Technology doesn’t have to be terrible. Here’s an absolutely wonderful use of an e-ink display:
I made as much use of vanilla HTML and CSS as possible. I used a small amount of JavaScript but no framework or other libraries.
I completely agree with Dan that when it comes to design systems, completeness is an over-rated—and even counter-productive—goal:
Some organizations seem to hold up the ideal that, once a design system exists, everything in an interface can and should be built with it. Not only is that an unrealistic goal for most enterprises, but it can often be a toxic mindset that anything less than 100% coverage is misuse of a design system at best or utter failure at worst.
A potted history of communication networks from the pony express and the telegraph to ethernet and wi-fi.
I spent most of the weekend reading through this and I’ve still barely scratched the surface—a lot of work has gone to the analyses and write-ups!
The sections on accessibility and performance get grimmer each year but the raw numbers on framework adaption are refreshingly perspective-setting.
Five moments in the lifecycle of a design system. They grow up so fast!
- Formation of the Design System Team
- First Page Shipped
- Consumable Outside the Main Product
- First Non-System Team Consumer
- First Breaking Change
Dave makes the observation that design systems are less like open source software and more like enterprise software—software you didn’t choose to use:
Often, in my experience, for an internal Design System to have widespread adoption it requires a literal executive mandate from the top floor of the building.
Also: apparently design systems have achieved personhood now and we’re capitalising them as proper names. First name Design, last name System.
“Please, call me Design. Mr. System was my father.”
An absolutely gorgeous piece of hypermedia!
Data visualisations and interactive widgets enliven this maze of mathematics. Dig deep—you may just uncover the secret passages that join these concepts together.
It’s time for a look at the state of the web when it comes to JavaScript usage. Here’s the report powered by data from HTTP Archive:
JavaScript is the most costly resource we send to browsers; having to be downloaded, parsed, compiled, and finally executed. Although browsers have significantly decreased the time it takes to parse and compile scripts, download and execution have become the most expensive stages when JavaScript is processed by a web page.
Sending smaller JavaScript bundles to the browser is the best way to reduce download times, and in turn improve page performance. But how much JavaScript do we really use?
When it comes to frameworks and UI libraries, there are some interesting numbers. Given the volume of chatter in the dev world, you’d be forgiven for thinking that React is used on the majority of websites today. The real number? 4.6% of websites. That’s less than the number of websites using CSS custom properties.
This is reminding me of what I wrote about dev perception.
Decomputerization doesn’t mean no computers. It means that not all spheres of life should be rendered into data and computed upon. Ubiquitous “smartness” largely serves to enrich and empower the few at the expense of the many, while inflicting ecological harm that will threaten the survival and flourishing of billions of people.
Get an idea of how much your website is contributing to the climate crisis.
In total, the internet produces 2% of global carbon emissions, roughly the same as that bad boy of climate change, the aviation industry.
Another take on the scrolling navigation pattern. However you feel about the implementation details, it’s got to better than the “teenage tidying” method of shoving everything behind a hamburger icon.
A browser extension that encrypts and decrypts posts on Facebook—if two users have the extension installed, they can communicate without Facebook being able read their messages.
Top of the props.
CSS properties …props …top of the. Never mind.
This CSS usage data comes from a Bing-powered scan of 2,602,016.00 pages.
Fortune magazine published a list of all the companies who say hate groups can’t use their services anymore:
Digital Ocean aren’t listed in the article but they’ve also cut off the oxygen to hate groups that were using their platform.
There’s another company that I wish were on that list: Shopify. They provide Breitbart with its online store. That’s despite clause three of their Acceptable Usage Policy:
Hateful Content: You may not offer goods or services, or post or upload Materials, that condone or promote violence against people based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition or veteran status.
The flimsy free speech defence looks even more spineless in light of the actions of other companies.
I’m incredibly disappointed in Shopify. I’m starting to have misgivings about appearing at events or on podcasts sponsored by Shopify—being two degrees of separation away from the hatefulness of Breitfart doesn’t sit well with me.
I sincerely hope that Shopify will change their stance, enforce their own terms of service, and dropify hate speech.
Ever wondered what the most commonly used HTML elements are?
One might think sending messages to other stars would be a massive, expensive job. No. It isn’t. The Cosmic Call was essentially a crowdfunded hobby project.
An interesting observation on the changes in Apple’s advertising campaigns: it’s no longer about “here’s how great you (the user) can be”, instead it’s increasingly about “here’s how great we (the company) can be.”
The Boston Globe’s got nothing on this!
Luke collates some useful mobile browsing statistics once again. Most of it is quite US-centric, but this closing point is a whopper:
36 countries more than doubled their Opera Mini user bases in one year.
A really fascinating analysis by Jason into the apparent disparity in web browsing between Android and iOS devices: it turns out that the kind of network connection could be a big factor.
A 1960 advertisement for IBM’s SAGE system …WOPR by another name.
To be ready for the worst so that the worst will never happen…
