The other day I got a message from someone I’ve been mentoring via email. His question was one I think a lot of folks in our industry struggle with: > Can you please tell what are keys to success and what should I do to become a successful programmer and software engineer? Anything is appreciated.
Dispatches From The Internets
What are keys to success?
Do emails need to look exactly the same in every client?
No, they don’t. Progressive enhancement, baby!
Images will be blocked. Styles will be filtered. Tables will be munged. Instead of struggling to try to make emails look the same everywhere, let’s embrace their differences.
Building accessible web components without tears
This is an excellent presentation from Russ Weakley on how to use semantic markup and ARIA to ring dynamic experiences to life. Definitely worthy of a bookmark (or download).
Must-have
For the non-visual among you…
Programmer sits at a computer with his back to a Project Manager
- Programmer
Hmm, it’s quite a lot of work
Contact form: 5 days
Back-office: 8 days
- Project Manager
OK, got it
Pan out to reveal Project Lead sitting next to programmer
- Project Manager
I’ll send the customer the quote and I’ll let you know what happens
- Programmer
OK, great
Zoom in on the Project Lead and Programmer
- Project Lead
5 man-days for a contact form?? Are You kidding??
It’s half a day at the very most
- Programmer (looking smug)
You’re right…
…But you’re forgetting the 4.5 days to test the new must-have framework
- Project Lead (smiling)
Ha! Someone has to pay for it…
Sadly, this is so true.
Text for Screen Readers Only (Updated)
This post includes a few excellent ways to add context for “headless” UIs. I use quite a few of these approaches on this very site and they’ve proven quite useful.
Danger! Testing Accessibility with real people
An excellent rebuttal to a post from Simple Accessible that denounced ARIA’s tabbed interface guidelines.
Service Workers and PWAs: It’s About Reliable Performance, Not “Offline”
This is a great post of Alex on why Service Workers trump AppCache when it comes to creating a good user experience.
Progressive Enhancement, Revisited, with Aaron Gustafson
My rather lengthy chat with Emily Lewis & Lea Alcantara on progressive enhancement and all things web design.
The accessibility stack: making a better layer cake
This post hits on a lot of the same topics I talk about in Adaptive Web Design and my progressive enhancement talks and workshops: experience can and should be built in layers because it is experienced in them.
Accessibility in the Store
Apps in the Windows Store can now be flagged as accessible on submission. Not sure if anyone is validating these claims, but my guess is that they will if it becomes abused. Regardless, I’m excited to see Microsoft take this step to make it easier for folks who need it to find accessible apps.