Facebook reminded me of a video I recorded of my reef tank a little over a year ago, so I thought I’d shoot another video, write a post about it, and share some of the interesting things that have changed over the last year.
Dispatches From The Internets
Reefer 170, year 2
Hammer and nails
Love this analogy from Stuart: Front-end frameworks are essentially compilers that you require your users to run on their own machines to access your project!
Old joke: someone walks into a cheap-looking hotel and asks for a room. You’ll have to make your own bed, says the receptionist. The visitor agrees, and is told: you’ll find a hammer and nails behind the door.
Web Sites as ‘Public Accommodation’ under a Pandemic
This is incredibly important:
As movie theaters, restaurant ordering, college courses, and more move to online-first delivery, the notion of a corresponding brick-and-mortar venue falls away. If the current pandemic physical distancing measures stretch into the next year as many think, then this blip becomes the de facto new normal.
What’s in a name?
This is a fan-friggin’—tastic deep dive into accessible names, why they matter, and how to define them. Consider it a must-read!
Progressive Enhancement Just Works
In a recent blog post, Manuel Matuzović offered a great case study covering how he built Front-end Bookmarks. In the course of developing it, Manuel found that following the progressive enhancement philosophy in his development made it easy to support older/less feature rich browsers and devices: > To my surprise, I only had to reduce some paddings and font sizes to make it look nice. I didn’t have to change much because I follow the Progressive Enhancement principle when I build websites.
Front-end Bookmarks
This is an awesome collection of front-end development related links, curated by Manuel Matuzović.
‘The stakes feel higher but, with good practice, it need not be scary’ – NHS design lead on responding to coronavirus
Some awesome advice in this piece from Dean Vipond. My favorite recommendation (naturally):
This isn’t the time to get precious about your favourite design and development tools. Use progressive enhancement as your philosophy. Your service might have to be accessed on old devices in hospitals with outdated tech or unsupported operating systems. HTML+CSS is your best bet to ensure that the service can be accessed in unlikely scenarios you’ve never even considered. Do you want to take that risk at a time like this? Nope, me neither.
Blind Users Struggle with State Coronavirus Websites
I wish I could say this came as a surprise, but having worked with state agencies in the past, it does not surprise me at all. That said, this kind of thing should never happen.
Forty-one of the 50 state pages we surveyed contained low-contrast text, which can be challenging for users with low vision, including seniors, who are at higher risk in the outbreak.
Navigating the web while observing hijab
Yet another reminder about how we should plan for the ways our users customize our sites for their own needs. Will your site remain usable to folks browsing with an extension that helps them observe hijab?
The Cost of Javascript Frameworks
Excellent analysis by Tim here:
Good frameworks should provide a better starting point on the essentials (security, accessibility, performance) or have built-in constraints that make it harder to ship something that violates those.
That doesn’t appear to be happening with performance (nor with accessibility, apparently).
…
What is clear: right now, if you’re using a framework to build your site, you’re making a trade-off in terms of initial performance—even in the best of scenarios.
Some trade-off may be acceptable in the right situations, but it’s important that we make that exchange consciously.
Do yourself a favor and tuck into the numbers here. He presents a substantial amount of very useful information.