In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn how to track assumptions during the design process, find a plugin to help you manage your WordPress Media Library, discover fun places to learn CSS Grid, 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
Great reminder from @gabrielsmy: simple language is not talking down to people. It's respecting them by not wasting their time. #PSEWEB
— Liz Pittman (@LizPittman_) July 8, 2019
User Experience
- As you go through design iterations, what can you do to track assumptions? User experience specialist Therese Fessenden explains the importance of documentation and working with subject matter experts in this five-minute video.
- In her Designers who write workshop presentation at UXBristol 2019 this week, Inayaili de León explains why writing is so important for designers as she shares tips and techniques for improving your writing.
- Do you ever feel like a fraud because you don’t devote time to the user experience field outside of work? Emmi Laakso shares her thoughts and experiences in the power of divergent interests.
If UX isn’t my one true love, am I an impostor?
- User experience designer Joseph Dickerson explains how the Disney’s Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge can be fixed to provide the type of engaging experience theme park fans expect. Personally, I like his music and Easter eggs recommendations.
Accessibility
- As you plan events this summer, consider what you can do to create accessible events, ones that welcome people with disabilities.
We can all do our part to make our society more accessible, and the first step is awareness.
- Articles, conferences, and deep learning framework developers are all talking about artificial intelligence bias and how to mitigate it in their software development. Why are they fixing AI bias but ignoring accessibility bias? asks Kalev Leetaru.
- Have you tried the news color contrast feature in Firefox 68 dev tools?
Today we released Firefox 68 with a color contrast audit feature in the dev tools. Before, you could inspect individual elements for color contrast. Firefox now offers a full page color contrast audit that identifies all elements on a page that fail color contrast checks. #a11y
— Asa Dotzler (@asadotzler) July 9, 2019
- Great news to read! Something I’ve been commenting about for years. The WordPress theme review team initiates new long term plan to make all WordPress.org themes accessible.
WordPress
- How cool! My friend Claire Brotherton is highlighted in Easy WP’s Best WordPress Blogs for Beginners, Learners, and Experts.
- Tooting my own horn, Easy WP included me in their list of 50+ Blogging Superheros on WordPress Benefits. Honored to be included in their list!
- This week I wrote about one of my favorite plugins, Media Library Assistant. Frustrated with the limited options for searching your Media Library? Or want more control for organizing your Media Library. This plugin is for you!
- Building WordPress sites that respect users privacy is crucial. Did you know you can embed YouTube videos and enable Privacy-Enhanced mode?
CSS and HTML
- I’ve used CSS counters on lists for years, but didn’t realize you can use counters on things that aren’t lists. Until I read Rachel Andrew’s CSS Lists, Markers, and Counters post this week.
- When was the last time you included an HTML validator badge on your website? They were popular for years, for sharing that your code was semantic. Given recent issues with unsemantic code, I welcome seeing these again on sites!
- In part 2 of her series on fun places to learn CSS layout: Grid Layout, Stéphanie Walter shares games, playgrounds, tutorials, and generators to help you master CSS Grid.
- As Chris Coyier explains, CSS pseudo-elements mostly behave like children. But there are a few gotchas you need to know.
What I Found Interesting
- Do you find yourself emailing the same Google Sheet to co-workers on a regular basis? You’ll love Email Spreadsheets, a Google Sheets add-on which allows you to schedule mailing the spreadsheet, either the entire workbook or specific sheet.
- Stunning. View the restored illustrations of 19th century botanist Elizabeth Twining, whose works was retraced by hand by Nicholas Rougeux and published online.
- How does the new Dropbox Transfer service compare to other free file-sharing online services? Pretty good; it’s one of the few services that allows you to send 100GB files for free. But you’ll have to wait for a beta invite or the public launch.
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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.
