Things I Like
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Another major goal was to ensure that low-vision, screenreader and keyboard-only users could navigate the site with ease. While starting from a clean codebase, we were able to make many impactful improvements to color contrast, semantic HTML and keyboard accessibility with little additional effort. Additionally, we were able to work in some new features for a more accessible experience.
Good on Slack for realizing that a rebuild was in order to make their marketing site better for everyone to use. I also find it interesting, they developed a framework and use that terminology. Right now there are so many different people using different words for what they build and it's fascinating (what's a framework vs a style guide vs a pattern library vs a design system?).
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In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal, but I would appreciate some respect for my deliberate choice. It gets pretty wearying over the long haul. To use a completely inappropriate analogy, it’s like a recovering alcoholic constantly having to rebuff “friends” asking if they’re absolutely sure they don’t want a drink.
I'm with Jeremy, I have no notifications on for any of my devices, and I hate being asked to allow them to be on. The way in which I constantly have to guard against apps and sites trying to steal my attention gets tiring.
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Of course, some politicians could swallow their future personal defeat in the name of a greater law — that’s what dozens of Democrats did in order to get Obamacare through the House, knowing full well how their vote would be framed when they faced reelection. But that supposition returns us to the fundamental difference at the heart of the two positions and, by extension, two Americas: One believes in the ability of the government to create safety, even if it entails sacrifices, small and large, on the part of the individual. The other believes those sacrifices, and the incremental increases in safety they cannot even guarantee to provide, are simply not worth the compromise of their liberty.
This is the best article I've read talking about the issue of guns in the US. As someone who lives in a state that is deeply split between the urban areas and the eastern part of the state that is much more related to the mountain west, I love reading Anne Helen Peterson, because her writing is capturing the way the Mountain West of the US sees things, which is so different from much of the rest of the US. Related: we have to find ways to talk to each other to solve these problems.
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I'm always way behind on the videos I save to watch, much harder to find some good solid time to watch them, but this talk by Paul Lloyd from this year's Patterns Day is worth your time if you are interested in systems of design, thinking about not just the components, but also what the components do as a group. I also like the bit about consistency, coherence, complexity, and conformance. Paul's onto many things in this talk. And, of course, Paul talks a lot about how our design systems influence our process, who does it serve, and how is it being used? Is it encouraging you to think about ethics, about how we design and how does it affect those that use it?
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As he saw it, government existed to provide basic services like trash pickup, a sewer system, roadways, police and fire protection, schools, and health care. Do people have a right to trash pickup? It seemed odd to say so, and largely irrelevant. The key point was that these necessities can be provided only through collective effort and shared costs. When people get very different deals on these things, the pact breaks down. And that’s what has happened with American health care.
This is a really great read about where many different people are coming from on how we should handle health care in this country. Gawande's style of investigating and writing about this issue is so refreshing as well. He listens without judgement and then tries to piece together how to bridge the divide and find a workable solution. It's well worth your time to read it if you've been following the legislative battle over health care this past year.
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One of our company values is “power of proof”, and while it is fairly easy to measure the number of visitors to our site who use outdated browsers which enables us to make informed decisions on their support, it is virtually impossible to measure visitors who are using tools such as screen readers or who want to use the keyboard as a main method of navigation.
This a great read on the challenges of adding accessibility after the fact and the two steps forward, one step back that may happen as you do. I applaud the team at trivago for working towards being more accessible.
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When every new website on the internet has perfect, semantic, accessible HTML and exceptionally executed, accessible CSS that works on every device and browser, then you can tell me that these languages are not valuable on their own. Until then we need to stop devaluing CSS and HTML.
I talk about this a lot, mostly because I don't write JavaScript and I don't really enjoy it but I love CSS and HTML. It saddens me that so little emphasis is put on them and that they are thought of as "easy" and not of value. And the above quote sums up well why we aren't, as an industry, putting out the best products we can. It's because we undervalue certain people's skills, passions, and work.
