Only As Hard As We Make It

Frameworks are everywhere these days, but it can feel like we do their bidding more than the other way around.

7 minute read

Someone recently shared a link to Has Design Become Too Hard?, an article by Jeffrey Zeldman about the changing landscape of designing for the web and the tools that we use to do that job. [1] Ignoring the salesmanship for a moment, the article makes a couple of important points, and misses something I think we overlook in our profession: not everyone wants to do it all on their own.

The New, New Media

In which I am really bullish about VR.

4 minute read

Here’s the thing about virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). (Collectively I will call them V/AR for now.) If your expectation is something like— “But when I see The Weeknd live, I can feel the bass.” or “Part of actually being in Paris is the noise, the smell, the sound.” or “But I can’t touch the things I see.” —then you should embrace those real experiences as they are, in the present, in all their glory.

No Really, For Everyone

Creating products accessible to everyone means we need to think how and when people access our products. Hint: it's not always Safari on iOS.

5 minute read

Last week, Rob Brackett tweeted a link to A web for everyone, an article by Jeremy Keith. In that article, Jeremy discusses the need to build products for the web that are accessible to all audiences, not just those with bleeding edge functionality: I wish we could make offline functionality a requirement. But the reality is that not everyone is using a browser that supports the necessary technology. I wish we could make beautiful typography a requirement.

Minimalism: It Takes Effort Too

The real problem with most sites / apps that are minimal is not the aesthetic, its the usability.

4 minute read

Last Wednesday, Mike Rundle tweeted about Smartisan’s T2, an Android phone that features a completely custom UI: Wow, Smartisan OS is a custom Android implementation with truly beautiful icons and UI work. https://t.co/Zk8Bh9gd2T pic.twitter.com/FUiqXFYYbX — Mike Rundle (@flyosity) May 18, 2016 It looks awesome—the phone, the OS, everything. Anyway, a short time later in Slack, someone shared the same tweet and asked: I admit that maybe I don’t get design, because I’m not a designer by trade … but is iOS 6-style design really “better” as many designers imply, or is it just a retro factor/change is hard/other things I may not understand?

On Semantic Markup

Our front-end toolboxes are awesome these days, but why bend over backwards just to describe HTML?

16 minute read

The Backdrop (In which the author is, once again, too hasty.) Yesterday, I saw this tweet pass through my timeline: @snookca x1000 this. Reading that ALA article, I had two thoughts… 1. ALA used to have good content. 2. What year is it? Did we go back? — Nathan Smith (@nathansmith) May 17, 2016 Naturally, I was immediately curious about what Jonathan had written, and what the ALA article was about.

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