In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn how to approach structuring documentation for a multi-brand design system, find out how you can make technology accessible for people with disabilities, discover an in-depth guide to CSS cascade layers, 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!
Tweet of the Week
If your first instinct when writing a book or video series on a programming lang is to talk about the history, don’t.
— Brian P. Hogan (@bphogan) February 20, 2022
Your first priority is to motivate the learner. Lecturing about history ain’t it.
Get them to write their first program. Show them what’s possible.
User Experience
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Join Dr. Rosie Webster and Karina van Schaardenburg when they present two talks on User research and behavior change at this month’s The Research Thing event on February 28, 2022. The event is free and online. Talks are 20 minutes each with five minutes for questions.
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That’s a first! Someone being asked to rank how satisfied they are with a notification message.
Um…this notification is asking me how satisifed I am with… this notification. This is what the metaverse really looks like.
— Karen VanHouten (@designinginward) February 21, 2022
(At least it didn’t ask me how likely I am to refer the notification to a friend) pic.twitter.com/tOvHcIYkb5 -
According to Leah Acosta, quantitative concept testing provides an opportunity to quickly test a bunch of ideas, before you have prototypes. It also allows you to integrate user feedback early in the design process.
Quantitative concept testing helps ensure that the user voice influences which ideas are developed into testable products.
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What do you think of how the author describes the difference between user interface and user experience? Personally, I wish they wouldn’t limit user experience or user interface to only digital experiences.
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How do you approach structuring documentation for a multi-brand design system? Amy Hupe explores two crucial questions you need to answer as she offers four options for organizing guidance.
Accessibility
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Yes, you can make technology and content accessible for people with disabilities. In their latest Workology podcast, host Jessica Miller-Merrell talks with disability rights lawyer Lainey Feingold about how she got involved with accessibility. I had no idea Feingold was involved with getting bank ATM’s accessible to blind people.
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I’ve updated my post listing accessibility and inclusive design meetup groups around the world. Remember: groups have moved their events online. Which means you have more opportunities to learn about accessibility.
Fen Slattery speaking about inclusive presentations at A11y Chicago -
It’s found often in search results, but there is no character limit for “alt text” says Eric Eggert. Over the years, a myth has spread on the web through published articles that screen readers cut off text at 125 characters.
Not true. Follow best practices to craft meaningful alternative text.
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Learn how to create and publish content for social media from Alexa Heinrich at the Great Lakes ADA Center’s Accessible Social Media 2.0 webinar on March 15, 2022. The webinar is free, but pre-registration is required.
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I’m a fan of articles that explain quick changes people can make on their sites. Shoutout to Daniel Yuschick for 5 accessibility quick wins you can implement today. One quick win that is often overlooked: setting the document language.
WordPress
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The WordPress 5.9.1 version with maintenance updates was released February 22, 2022. If your sites support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process. Otherwise, you’ll need to apply the version: visit Dashboard > Updates and select Update Now.
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Rob Howard’s post about it’s time to deprecate WordPress Multisite has the WordPress community buzzing on Twitter. What many people commented: multisite may not fit all use cases, but it works for folks in the enterprise space and higher education. (Proud to say I was involved with setting up the first multisite installation at the community college when I worked there.)
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If you use the Block Editor in fullscreen mode, you’ll appreciate Aurooba Ahmed’s new QuickPost plugin. What it does: adds a button in the toolbar allowing you to create new posts, or duplicate your current post. Handy!
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Justin Tadlock uncovers hidden treasures in the Wabi WordPress block theme, released this month by Rich Tabor. Global style variations, per-post accent colors, and 15 patterns are a few of the standout features in a theme whose audience is bloggers and writers.
CSS and HTML
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Following their rollout of page experience updates to mobile in mid-2021, Google announced they are finally rolling out the page experience update to desktop. Plans are the updated to be completed by end of March 2022.
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I can’t repeat this often enough: always learn the basics first.
I’m an old conservative asshole who you don’t have to listen to, but if you want to learn JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc start learning from the fundamentals of those languages.
— sergii.ts (@SergiiKirianov) February 18, 2022
Not the libraries, not the frameworks.
There is too much magic happening under the hood hidden from you. -
When I was taking my college courses, I took an exam to pass out of taking the first of three web coding courses. I’d been coding for several years and already knew HTML and CSS basics. Several of the exam questions were similar to what Anand Chowdhary wrote about in their latest CSS Tricks article, explain the first 10 lines of Twitter’s source code. (Yes, I passed the exam!)
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Beautiful. Temani Afif shows us how to create CSS only frames around images.
See the Pen CSS only wall frames by Temani Afif (@t_afif) on CodePen.
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You’ll definitely want to bookmark this in-depth guide to CSS cascade layers by Miriam Suzanne. You’ll learn what cascade layers are, when you want to use them, and how to debug layer conflicts. What I liked: all the code examples I could explore
What I Found Interesting
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In their annual breakthough technologies list, Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) offers a glimpse into our collective technology future. Two items stood out for me: a COVID pill that holds promise we can exit the pandemic and the end of passwords. Did you know a link sent via email is considered more secure than a password?
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Yes, birds are smart. Researchers in Australia trying to learn about magpie behavior were surprised when the magpies outwitted the scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices.
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Given Pocket (popular app that allows you to save articles/collect bookmarks to read later) notified users they’ll need to convert to a Firefox account by June 30, 2022, current users looking for other options will find this review of alternatives to Pocket’s bookmarking app helpful.
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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.
