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Thinking Through Styling Options for Web Components
16.1.2020
Where do you put styles in web components?
I'm assuming that we're using the Shadow DOM here as, to me, that's one of the big draws of a web component: a platform thing that is a uniquely powerful thing the platform can do. So this is about defining styles for a web component in a don't-leak-out...
Duplicated Argument Names
6.1.2020
Oftentimes we override or monkey patch functions and, in many cases, there are arguments we don’t care too much about. A common practice for those arguments is using _ for argument names — it’s a generally accepted and known practice for “this isn’t important”....
A Whole Bunch of Places to Consider Contrast in a Single Paragraph
23.12.2019
When we're thinking about choosing colors in design, we're always thinking about accessibility. Whenever colors touch, there is contrast and, if we're talking about the color contrast of text, it needs to be high enough to be readable. This benefits people with a variety of visual disabilities,...
Indian State of Kerala to Produce 20,000 Blockchain Specialists in 2 Years
17.12.2019
Beijing’s sudden rush into blockchain development and digital currency hasn’t gone unnoticed. From America to Europe and back to Asia, governments have started thinking about this new racetrack in more serious terms. India has a history of tensions with China, although the countries...
MARKET DAILY: Nike and the ECB are Thinking with Tokens
11.12.2019
With markets continuing their slide, today we're looking at NIke's recent tokenized shoe patent and the ECB's digital currency discussions. Later, we're joined by CoinDesk analyst Galen Moore for some insight into exchange fees, token listings and more
Everything and Nothing
22.11.2019
I've been thinking about the question for a solid month now. What about building websites has you interested this year? The question pervaded my solitary thoughts and played in the background during my conversations. I’d love to just tell you the answer I’ve come to, but the more interesting part...
Embracing the Universal Web
21.11.2019
There are constantly new features appearing in browsers—from subgrid to variable fonts to better developer tools. It's a really great time to be re-thinking everything we know about design on the web. Responsive design has served us well over the years, but it's still rooted in the limitations...
Making an Audio Waveform Visualizer with Vanilla JavaScript
12.11.2019
As a UI designer, I’m constantly reminded of the value of knowing how to code. I pride myself on thinking of the developers on my team while designing user interfaces. But sometimes, I step on a technical landmine.
A few years ago, as the design director of wsj.com, I was helping to re-design...
Diana Smith’s Pure CSS Artwork “Lace”
8.11.2019
Diana is at it again with her absolutely unbelievable CSS paintings. This latest one is called Lace. Past paintings are Francine, Vignes, and Zigario.
She wrote for us last year if you'd like a little insight into her thinking.
Andy Baio looked at the painting in a variety of older...
Wufoo Cracks the Code for Forms So You Don’t Have To
8.10.2019
There was a lot of buzz about forms last week when Jason Grisby pointed to a missing pattern attribute on Chipotle's order form that could have been used to help-through millions of dollars in orders. Adrian Roselli followed that up with the common mistake of forgetting for and id attributes...
Awards That Look Beyond the Flashy
3.10.2019
Dan Mall is judging the Communication Arts Interactive 2020 awards. These types of things are usually a celebration of flashy, short-lived, one-off designs. Those things are awesome, but Dan has more in mind:
I’d love to award work that demonstrates creative use of the highest level of color...
Thinking in React Hooks
25.9.2019
Amelia Wattenberger has written this wonderful and interactive piece about React Hooks and details how they can clean up code and remove all those troubling lifecycle events:
React introduced hooks one year ago, and they've been a game-changer for a lot of developers. There are tons of how-to...
Branching Out from the Great Divide
2.8.2019
I like the term Front-End Developer. It's encapsulates the nature of your job if your concerns are:
Building UIs for web browsers
The spectrum of devices and platforms those web browsers run on
The people who use those web browsers and related assistive technology
The breadth of knowledge...
The Next Big Financial Meltdown Is Around the Corner, Many Voices Warn
25.7.2019
“The economy is looking great,” how many times have they told you that? And why do you usually hear it when you are late on a mortgage payment or during a downsizing purge at your company? Relying on your senses is always a safer bet than trusting the wishful thinking of those...
How I Created a Code Beautifier in Two Days
19.7.2019
I recently drew up a wireframe for a code beautifier. The next day, I decided to turn it into a real tool. The whole project took less than two days to complete.
I'd been thinking about building a new code beautifier for a while. The idea isn't unique, but every time I use someone else's tool,...
CSS Gradient Text
15.7.2019
Web developers know the fight we’ve all had to improve fonts on the web. Whether it be load time, odd strategies for using custom fonts (Cufon, anyone?), or just finding the right font itself, beautifying text on the web has never come easy. That got me thinking about fonts and CSS gradients, since...
Toast
3.7.2019
One day, all the sudden, I started hearing jokes about toast. I had no idea what the context was. I assumed some friends just got started telling toast jokes, which isn't rare by any means. But it turns out it was a whole thing. It got me thinking, jeez, if I can't keep up with this stuff when it's...
Three Predictions From the State of CSS 2019 Survey
27.6.2019
Running a developer survey like the State of CSS is a multi-stage process. First, you need to collect the data. Then, you process it into a usable shape. Finally, you come up with nifty ways to visualize it and release it to the world.
But then, once the dust settles and the traffic dies down...
Three Predictions From the State of CSS 2019 Survey
27.6.2019
Running a developer survey like the State of CSS is a multi-stage process. First, you need to collect the data. Then, you process it into a usable shape. Finally, you come up with nifty ways to visualize it and release it to the world.
But then, once the dust settles and the traffic dies down...
Spam Detection APIs
25.6.2019
I was trying to research the landscape of these the other day — And by research, I mean light Googling and asking on Twitter. Weirdly, very little comes to mind when thinking about spam detection APIs. I mean some kind of URL endpoint, paid or not, where you can hit it with a block of text...