WebDev Feed

Cool and inspiring code demos we’ve featured in our newsletter over the past few weeks.

How I Built My Blog * State of HTML 2024 * Easing Graphs

You can’t overstate the importance of accessible website design. By the same token, bottom-up philosophies are crucial in modern site-building. A detail-oriented approach makes it easier to serve a more diverse audience along several fronts. Making the most of this opportunity will both extend your reach to new niches and make the web a more equitable place.

Kate Kaplan hits on something over at Nielsen Norman Group’s blog that’s been bugging me: The challenge with this icon is sparkle ambiguity: Participants in our recent research study general

Many of you — perhaps most of you — have been sitting on the sidelines while WordPress and WP Engine trade legal attacks on one another. It’s been widely covered as we watch it unfold in the open; ironically, in … Catching Up on the WordPress 🚫 WP Engine Sitch originally published on CSS-Tricks

Learn about CSS Anchor Positioning, including its syntax, properties, how it is used to position one element next to another, and even how it's used to resize elements relative to other elements. CSS Anchor Positioning Guide originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the

Go behind the scenes with Björn Ottosson, the Swedish engineer who created Oklab color space, and discover how he developed a simple yet effective model with good hue uniformity while also handling lightness and saturation well — and is “okay” to use.

Learn how Federico Pian built his 2024 portfolio using Nuxt, GSAP, and TresJs, with insights into design inspiration, animation techniques, and seamless page transitions.

Fundamentals of Frontend Architecture * The already-here future of prototyping * The continuing tragedy of emoji on the web

An approach for creating masonry layouts in vanilla CSS is one of those “holy grail” aspirations. I actually tend to plop masonry and the classic “Holy Grail” layout in the same general era of web design. They’re different types of … CSS Masonry & CSS Grid originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of

Could there be a better way to celebrate the beginning of a new month than with a collection of desktop wallpapers? We’ve got some eye-catching designs to sweeten up your October. Enjoy!

The creator of CSS has said he originally envisaged CSS as the main web technology to control behavior on web pages, with scripting as a fallback when things weren’t possible declaratively in CSS. The rationale for a CSS-first approach was … Slide Through

Miriam Suzanne’s in the middle of a redesign of her personal website. It began in August 2022. She’s made an entire series out of the work that’s worth your time, but I wanted to call out the fifth and latest … Aggregating my distributed self originally published on

One of the main laws that applies to almost everything in our lives, including building digital products, is Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Our goal is to prevent things from going wrong and, if they do, mitigate the consequences. In this article, Victor Ponamarev explores different strategies for preventing users from making mistakes.

A selection of creative menu patterns and animations that highlight diverse design styles, offering fresh inspiration for your next project.

Animate to height: auto * Feedback needed: How should we define CSS masonry?

A new tool from Eric Meyer, Brian Kardell, and Stephanie Stimac backed with Igalia’s support. Brian announced it on his blog, as did Eric, describing it like this: What BCD Watch does is, it grabs releases of the 

The <select> element is a fairly straightforward concept: focus on it to reveal a set of <option>s that can be selected as the input’s value. That’s a great pattern and I’m not suggesting we change it. That said, I … How to Make a “Scroll to Select” Form Control originally published on

In this article, we take you behind the scenes to explore the creation process of an intriguing animation inspired by gemstone visuals.

Mixing colors in CSS is pretty much a solved deal, thanks to the more recent color-mix() function as it gains support. Pass in two color values — any two color values at all — and optionally set the proportions. background-color: … Color Mixing With Animation Composit

Captured Custom Properties * Logical Properties in Size Queries * The Audio Element

I was looking over an older article Patrick Brosset penned for us introducing <selectmenu>, a new proposal at the time for a more style-able cousin to <select>. From there, I clicked the linked-up <selectmenu> explainer and got… this:…

In this age of endless newfangled organizational tools, the spreadsheet holds firm. Frederick O’Brien explains how, from engineering to design, they can still provide a rock-solid foundation for your work.

For the past two months, all my livelihood has gone towards reading, researching, understanding, writing, and editing about Anchor Positioning, and with many Almanac entries published and a full Guide guide on the way, I thought I was ready to … CSSWG Minutes Telecon (2024-09-18) originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part

The Undeniable Utility Of CSS :has * Reclaim the Stack * CSS Triggers

This article aims to celebrate the power of introversion in UX research and design. Victor Yocco debunks common misconceptions, explores the unique strengths introverted researchers and designers bring to the table, and offers practical tips for thriving in a field that sometimes seems tailored for extroverts.

