Pixels of the Week – April 10, 2022
Every day, I share on Twitter and LinkedIn a list of curated articles I read, resources and tools about UX Design, User Research, UI and mobile design, HTML, CSS, the web industry, some process, some inspiration, etc. This is an archive of everything I shared this week.
#Now – what I’m up to
Holidays went well. I got Tiny Tina Wonderlands during the holidays. Love the game, some accessibility options are nice but I still wish I could make the font BIIIIGAAAAR. Also, I discovered the existence of the Stephania Erecta, also called “potato plant” and I want to adopt one.
So, back to business. I’m not a big fan of the “A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” in the context of interfaces for employees. They often need prior business knowledge to use those. And expect training. So, here’s my updated version for enterprise UX: “A user interface is like a joke. Like any good joke, you might need some prior knowledge (business) to understand it. Doesn’t make it a bad joke. Or a bad interface.”
Also, the replay of my meetup on “An Introduction to UX (Design & Research)” is now online if you are curious. This was part of the Maltem Design Month.
TL;DNR the one you should not miss
#Accessibility
Here is another Accessibility Annotation Library for Figma, this time created by the people at Twitter.
Interesting article
#Table UX
Data tables must support the following frequent user tasks: dind record(s) that fit specific criteria, compare data, view, edit or add a single row, taking action on records. Here is some advice on how to achieve that: Data Tables: Four Major User Tasks
#Personas
Three Common Mistakes in Creating Business Personas by Karen T. Lin: treating them like marketing personas, using the wrong research/validation methodology, not fully utilizing them once created
#Design
I really enjoyed “Tweaking In The Browser” by @shadeed9, he summaries nicely how I like to work too. I call this “design in tools, decide in the browser” but, the tweak version is quite nice as well ^^
#UX Research
Nice reminder: Dig in the Right Spot, Without asking the right questions, you‘re just wasting time. A good research question is specific, actionable, and practical.
#MeasuringUX
An interesting article on the purpose of measuring user experience
#HTML
Those HTML Attributes You Never Use, a great list put together by @ImpressiveWebs. I didn’t know enterkeyhint existed, this is awesome for mobile forms!
#Slack
Hi, in case you didn’t know, you can change the slack notifications sound in the native app to a voice that says “hummus”. Have a nice Week.
Inspiration, fun experiments and great ideas
#NFTs
That’s it. NFTs stands for Nice F**** Tamagotchi now. I don’t make the rules
#Perfectionism
I have so many questions regarding some of those strange pictures. My favorite one is 64, the “slide to the toilet” combo, how did none foresee what a disaster this would be?
#Sound
Museum of Endangered Sounds, this is fun, some old technologies sounds
#MetaVerse
That “welcome to the metaverse” song wins the internets, I don’t make the rules sorry not sorry.
Useful tools and resources that will make your life easy
#Design System
- Interface Inventory is a key research activity before any design system is started. If you need help with that, this is a nice little starter blueprint
- The US Web Design System (design system for official websites of the US government) is public. It’s also a good place to check some accessible components.
#Product Page
An small checklist to help you build the perfect product page
#PWAs
A nice website with a lot of PWAs resources: checklists, courses, debug, design, etc.
#DesignTools
A place to find some design tools and resources
#Typography
An on-going, collaborative, open-access database of Chinese typographic resources.
#Code
A tool to make your code screenshots beautiful
#Avatar
Need some free UI placeholders avatars for your next project? Here you go, you can get characters or shapes.
#Webcam
Haha I’ve been wondering how to play a recording of myself instead of my webcam since I saw that in last season of Dead White People. Well there’s an app for that. Not sure who pays 8£ a month for that tough? But you can also use OBS virtual cam for that.
Conference
#Axecon
I am slowly catching up on axecon replays, here is a selection
- Why We Need More Accessibility Designers, an amazing talk by Anna E. Cookwhat do accessibility designer do and why we need them. I really liked the idea of shifting accessibility from release to design and blacklog.
- Intro to Accessibility Behavior Informed Development by Michael Fairchild: this talk gave me a lot of ideas to help improve documentation at work. I really like the gherkin approach, not only applied for testing but also for story writing.
- Fix Your Error Flows, Or Send Me More Spoons by Shell Little , I am internally shouting “YES YES AND YES” at everything she says here, there are so many ways to help people fill forms and avoid mistakes, great talk you need to watch!
- Accessible Typography Essentials: wow, Carie Fisher has tones of super useful tips on how to make typography more accessible, I’m going to need to come back to those again later to improve my own site
#Menstruation
Chloe Smith’s slides on Menstrual Health in SEO at BrightonSEO Spring 2022 are really insightful
#Testing
Future of Testing: UX is a free virtual event dedicated to promoting excellence in quality engineering, and features experts from global brands leading engaging sessions about innovations and cutting-edge practices in user experience design and testing
Podcast
#Environment
The High Cost of Ikea Furniture, interesting podcast and article on what is happening to virgin forest in Romania, including activists trying to protect it getting killed
News in the industry
#100CoolWebMoments
Take a scroll down memory lane… and (re) discover 100 events that made the web from 2008 to 2022 (and yes there are a lot of Chrome related events since this is for Chrome’s 100th release)
