Pixels of the Week – January 31, 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 gave a talk on performance and designing the “forgotten” cases for we love speed. Here’s a “behind the scene” screenshot, getting ready for the Q and A. Am I listening to KDA and to my own talk to answer the questions? Maybe… That’s kind of the “nice” part of pre-recording you talk: you can answer questions on the slack while they broadcast it. Sounds like we finally found a way to clone me, my boss will be happy 😀
And next week I will talk about designing beyond the pixel perfect idealistic case for webstories so I am currently polishing some slides and rehearsing (then I’ll write a transcript for those 2 talks ^^).
TL;DNR the ones you should not miss
#Color #Accessibility
Pika is a cool open source color picker for mac that also lets you compare colors to quickly confirm WCAG compliance. It has different color spaces, keyboard shortcuts and more. I love it. Created by Charlie Gleason (@superhighfives)
Interesting article
#UX #Metrics
Simon Vandereecken (@s1monvdk) wrote 2 interesting (and short) articles on surveys to track user experience: The Infamous NPS and The ULUX-Lite survey
#Psychology #Books
A great list of “Book Recommendations: Interaction Design & Cognitive Psychology” by Darren Hood
#Monetization
Interesting analysis of Instagram’s monetization. I enjoy Instagram because I curated a feed of art, typography and inspiration, but yes, all of the “monetization of people’s lifestyle” becomes super annoying – By @GrowthDotDesign
#CSS
“CSS Frameworks, hype and dogmatism” by Andy Bell (@piccalilli_) a great article on personal preferences when it comes to tools, dogmatism, “if it works it is right” and all the hot drama around Tailwind
#Beginners
I like those honest types: “My top tips for your first 3 months in a new tech role: An HONEST article.” by Laura Jane (her tips, not mine)
#Pixel
“Size doesn’t just matter — in web development it also tends to be relative.” an interesting article by Moritz Jacobs (@moritzjacobs) on CSS units, the absolute ones ^^
#UX #Bootcamps
“The diminishing returns on UX bootcamps” an interesting analysis from Yichen He on why it is not easy to find a job after a UX bootcamp (while it used to be easier 5 years ago). It’s nice to see more and more voices on that topic.
#DesignFail
“Lessons From the Scariest Design Disaster in American History” by Cliff Kuang and how a poorly designed light almost lead to a disaster
Inspiration, fun experiments and great ideas
#Art
A nice and soothing video of surreal dreamlike environments with perpetual motion installations to bring you a little bit of calm this Friday (by Andreas Wannerstedt @Wannerstedt)
#Pacman #GSAP
Hahaha some pacman “show my password” animation greatness by @jh3yy
#JS #Demo
We all need a confetti cannon in your life, trust me (by @damntelevision)
#Dataviz
Legends, a dataviz project by @sxywu showing the 51 women how have been awarded the Nobel Prize since 1901.
#Demo #Generative
A snowflake generator in the browser that is strangely relaxing (created by Vivian Wu @viviariums)
#Dataviz #Art
If you like dataviz, art, you should check out Nicolas Rougeux’s (@rougeux) website and instagram
#Literature
A list of Things women in literature died from, and it’s hilarious
Podcasts& Videos
#Gaming #SexistComment
My Queen of the week, the month, the year so far is negaoryx, roasting a guy for making a sexist comment during her stream, then trying to pass this as “you don’t know how to take a joke”. This is what women in video gaming but also tech face ALL THE TIME. And her reply is just, well, perfect. I don’t know which part it the best, the “you didn’t to the joke part yet” or “you’re a footnote in everyone else’s history” but this is the perfect answer to any “but I was just joking” after horrible sexist joke and I love this, eternal respect!
#Podcast
Q: How can I tell which CX/UX tasks we should give to product managers, engineers, marketing, & others?
Interesting answer by @Delta_CX A: If they wouldn’t qualify to get a job in CX or UX at our company, why are we having them do the work?
Useful tools and resources that will make your life easy
#Selfcare
If like me, you have difficulties saying “no” sometimes to people, here is a list of 31 templates you can import to say no to recruiters, interviews, sales people, work, free work, social events, etc.
#CSS #Shadow
The ultimate CSS dropshadow generator is here (by funkensturm). Also there’s a figma plugin for this ^^
#API
If you are looking for a public API, for, well, anything, it might be listed in this big directory of public APIs