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Among the findings: Your dog may really love you for you — not for your food.
I love dogs and found this research really interesting, plus the photos are great.
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It’s hard not to marvel at these companies and their inventions, which often make life infinitely easier. But we’ve spent too long marveling. The time has arrived to consider the consequences of these monopolies, to reassert our role in determining the human path. Once we cross certain thresholds — once we remake institutions such as media and publishing, once we abandon privacy — there’s no turning back, no restoring our lost individuality.
This is a strong warning about how we use tech and what that tech is doing to us. I'm starting to get more and more suspicious of new tech and thinking long and hard before I start using most things. But the fact that tech is starting to take away our time for contemplation is increasingly of concern for me, along with our privacy, and how these companies are handling it.
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We can’t afford to see books as art if we want to make a contribution, whatever size that might be, to the world of bookmaking. Rather, we must see books as work instead.
This is a good reminder that elevating things to statuses that they may not deserve can make our lives harder. I find this with the work of artists that I enjoy as well, while that is technically a work of art, it is not meant to make me feel that my work doesn't matter even if it never makes it into a museum, just as my writing is mine and good enough even if it's never published.
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What this means is that even more than it is in the advertising business, Facebook is in the surveillance business. Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads.
This is a long read, but well worth your time. I saw it linked in three different places before I finally read it and all those who praised are correct. I'm not a Facebook user and just yesterday had a conversation with friends about how I've come to realize that is my choice and because of it I miss things. I need to see people either in real life or email with them to know what's going on in their lives and to be honest, I'm OK with that. Reading this piece made me even more glad that I'm not on it.
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Could a tech company actually build cities for “all humans” that would not end up an oppressive authoritarian dystopia? If the history of urban planning is any indication, the answer is no. Any attempt that tech companies make at city planning would likely involve trying to map its complexities with some elaborate formulas. But as architect and theorist Christopher Alexander argues, when humans try to reproduce the level of complexity that emerges when a neighborhood evolves organically over time, the “richness of the living city” is replaced with a “conceptual simplicity” — a process of “compartmentalization” and “dissociation of internal elements” that over time leads to a complete breakdown of its inhabitants.
I didn't realize this was an article about Facebook when I saved it off, so yes, I read two articles about Facebook in one sitting yesterday. BUT this is a great article about cities and how we live in them, think about them, and the evolving way in which tech is trying to muscle its way in. I'm not interested in living in a city planned by Facebook, and this article made me want to read Jane Jacobs, which I've had on my list for a while.
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When accessibility is a project requirement, the best option our managers have is to invest in their team education and increase their expertise. If you integrate accessibility into the development process, it becomes a coding routine. Development time won’t increase so much if developers in your team already know what to do.
There are a lot of good thoughts here about how to make accessibility part of the development process. But I especially like the emphasis on eduction. You don't expect a developer to learn a new JavaScript framework without taking some time to learn it, so why can't we take the time to learn accessibility so we build it in from the very beginning.
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It implies that the principal achievement of A New Hope was to enable all the films and spin-offs which followed, as if it were a cathedral’s foundation stone. And that could be precisely the wrong way to see it. As enjoyable as the sequels and prequels are – some of them, at any rate – they can obscure our view of the original. To some extent, they spoil it. The Star Wars franchise may be the most successful in cinema history, but it might have been better if it had begun and ended with a single film in 1977.
I liked this article. I recently watched Rogue One and was completely disappointed. So much of the movie was bits and pieces of movies that were already made. It was boring for that reason and it made me lose all faith in the series. This article articulates quite well why.
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Next time you read one of those “geniuses wear the same uniform every day” things, ask yourself if you are in fact Albert Einstein? No? Then wear what you fucking like. Failing to take pleasure in your life will kill you quicker than deciding what to wear.
I just love Warren Ellis and I love this bit so much I had to save it for myself.