October 23, 2020: My Weekly Roundup of Web Design and Development News

In this week’s web design and development news roundup, you’ll learn about the return on investment for microcopy, discover how to code using dictation and eye-tracking, find out how to create private pages in WordPress, 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

A simple way to keep constantly learning is to be able to learn from anything and anyone around you.

There’s always something to be learned if you keep your ears and eyes open. Just look for it

— François Chollet (@fchollet) October 22, 2020

User Experience

• Provide value in your applications and services, says Santiago Semino, as he explains how designers, developers, and product managers can be unique and avoid building a novelty. One of the key takeaways for me: constantly get user insights during the design process.
• In tips for conducting remote UX research and testing, part 1, a panel of UX experts share their tips and insights. Establishing a welcoming atmosphere is crucial, you need to take additional care than you would for in-person testing.
• Shoutout to Marli Mesibov who has been live blogging at this week’s Button conference, the product content conference. One of my favorite posts is her recap of good copy is good business, the return on investment of microcopy presentation by Yael Ben-David.
  

  Clear microcopy means fewer support calls

• When someone asks about salaries for UX researchers, the well-known phrase “it depends” is often the reply. And it’s true, many factors come into play, including location, years of experience, and company size.

Accessibility

• When software developer Josh Comeau discovered he could no longer use a mouse or keyboard, he needed to find a solution for continuing coding. Learn how modern technology allows Comeau to continue his development work in hands-free coding: how I develop software using dictation and eye-tracking. And how his experience gave him a better understanding of building with accessibility in mind.
• Website overlays to improve accessibility has led to a lot of discussion in the accessibility community.
  Julie Moynat sets the record straight in web accessibility overlays truth,

  Overlays don’t make a website accessible

• Did you know why you want to make your skip links visible?
  

  What’s up with twitter using Invisible Skip Links? And why do they say “Skip to recommended content” instead of “Skip to Main Content”?

  Make your Skip Links Visible Folks! They’re also for Keyboard-Only Navigation Users, not just blind screen reader users. #a11y pic.twitter.com/lV8KcrJj10

  — Paul J. Adam (@pauljadam) October 22, 2020

• Borrowing from healthcare quality initiatives, Sarah Horton recommends we implement technology accessibility quality measures for the web. Personally, I love Sarah Horton’s suggestion for a dedicated email address for accessibility-related communications.

WordPress

• Can you help test? WordPress 5.6 beta 1 is now available for download and testing. The 5.6 version is scheduled for final release on December 8, 2020.
• When it comes to creating private pages for subscribers on WordPress, you’ll want to consider whether you’re providing restricted pages to logged in users or subscribers.
• You can now contribute to the development of Twenty Twenty-One Blocks, the experimental theme for Full Site Editing. Note: the theme requires Gutenberg and is available in the Github theme experiments repository.
• The first theme to support full-site editing is now available in the WordPress theme directory. As a bare bones starter theme, Q will give you taste of what full site editing in WordPress will be like.

CSS and HTML

• When I first learned HTML and CSS, I handcoded HTML, adding the lang attribute myself. With the move to content management systems and other tools, the attribute is often automatically added. Which can cause an issue, as it did this month when the lang attribute caused the browser to tell lies, sweet little lies.
• There’s still time to take the State of CSS 2020 Survey. Help identify the the latest trends in CSS. Results of the survey will be published.
• Opportunities await you, says John Allsopp in his latest post What is the Web? Reminds me of when I first read his A Dao of Web Design in April 2000.
  

  There is a time, at the beginning of every project, before the genie is out of the bottle, when we can most readily choose–to imagine the worst impact our work might have, and say no. To do things differently.

• Looking to improve the performance of your website? These four speed audit quick wins to improve site performance are a good place to start. First I’ve heard of the free Yellow Lab Tools online test for speeding up web pages.

What I Found Interesting

• There’s no question in my mind. The key to a happy life, well, at least partly, is birdwatching. That’s my takeaway from happiness and birdwatching – are the two connected.
• No surprise to learn Google internships are staying virtual in 2021, following their shift to virtual internships in summer 2020.
  

  As we get closer to next summer, we’ll continue to share more details with interns about what they can expect from their virtual internship.

• With the latest version of Photoshop released this week, photographers will find five long-awaited artificial-intelligence features. Two I’m sure will be favorites: sky replacement and intelligent refine edge.

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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.