In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn how to design for drag-and-drop ease of use, find the First Public Working Draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, discover an online workshop for authoring accessible content, 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
This week I sent off a cost estimate. The client responded that they aren’t comfortable with the low fee, suggested I double it. So I did and they signed it off 🤯
— Dull Designer (@rebellenoire) February 26, 2020
User Experience
- To design for drag-and-drop ease of use, consider clear signifiers and feedback as well as cursor changes, says Page Laubheimer.
One way to provide feedback on mobile for drag–and–drop is to use haptics.
- Civil engineering projects tend to proceed as expected, on time and on budget, when compared to software engineering projects which are often late and over-budget. Ritch Macefield explores the reasons why in part 2 of his series, User Experience and the Big Picture, Part 2: Lessons Learned.
- From Rachel Jaffe’s “The Structuralist Language for Information Architecture” presentation at last weekend’s World Information Architecture Day 2020 in Ann Arbor, Michigan:
“There is a disconnect between the interactions people want and how a platform should be designed”. –@rachel_jaffe explains why having a language that connects interaction and form is so important in #IA. #WIAD2020AnnArbor #WIAD2020
— WIAD Ann Arbor (@WIAD_AnnArbor) February 22, 2020
- One of the highlights from the State of User Research Report (2020) is that 93% of researchers conduct research before anyone designs anything. The report was conducted by User Interviews, who asked 300 user researchers what their research practices looked like, how their teams were laid out, and what they earned.
Accessibility
- Woohoo! The First Public Working Draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 is available. One success criterion has been added, with expectations of adding 12 more success criteria.
- Learn to author accessible content in the March 26, 2020 workshop from Knowbility. Led by Emily Lewis, attendees of the online full-day workshop will learn to create common site content using semantic and accessible design patterns.
- Good code example.
When supplementing text in the accessible name for context, ensure the visible text precedes the additional, supplemental text. People using speech recognition software will be able to reference these links and controls.https://t.co/2lem42vlSj#Accessibility #A11y #A11yAdvice pic.twitter.com/UDgx34EvxM
— A11yAdvice (@A11yAdvice) February 27, 2020
- I’ve been involved with transcriptions for over 11 years, dating back to my time as a web developer working on the Washtenaw Community College web services team. I’ve seen massive improvements in machine transcription. But I agree with Nic Steenhout, machine transcription isn’t ready for prime time.
WordPress
- WordPress 5.4 beta 3 is available for download and testing. The 5.4 version is scheduled for release on March 31, 2020.
- In his tutorial, Erik Karkovic explains how to use custom fields to enhance a plugin using Advanced Custom Fields and The Event Calendar plugins.
- You can’t afford for your website to go down because it’s been hacked. Here’s what you can do to prevent your WordPress site getting hacked.
Neglecting to update your WordPress site to the latest WordPress version makes it vulnerable to hackers.
- The news of Elementor receiving $15 million (USD) in venture capital funding has many people in the WordPress community wondering, what’s next for Elementor? Will they produce a standalone web-builder site, similar to Squarespace?
CSS and HTML
- How do you use negative margins in CSS? I’ve used them in the past to nudge an element closer to the one adjacent to it.
- When I worked at a software company years ago, I managed translation of our software product into other languages. I remember the challenges we had with converting microcopy and other content in the user interface, similar to the issues Senongo Akpem discusses in Cross-Cultural Design.
- Nice!
Some →highly asked for← keyboard commands are now available. You can now do…
Command (Mac) / Control (PC) + Option (Alt) + 1️⃣, 2️⃣, or 3️⃣
…to move focus between the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript editors. pic.twitter.com/UaFTyG16J5
— CodePen.IO (@CodePen) February 25, 2020
- I can’t blame Manuel Matuzovic for asking when we started accepting 500KB or 4.1MB web pages as normal. And why 543KB is keeping him up at night. The choices we make for typography, CSS, and JavaScript all add to web page bloat and performance.
- Due to usability and accessibility issues, Gov.uk changed the input type in their markup. After reading their post, you may want to stop using
input type="number", too.
What I Found Interesting
- It’s a long read, especially if you visit all the fascinating links. But if you like travel and learning about interesting places, Jason Kottke’s trip to Vietnam, Singapore, and Qatar is worthy of your time.
- Managing the privacy settings on your digital device and online services is a lot easier, thanks to the list compiled from the National Cyber Security Alliance.
- In his first post based on poll results, Derek Featherstone reflects on his seven years of leading Simply Accessible and how they made remote work with a fully distributed team around the world.
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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.
