2020 (p. 1/2)

ComicA11y - An all inclusive online comic experiment.

comica11y.humaan.com

The demo at comica11y.humaan.com by Paul Spencer is a showcase of various techniques to make a digital comic accessible for all.
#design-for-all
2020

Inclusive design in the wild: Pattern backgrounds in data tables (caniuse.com)

I’m always happy to randomly stumble upon accessibility updates on websites — today I noticed that caniuse.com (the most comprehensive resource for web developers to assess feature availability in different browsers) updated their colored tables with new cell backgrounds:
#design-for-all
2020

Figuring out how to mark up a figure (thoughts on ARIA role for HTML's figure tag)

Looking into conflicting suggestions on ARIA role attributes when using the HTML figure tag.
#design-for-all
2020

Designing for illiteracy

Lena Alfter, a young designer from Germany, joined July’s Creative Mornings BER event to share the results of her MA thesis, which explored how design can support the alphabetization process for adults learning to read. Her talk “Typografie für […]
#design-for-all
2020

Study: Online trackers follow health site visitors

news.cornell.edu

Websites with less trackers, a study from Cornell University highlights, may actually be more harmful in their privacy violation than sites with dozens of them.
2020

TheirTube - exposing YouTube's algorithmic bias

their.tube

While the algorithmic bias of YouTube’s recommendation engine has been presented in various ways over past years, the project TheirTube by Tomo Kihara goes one step further.
2020

Who Can Use

whocanuse.com

"Who Can Use" differs from other colour contrast tools in that it not only highlights the contrast of a chosen colour combination, but also presents instant statistics what share of users might be negatively impacted by it and simulates how they would see it.
#design-for-all
2020

What if a website were only accessible by assistive technology?

Manuel Matuzović shares a thought-provoking experiment: a web page optimized for screenreader software only, making it a hellish experience for users using the visual interface with a mouse.
#design-for-all
2020

Building the Woke Web: Web Accessibility, Inclusion & Social Justice

alistapart.com

Olu Niyiawosusi looks at digital access(ibility) from a broader inclusion perspective; through questions of non-use and the digital divide.
#design-for-all
2020

Designing a commenting system with data ethics in mind

A year ago, I launched an exploratory attempt to integrate comments and webmentions with Kirby CMS. Far from being a stable product, it was about time for a major update based on the collected insight and feedback.
2020

Micropub for Kirby — a design exercise unlocking countless possibilities

When I set out to create a Micropub endpoint as flexible as the Kirby CMS itself, this turned out to be a rather complex task. The result, however, opens up opportunities that frankly surprised myself. Once the initial setup is done, publishing content is more flexible than ever.
2020

Setting up Linux Mint for developing Kirby websites locally with Valet-linux

Brief notes and a step-by-step guide for setting up Valet-linux as a local development environment on Linux.
2020

"Commit: Update system" — Prototype Fund demo day #6

I’ve written about the Prototype Fund demo day before — hard to believe that was 2.5 years ago — and my second visit was equally pleasant. The theme of the funding period it concluded could not be more current: “Commit” was all […]
2020

Stop Using Encrypted Email

latacora.singles

An interesting perspective on “encrypted email” in this article. It is not so much concerned with the strength of encryption, but with the systemic insecurity inherent to the system of email as a by-default open and interoperable […]
2020

Museum of Obsolete Media

obsoletemedia.org

Another one for my collection of “museums” of historical forms of (digital) communication:
The home for over 600 current and obsolete physical media formats, covering audio, video, film and data storage. The Museum preserves the memory of those objects that held our memories, and every format listed in the Museum is represented by at least one example in the collection.
2020

Link Targets and 3.2.5

adrianroselli.com

I can’t even remember how many times I have engaged in the discussion why links on websites should not open in new tabs. Sadly, the number of times I had to surrender and spoil otherwise user-friendly and accessible designs with the client request to […]
2020

Wearable Microphone Jamming

sandlab.cs.uchicago.edu

A critical art project using a hack to jam microphones in the vincinity for increased privacy:
We engineered a wearable microphone jammer that is capable of disabling microphones in its user’s surroundings, including hidden microphones. Our […]
2020

Speaking at Think-About! 2020

I am humbled and beyond excited to be invited to speak at Think-About! 2020, the second edition of my favourite "tech" conference. I wrote about my impressions last year.
2020

A Data-Driven Guide to Effective Personal Climate Action

erikareinhardt.com

“46 minute read” is a commitment, but this thoroughly researched post by Erika Reinhardt has an incredible amount of food for thought, background data and tools:
This post details the most effective individual changes you can make to […]
2020

Google does not need a user agent header to track people

There has been quite some discussion (e.g. here) around the plan by browser vendors, led by the Google Chrome team, to essentially abandon the User-agent header they send with every request to identify version and make of the browser it is coming from. Not […]
2020

Hacking a traffic jam into Google Maps

Google Maps Hacks by Berlin artist Simon Weckert is performance art at its best: not only for the artifact it creates (in the most ephemeral way, in form of a live data stream on Google Maps), but for the awareness it creates.
99 second hand […]
2020

Beyond the Front Page: Measuring Third Party Dynamics in the Field

arxiv.org

A team of researchers measured the amount of third parties called as websites include third-party scripts.
Using this concept, we show that including a single third party can lead to subsequent requests from up to eight additional services […]
2020

Category Error: Tracking Ads Are Not a Funding Mechanism

thewavingcat.com

Peter Bihr builds a solid argument why “online ads on content fund its creation” is a so-called category error, where things that belong to one category are presented as belonging to another (where they don’t belong). The original social […]
2020

Three voices to be heard on Data Protection Day 2020

January 28 is Data Protection Day, and here are three voices I strongly would like to see heard.
2020

10 Reasons Why Online Advertising is Broken

en.panoptykon.org

In “10 Reasons Why Online Advertising is Broken”, Karolina Iwańska summarizes the toxicity of behavioural advertising not in one, but ten, points (and stresses that this list is not exhaustive). Starting out with the illusion of consent and […]
2020