March 4, 2022 Weekly Roundup of Web Design and Development News

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been top of my mind this week. I can only hope diplomacy will end the tragedy, bombing, and deaths soon.

In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about World Information Architecture Day 2022, find out how the WordPress community is supporting Ukraine, discover new CSS features for 2022, 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.

I hope you find the resources helpful in your work or projects!

Tweet of the Week

Oh my goodness. Reading to a group of 22 enthusiastic, excited, eager 1st graders was so fun!! They couldn’t crowd close enough to me, lean in near enough, ask enough silly questions, tell me enough long winded magical stories.

I loved it. What a joyful way to start my day!

— NurseKelsey (she/her) 🌈✨🎉❤️🏳️‍🌈 (@nursekelsey) March 2, 2022

User Experience

• In his case study of Gmail, Peter Ramsey discusses five ways product builders can learn from the mistakes in Gmail’s set-up experience. One example: the FITD (foot-in-the-door) technique Gmail uses to encourage you to share more of your data across their products.

• World Information Architecture (IA) Day events on March 5, 2022 range from talks to workshops to panel discussions as well as networking, all virtual. Here are my three recommendations for participating in World IA Day 2022.

  

• Save the date! UX Camp Spring: Home Edition from Chicago Camps is a one-day mini-conference on May 21, 2022. Two keynotes and up to 12 sessions (three tracks) are planned. If you’re interested in speaking, submit your talk idea.

• In the Informed Life with Indi Young, Jorge Arango shares an overview of his conversation with Young about her new book. If you’re not familiar with Indi Young, she is one of the founders of UX agency Adaptive Path (a site I visited regularly for new articles during my UX college courses) and author of the design research books Mental Models and Practical Empathy.

Accessibility

• Have you taken the 2022 State of Digital Accessibility Survey? Conducted by Level Access, the survey asks questions about the latest trends and insights about digital accessibility. The online survey is open until March 14, 2022. (Here are my takeaways from the 2021 State of Digital Accessibility Report, based on the 2021 survey.)

• Wondering how to check for alternative text for images on mobile Twitter?

  I try hard not to RT tweets with images that have no alternate text. Too many blind folks interact with me. I don’t want to leave them out.
  
  To check, if I’m on mobile, I use the @ImageAltText bot. This is no slight on you. I’m just doing due diligence. #a11y

  — Nicolas Steenhout (@vavroom) March 2, 2022

• Replacing the WAVE Runner service, the new Accessibility IMpact (AIM) score and service from WebAIM provides a measure of user experience quality for users with disabilities.

• In What World Hearing Day means for this Googler, you’ll learn how Dimitri Kanevsky (senior product manager, Google Research) co-created Live Transcribe, Google’s speech to text technology.

• It’s time. Disability organizations call on the U.S. Department of Justice to finalize online accessibility rules. Along with 170+ other disability organizations, the American Council of the Blind, National Disability Rights Network, and National Federation of the Blind are asking that the rulemaking process be prioritized and the rule finalized by the current administration.

WordPress

• For many people outside of the Ukraine, you can feel helpless about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Learn how the WordPress community is supporting Ukraine’s resistance against Russian invasion. Jason Colemen, owner of Paid Membership Pro, reminds us how we can take action in the areas we touch and explains how he stepped up to help Ukrainians now.

• Eric Karkovack explores the WordPress Block Pattern directory, highlighting how to use the ready-made layouts in the extensive library to speed up your workflow.

• Glad Carolina Nymark didn’t let her first WordPress experience block her from getting involved with and contributing to the community.

  -My first experience with the WordPress community was reviewing a theme and reporting a security issue; a hack with a broken image file which was a trojan. As I reported it to the email list one of the men responded. Then he took the credit for finding the hack.

  — Carolina Nymark (@carolinapoena) March 2, 2022

• You have lots of options when it comes to migrating a WordPress site from one host to another. My favorite, not mentioned in the article, is ManageWP.

• Optimize your WordPress site with these five tips to improve your Google Core Web Vitals Score. First tip: optimize your images. Be sure to use the right file format for images and resize the physical dimensions before your upload images to WordPress.

• In their short four-minute video Mike Bal explains how to edit headers in Full Site Editing on WordPress.com, making use of List View as well as Template Parts.

CSS and HTML

• Michelle Barker takes a closer look at new CSS features in 2022, many which are already in browsers. Other features are expected to be supported soon. I’m most excited about the :has()parent selector, which would allow you to target elements depending on its descendants.

• I’m always interested in color palette generators and Huemint is a new one for me. It uses machine learning to generate colors for graphic design. What makes Huemint different from other generators? It generates colors based on how each color will be used in the final design. Learn how Huemint works.

• Desktop and mobile display are not the same.

  I think it’s great when websites are designed for mobile first, but please please for the love of god write some media queries so the login button and log-in fields don’t stretch to the full width of my desktop browser. More form design opinions, from yours truly.

  — Home Despot Theme Song (@_tagine) March 2, 2022

• In her Smashing Magazine article, Stephanie Stimac takes a closer look at building web layouts for dual-screen and foldable devices. All new to me, it was fascinating to learn how the CSS Viewport Segments media feature can be used to target foldable and dual-screen devices.

What I Found Interesting

• I’ve written about alternatives to Amazon-owned online book sites before, but didn’t know about Booqsi, until this week. An alternative to Goodreads, Booqsi is currently in beta and offers custom bookshelves, a way to support local bookstores, and streamlined book recommendations.

• Stop wasting water, it’s time to stop pre-rinsing your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher.

• What will the future bring to the state of the web? Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman share their thoughts and insights as they look ahead to 2022. One of the things I’m looking forward to: how we build accessibility into our digital products (be sure to read Zeldman’s thoughts about it).

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

Want to make sure you don’t miss out on updates? Subscribe to get notified when new posts are published.

Did I miss some resources you found this week? I’d love to see them! Post them in the comments below.