Accessible Color Generator – Learn UI Design
This looks like a really useful tool for generating accessibile colour combinations from a starting colour.
Tags: design
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Columbia & Elm; Fairfield & Gloucester. — Ethan Marcotte
Coffee talk with Ethan Marcotte. Today’s special: inclusivity.
I want to get there: to have nuanced discussions about text descriptions; I want to read poetry in alt text; to have our work’s success measured by how broadly it can be accessed; to create moving, beautiful experiences for people who may not use the web like I do.
Understanding the Design Process through Avengers: Endgame - Speaker Deck
If this is a typical result, I think Khoi should do more last-minute talk prep.
Who Are Design Systems For? | CSS-Tricks
Chris ponders the motivations behind companies sharing their design systems publicly. Personally, I’ve always seen it as a nice way of sharing work and saying “here’s what worked for us” without necessarily saying that anyone else should use the same system.
That said, I think Chris makes a good poin here:
My parting advice is actually to the makers of public design systems: clearly identify who this design system is for and what they are able to do with it.
Limitation Breeds Creativity - Cassie Evans [Bytes Conf 2019] - YouTube
Cassie’s terrific talk from Bytes Conf, featuring some wild CSS experiments.
(Conference organisers—you want Cassie on your stage!)
Improving accessibility with accessibility acceptance criteria — Paul Hayes
Wouldn’t it be great if every component in your design system had accessibility acceptance criteria? Paul has some good advice for putting those together:
- Start with accessibility needs
- Don’t be too generic
- Don’t define the solution
- Iterate criteria
Public Sans
A free and open source neutral sans-serif typeface, released as part of version two of the design system for the US federal government.
Science and Tech Ads on Flickr
Stylish! Retro! Sciency!
Tellart | Design Nonfiction
An online documentary series featuring interviews with smart people about the changing role of design.
As technology becomes more complex and opaque, how will we as designers understand its potential, do hands-on work, translate it into forms people can understand and use, and lead meaningful conversations with manufacturers and policymakers about its downstream implications? We are entering a new technology landscape shaped by artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and synthetic biology.
So far there’s Kevin Slavin, Molly Wright Steenson, and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, with more to come from the likes of Matt Jones, Anab Jain, Dan Hill, and many, many more.
Methods - 18F Methods
A very handy collection of design exercises as used by 18F. There’s a lot of crossover here with the Clearleft toolbox.
A collection of tools to bring human-centered design into your project.
These methods are categorised by:
- Discover
- Decide
- Make
- Validate
- Fundamentals
UX Workshop | Trys Mudford
I’m so, so happy that Trys has joined us at Clearleft!
Here, he recounts his first day, which just happened to coincide with an introductory UX workshop that went really well.
Intro to Font Metrics
Font metrics help the computer determine things like the default spacing between lines, how high or low sub and super scripts should go, and how to align two differently sized pieces of text next to each other.
All you need to know about hyphenation in CSS | Clagnut by Richard Rutter
Everything you need to know about hyphenation on the web today, from Rich’s galaxy brain.
Hyphenation is a perfect example of progressive enhancement, so you can start applying the above now if you think your readers will benefit from it – support among browsers will only increase.
Homework I Gave Web Designers - Cloud Four
This is such a great excercise for teaching the separation of structure and presentation—I could imagine using something like this at Codebar.
How to become a “Designer who Codes” – Medium
This is such excellent advice for anyone starting out in front-end development:
- Get comfortable with the naked internet (sorry, not THAT naked internet)
- Build yourself some nice little one-column websites
- Learn about layout
- Make it work on phones
- Make it dynamic
(I would just love it if Meagan were posting this on her own incredibly beautiful website rather than on Ev’s blog.)
Optimizing for outrage – A Whole Lotta Nothing
I have no doubt that showing just the top outrageous tweets leads to more engagement. If you’re constantly hitting people with outlandish news stories they’ll open the app more often and interact and post about what they think so the cycle continues.
Content-based grid tracks and embracing flexibility
This is a really good explanation of the difference between context-aware layouts—that we’ve had up until now—and content-aware layouts, which are now possible with CSS grid:
With the
min-content,max-contentandautokeywords, we can size grid tracks based on their content. I think this is very cool. If we manage to embrace as much of the web’s flexibility as we can, we can get the most out of these tools, and let CSS help us with designing for the unknown.
Systems Thinking, Unlocked – Airbnb Design
Some useful lessons here for strengthening a culture of sustained work on a design system.
Creating and maintaining a design system is like planting a tree—it has to be nurtured and cared for to reap the benefits. The seed of our design system has been planted, and now our teams are working together to maintain and grow it. Our new way of working supports gives people recognition, facilitates trust, and creates strong partnerships.
Don’t Get Clever with Login Forms | Brad Frost
- Have a dedicated page for login
- Expose all required fields
- Keep all fields on one page
- Don’t get fancy
Why Behavioral Scientists Need to Think Harder About the Future - Behavioral Scientist
Speculative fiction as a tool for change:
We need to think harder about the future and ask: What if our policies, institutions, and societies didn’t have to be organized as they are now? Good science fiction taps us into a rich seam of radical answers to this question.