Pixels of the Week – February 28, 2021
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
This week, I had an amazing time at ethics matters conference. I was in a panel with 3 other amazing people (Annemarie Pohl and Johan Verstraete, animated by Marie-Aude Klein-Ramos) and we talked about inclusive design and accessibility.
Also, I got some really cool “do your user research/ask your customers” themed stickers. You can buy them here.
TL;DNR the one you should not miss
#Colorblindness
By the way if you are on mac Simdaltonism is a nice open source tool that lets you simulate different forms of color blindness by adding an overlay on what you want to test.
Interesting article
#Design #Essays
- “Optimism forces people to blame themselves for their own failures and misery; to never look at the structures of power that contribute to this. You just didn’t try hard enough, and you weren’t good enough” a great article against performative positivity.
- “This Is Not Good Design” an interesting essay by Christopher Butler (@chrbutler) that has nothing to do with UI or visual design but goes deeply into ethical and political concepts around design. Sorry, not sorry.
#UX #SocialMedia
“What does “after UX” even mean? How viral “top of the iceberg” advice could do more harm than good.” by Yichen He. I agree 100% with everything said here, those “before UX/after UX” need to go away and are harmful.
#User Research
Internal vs. External Validity of UX Studies: Poorly designed qualitative or quantitative research may produce invalid results. Avoid encouraging certain responses or behaviors and make sure that your study conditions and participants are representative.
“The State of User Research 2021 Report” A survey over 525 user researchers in 44 countries with interesting findings.
Inspiration, fun experiments and great ideas
#Demo
This is cute: BauBuds – Generative Bauhaus inspired Characters by @georgedoescode
#Inspiration
Friday’s nice illustration inspiration is the amazing work of Ver (@verface)
#Typography #Sound
Here is some sound activated typography experiment, works with any sound (so you can speak, clap your hands, etc) by @wearecollins
#Japan #Pictograms
If you are into pictograms and Japan, this is a nice way to learn about Japanese culture
#CSS
- I love the hover on the buttons on eatwholegrain.
- A fuck you keyboard, in full CSS by Sarah Fossheim
- A collection of fun hover styles for buttons this time by @crnacura. I love the reshape one, it won’t work for every type of websites, sure, but it’s a nice change from rectangles 🙂
#Cookies
This videos shows what it’s like to try to reject cookies on the web and it’s hilarious
News in the industry
#Privacy
Hooo I like that: Firefox 86 Introduces Total Cookie Protection. Every website has its own cookie jar, yes yes yes!
Haa, clubhouse is following the footsteps of the big ones with shadow profiles and other data privacy issues. The usual story.
Tutorials
#CSS #Accessibility
Hiding Content Responsibly by @HugoGiraudel, an interesting article on the different methods to “hide” content and what happens with those regarding accessibility
Videos
#UX #Video
I really liked Margot Bloomstein’s talk on “Content strategy for slow experiences“. We tend to want to make everything fast and remove all frictions, this is a good reminder that sometimes slowing user down and friction is actually good.
#Accessibility
The recordings of 5 day of live virtual courses on Access at Home and inclusive design.
Useful tools and resources that will make your life easy
#Biases #Psychology
Here’s the list of the 101 cognitive biases with examples organized in 4 categories: Filter the information, Seek the meaning of it, Act within a given time, Store bits of the interaction in their memories
#UX #Ethics
“Ethical Design Guide” because tech is always political so we need some resources on how to create ethical products that don’t cause harm (by Sarah L. Fossheim @liatrisbian)
#Sound #Remote
Do you miss the sounds of working in bars? Then this is perfect for you: you can switch on different background sounds. I don’t enjoy working in bars, but I love working with the sound of rain on windows
#Illustrations
In case you missed this: “Black Illustration Packs“, a collection of beautiful, black illustrations for use in digital projects around the world.
#VideoGame
Summer in Mara, a really cute exploration, farming, crafting video game
#UX #Reads
“A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started in UX Research” by Lade Tawak, a list of many articles, conference, courses and tools to help you get started on many different aspects of user research
