Pixels of the Week – November 5, 2023

On Twitter, LinkedIn, and Mastodon, I share curated articles I read, resources and tools about UX Design, User Research, UI and mobile design, HTML, CSS, the web industry, some processes, some inspiration, etc. This is an archive of everything I shared this week. And some extra links that I decided to only share for the blog readers. Also, subscribe to the newsletter to get notified when those are published!

Now: what I’m currently up to

It took 4hours, but here we go, I’ve updated my “Designer’s Guide to Documenting Accessibility & User Interactions” article with the content of the latest version of my talk! And if you speak French, I’ve finally translated my cognitive biases cards to French. All the detail in “Découvrir les biais cognitifs : 60+ cartes et un atelier“.(also, if you subscribed to the French newsletter you should have gotten an email with a coupon)

TL; DNR: the one you should not miss

Generative AI like Midjourney creates images full of stereotypes (15min) another round of western culture biases in the trained dataset of AIs.

Interesting articles that caught my attention

UX research and design

• It’s 2023, here is why your web design sucks (9min) Heather Buchel explores the reason why we no longer have “web designers”.  The gendering of web design has led to a split in the field, with designers and developers not sitting together anymore, and surprise, this backfired.
• Risk tolerance: why some countries prefer more complex UIs (10min) very interesting analysis of how uncertainty avoidance can shape your design (using Amazon as an example). Also, good reminder: you can’t just copy/paste your designs from other platforms. They might serve different audiences.
• Why designers design forms (5min) bad forms are still quite common, so, ask help from your designers when you need a form! by Andrew Duckworth
• Understanding the user: How the Enterprise System Usability Scale aligns with user reality (6min) interesting idea of a simplified SUS for enterprise with less items

Accessibility and neurodiversity

• The added value of (neuro)diversity (5min) “If somebody would investigate the prevalence of neurodiversity among developers and designers, I’d expect it to be above average. They’re some of the most focussed and creative people you’ll ever meet. If somebody would investigate the prevalence of neurodiversity among managers, I’d expect it to be below average. Outliers don’t get promoted.” Agreed, but the last part makes me sad. We need to promote more neurodiverse people!! by Erik Kroes
• So you’ve been publicly accessibility-shamed (5min) by Dave Rupert, what to do when people point out your product / service / new cool site is not accessible. Short answer: don’t become ableist. Speaking of ableist, if you need examples of how not to answer, here you go: Ableist interactions
• When ADHD Calls the Shots: The Hyperfocus Hijinks (5min) people often think ADHD is mostly about a lack of attention, sometimes it can be the other way around, intense fixation on some interesting activity, which comes with its own sets of issues. by Asmita Puri
• Splitting within Selects some interesting tests by Adrian Roselli on the <hr> in <select> regarding screen readers support

Around AI

• This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI (7min) an interesting way to fight back against companies that scrap art online. I wonder how long before AI companies fight this back. Sounds like an eternal battle.
• The Future of Ghosts (6min) a perfect essay for the week of Halloween that explores our definition or “what’s real”, with the lens of technologies like AIs and virtual realities. “Humans are terrified of death. Will technological developments allow us to avoid its psychological consequences? Or will it give us a new way to go mad? (…) Perhaps we are moving steadily toward the nonmaterial life and world that religious folks have told us is the ultimate truth. This time around, we won’t have to die to get there—we join the metaverse.”

Curiosity cabinet: non-design/tech rabbit holes I enjoyed

Imagineers Test BD-1 Style ROAMING DROIDS in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland nope nope nope, robots should not be allowed to be THIS cute, it’s a trap, nope nope nope. Also, they kind of walk like geese which makes this even more adorable. Moar of it in a 1min demo.

Inspiration: fun experiments, beautiful art, and great ideas

• Make WordArt if you are nostalgic from the WordArt area, now you can bring back those magnificent effects.
• Email Geeks: for my marketing and email enthusiasts friends: a bunch of email tailored desktop walls papers, stickers and Tshirts
• 4K Rivers a beautiful project by Dan Coe Carto who used high-resolution elevation data to recreate the rivers and delta from North America
• Single div CSS terminal by Lynn Fisher, a very cool, fun demo. And, yes, you should totally not do for a real site, of course, but, that’s not the point here, just enjoy the cool thing!
• The World’s Writing Systems reference glyph and basic information for each of the world’s writing systems, you can order them by time, region, name, etc.
• Coding kitty – the cat that has a habit of singing while coding. Meow…

Useful tools & resources

• Affordance a nice illustration of the concept of affordance (what someone can do with an object), that applies a lot to UI design (buttons, links, etc.): users shouldn’t struggle to understand something is or is not clickable.
• My Computer My Way: a list of guides to help you find what accessibility features can make your life better with your device. You can search by category of disability, but also adjustment, condition, or simply symptoms. One thing I use a lot (but it’s not in the list because it’s not related to my OS, but to my browser): Firefox reading mode. I use it to remove distraction when I’m actually reading an article. Or even better: I don’t read it, I let the speech synthesis read it to me. I also used TTS PDF reader (not free) when I need to read student work, again, listening is easier for me.

Tutorials

How to create a color ramp used in design systems  (8min) interesting small tutorial to help you build an accessible color palette using scales,by Katie Cooper

Latest news in the industry

• Smart coop AI ‘Albert Eggstein’ can now translate your chickens’ chatter: haa, I love this idea, finally some usage of AI that is useful. But, the business model is, meh, high level capitalism
• Study Finds 95 Percent of NFTs Are Now Worthless, surprised? Nah… In other words, 95 percent of NFT collectors — purchased by an estimated 23 million people — are holding onto the exclusive rights to JPGs that are effectively worth nothing.