Getting right to it: the CSS-Tricks Almanac got a big refresh this week! I’m guessing you’re already familiar with this giant ol’ section of CSS-Tricks called the Almanac. This is where we publish references for CSS selectors and properties…

An exploration of layout formations during scroll, where content is pinned until the layout is fully assembled.

Myriam Frisano explores the basics of hand-coding SVGs with practical examples to demystify the inner workings of common SVG elements. In this guide, you’ll learn about asking the right questions to solve common positioning problems and how to leverage JavaScript so that, by the end, you can add “SVG coding” to your toolbox. You’ll also be able to declare proudly, “I know how to draw literal pictures with words!”

I’m working on a refresh of my personal website, what I’m calling the HD remaster. Well, I wouldn’t call it a “full” redesign. I’m just cleaning things up, and Polypane is coming in clutch. I wrote about how much … Clever Polypane Debugging Features I’m Loving originall

Creating ready-to-implement Lottie animations with a single tool is now possible thanks to SVGator’s latest feature updates. In this article, you will learn how to create and animate a Lottie using SVGator, an online animation tool that has zero learning curve if you’re familiar with at least one design tool.

Only Chris, right? You’ll want to view this in a Chromium browser: CodePen Embed Fallback This is exactly the sort of thing I love, not for its practicality (cuz it ain’t), but for how it illustrates a concept. Generally, tutorials … Multiple Anchors originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the

I’m a big Lynn Fisher fan. You probably are, too, if you’re reading this. Or maybe you’re reading her name for the first time, in which case you’re in for a treat. That’s because I had a chance to sit … Smashing Hour With Lynn Fisher originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the

Bringing data to life in your application can be done without the usual headaches. Paul Scanlon shows you how you can build beautiful data visualizations using the Google Analytics API, and you won’t have to spend any time “massaging” the data.

Anticipatory design, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine learning (ML), and Big Data (BD), promises to transform user experiences by predicting and fulfilling needs before users even express them. While this proactive approach seems revolutionary, many businesses struggle to meet the high expectations it sets. Joana Cerejo delves into the challenges of anticipatory design, highlights key failures, and offers a framework to help designers and businesses succeed in this complex landsc

Google Analytics is often on a “need to know” basis, but why not flip the script? Paul Scanlon shares how he wrote a GitHub Action that queries Google Analytics to automatically generate and post a top ten page views report to Slack, making it incredibly easy to track page performance and share insights with your team.

Sticky positioning is one of those CSS features that’s pretty delicate and can be negated by a lot of things, so here’s another one to add to your mental catalog: Sticky elements don’t play nicely if they have to coordinate with other elements to make up a combined height, like `100vh`. Philip Braunen explores why this happens and presents a solution to fix it.

Designing for digital products requires a different mindset than traditional websites. It’s all about continuous adaptation, refining, and iterating as user behavior and needs evolve. Paul Boag reflects on the key differences, including how the frequency of usage impacts your design approach and what you can do about it.

Let’s get ready for September with a fresh collection of desktop wallpapers! Created with love by the community for the community, they come in versions with and without a calendar. Enjoy!

In the second part of this series, Joas Pambou aims to build a more advanced version of the previous application that performs conversational analyses on images or videos, much like a chatbot assistant. This means you can ask and learn more about your input content.

Want to create more randomized effects in your JavaScript code? The `Math.random()` method alone, with its limitations, won’t cut it for generating unique random numbers. Amejimaobari Ollornwi explains how to generate a series of unique random numbers using the `Set` object, how to use these random numbers as indexes for arrays, and explores some practical applications of randomization.

Finding the right typeface for a logo is a challenge and can be a very time-consuming process that requires both creativity and a practical approach. Levi Honing provides the essential background and tools to enhance your typography journey and apply this knowledge to your logo design. Let’s dive deep to learn how to create a logo that is not only expressive but also purposeful and well-thought-out.

Although JavaScript regexes used to be underpowered compared to other modern flavors, numerous improvements in recent years mean that’s no longer true. Steven Levithan evaluates the history and present state of regular expressions in JavaScript with tips to make your regexes more readable, maintainable, and resilient.

Discover effective pricing strategies for digital projects. Learn how to balance fixed pricing, time and materials, and value-based approaches while managing client expectations and scope creep.

Ever felt pressure to speed up your design process? Here’s how to address unrealistic expectations and foster a shared understanding with stakeholders, ensuring everyone is aligned on the path to a successful delivery. Part of [Smart Interface Design Patterns](https://smart-interface-design-patterns.com) by yours truly.

In this two-part series, Andrii Zhdan outlines common challenges faced at the start of a design career and offers advice to smooth your journey based on insights from his experience hiring designers. In Part 2, Andrii speaks about how you can grow faster in your brand-new junior UX job.

