July 6, 2018: Weekly Roundup of Web Design and Development News

In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn how user experience professionals can better understand their biases, find out what’s included in this week’s WordPress 4.9.7 release, discover how to quickly create a CSS Grid layout, 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

You are under no obligation to be the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or 15 minutes ago.

You have the right to grow.

No apologies.

— Jared Spool (@jmspool) July 5, 2018

User Experience

• Creating visual hierarchy: organizing content to follow natural eye movement patterns allows people to better understand designs.
• At last week’s User Experience Professionals Association 2018 International Conference, Karen Bachmann discussed how user experience professionals can understand their own biases to make sure they are effective in their communication.
  
• While the title of the article is Content Marketing for Financial Services Companies, the recommendations apply to all companies in terms of legal concerns, developing trust, and using plain language.
• Wondering what user experience and web professional events are happening in southeast Michigan this month? I’ve got you covered with my July 2018 calendar of events.
  
• It’s that time to take part in the annual User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) Salary Survey. Submit your information and use the data collected to negotiate your next job salary or raise.

Accessibility

• Thanks to the BBC for publishing all their Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2018 videos online, with captions.
  

  

• Improve the accessibility of the materials in your courses with this free professional development opportunity aimed at K-12 educators, Making Everyday Curriculum Materials Accessible for All Learners.
• We are all temporarily abled.
  

  Disability is never a binary state. Hard of hearing, lack of vision, inability to comprehend. All are a sliding scale and all can affect you sooner than you may think. #a11y.

  — Chris Heilmann (@codepo8) July 1, 2018

• Nice! Tweetdeck announced this week they have added the ability for users to add descriptions to images. Better known as alternative text for images, the feature is a long-time request from Tweetdeck users.

WordPress

• The WordPress 4.9.7 security and maintenance version was released this week with fixes for 17 issues, including a media issue that could potentially allow a user to attempt to delete files outside the uploads directory.
• Nick Schaferhoff has written an excellent post about what the WordPress community thinks of the Gutenberg editor, with a roundup of several well-respected WordPress professionals’ opinions. What I worry about: most WordPress users have never heard of Gutenberg.
• Going on vacation? Rachel McCollin has recommendations to keep your WordPress site busy while you’re away.
• And for those of you are wondering what the Gutenberg editor is all about, my friend Birgit Pauli-Haack has created a how-to tutorial to help you create a copy of your site for testing the new editor.

CSS and HTML

• Layoutit, a free online CSS Grid interface builder allows you to quickly create your CSS Grid layout, along with all the code.
  
• Rachel Andrew explains what the subgrid feature expected in CSS Grid Level 2 is all about in her Smashing Magazine post.
• Learn how to use Chrome DevTools to improve the speed of your websites in this helpful tutorial from Google Web Developers.
• In the first post of a three-part series, Daniel Tonen walks you through how to create CSS Grid layouts as he debunks myths about Grid and Internet Explorer.

What I Found Interesting

• Looking to craft more compelling content? Try one of these six writing techniques for web copy to better tailor your content for your readers.
• While reports of fake news and mass surveillance spread quickly on the Web, the man who created the World Wide Web has some regrets. And he’s determined to fight back.
  

  We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places.

• Over the past year or so, there’s been a lot of talk about ethics in technology. And thanks to Casey Fiesler, there’s now a tech ethics curricula: a collection of syllabi, with almost 200 courses listed.

If you like what you’ve read today, share the post with your colleagues and friends.

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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.