CSS is now the most powerful design tool for the Web.
I think this is now true. It’ll be interesting to see how this will affect tools and processes:
What I expect to see overall is that the perception and thus the role of CSS in the design process will change from being mainly a presentational styling tool at the end of the waterfall to a tool that is being used at the heart of making design decisions early on.
It’s clear that companies don’t value CSS skills in the same way as, say Javascript — which is reflected in pay disparity, bootcamp priorities, and the lack of visibility in job descriptions. It’s not uncommon to see front end job specifications listing React, Redux, Typescript and more, with barely a passing mention of HTML and CSS, despite being core web technologies. New developers are encouraged to learn just enough CSS to get by, rather than cultivate a deep knowledge and appreciation for the language, and that’s reflected in the messy, convoluted code, riddled with bad practices, that many of us have to clear up afterwards.
With new or expanded modules for layout, typography, animation, audio (though sadly not speech) and more, it’s possible to specialise in a subset of CSS. Yet when aspects of frontend development not involving JavaScript are seen as ignorable by employers, few will get this opportunity.
Paul shares his big-picture thoughts after CSS Day:
But one CSS conference isn’t enough. This language is now so broad and deep, its implementation across browsers never more stable and complete, that opportunities to grow the community abound.
I love these notes on my recent talk!
Here’s the video of my opening talk at this year’s CSS Day, which I thoroughly enjoyed!
It’s an exciting time for CSS! It feels like new features are being added every day. And yet, through it all, CSS has managed to remain an accessible language for anyone making websites. Is this an inevitable part of the design of CSS? Or has CSS been formed by chance? Let’s take a look at the history—and some alternative histories—of the World Wide Web to better understand where we are today. And then, let’s cast our gaze to the future!
I love reading about how—and why—people tinker with their personal sites. This resonates a lot.
This website is essentially a repository of my memories, lessons I’ve learnt, insights I’ve discovered, a changelog of my previous selves. Most people build a map of things they have learnt, I am building a map of how I have come to be, in case I may get lost again. Maybe someone else interested in a similar lonely path will feel less alone with my documented footprints. Maybe that someone else would be me in the future.
Oh, and Winnie, I can testify that having an “on this day” page is well worth it!
It all started at Patterns Day…
(Note: you’ll probably need to use Reader mode to avoid taxing your eyes reading this—the colour contrast …doesn’t.)
Doomsday vs. the Long Now.
Amy’s talk at Patterns Day was absolutely brilliant! Here’s an account of the day from her perspective.
The evident care Jeremy put into assembling the lineup meant an incredible mix of talks, covering the big picture stuff right down to the nitty gritty, and plenty in between.
Her observation about pre-talk nerves is spot-on:
I say all of this because it’s important for me and I think anyone who suffers with anxiety about public speaking, or in general, to recognise that having a sense of impending doom doesn’t mean that doom is actually impending.
Here’s a nice little round-up of Friday’s Patterns Day.
Just look at these fantastic pictures that Trys took (very unobstrusively) at Patterns Day—so rock’n’roll!
Stuart took copious notes during every single talk at Patterns Day—what a star!
1,841 instances of dark patterns on ecommerce sites, in the categories of sneaking, urgency, misdirection, social proof, scarcity, obstruction, and forced action. You can browse this overview, read the paper, or look at the raw data.
We conducted a large-scale study, analyzing ~53K product pages from ~11K shopping websites to characterize and quantify the prevalence of dark patterns.
A free and open source neutral sans-serif typeface, released as part of version two of the design system for the US federal government.
Ooh, this is an exciting collaboration! Jon and Brian have teamed up to form a lovely little cooperative.
Dave has curated a handy list of eponymous laws.
A new webby meet-up in Brighton organised by Davs Howard. It’ll be one the first Thursday of the month at The Joker. I often find myself in The Joker on Thursday nights anyway (for the wings) so I’ll be heading along to the inaugural event on February 1st.
Paul pulls no punches in this rousing talk from Patterns Day.
The transcript is on his site.
At Patterns Day, Alice shared what she has learned from shepherding the Origami project within the Financial Times.
