Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 85

Touch-based App Design for Toddlers

As always, Luke Wroblewski nails it:  

When kids interact with software they explore and engage with anything that looks interesting. Especially if it looks like content. Graphical user interface components don't.

Consider the example of Dr. Seuss's ABC book on the iPad. The intro screen uses colorful blobs to bring attention to large hit targets. But tap on one of these elements and up pops a standard modal menu asking you to select from one of three options. Modal menu dialogs and kids don't mix.

More at lukew.com.

Wikileaks Cablegate Reactions Roundup

Andy Baio helps us make sense of Wikileaks by providing an absolutely brilliant roundup of facts, coverage, personal responses, and visualizations from around the world.

Andy is a journalist/programmer living in L.A. He works at Expert Labs, helped create Kickstarter and Upcoming, and has made an album, among other things.

Dr. Seuss does Star Wars

Enjoy!

Hat tip: Erika Hall

NYC Must-See

People who are coming to New York for the first time always ask me what they should see. So I've made a little list. Here are eighteen of my favorite places in New York City.

Cure for the Common Webfont, Part 2: Alternatives to Georgia

For nearly fifteen years, if you wanted to set a paragraph of web text in a serif typeface, the only truly readable option was Georgia. But now, in web type's infancy, we're starting to see some valid alternatives for the king of screen serifs. What follows is a list of serif typefaces that have been tuned—and in some cases drawn from scratch—for the screen.

Stephen Coles, December 6, 2010:

Cure for the Common Webfont, Part 2: Alternatives to Georgia

Episode 30: Jason Santa Maria

JASON SANTA MARIA (website, Twitter) will be our guest Thursday December 9th, 2010 during Episode No. 30 of The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters"), co-hosted by Dan Benjamin and recorded at 1:00 PM Eastern before a live internet audience.

Jason is a self-described Graphic Designer living in sunny Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder and principal of the design studio Mighty, creative director for Typekit, a faculty member in the MFA Interaction Design program at SVA, co-founder of A Book Apart (Brief Books for People Who Make Websites), vice president of AIGA/NY, founder of Typedia, a shared encyclopedia of typefaces online, and creative director for A List Apart for people who make websites. A former designer and creative director at Happy Cog, Jason has worked for clients such as AIGA, The Chicago Tribune, Housing Works, Miramax Films, The New York Stock Exchange, PBS, The United Nations, and WordPress, "focusing on designing websites that maintain a balance of beauty and usability."

The Big Web Show records live every Thursday at 1:00 PM Eastern on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!

Divitis We Fall

Highlight and Note from Michael Thorne (@mikkelz_za)

"Another classic example of divitis kicks in when a designer catches the 'tables are bad, CSS is good' virus and righteously replaces 200 tons of table markup with 200 tons of nested divs."

Note: Been there. Done that. Never again. #DWWS (via @zeldman)

Amazon Kindle: Michael Thorne shared from Designing with Web Standards.

iPhone 4 holiday background

Here's a little something I made for the holidays. Download the original, sync to your iOS 4 device, and enjoy!

Episode 29: Matt Mullenweg

Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress, will be our guest Thursday December 2nd, 2010 during Episode No. 29 of The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters"), co-hosted by Dan Benjamin and recorded at 1:00 PM Eastern before a live internet audience.

Matt is, well, Matt is awesome, and you can read about him here.

The Big Web Show records live every Thursday at 1:00 PM Eastern on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!

ARIA-WAI cool

Issue No. 319 of A List Apart for people who make websites tackles the intersection between web apps, WAI-ARIA, JavaScript, and accessibility.

ARIA and Progressive Enhancement

by DEREK FEATHERSTONE

For seven years, progressive enhancement has been how we build sustainable, interoperable, and accessible web solutions.

Now that the release of ARIA is approaching, let's see how ARIA fits within progressive enhancement strategy. Can we use ARIA in a way that respects progressive enhancement? Can we use ARIA in ways that ensure we have a working solution at every level?

The Accessibility of WAI-ARIA

by DETLEV FISCHER

Web developers interested in accessibility issues often look to WAI-ARIA to bridge the accessibility gap created by ubiquitous scripting and make web applications more accessible to blind and visually impaired users. But can we recommend WAI-ARIA without reservation? Are there times when appropriate semantic HTML elements are preferable to custom widgets?

About the Magazine

A List Apart explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Illustration by Kevin Cornell for A List Apart.