In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about taking research out of the usability lab, find out what’s in the WordPress 5.4.1 maintenance and security release, discover how to create a masonry-style layout in CSS, 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
For the past 2 months, I’ve spent between 1 and 2 hours learning new skills before work.
That took a toll on me. It’s time to pause and rest.
Learn when to rest, and when to push hard.
You can only work as harder as you rest.
— Catalin Pit 🤷♂️ (@catalinmpit) April 30, 2020
User Experience
- As new technology and trends alters how we do research, it never changes the need for user researchers to see the environment where users will use a product or service. Gerry Duffy shares a recent case study where taking research out of the usability lab led to better results.
- Always keep user expectations in mind.
Consistency is the most misused and misunderstood principle of UX design.
The goal is not for your UI to be consistent with itself.
The goal is for your UI to be consistent with user expectations and mental models.
— Tristan Harward (@trisweb) April 30, 2020
- In April 2020, Measuring U conducted a retrospective study with 198 participants of the user experience of online meeting software—Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, and WebEx. Not surprised by one of the findings: concerns about security didn’t affect perceived usability, but did affect product loyalty for Zoom.
- Kate Moran and Cami Goray explain how three key search engine result page features guide the search process by directing attention on the results page and helping users modify their queries.
Accessibility
- In the May 1, 2020 The Current State, Past Progress, and Future Prospects of Web Accessibility webinar at 1pm Eastern Time, Jared Smith will discuss the findings from the WebAIM Million accessibility analysis of the top one million website homepages.
- ICYMI, Chrome now allows you to view more accessibility information about elements.
Chrome added accessibility information to the element pop-over. When you inspect an element, you’ll see:
– the accessible name.
– role.
– if it’s keyboard-focusable.
– contrast ratio.aweeesooomme 🖤
(Check it out in Chrome Canary) pic.twitter.com/rMoFy9XnA2
— Manuel Matuzović (@mmatuzo) April 25, 2020
- Are you excited about inclusive design and want to share your latest project or lessons learned? Inclusive Design 24 has put out their call for speakers.
- NVDA 2020.1 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download and testing. This is the final chance to test features before the next version of the NVDA screen reader is released.
WordPress
- The WordPress 5.4.1 version is a security and maintenance release, fixing seven security issues and 17 bug fixes. Sites that support automatic background updates will be automatically updated to 5.4.1.
- As many conferences have transitioned to virtual events, I’m not surprised to learn WordCamp US 2020 will now be an online event.
- One of my favorite resources for managing WordPress content, Easy WP Guide has been updated for WordPress 5.4. With the user interface changes in WordPress 5.4, every screenshot in the guide has been updated. Anthony Hortin has added helpful annotations on screenshots to point out useful info and new features.
- Wondering how to customize user permissions, beyond what core WordPress provides? Alex Denning reviews five popular WordPress user management plugins, highlighting ease-of-use, features, and integrations.
CSS and HTML
- This is cool! Jen Simmons has created a masonry-style layout in CSS. It’s an experimental implementation you can try out in Firefox Nightly, with pref turned on.
- In his the beauty of progressive enhancement post, Manuel Matuzovic discusses providing a good user experience for everyone and how progressive enhancement can improve the experience for browsers that support CSS Grid, lazy loading, and WebP images.
- I’m always learning something new about CSS and this week is no different. Did you know you could have all text in an element automatically selected when you select it? Learn how to use CSS to control text selection.
What I Found Interesting
- Meteor showers, supermoon, and the comet Swan are a few of the fun things you can see in the night skies during May.
- Google has made their Meet videoconferencing app free for everyone to use. You’ll need a Google account to sign in.
- Did you know a recent survey indicates that 82 percent of the tech workforce is 40 and under? Technology is always changing, there’s always something new to learn, says Lisa Smith in how to be old in tech.
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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.
