The Best Of The Internets

Interesting project. Reminds me a lot of Eric Meyer’s diagnostic CSS from a little over a decade ago.

This super-thorough examination of aria-describedby is well worth a read.

aria-describedby is an important tool to help provide information where it might otherwise be missed. However, the attribute should rarely be the sole manner in which information is communicated, as doing so will exclude people not using screen readers from the descriptive content. The best way to use aria-describedby is as an alternate way to provide quick access to descriptions that are accessible by other means.

I totally need some time to play with this!

Looks like Google has rolled out Service Workers for search now (at least on Chrome for Android). It should speed up your searches.

Mandy Michael has another great piece on the importance of HTML semantics, this time with a focus on browsers in “reader mode” (and apps that offer similar experiences). Give it a read, then go tend to your markup.

Great minds think alike! Here’s Adrian Roselli on a means of adding link lists for printed pages (rather than offering expansions inline). Hard to believe my piece on the topic ran in A List Apart over twelve years ago!

This is a fantastic, modern approach!

Apropos of my recent A List Apart article, here’s some information about how GOV.UK is thinking about voice interfaces.

They break down their approach in three areas:

1. richness for search engines,
2. availability for knowledge engines, and
3. connectivity into bespoke digital assistant “skills.”

An excellent read on how Andy Bell applied progressive enhancement to a project. I particularly liked this statement (emphasis his):

Progressive enhancement isn’t necessarily more work and it certainly isn’t a non-JavaScript fallback, it’s a change in how we think about our projects. A complete mindset change is required here and it starts by remembering that you don’t build websites for yourself, you build them for others.

In case you missed it, Chrome will be turning JavaScript off if a user has turned Data Saver on and the site is begin delivered over a slow connection. Say goodbye to your heavy front-end frameworks folks. Server-side rendering is a requirement.

Progressive enhancement for the win!

PS - Have you read my book yet?

An exhaustive (and kinda overwhelming) look at best practices for form design in general. I wouldn’t even add “mobile” as an adjective. Good advice all around for accessibility and usability.