In this week’s web design and development roundup, you’ll learn about broken filters, find out what’s new in the WordPress 5.8 release, discover how to design experiences that are accessible to everyone, 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!
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Tweet of the Week
Friendly reminder that your phone still works as an actual phone. Try calling a friend or an acquaintance and see if they wanna talk or get dinner. I dare you!!
— Anthony Armendariz (@favoriteshape) July 13, 2021
User Experience
- In part 8 of the Smashing Magazine Design Patterns series, Vitaly Friedman takes a closer look at broken filters and how designers can overcome common frustrations of broken, frozen, and inaccessible filters. One key point: design for the comfortable range of options.
- In their late 2020 benchmark of the 60 top-grossing U.S. ecommerce sites, Baymard Institute highlights the current state of homepage UX and eight common pitfalls. I wasn’t surprised to learn one of the eight common UX issues was overly aggressive and distracting ads.
- Is it time for a new traffic light design? Art.Lebedev Studio thinks so, and offers a dazzling, 21st century traffic light makeover with their one continuous panel that provides ability to convey more information to drivers and pedestrians.
- It’s not about increasing number of products sold or increasing number of users for your service/product, says Christian Heilmann in How many happy users did your product have this month?
We didn’t come up with this super clever way of dealing with this ourselves. We did user research and tested various ways to work around the problem.
- Writing a survey question? Researchers can avoid writer’s block when writing survey questions by following seven steps (and sometimes all you need are the first two).
Accessibility
- Learn why your business should invest in digital accessibility at the July 20, 2021 The Business Case for Accessibility free webinar with a panel of global leaders, hosted by AbilityNet.
- Employers can do more to make their hiring process smoother: let all candidates know what the hiring process is, ask if any accommodations are needed, and publish an annual report showing what progress has been made to diversity their workforce, says Wendy Lu in My Disability is Obvious in Job Interviews. Is That a Bad Thing?
- In part 2 of Microsoft’s General Design Concepts video series, you’ll learn how to design experiences that are accessible to everyone (less than two-minute video).
- In his The Price is Which? article, Gerardo Rodriguez discusses a common accessibility issue on ecommerce sites: how to distinguish sales price for an item vs. regular price for people using assistive technology.
WordPress
- The third release candidate for WordPress 5.8 is available for download and testing. Note: final release is expected July 20, 2021.
- You’ll want to read Kinsta’s what’s new in WordPress 5.8 story to learn about all the changes and enhancements, including Full Site Editing (more a beta version), WebP image support, block-based widgets and block widgets in the Customizer, new block editor features, and more.
- Stay focused on your writing, manage your WordPress block editor preferences by removing distracting panels and options.
- The new InstaWP service for creating disposable WordPress testing sites allows users to select from WordPress versions dating back to 4.7 as well as choose which PHP version.
- Woohoo! Congrats to WP Rocket on their 8th anniversary. I remember when they launched. And they’re celebrating with a fun giveaway of 18 prizes, which include an Apple iMac and several WP Rocket single one-year licenses.
CSS and HTML
- It’s a birthday week! Happy birthday to the first HTML validator! Twenty seven years this week, on July 13, 1994, Dan Connolly and Mark Gaither created the first version of an interactive online HTML validation.
- Join Jen Kremer on July 22, 2021 with her first LinkedIn Live session to discuss “Semantic HTML and CSS Code challenges.” You’ll need to watch the videos from Chapter 1 before the event.
- In What’s the difference between the alignment values of start, flex-start, and self-start, Rachel Andrew walks you through when to use which one (dependent on whether you respect the direction or writing mode of the alignment container or the alignment object).
- If you’ve been wanting to create a dark mode theme for your site or app, Chris Ferdinandi discusses the steps he took. (I love that he emphasized color contrast in his explanation.)
What I Found Interesting
- Side hustle, long COVID, and deplatform are three of the over 300 new words and terms Dictionary.com added online. Did you know Dictionary.com is the world’s leading resource for looking up words and phrases?
- Long read, but worthy of your time if you’ve ever backpacked or hiked the backcountry. In In the World of Ultralight Hiking, Everything Weighs Something, award-winning filmmaker and writer Ali Salim shares his backpacking trip through Utah’s Buckskin Gulch with a group of hikers, including a National Geographic photographer and an Oscar-winning actor.
- I’m excited! After more than a year of being closed (due to COVID), the Belle Isle Aquarium and Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory have reopened in Detroit. Before the pandemic, I visited the conservatory whenever I was birding on the island.
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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.