For teams working remotely across the globe or together in an office, as well as for any group of collaborating users, a scheduler can be a valuable tool indeed. In this post, you’ll find some of the best commercial web scheduler libraries (JavaScript based) with amazing UX and high efficiency that are currently available.

Have you ever wondered what happened after CSS3? It’s common knowledge that we never saw CSS4 come after it, yet we have a plethora of new features that have no similar way of defining when they were introduced. The W3C CSS-Next community group is actively searching for better approaches for how we describe the evolution of CSS over time and identify feature sets as effectively as we did with CSS3 way back in 2009 — and you can help.

In this two-part series, Andrii Zhdan outlines common challenges faced at the start of a design career and offers advice to smooth your journey based on insights from his experience hiring designers. Learn why mastering design tools is crucial, how to build a strong portfolio, and tips for acing your first interviews.

Handling translations for multilingual websites is famously difficult and, yet, crucial for many companies and organizations that serve a global audience. Thankfully, modern tooling abstracts away a great deal of the work, allowing for seamless translations that dynamically update the rendered content on a page, as demonstrated in this step-by-step tutorial.

Do you need a little inspiration boost? Well, then our new batch of desktop wallpapers might be for you. Designed by the community for the community, they come in versions with and without a calendar for August 2024. Enjoy!

Many UX professionals often find themselves working alone, and usually face more projects impacting user experience than they can handle. In this article, Paul Boag explains how UX teams can be transformed into a significant driver of customer-centric innovation within organizations.

Joas Pambou built an app that integrates vision language models (VLMs) and text-to-speech (TTS) AI technologies to describe images audibly with speech. This audio description tool can be a big help for people with sight challenges to understand what’s in an image. But how this does it even work? Joas explains how these AI systems work and their potential uses, including how he built the app and ways to further improve it.

WCAG provides guidance for making interactive elements more accessible by specifying minimum size requirements. In this article, Eric Bailey discusses the nuances of interactive element sizes and clarifies what it looks like to provide accessible interactive experiences using WCAG-compliant target sizes.

In today’s turbulent landscape of design, Penpot stands out with its commitment to open-source, free unlimited access, and its unique, robust features. An example could be its new components system that takes another leap forward in aligning design with code. Let's dive into how it empowers both designers and developers to create more maintainable and scalable design systems.

This in-depth guide takes you through the three crucial phases of conversational search, revealing how users express their needs, explore results, and refine their queries. Learn how AI agents can overcome communication barriers, personalize the search experience, and adapt to evolving user intent.

Today, UX design contributes to the problem of excessive consumption through persuasive e-commerce practices and designing for companies with linear and exploitative business models. Anna Rátkai explores practical steps we can take to reduce material consumption and the massive environmental impact that comes along with it by designing mindful shopping experiences.

Visualize the user experience with user journey maps. Here are some helpful templates, real-world applications, and insights on the importance of mapping both successful and unsuccessful touchpoints. Part of [Smart Interface Design Patterns](https://smart-interface-design-patterns.com) by yours truly.

Let’s welcome the new month with some fresh desktop wallpapers! Created by artists and designers from across the globe, they come in versions with and without a calendar for July 2024. Enjoy!

Interface copy plays a crucial role in the overall user experience, helping guide users smoothly, allowing them to navigate easily through the app, discover and start using product features, and more. In this article, you’ll find simple, practical tips and a checklist to help you create a clear and concise microcopy, ensuring a seamless user experience.

Gaining buy-in for accessibility can be challenging due to common myths and misunderstandings. For many, accessibility remains a big mystery. Here are some practical techniques for winning stakeholder support. Part of [Smart Interface Design Patterns](https://smart-interface-design-patterns.com) by yours truly.

The biggest mistake you can make in UX design is to launch a website or app and then walk away. Monitoring and improving after launch will benefit users and your metrics. Nothing will bring bigger gains.

Balancing the age-old simplicity of words on paper with the myriad creative possibilities of the web is a tension as old as the web itself. Leaning into that overlap can bring new dimensions not just to the things we write but also to how we write them.

Have you heard of the Screen Orientation API? What about the Device Orientation API, Vibration API, or the Contact Picker API? Juan Diego Rodriguez is interested in these under-the-radar web features and discusses how they can be used to create more usable and robust progressive web apps if and when they gain broader support.

Job openings typically cast a very restrictive frame for candidates, with long lists of expectations and requirements. But what if this narrow focus can overlook the value of “V”-shaped designers who excel by crossing boundaries, connecting dots, and innovating beyond rigid boxes?