Talk: The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI
Maggie Appleton:
An exploration of the problems and possible futures of flooding the web with generative AI content.
Link tags: content
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LukeW | Ask LukeW: New Ways into Web Content
I like how Luke is using a large language model to make a chat interface for his own content.
This is the exact opposite of how grifters are selling the benefits of machine learning (“Generate copious amounts of new content instantly!”) and instead builds on over twenty years of thoughtful human-made writing.
Readability Guidelines
Imagine a collaboratively developed, universal content style guide, based on usability evidence.
How to be a writer on a marketing team without sounding like a jerk – A Whole Lotta Nothing
Good writing advice from Matt.
What it’s like working with an editor
This piece by Giles is a spot-on description of what I do in my role as content buddy at Clearleft. Especially this bit:
Your editor will explain why things need changing
As a writer, it’s really helpful to understand the why of each edit. It’s easier to re-write if you know precisely what the problem is. And often, it’s less bruising to the ego. It’s not that you’re a bad writer, but just that one particular thing could be expressed more simply, or more clearly, than your first effort.
HTML Emails: A Rant - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
The day we started to allow email clients to be full-blown web browsers (but without the protections of browsers) was the day we lost — time, security, privacy, and effectiveness. Now we spend all our time fighting with the materials of an email (i.e. color and layout) rather than refining its substance (i.e. story and language).
article vs. section: How To Choose The Right One — Smashing Magazine
I really, really enjoyed this deep dive into practical HTML semantics. Sit back and enjoy!
Changing with the times · Chris Burnell
I think, with the sheer volume of functionality available to us nowadays on the front-end, it can be easy to forget how powerful and strong the functionality is that we get right off shelf with HTML. Yes, you read that right, functionality.
UI Pattern: Natural Language Form
I only just found this article about those “mad libs” style forms that I started with Huffduffer.
Carousels: No one likes you - Joni Halabi
The only person who wants a carousel on your site is you. That’s it. It’s a self-serving vanity project so that you can showcase all of your babies at the same time without telling the world which one is your favorite.
Content Design Basics by Giles Turnbull - YouTube
This is a great series of short videos all about content design. The one on writing for humans is particularly good.
Diving into the ::before and ::after Pseudo-Elements / Coder’s Block
A thorough deep dive into generated content in CSS.
Static sites, slack and scrollytelling. | Clearleft
Cassie’s enthusiasm for fun and interesting SVG animation shines through in her writing!
world smallest office suite
I like this idea for a minimum viable note-taking app:
data:text/html,<body contenteditable style="line-height:1.5;font-size:20px;">I have added this to bookmarks and now my zero-weight text editor is one keypress away from me. You might also use it as a temporary clipboard to paste text or even pictures.
See also: a minimum viable code editor.
On not choosing WordPress for the W3C redesign project - Working in the open with W3C and Studio 24
The use of React complicates front-end build. We have very talented front-end developers, however, they are not React experts - nor should they need to be. I believe front-end should be built as standards-compliant HTML/CSS with JavaScript used to enrich functionality where necessary and appropriate.
Indexing your offline-capable pages with the Content Indexing API
A Chrome-only API for adding offline content to an index that can be exposed in Android’s “downloads” list. It just shipped in the lastest version of Chrome.
I’m not a fan of browser-specific non-standards but you can treat this as an enhancement—implementing it doesn’t harm non-supporting browsers and you can use feature detection to test for it.
Home | SofaConf 2020
You don’t want to miss this! A five-day online conference with a different theme each day:
- Monday: Product Strategy
- Tuesday: Research
- Wednesday: Service Design
- Thursday: Content Strategy
- Friday: Interaction Design
Speakers include Amy Hupe, Kelly Goto, Kristina Halvorson, Lou Downe, Leisa Reichelt and many more still to be announce, all for ludicrously cheap ticket prices.
I know it sounds like I’m blowing my own trumpet because this is a Clearleft event, but I had nothing to do with it. The trumpets of my talented co-workers should be blasting in harmonious chorus.
(It’s a truly lovely website too!)
Looking at coronavirus.data.gov.uk - Matthew Somerville
I worry that more and more nowadays, people jump to JavaScript frameworks because that is what they know or have been taught, even though they are entirely inappropriate for a wide array of things and can often produce poor results.
Last week I wrote about the great work that Matthew did and now he’s written up his process:
The important thing is to have a resilient base layer of HTML and CSS, and then to enhance that with JavaScript.
Standards for Writing Accessibly – A List Apart
- Write Chronologically, Not Spatially
- Write Left to Right, Top to Bottom
- Don’t Use Colors and Icons Alone
- Describe the Action, Not the Behavior
Why your design system should include content | Clearleft
Rachel makes the case for integrating content design patterns into component libraries:
Instead of content design systems and visual design systems existing in isolation, the ideal is one design system that accommodates everything, marrying the content and design together in the way it will actually be used and experienced.