Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 30
June 24, 2015
Deep Tweets № 613664902180413440
USABILITY TESTING doesn’t reveal problems in your product so much as it uncovers arrogance in your thinking. #
June 23, 2015
From NYPL to DC Comics: the lettering of Ira Schnapp
HE DESIGNED the lettering on The New York Public Library and the James Farley Post Office (“neither snow nor rain…”), created titles for silent movies, movie posters, and pulp magazines in the 1920s, and started working for DC Comics in 1938, where he designed the masthead for Action Comics, refined the Superman logo, and brought dozens of DC Comics texts and titles to life. A new exhibit at The Type Directors Club honors Ira Schnapp and sheds light on his decades of influential work.
Daybreak in Myanmar: Photos by Geoffrey Hiller
Myanmar in Southeast Asia is one of the least known places in the world, due to the military dictatorship that has isolated the country for the past sixty years. Now that the government is making the transition to democracy, the veil is slowly lifting, as are travel and economic sanctions. In Daybreak in Myanmar these images of a place once frozen in time are unique and timely.
Photographer Geoffrey Hiller has been documenting the people of Burma since 1987 and has returned several times since the historic opening in 2011 to capture evidence of change, not only images of rallies for Aung San Suu Kyi, but the anticipation, hope and concerns of a nation forgotten by the world. Following his award-winning web documentary from 2000, Burma: Grace Under Pressure, Hiller is publishing this selection of 170 color photographs.
Source: DAYBREAK IN MYANMAR : Geoffrey Hiller :: Documentary Photographer in Portland, Oregon
June 19, 2015
Why humans run the world
History professor Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, explains why humans have dominated Earth. The reason’s not what you might expect:
The real difference between us and other animals is on the collective level. Humans control the world because we are the only animal that can cooperate flexibly in large numbers. Ants and bees can also work together in large numbers, but they do so in a very rigid way. If a beehive is facing a new threat or a new opportunity, the bees cannot reinvent their social system overnight in order to cope better. They cannot, for example, execute the queen and establish a republic. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of intimately known individuals. Among wolves and chimps, cooperation is based on personal acquaintance. If I am a chimp and I want to cooperate with you, I must know you personally: What kind of chimp are you? Are you a nice chimp? Are you an evil chimp? How can I cooperate with you if I don’t know you?
Only Homo sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. One-on-one or ten-on-ten, chimpanzees may be better than us. But pit 1,000 Sapiens against 1,000 chimps, and the Sapiens will win easily, for the simple reason that 1,000 chimps can never cooperate effectively. Put 100,000 chimps in Wall Street or Yankee Stadium, and you’ll get chaos. Put 100,000 humans there, and you’ll get trade networks and sports contests.
Source: Why humans run the world
June 17, 2015
A List Apart № 422: So Emotional
ISSUE № 422 of A List Apart for people who make websites is all about working with the human element:
The Homepage Exception
By Johanna Bates
Structured, automatic systems are great at managing content efficiently—but not so great at accommodating humans changes in that content. On the other hand, free-for-all WYSIWYGs lead to inconsistency and breakdowns. Stakeholders and content administrators need flexibility and control, especially where the all-important homepage is concerned. What’s a website to do? Johanna Bates suggests embracing a people-friendly homepage solution within our robot-driven architectures.
Understanding the Emotional Response
By Kelsey Lynn Lundberg
Validating emotions isn’t a glorified psychological process; part of our work is to hear our colleagues and clients out. Kelsey Lynn Lundberg shows us how we can identify the underlying needs—security, freedom, identity, worth—that drive emotional responses, and how to translate those needs into productive discussions to keep our teams moving forward.
June 15, 2015
Typelab interview with Jeffrey Zeldman | Typetester
The interview was conducted by Nick Sherman at TypeLab on June 13, 2015. The website is part of Typographics TypeLab and is a demonstration of what can be done with web typography within 24 hours.
June 14, 2015
http://ift.tt/1KcMIId
Remember : the future will come whether you design for it or not. If your company charges $300,000 for a website that won’t work on next week’s most popular device, your company won’t be able to stay competitive in this business. It might not even be able to stay in the business, period. After all, clients who pay for sites that break too soon will look elsewhere next time—leaving your company perpetually hunting for new clients in a downward spiral of narrowing margins and diminishing expectations.
Your company’s survival is tied to the ability of the products it makes to work in situations you haven’t imagined, and on devices that don’t yet exist. This has always been the challenge of web design . It’s one A List Apart has taken seriously since we began publishing, and our archives are filled with advice and ideas you can boil down and present to your bosses.
Source: No Good Can Come of Bad Code
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Starting a personal Tumblr.
“Stuff @zeldman Says to Me Right Before I Speak”.
Today’s installment?
“You look like a quaker.”
— Sarah Parmenter (@sazzy) June 8, 2015
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http://ift.tt/1IzalIM
Introducing Deque’s aXeDeque System’s aXe (The Accessibility Engine) open source library is a lightweight (~100 KB), fast, portable JavaScript library that executes automated accessibility testing inside your testing framework or browser of choice.Re-written from scratch over the last year, leveraging 15 years of accessibility experience, these rules represent the state of the art in automated accessibility testing.
Source: Introducing aXe by Deque!
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June 12, 2015
Open Source Accessibility Testing Library
Introducing Deque’s aXeDeque System’s aXe (The Accessibility Engine) open source library is a lightweight (~100 KB), fast, portable JavaScript library that executes automated accessibility testing inside your testing framework or browser of choice.Re-written from scratch over the last year, leveraging 15 years of accessibility experience, these rules represent the state of the art in automated accessibility testing.
Source: Introducing aXe by Deque!
