In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll discover the six stages of UX maturity, find a history of game accessibility guidelines, learn why you shouldn’t give site admin access to plugin developers, 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
Tomorrow is Monday, the start of a new work week. For those that don’t have a job yet, I hope it comes your way this week.
Don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged. You’re not alone. Your job is out there.
Just keep letting people know you exist!
— Dann (@DannPetty) June 14, 2021
User Experience
- Giving critical feedback that provides opportunity for growth is an art, in my opinion. Following the recommendations in Erin Casali’s Asynchronous Design Critique: Giving Feedback, you’ll learn how to offer feedback that is actionable and transparent.
It’s the kind of feedback that, whether it’s positive or negative, is perceived as useful and fair.
- Jessica Ivins makes the case for reading older books to learn a new skill about UX. While examples may be dated, the concepts and principles are still relevant.
- InvisionApp has made their online whiteboard Freehand app available for free to everyone. According to their announcement, Freehand is free through September 30, 2021. But I’m a bit confused, since the next sentence in their announcement says “afterwards Freehand will have both a free and a paid plan…”
- When there’s not enough time in the day for your UX work:
Great advice by @joenatoli on pushing forward when you get no time for UX activities.
“Get real, think small and ask for less. You might be very surprised at just how much changes. Not just in the work itself or the outcome, but in your relationships with the people around you.”
— Rizwan Javaid (@rizwanjavaid) June 17, 2021
- What is your organization’s level of UX maturity, the desire and ability to successfully deliver user-centered design? Take the Nielsen Norman Group’s quiz to learn which of the six stages of UX maturity your organization falls into.
Accessibility
- I love to read stories like this one from Heather Burns, when she submitted a CodePen support ticket for an accessibility issue.
No threat, no demands, just a straightforward request for future improvements.
- A guide worth bookmarking. I learned about several new tools in Smashing Magazine’s complete guide to accessibility tooling.
- I’ve heard this from many friends and colleagues who are disabled, as they describe how the COVID pandemic caused jobs, events, and conferences to go virtual. And finally allowed them to participate as their industry became accessible. As vaccines have helped to reduce COVID, many are worried about going “back to normal”.
- I didn’t know game accessibility guidelines date back to 2004, did you? Check out Ian Hamilton’s a history of game accessibility guidelines. Impressive to see all the contributions from the BBC.
WordPress
- Can you help test? The second beta version of WordPress 5.8 is available for download and testing.
- After two years of online WordCamp Europe events, WordCamp Europe 2022 will be an in-person event in Porto, Portugal June 2 to 4, 2022.
- I was pleasantly surprised this week when I noticed WP Mainline has quietly relaunched. Glad to see Jeff Chandler sharing his thoughts and news about WordPress again. I look forward to his future posts.
- No, it’s not ok to provide WordPress admin credentials to plugin support staff. Providing admin permissions to your site leaves you open to a slew of issues, related to security, privacy, and more.
- My friend Claire Brotherton has an in-depth review of Gutentor, a popular and powerful WordPress page builder plugin. She explains the blocks, templates, patterns, and template kits Gutentor offers and shares what works well and what can be improved.
CSS and HTML
- Congrats to Jen Kramer on her Semantic HTML and CSS Code Challenges course launching on LinkedIn Learning this week. You’ll find 12 coding challenges to test your HTML and CSS knowledge.
- Yay! It’s a lot easier to make tables with sticky header and footers, now that Chrome 91 has been released and supports
position: sticky. - I liked Irwin Hau’s post about when, why, and how to use moving backgrounds. Their tips provide excellent good info about implementing moving backgrounds, including making sure audio doesn’t autoplay and compressing files. I only wish Hau included tips on making sure users have controls to pause/restart moving backgrounds (which can be an accessibility issue).
What I Found Interesting
- I was impressed with Hopin when I saw it in action for my husband’s company. Now it’s expanding beyond virtual events with its acquisition of Boomset to become an all-in-one event platform.
- Going back to the office, when your office is a mix of remote and on-site workers, is challenging. In her 7 tips for getting stuff done in a hybrid office post, Gwen Morgan offers helpful advice for staying organized.
- Hard to believe, but the first mobile phone call was made 75 years ago this week. And it was an 80-pound telephone in a car!
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