Pixels of the Week – October 5, 2025

Pixels of the Week is my weekly-ish curated newsletter for designers, UX folks, devs, and anyone building accessible, inclusive, usable (and let’s be honest, awesome) digital products. I share interesting articles, tools, inspiration, and resources I found during the week. This is the archive version. If you’d rather get it straight in your inbox (plus be notified when I publish other articles), subscribe to my newsletter.

Now: what I’m currently up to

I’m speaking at uxcon vienna this week. Participants will get a coupon from me, so I’ve decided that, if you get FOMO, you also get a little something. Go to my UX Templates and sticker shop, and get 15% of everything, with the code  UXCONWEEK25 (ends on October 12). It also means, not weekly links next week.

Also, speaking of the shop, I’ve invested in a badging machine! It’s been fun, and, frustrating. But I’m happy to report that I’ve added some nice “Talk to your users” badges to the shop now.  The same design is also available as cute circle and chaos cloud “Talk to your users” stickers. Yeahy!

Most popular content this week

Gradient Style absolute stunning oklch gradients you can copy paste to your CSS.

Interesting articles that caught my attention

Screen readers do not need to be saved by AI (10min) I absolutely agree with Craig Abbott. I’ve been in many discussions where, people do something annoying for screen reader user (like the overuse of emojis), and instead of thinking why this is annoying go “yeah, but technology should solve it”. Okay, but at what cost? Many actually: low accuracy, development time, hardware strain, energy consumption, consumer impact (they might have to pay more for the screen reader). I love the conclusion here: “I don’t think it’s in bloating assistive tech with AI, but in teaching people how to write inclusively. It’s cheaper and more sustainable, but it’s also a more ethical and empathetic path.” Yup.

How to Spot Signs of UX Maturity Regression (12min) UX maturity isn’t permanent. Even strong practices can slip if no one’s watching. Recognizing signs of UX maturity regression early and addressing them quickly helps organizations sustain momentum and avoid backsliding.

Please make it so that our equipment/backpack sorting preference remains as the default. a reddit thread of Borderlands 4 players, explaining how annoying the new inventory is, because it will reset the filters to the game’s default, instead of keeping the player’s last filters. A good lesson in smart defaults, and UI personalisation. By NN/G

Boring is good  (10min) LLMs are not intelligent and they never will be. Scott Jenson argues that LLMs have been overhyped, and predicts that we will keep them for small, boring, low-level tasks (proofreading, query rewrites). A mature technology doesn’t look like magic; it looks like infrastructure. It gets smaller, more reliable, and much more boring. It’s doesn’t need to be cool, it needs solve problems.

Is it time to look for a new job? And how do I start? (9min) Feeling stuck at work? Ami Vora suggests turning job angst into action. Set an 8-week plan to assess if your current job is the right one: clarify goals, write your pitch, get feedback, prioritize what matters, carve out time, and approach with confidence. Even if you stay in your current job, the process re-energizes you and drives career growth.

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

PSL turns 20: The story behind Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (8min) I wasn’t aware it existed for 20 years, so, happy anniversary to pumpkin spice latter. The story behind it, is a nice story of marketing choosing to take a risk, that ended up paying of.

Inspiration: fun experiments, beautiful art, and great ideas

LOADMORE a mobile websites gallery showcasing the best design inspiration for unconventional web.

Useful tools & resources

Go European  a community driven directory of european alternatives to different products and services. In case you were wondering, we do have Lëtz Cola, a Luxemburgish alternative to Coca-Cola.

Let’s have fun with fonts! Brutalita is an experimental font and editor. You can use the controls on the page to change the letter however you please, and download the original, or your custom version. By Javier Bórquez

Generativ Design a really cool gallery of concept exploring generative art, using different parameters you can play with. by Yasuhiro Yokota

Tutorials

Creating a truly accessible Flip Card – TPGi   (20min) a nice tutorial to learn about keyboard support and screen reader support, plus a little bit of ARIA, when building a complex component like a card that can be flipped over by James Edwards

Auditing your Design system for accessibility (9min) Accessibility starts at the Design System level: if tokens or components are not accessible, the whole product might inherits those issues. Audit your design system, starting with the scope, then tokens, core UI components and UI patterns. Then prioritizing fixes by severity and effort. By Allie Paschal