I like this advice: write for you, not for others. And if you can’t think of what to “write”, document something for yourself and call it writing.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the mystery of blogging, it’s that the stuff you think nobody will read ends up with way more reach than anything you write thinking it will be popular.
So write about what you want, not what you think others want, and the words will spill out.
I couldn’t agree more!
Download this PDF to see 100 beautiful literary visualisations.
I’ve noticed a trend in recent years—a trend that I’ve admittedly been part of myself—where performance-minded developers will rebuild a site and then post a screenshot of their Lighthouse score on social media to show off how fast it is.
Mea culpa! I should post my CrUX reports too.
But I’m going to respectfully decline Phil’s advice to use any of the RUM analytics providers he recommends that require me to put another script element on my site. One third-party script is one third-party script too many.
Keep this link handy to share with your boss or client. It is almost certainly not worth your while optimising for Internet Explorer.
Note: Google aren’t turning IE users away. Instead they’ll get a reduced scriptless experience. That’s the way to do it. Remember: module and nomodule are your friends for cutting the mustard.
Importantly, Google has not simply cut off Internet Explorer 11 from using Google Search, leaving people unable to search the web. Instead, Internet Explorer customers are now shown a rudimentary “fallback experience” for Google Search, which can perform basic searches but isn’t as fully featured as Google is on modern browsers.
The slides from Aaron’s workshop at today’s PWA Summit. I really like the idea of checking navigator.connection.downlink and navigator.connection.saveData inside a service worker to serve different or fewer assets!
This is a terrific and nuanced talk that packs a lot into less than twenty minutes.
I heartily concur with Rich’s assessment that most websites aren’t apps or documents but something in between. It’s a continuum. And I really like Rich’s proposed approach: transitional web apps.
(The secret sauce in transitional web apps is progressive enhancement.)
This is such a handy tool for building forms! Choose different combinations of type, inputmode, and autocomplete attributes on input elements and see how that will be conveyed to users on iOS and Android devices.
It’s great to see former Clearlefties like Nat, Paul and Anna rightly getting namechecked in this history of designing for the web in a systemic way. It’s a tradition that continues to this day with projects like Utopia.
Twelve short stories of solarpunk cli-fi “envisioning the next 180 years of equitable climate progress.”
Whether built on abundance or adaptation, reform or a new understanding of survival, these stories provide flickers of hope, even joy, and serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.
Just like brand values, mission statements, or vision decks, design principles can be generic and provide little to no actual value.
But used correctly, design principles help you make decisions resulting in a superior experience.
This speculative version of the internet archive invites you to see how websites will look in 2046.
The next best thing to having Kurt Vonnegut at the blackboard.
A very comprehensive collection of standalone little tools for web design and development—tools that do one thing.
These days I tend to think of dystopias as being fashionable, perhaps lazy, maybe even complacent, because one pleasure of reading them is cozying into the feeling that however bad our present moment is, it’s nowhere near as bad as the ones these poor characters are suffering through.
Kim Stanley Robinson on dystopias and utopias.
The energy flows on this planet, and humanity’s current technological expertise, are together such that it’s physically possible for us to construct a worldwide civilization—meaning a political order—that provides adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and health care for all eight billion humans, while also protecting the livelihood of all the remaining mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, and other life-forms that we share and co-create this biosphere with. Obviously there are complications, but these are just complications. They are not physical limitations we can’t overcome. So, granting the complications and difficulties, the task at hand is to imagine ways forward to that better place.
If Apple allowed Safari to actually compete, it would be better for web developers, businesses, consumers, and for the health of the web. Come on, Apple, set Safari free!
Want to take a deep dive into tiling images? Like, a really deep dive. Rob has you covered.
Ethan documents the sad plague of app-install banners on the web.
TAKE MY MONEY!!!
If we want people to fully experience the sites we have worked so hard to craft, then we must be judicious in our use of JavaScript. In thoughtful detail, Jeremy Wagner shows how JavaScript can be used to progressively enhance server-side functionality, while improving speed and access for more visitors. By centering user needs every step of the way—from toolchains to metrics to testing—we can all contribute to a more inclusive, accessible, and resilient web.
Internet users use fewer different websites today than they did 20 years ago, and spend most of their “Web” time in app versions of websites (which often provide a better experience only because site owners strategically make it so to increase their lock-in and data harvesting potential). Truly exploring the Web now requires extra effort, like exercising an underused muscle. And if you begin and end your Web experience on just one to three services, that just feels kind of… sad, to me. Wasted potential.
I have this expensive computer in my pocket and it feels unfair that it is hamstrung in this very specific way of not allowing other browser engines. I also have an Apple laptop and it’s not hamstrung in that way, and I really hope it never is.