In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about UX Theatre, find a roundup of Advent calendars for web professionals, discover how to create amazing responsive art with 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!
Want more resources like these on a daily basis? Follow me @redcrew on Twitter.
Tweet of the Week
Each year we ask you to send cards to those of us who are away from our families for the holidays. This year we’re asking for something else.
Hold a door. Leave a kind note. Lend a hand, an ear. Donate to a food bank. Tweet kindness.
It’s been a tough few years.
Shine a light.
— Canadian Forces in 🇺🇸 (@CAFinUS) December 1, 2021
User Experience
- Which is better to use for collecting numeric ratings in online surveys, sliders or radio buttons? Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro delve into the details and research in sliders vs. five-point numeric scales in desktop and mobile devices.
- If you’ve worked in user experience design, you’ve probably experienced UX Theatre: using design methodology without including any user in the process. Tanya Snook explains what causes it and proposes six ways designers can tackle UX Theatre.
- Helpful research and user experience tip from Ben Taels:
Getting feedback from stakeholders on survey questions can take considerable time. Often much more than the time it takes to initially write and also to collect data on the survey.
Setting a deadline for feedback and strongly communicating that deadline can help. #GRUX #UX pic.twitter.com/1mMgfu8TvN
— Ben Taels (@ikbenben) December 1, 2021
- While sympathy recognizes that users are having difficulties, empathy goes further by understanding the users’ needs and motivations. Sarah Gibbons explains the difference in Nielson Norman Group’s Sympathy vs. Empathy in UX three-minute video.
- Have you submitted your proposal? Interaction Design Association (IxDA)’s Call for Proposals closes tonight, December 3, 2021. Submit your idea before the deadline!
Accessibility
- In Understanding WCAG 2.1 Level AAA, the first post in a two post series about Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AAA, Ian Pouncey of Tetra Logical discusses why Level AAA is useful and when you might consider it in your projects. Be aware: meeting Level AAA is not always achievable.
- On December 6, 2021 Smashing Magazine will host their next Smashing Meets session focusing on all things accessibility. Speakers include: Christopher Patnoe, Harris Schneiderman, Manuel Matuzović, and Vitaly Friedman. The session is free, but preregistration is required.
- I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked how to pronounce WCAG. Thanks to Matt May for the pronunciation chart.
Here we go: the WCAG Pronunciation Alignment Chart. pic.twitter.com/BGsEAiP6DS
— Matt May (@mattmay) November 30, 2021
- Excellent news for blind people and anyone who cannot read a standard print label. CVS and the American Council of the Blind announce Spoken Rx, the first in-app prescription reader. The talking prescription labels will be in every CVS pharmacy in the United States.
- Join Ryerson University on December 3, 2021 for their International Day of Persons with Disabilities Celebration, a free online Zoom event for university community members and the public.
- COVID brought lots of changes in worklife, including gains in better access to events. Which is why Caroline Bowditch, CEO of Arts Access Victoria, says don’t ditch digital. Watch her putting accessibility first for your event [45-minute video].
WordPress
- I was excited to learn Bob Dunn from Do the Woo is heading to State of the Word in New York City by train. In The Woo Train Heads to State of the Word, Bob explains how he’s traveling cross-country on the Amtrak train from Olympic, Washington.
- Before creating a membership site, you’ll need to identify your target audience and decide on your membership model, explains Jeremy Holcolme in How to create a membership website (in 5 steps).
- This week I discovered Anne McCarthy’s YouTube with videos all about WordPress. The most recent video, Exploring the Navigation Block for WordPress 5.9 (~eight-minutes), takes a closer look at the new block expected in the January 2022 release. What I liked about McCarthy’s video: clear information, demos, and answers to questions.
- In episode 21 of WordPress Briefing (26-minute podcast), WordPress executive director Josepha Haden Chomphosy discusses all things block themes with developers and theme specialists Maggie Cabrera and Jeff Ong.
What I really like about patterns is how it empowers the user, even if they don’t really have like a deep knowledge of code, or they’re not used to the more complex blocks.
- I’m a fan of User Role Editor when it comes to customizing permissions for users. If you’re looking for other options, Nick Schäferhoff explains other choices in how to add custom user roles to WordPress (via plugin and code).
CSS and HTML
- This week marked the 15th anniversary of Blue Beanie Day, the annual celebration of web standards. Did you don your blue beanie or publish a post about web standards?
- The 2021 edition of the Web Almanac, the annual state of the web report, has been published. Over 100 people worked on the almanac, which consists of 24 chapters focused on page content, user experience, content publishing, and content distribution. I recommend picking a few chapters that interests you, there’s more the 700 pages in the report.
- Useful and worth bookmarking! The Can Include online tool will tell you whether one HTML tag can be included in another HTML tag.
- It’s that time of the year! My 2021 Advent calendar roundup for web professionals includes calendars for web design, security, HTML, PHP, user experience, and more.
- The power of CSS is amazing, as you can tell from Ashur Cabrera’s Responsive Art where he used CSS Grid and cascading rules to create pixels on a canvas. (Note: his figures may not display well on mobile devices or in an RSS reader.)
What I Found Interesting
- In his latest post, Into the Metaverse, We Go…, C.C. Chapman discusses how he leads by example, encouraging curiosity in his college students by using the free virtual Mozilla Hubs platform.
- Having trouble understanding movie dialogue? You’re not alone. Here’s why movie dialogue has become more difficult to understand (and three ways to fix it). Hat tip to my friend Virginia DeBolt for sharing.
- Not only for technology bloggers, I found Ben’s Humane Guide to Technical Blogging offers helpful advice for every blogger or anyone considering blogging. First tip: it’s ok to blog for fun.
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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.
