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.