In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about empowering teams to deliver accessibility, find a definition of a design system, discover how to create a calendar with three lines of 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
Hey, we’re still in the middle of an ongoing mass trauma (or, well, several of them at the same time.)
If you’re not OK… well, that makes sense.
Be gentle with yourself, will you?
— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) December 3, 2020
User Experience
- To create a successful roadmap, you need to establish clear scope and determine the purpose of the road map. Sarah Gibbons outlines the six steps to roadmapping that can be used for any industry.
- Creating a smooth website navigation experience is crucial in product design of an app or website. One of the key takeaways:
The visual styling of your menu should distinguish it from the rest of the page design.
- In the second post of their UX Christmas calendar, Sigurd Rognhaugen and Citona Marie Rygg of Bekk reflect on five aspects of working as UX designers they wish they knew before they started. First up: understanding business and power dynamics in your organization is as important as understanding users.
- I’ve been searching for several years for a good explanation of a design system. Glad to discover Amy Hupe asked the question on Twitter and Carolyn Jarrett documented the consensus in her what is a design system post.
Accessibility
- In honor of the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Microsoft’s chief Accessibility Officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie shares stories around the world where accessibility is making a difference.
- At the start of 2020, the HM Revenue & Customs operation of the UK government began bringing accessibility audits in-house, helping to identify accessibility issues earlier before services were published publicly.
- It takes everyone to work together.
Meaningfully working toward disability inclusion and accessibility is an ongoing process; an evolution of thoughts, words, and actions. And it takes a commitment from all of us to continue on the #JourneyToInclusion together.#IDPwD #IDPwD2020 pic.twitter.com/yQ82DzvTfb
— Disability & Philanthropy Forum (@DisPhilanthropy) December 3, 2020
- In empowering global teams to deliver accessibility, Reuben Evans discusses the success of local projects at Intuit, shares his experience as the first accessibility champion in the UK, and credits the centralized accessibility teams and leaders for changes across Intuit.
WordPress
- Can you help test? The second release candidate for WordPress 5.6 is available for download and testing.
- Bosco, the second full-site block-based editing theme is available in the WordPress directory. Note: it requires the Gutenberg plugin.
- At the December 10, 2020 Gutenberg Times Live Q & A, Anne McCarthy and Birgit Pauli-Haack host Omar Reiss and Willemien Hallebeek to discuss the making of the Open-Source Story by Yoast with Block. The event will be hosted on Zoom at 2:30pm Eastern Time (time zone converter).
- Learn about the editor-related changes and other features in the WordPress 5.6 core editor overview.
CSS and HTML
- So cool! Imagine creating a calendar in three lines of CSS. The power of CSS Grid Layout simplifying the work.
- I wish more front-end developers and designers understood this.
Learning HTML is the quickest and most efficient way of getting something out there on the web. It’s all about quick wins when you first start out and let me tell ya: that first website out in the wild is a good feeling.
— Andy Bell (@piccalilli_) December 3, 2020
- Results of the second State of CSS Survey are in: 11, 492 people 102 countries participated in the survey. I was surprised to learn less than 7% of participants have been working/studying in the field for 20+ years (I’m one of that almost 7%.)
- I love The History of the Web series by Jay Hoffmann. Did you know the origin of “homepage” dates back to the beginning of the web and Tim Berner-Lee? Check out this week’s why we call it the homepage to learn more.
What I Found Interesting
- Congrats to Gitanjali Rao, a 15-year-old Colorado teenager who was announced Time’s Kid of the Year for her invention of a mobile device to test lead in drinking water.
- One of my favorite posts! I’ve published my ninth collection of web professionals Advent calendars this week. You’ll find all kinds of interesting topics, including coding, security, performance, user experience, accessibility, writing, and more.
- The world’s oldest known banded bird in the wild has returned to Midway Atoll. Wisdom is a Laysan albatross, 69 years old and she and her mate are incubating an egg!
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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.
