In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about a new readability guideline initiative, find out what’s in the upcoming WordPress 4.9.8 version, discover how the fr unit makes website page layout easier, 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
All of the technologies you hold dear right now will one day probably be embarrassing to you. Why not just make cool stuff with things you like and not worry about it?
— Sarah Drasner (@sarah_edo) July 20, 2018
User Experience
- Storyboards communicate a story through images in a series of panels. They capture our attention and help visualize UX ideas.
In the world of UX, we use storyboards to provide additional context to our teams and stakeholders.
- If you’re a Figma user, good news! With the new Figma integration with Overflow, you can now sync your Figma designs with Overflow to start building user flow diagrams.
- It’s time to let go of pixel-perfection.
We need to stop chasing "pixel-perfection".
Even the most "pixel-perfect" mockup is just a hint at what a UI might look like in one state, at one screen size, in one browser, on one device, with one set of data.
Instead, embrace the dynamic, fluid nature of the target medium.
— Colm Tuite (@colmtuite) July 18, 2018
- Interesting open community project launched this week: readability guidelines, focused on making the language used in style guides usable and accessible. You’re welcome to join the wiki and Slack channel (note: initial focus is on British English).
Accessibility
- Learn how to embed accessibility in your application process at The Paciello Group’s free webinar, Integrating Accessibility from Design to Development, on July 25, 2018 from noon to 1:00pm (Eastern Daylight Time).
- Proud to say my one tweet kicked off a community effort to caption and add transcripts to a four-part YouTube video series in 16+ languages.
- Mark Brown launched the first video in his series on accessibility design with Making Games Better for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. In his 13-minute video, Brown taking a closer look at what makes good video game subtitles, why so many game developers get it wrong, and shares games that are doing subtitles the right way.
- I was glad to see the keyboard listed as the first item in Dave Rupert’s assistive technologies I test with article. Making sure there are focusable states on all focusable elements and that arrow keys work correctly when you use the keyboard will get you far in testing accessibility.
WordPress
- With the release of WordPress 4.9.2 Beta 2, WordPress users will finally see the “Try Gutenberg” callout for the new editor. Final release for 4.9.8 version is scheduled for July 31, 2018.
- And here’s a first look at the “Try Gutenberg” callout, by Sarah Gooding of WP Tavern.
Even if users don’t get involved in Gutenberg testing, the callout serves to inform them that the new editor will be enabled by default in the next major release of WordPress.
- Applications for the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship to attend WordCamp US 2018 are now available. Deadline to apply is August 17, 2018.
- Where do you get your WordPress news? I get my news from my Twitter WordPress list as well as the sites I follow on Feedly. Help the Make WordPress folks understand how to serve you better, take the 2018 WordPress News Survey.
CSS and HTML
- In her 14-minute video, Jen Simmons highlights the nine biggest mistakes with CSS Grid she sees people making when they start using CSS Grid. Mistake #1: Thinking CSS Grid is Everything.
- A World Wide Web Consortium standard, webmentions allows one website address to notify another website that the first site is referring to the second site. (Think of Medium notifying a WordPress site of a reference.) Discover what webmentions are and how they can enable better communication on the web.
- Have you used SlickMap CSS? A simple stylesheet displays site maps from HTML unordered lists.
- In Fractional, Aaron Gustafson show you how to quickly create a site layout using the CSS Grid
frunit, without any need for math calculations, floats, or flexbox. - In response to Gustafson’s post, Mina Markham won the Internet with her poem:
To fr, or not to fr, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the Grid to utilize
The pixels and percents of layouts of old,
Or to use flexbox against a sea of fallbacks
And by using end them.— Mina Markham 👩🏾💻 (@MinaMarkham) July 17, 2018
What I Found Interesting
- Totally surprised me when I read this story: more than 70 percent of job applicants never send a thank you note after an interview. Wow. It’s one simple way to boost your chance of getting that job.
- I know that feeling!
Coding gets less stressful over time.
When I started coding and got an error:
– I worried I was a bad coder.
– I worried I would never find the answer.Now when I get an error:
– I'm intrigued.
– I know there's an explanation.
– I'm confident I methodically figure it out.— Cory House 🏠 (@housecor) July 18, 2018
- Goodbye business cards? Instead of a business card, you can now use LinkedIn QR codes from their Android and iOS apps to connect with people at networking events, meetups, and conferences.
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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.
