In this week’s web design and development resources roundup, you’ll find out about a free webinar to reduce product failure, learn to develop a strategic plan to address web accessibility issues, discover how to create cool photographic filters in CSS , and more.
Each Friday I publish a post with some of my favorite resources I’ve read about in the past week, focused on user experience, accessibility, WordPress, CSS, and HTML.
Hope you find the resources helpful in your projects!
Want more resources like these on a daily basis? Follow me @redcrew on Twitter.
Tweet of the Week
Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them. No one is here today because they did it on their own
— Kris Walker (@kixxauth) February 23, 2016
User Experience
- How to Reduce Product Failure While Rapidly Boosting Conversion Rates: Hosted by UserZoom and the User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA), this free webinar on Monday, February 29 features Peter Hughes from Ascest. He’ll discuss four usability testing techniques you can use to improve conversion rates and how to know which test to conduct at the right time.
- Noah’s Transition To Mobile Usability Testing: Follow Noah as he makes the transition from desktop usability testing to mobile. Personally, I like the storytelling format in Lyndon Cerejo’s Smashing Magazine post. Your thoughts?
- Why do you redesign?
We often redesign for the wrong reasons. Collect test data on your current site to reduce future risk! #UTWebinar @bmassey
— usertesting (@usertesting) February 25, 2016
- Website Logo Placement for Maximum Brand Recall: Just like in the 1998 movie Ever After, “It’s tradition.” A logo placed in the top-left of a page is what users expect. And that’s exactly what the Nielsen Norman Group discovered in their research.
Accessibility
- Accessibility in Office 365—progress in 2015 and plans for 2016: Great news to read this week about accessibility plans for Office 365!
By the end of 2016, we… are committed to ensuring we meet more modern accessibility standards, including Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA Success Criteria and European Standard on accessibility for public procurement of ICT (EN 301 549).
- Accessibility Prioritization: Laying the Foundation with a Strategic Plan [Part 1]: In her two-part series, Glenda Sims (Team Accessibility lead at Deque), guides you through developing a strategic plan to address web accessibility issues (Part 1) and tactical tips for implementing the plan (Part 2).
- Wix: Request Support for Screen Readers: Website builder Wix says their sites aren’t compatible with screen reader or text-to-speech programs, asks users whether the feature should be added. Yes, my eyebrows went up when I read this support request.
- Special Report: How Accessible is WordPress?: It’s a question I get asked frequently. In this special E-Access Bulletin Live report, Graham Armfield addresses accessibility in WordPress administrative screens, plugins, and themes.
WordPress
- WordPress 4.5 Beta 1: With the first beta of WordPress 4.5 available, the team could use your help testing. Check out the responsive preview of your site in the Customizer
and theme logo support. It’s the first beta, so test on development sites only. - How to Work With WordPress Metadata: In the first of a three-part series on working with the WordPress metadata APIs, Tom McFarlin takes a closer look at post, user, and comment metadata.
- Are WordCamps Still Camps?: Have to say I agree with the points Natalie MacLees brings up in her post. For the bigger WordCamps, they’re no longer camps; they’re conferences where people travel from all over the country and world to speak and attend. I miss camps, organized by and for the local community of WordPress users. But I also like to attend the larger WordCamps. Is there room for both?
- Proposal: Increase the default image compression in WordPress: What are your thoughts on changing the WordPress image compression from 90 to 82?
CSS and HTML
- CSSCo: Inspired by VSCO filters and CSSgram, Lauren Waller created these cool photographic filters made only with CSS.
- No, it’s not too early to use Flexbox.
Globally, 92% of browsers in use support border-radius. 96% support Flexbox. Still think it’s too early to use Flexbox?
— Jen Simmons (@jensimmons) February 24, 2016
- Restaurant Menu Builder: I was thrilled to find this free online site for building responsive restaurant menus with HTML. Say no to PDF menus! Here’s a screenshot of a breakfast menu of pancakes I quickly created.
- Peak Style Guide: In response to Chris Coyier’s comments about style guides, Brad Frost says if a comprehensive style guide leads an organization to committing to a design system, he’s all for them.
What I Found Interesting
- Forget Incentives, People Want To Share Stories They Believe In: Rather than giving incentives, create stories with ideas that people believe in. Makes sense to me. Which leads me to the next post
- Your Letters Helped Challenger Shuttle Engineer Shed 30 Years Of Guilt: I’m sure members at last night’s Metro Detroit Content Strategy meetup were being too kind to mention my red eyes. I heard this story on NPR as I drove to the meetup. I smiled. And I cried.
- How to motivate employees:
Dear manager, use these words to motivate employees:
1 I trust you
2 thank you
3 what do you think?
4 how can I help?
5 I am proud of you— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) February 26, 2016
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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.
