user experience

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 28, 2012

January 29, 2012 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

Two of my favorite links in this week’s roundup are the HTML5 Please site by Opera developer Divya Manion and the 30 Cheat Sheets link. Hope you find some of the resources helpful for your projects, too.

CSS

Modular Front-End Development with LESS: This quick intro to LESS, a CSS pre-processor, focuses on variables, mixins, and nested rules.
Animate to an Inline Style: Chris Coyier shares a great tip on how to animate to an inline style with a simple change to the declaration of the @keyframe.
Full CSS3 HTML5 Contact Form with No Images: Interesting techniques by Stéphanie Walter for creating and styling a form, with a disclaimer about compatibility issues with older browsers. I liked some of her strategies and hope to use them in future forms.

HTML

Jumpstart Your Web Project With HTML KickStart: Created by Joshua Gactke, the HTML KickStart framework allows you to quickly create web page prototypes.
The State of HTML5 Video: Longtail Video, the developers of the popular JW Player, share what HTML5 video can and can’t support in this report detailing market share of browsers, media formats, tag attributes, and accessibility.
HTML5 Please: Thanks to Opera developer Divya Manion for creating this new site for how to use HTML5 responsibly. The search filter allows you to quickly see what browser support is available. View code snippets,working demos, great collection of links and developer resources.

WordPress

WordPress Move: Free plugin that allows you to backup your WordPress installation, restore it at any time, change the domain name and move it to a new server.
Restoring WordPress After A Crash: It happens to everyone, but do you have a checklist of what to do the next time WordPress crashes on you? This post provides valuable information on troubleshooting and restoring your WordPress installation.
The Ultimate Quickstart Guide to Speeding Up Your WordPress Site: The guide provides step-by-step instruction on plugins, database optimization, image optimization, CSS sprites and more to help make your site speedy.

Accessibility

Accessible Media Player: Thanks to Nomensa for releasing the source code of their accessible media player as open source this week.
Is the Government Complying With its New Standard on Web Accessibility? Help us Find Out!: The Alliance for the Equality of Blind Canadians is asking for help from Canadians on how well the Government of Canada is complying with the new standards for web accessibility.
iBooks Author: How to Make Your iBooks Accessible: Apple provides guidelines for making iBooks accessible to people with visual impairments.
Five Infographics on Web Accessibility for Designers: Reading order, heading structure, font size and line length are just a few of the key concepts to keep in mind as you develop websites and web applications. Great collection of infographics. Did you know there are more US citizens who are hard of hearing than US citizens (4.5%) who are visually impaired?

Onsite Insight: Advice From a UX Apprentice: Anne-Marie Florea shares her experiences and observations working as a student worker in user experience for Nokia.
Better UX Portfolios: Looking for advice for how to create your user experience portfolio? Here’s the post for you.
Usability Professionals Association International 2012 Conference: Get your tickets now (first 200 registrants get special pricing!). The international conference in Las Vegas, New Mexico opens early registration Jan 30.
8 Tips for a Sane IA: Alastair Campbell outlines what every team should know before they start a web project.
Wireframing for a Responsive Web Design: Displaying a complex website on a mobile device requires compromises, says Paul Boag. As we think and design responsively, developers and designers face many challenges. Thank you Paul for offering your tips on overcoming those challenges.

What I Found Interesting

12 Things Happy People Do Differently: I love this post from Jacob Sokol, with number 4, Practice Acts of Kindness my favorite thing.
30 Must Have Cheat Sheets for Web Designers and Developers: From Photoshop to PHP to HTML to color, you’ll find at least one cheat sheet to add to your web design toolbox.
Responsive Design Test Page Bookmarklet: Written by Benjamin Keen, a very simple way to test responsive design and see how a page looks under different screen sizes.
The Hitchhikers Guide to Python: As the authors point out, this is an opinionated guide, currently under heavy development. Intended for both the novice and expert Python user, the guide offers best practices for installation, setup and usage.
The Depressing Truth About Why Women Need College Degrees: Sad to learn that women, and people of color, earn less than white men, even when they have more education or work longer hours.

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 21, 2012

January 22, 2012 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

With two major events this week, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and SOPA Blackout, there was an abundance of great resources and posts. Here are some of my favorites:

CSS

Create Amazing CSS Buttons on the Fly With CSSButton: Create CSS buttons for active, hover and link states easily with this online generator. Customize with colors, gradients, box shadows, and fonts.
CSS3: The Multi Column Layout and How it Will Change Web Design: Creating multiple column websites with CSS has been problematic in the past. CSS3 Multi Column Module provides an exciting new option for designing multiple columns, though Opera is the only browser to support it (as of January 2012).
Gridpak: Quickly generate responsive grid layouts with this online application.

HTML

W3Clove: Great timesaver. Validate HTML markup on your entire website with one click.
IE10 Compat Inspector: This Microsoft JavaScript-based utility analyzes your site as it runs. It quickly identifies if platform changes in Internet Explorer affect your site as you migrate to IE9 or IE10.
Marking Up a Postal Address with HTML: From definition lists to microdata to hcards to the address element, there are many options for formatting postal addresses. Good discussion in the comments for other options.

Accessibility

WCAG 2.0 and Section 508/255 Refresh Side-by-Side [Draft]: Thanks to Giovanni Duarte for this initial draft comparing the Section 508 refresh draft and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.0.
Accessible HTML5 Forms – Required Inputs: John Foliot investigates the new input attributes and browser support and offers best practices for required form inputs.
WCAG 2 Quick Reference: I found this reference to be an easier way to review the criteria for each level.

