigan children and a lawyer and their civil liberties.
National Geographic Photo of the Day: Child With Balloons: Lovely, made me smile.

Deborah’s Weekly Links: September 11, 2011

September 18, 2011 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

This week’s list is a bit short since I was off the interweb for two days, but I’ve included some great resources from today’s Boston Accessibility Unconference.

45+ Free Lessons in Graphic Design from Noupe: Outstanding collection of resources for web and graphic design. It will take me days to make my way through all the lessons and tutorials.
The Cross-Channel Experience from Nick Finck: Cross-channel experience design refers to designing for all touchpoints a customer has with a business, whether on the web, in person, mobile, print, etc.
18 PSDs for Mobile Phone UI Design from Smashing Magazine: Another great collection for people designing for mobile, includes PSDs for Android, iPhone, Nexus and more.
LookTel Money Reader: iPhone and iPod Touch application instantly recognizes US currency and speaks the denomination. Too bad there’s no Android application.
10 Examples of QR Codes for Real Time Marketing: If you’re going to use a QR code, make sure it points to a mobile friendly site.
HTML5 Compatibility for Mobile and Tablet Browsers from Mobile HTML5: The page will be updated frequently to account for all the new mobile devices, tablets and browsers. Glad it recommends developers detect features rather than develop for platform or version.
7 Best Practices for Improving Your Website’s Usability by Jacob Gube (of Six Revisions): Good tactical advice and case studies.
9 Things Designers Can Learn from Target’s Checkout Form from UX Movement: Lots of good discussion in the comments, not every reader agrees with the article.
Adaptive Images: Rather than creating different sized images for your responsive designed site, or use different markup, adaptive images uses a small JavaScript file, PHP and the GD library to create images sized for the resolution you wish to adapt for.
3 Handy Tools to Test for Broken Site Links: I’ve used Xenu for years, but was glad to discover other options.
Social Media Accessibility: Where Are We Today by Denis Boudreau: Sad that the best social media channel (YouTube) only achieves 29% overall rating for accessibility.

Not web-related, but interesting articles I enjoyed reading this past week:

4 Things Never to Buy on Amazon.com (and 4 Things to Buy) from Yahoo Finance: I wouldn’t think to buy groceries from Amazon, but had no idea the savings from buying baby diapers.
How to Get a Complete Workout with Nothing But Your Body from LifeHacker: Long article, with lots of instructions. I like that videos are included that show the proper form.
How 9/11 Has Shaped a Generation of Americans by Peter Grier: Similar to the nuclear war threat of an earlier generation, terrorism is the threat for our millenial generation.