WDRL — Edition 262: Clarity and Style, Humane by Design, 10 Years In The Web, and Almost No One.

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Hey,

For the last three weeks I put WDRL aside and it emerged all from one discussion with Tobias in which we found out that I constantly tend to take on too many opportunities in parallel and then struggle. Honestly, I think I’m too interested in too many things in the world and see so many ways to help other people that seem also interesting to me. A quite revealing thought that since then is in my head and only now I feel ready to continue e.g. writing for my beloved newsletter project. What’s your experience with that, do you have similar issues, ideas or solutions that worked for you? I’d love to hear them and now enjoy the rest of the week! —Anselm

News

• Firefox 66 is out. From now on, autoplaying sounds will be blocked by default and the TouchBar on macOS is used.

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• Humane by Design is a very important resource for decisions backed by humans, not business. It gives ideas and helpful resources about transparency, empowering people, fostering inclusiveness, showing respect, and making thoughtful decisions. This is a most valuable website for any project or product you are in charge of or work on.
• The web is a place forever, people say. But this is what it looks like when you try to use a browser just ten years old today: The browser’s own start page returns with a 404 error, Google works but returns a no-script version — not deliberately but because the JavaScript errors out, YouTube doesn’t work and not even show an error, and creating accounts at any of the big services isn’t a nice experience at all. This article is not only enlightening but also reveals a lot of details we can take care of to make our web projects more sustainable and available to more people, regardless of which browser they use.

UI/UX

• Good design is about clarity over style. Matthias Ott on the thesis and why many designers still like to ignore this advice and create shiny, cluttered or unclear interfaces.

Web Performance

• Chrome (73) now supports imagesrcset and imagesizes attributes on link rel=preload elements.

Work & Life

• Vicky Carmichael on improving the tech event experience for marginalised people, going out of the classical underrepresented group thinking into something even more inclusive. The article is full of useful content what we can do to make events more inclusive but a lot of the things could also be applied to a company as well.
• Charlotte Cowles on how freelancing fuels anxiety about money, the stress and social impace caused by it due to valuing time like money and at least some tricks to prevent being trapped into these feelings and thinking by applying rationales.

Go beyond…

• It’s impossible to reach everyone, even for giants like Google or Facebook. Seth Godin on why reaching almost no one is fine if you ask yourself which no one. Your smallest viable audience holds you to account. It forces a focus and gives you nowhere to hide.
• George Monbiot on the topic of How the media let malicious idiots take over. To make it clearer, let me quote the following paragraph of the article:

  “If our politics is becoming less rational, crueller and more divisive, this rule of public life is partly to blame: the more disgracefully you behave, the bigger the platform the media will give you. If you are caught lying, cheating, boasting or behaving like an idiot, you’ll be flooded with invitations to appear on current affairs programmes. If you play straight, don’t expect the phone to ring.”

• Mallen Baker is explaining why our living environment is too important to leave it to environmentalists, but rather start looking into practical solutions and focus on what we can do for us people to make our lives worth living and create a surrounding that works for humans. It’s all interconnected but a smarter approach than saying we need to suffer in order to save the planet. It’s not about creating suffer but e.g. finding out why a simpler lifestyle is not only releasing stress but makes people more healthy as well.
• It’s hard to believe in theory but in practice, it’s very easy to make unethical choices, deliberately. This example is about cheating for their children’s education. It’s hard to stick to your own ethical beliefs when society is embracing something different — at least that’s what we tend to see from the filtered media and social media bubble. If we talk to people directly, I find it’s different. Many people share the same ethical beliefs and would condemn unethical behaviour if it would be transparent and public. The private/unseen is what makes it easier for people to go beyond their values, supercharged by the allurement of money or getting a higher status and reputation in society.

—Anselm