WordPress

WorryProof WordPress – Backup Strategies for your Web Site: Why should you have a backup? Should you pay for a backup solution? What do you need to consider in a backup solution? Nathan Ingram’s presentation from WordCamp Birmingham will help you explore your options.
WordPress Backup Options Comparison [PDF]: Not sure which WordPress backup solution meets all your requirements? Check out Nathan Ingram’s chart of backup options.
Show Your Latest Pins with Pinterest RSS Widget for WordPress: Easily display your most recent pins in a widget on your WordPress site. Options include setting the height and width of the thumbnails, title display and number of pins to display.
Automatically Post Instagram Photos to WordPress: If you’re an Instagram user who wants to setup automatic posting of your photos to your blog, this is the plugin for you.

User Experience

Faceted Overload: Simplifying the Sidebar Navigation: Save user’s time and effort with faceted minimization to display navigation above the fold.
Designing for the Next Step: An excerpt from Joshua Porter’s forthcoming book Make Them Care! highlights a case study of a New York Times email message. Joshua explains important items missing from the email, provides design solutions for resolving the missing items and explains how to design for the next step.
Deconstruction of Smashing Magazine’s Responsive Redesign: Excellent review of the new Smashing Magazine redesign, with explanations of what worked and suggestions for improvement.
Designing Search (part 1): Entering the Query: In his first post of a mini-series, Tony Russell–Rose explores search box design, focusing on scoped search, search within, advanced search and non-text queries. I appreciate his list of best practices at the end of the post.

What I Found Interesting

PIPA and SOPA Co-Sponsors Abandon Bills: Would love to know how many phone calls, email messages,and faxes the bill co-sponsors received on SOPA Blackout day.
Fight Back Against SOPA/PIPA: The Day the LOLCats Died: My post about SOPA/PIPA with a great video protesting SOPA/PIPA (based on Don McLean’s American Pie).
Apple, America, and a Squeezed Middle Class: Long article from the New York Times, but worth it. Apple may be one of the best-known and admired companies, but jobs at Apple held by middle-class workers have faded away. According to the article, a current Apple executive said:

We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers. The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.

Ouch.

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 14, 2012

January 15, 2012 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

With the first full week of work in 2012 for many people, there were lots of great posts and articles. Here are some of my favorites:

CSS

The Lowdown on :Before and :After in CSS: I loved Joshua Johnson’s clear explanations of the syntax and examples on how to use the :before and :after pseudo-elements in CSS.
40 CSS Reference Websites and Resources: A great collection of CSS cheat sheets, resources and compatibility tables.
Responsive Data Table Roundup: Chris Coyier highlights different developers thoughts on how to manage responsive data tables, including my southeast Michigan colleague Brad Czerniak’s Rainbow Tables proposal.

WordPress

20 Free WordPress Plugins That Every User Should Have: With over 17,000 plugins (as of Jan 2012) to choose from , how do you know which one to choose? ManageWP has put together a list of useful plugins to consider.
Safer Email Link Plugin: Kudos to Andrew Norcross for creating this plugin. Safer Email Link hides the email address so only browsers can view it, and jumbles the email address in the source code.
Head to Head: Yoast’s WordPress SEO vs All in One SEO Pack: Read this review of the pros and cons of two of the most popular SEO plugins.

Accessibility

How to Structure an Accessibility Review: Joe Dolson points out the key items to include in an accessibility review.
Keyboard equivalent of “looking”?: A screenreader user (who formerly had full vision) describes how he looks on a page using a screen reader.
Are You Confused by HTML5 and WAI-ARIA Yet? by Everett Zufelt and Confusion over HTML5 & WAI-ARIA by Karl Groves are two articles that will answer many questions about the use of WAI-ARIA in HTML5.
Web Accessibility Myths: Part 2: Jonathan Hassell, the lead-author of British Standard BS8878, covers ten more important myths about accessibility. His tenth myth Accessibility is Just About Blind People points out that people who are blind comprise only 1.6% of the disabled population in the United Kingdom.

User Experience

5 Things Every Mobile Design Should Have: Planning the mobile strategy for your websites? Keeps these five things in mind.
Why Scrolling Is the New Click: While in the past users would rather click than scroll, users now find clicking a chore and would gladly scroll for information.
Beware the Dark Side of UI and What A/B Tests Don’t Tell You: Interesting case study of a re-activation marketing email message from Sears and leading customers down the wrong path.
Usability Design for Online Web Forms: Make your online forms simple, easy to use, secure, and ask the minimum number of questions.

What I Found Interesting

The 17 Rs I Learned About Mobile Marketing: My notes from this week’s Mobile Marketing Workshop webinar hosted by HubSpot.
Five Essential Google Analytics Tips for Designers: Focus on funnels, check for exceptions, and learn from the successful pages to improve your other pages.
LinkedIn for Students and Recent Graduates: Thanks to my online colleague Sarah Bourne for sharing LinkedIn’s special section which includes internships and jobs for students and recent graduates.

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 28, 2012

CSS

HTML

WordPress

Accessibility

User Experience

What I Found Interesting

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 21, 2012

CSS

HTML

Accessibility

WordPress

User Experience

What I Found Interesting

Deborah’s Weekly Links: January 14, 2012

CSS

WordPress

Accessibility

User Experience

What I Found Interesting

Website Design

WordPress Training

Optimization