In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about prototyping to test your assumptions, find out why you shouldn’t use an accessibility overlay, discover tips for leading remote teams, 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
Something I’ve learned lately in my digital accessibility journey is to spend time learning from others. Listen to podcasts, read articles, all that kind of stuff. It really helps to broaden my perspective beyond my own access needs.
— Justin Yarbrough (@FatElvis04) March 5, 2020
User Experience
- Prototyping can lead to better solutions for your target audience, says Tony Kim in when you find a good idea, look for a better one. Validate your idea with prototyping and test your assumptions.
- Your thoughts? Do you create low-fidelity wireframes? Or do you only provide high-fidelity mockups?
UX needs more wireframes. Somewhere along the way we got duped into thinking pixel perfect mockups built from app stencil libraries would “solve all the things.”
— Chuck 🅱️orowicz (@chuckborowicz) March 5, 2020
- Personally, I can’t understand why there isn’t a national standard for ballot designers. Because it’s been shown repeatedly over the past 20 years, that ballot design mistakes keep happening, as in the most pervasive ballot design flaw you don’t notice.
- It’s well worth bookmarking this helpful guide from the Nielsen Norman Group for the seven foundational exercises used in UX workshops. The article shares tips on how to adapt the exercises along with tips for running them.
Accessibility
- The big news in the accessibility community this week is the cancellation by many sponsors and attendees of the 2020 CSUN (California State University, Northridge) Assistive Technology Conference (CSUN), scheduled for the week of March 13 to March 20, 2020. CSUN conference registration has re-opened and will remain open through midnight March 7, 2020 (Pacific Time).
- Due to concerns about COVID-19 and employee health, Deque Systems backed out of the 2020 CSUN conference. They’ve chosen to shift their CSUN presentations to a virtual lineup that anyone can attend. (I registered for several online sessions.)
- Deque Systems is not alone in taking their CSUN presentations online. Equidox will be offering their PDF remediation demonstration online via Zoom on March 12, 2020.
We will be sorry to miss you at CSUN but hope you can join us at our virtual PDF remediation demonstration Thursday, March 12 at 1PM EST.
You can join using this link: Join Zoom Meetinghttps://t.co/tb9DsqRvzJ#A11y #CSUNATC20 pic.twitter.com/5ZwQ00zKUI
— Equidox (@Equidox_A11y) March 5, 2020
- Thinking of using an accessibility overlay for your site? Please stop. My friend Amy Carney explains why accessibility overlays aren’t a magical solution.
WordPress
- The first release candidate for the WordPress 5.4 version is available for download and testing. The 5.4 version is scheduled for release on March 31, 2020.
- Justin Tadlock questions how page builders will stay competitive as Gutenberg moves toward full-site editing. Will WordPress users stay committed to their current page builder or move on? Your thoughts?
- Shoutout to Adi Purdila for his five-minute video on getting to know the WordPress dashboard. Purdila walks you through the major sections of the dashboard. Why am I calling out his video? Because it’s well done. He speaks slowly, clearly, and the captions have been designed for easy reading.
- Had to laugh when I read the title, but based on my experience at our WordPress meetups, the post is true for many meetup members. Here’s how to make your WordPress site really slow. First up: slow host.
As a nice bonus for choosing a slow host, you can usually save a few bucks per month.
CSS and HTML
- In his rolling code standards post, Brad Frost discusses the importance and challenge of establishing and documenting coding standards. Frost offers helpful advice for addressing changes immediately as opposed to waiting til project end.
- Useful Chrome extension for your form testing.
Just stumbled upon Form Filler, a useful little browser extension mentioned in @smashingmag that will fill all form inputs with dummy data ⚡️
Happy form testing!https://t.co/Oymw9SL6rC
— Leslie Cohn-Wein (@lesliecdubs) March 5, 2020
- Thanks to Craig Buckler for his handy 10 ways to hide elements in CSS post. Glad that Buckler focuses on how each method affects accessibility, layout, animation, performance, and event handling.
- Can’t get enough of The Simpsons TV show? Here are The Simpson TV show characters recreated in pure CSS.
What I Found Interesting
- Not only for designers. Mark Boulton shares tips for when you’ve found yourself leading a remote design team.
Prioritise how people feel. This is probably the most important for me.
- I’m a huge fan of the Jeopardy TV show. Which is why this update from Alex Trebek had me continuing to wish him the best for his health.
A one-year update from Alex: pic.twitter.com/W9101suZeZ
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) March 4, 2020
- If you’re a Flickr user, they’re planning a Global Day of Flickr Photowalks on April 4, 2020. No walk in your city or town? Step up and organize one!
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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.
