Designing ethically may sound daunting at first, but Lennart Overkamp sets forth a template for engaging stakeholders around new priorities, exploring objectives that span from individual to global impacts, and finally measure their effects.
Topic: Industry
Why design has a massive role to play in the evolution of the web and the next generation of web products. Getting and keeping clients. How to write software that is not just “internationalized” but truly multilingual. Getting real about agile design. Evangelizing oustide the box: web standards and large companies. Working from home. Flash and standards: the cold war of the web.
Webwaste
In this excerpt from World Wide Waste, Gerry McGovern examines the environmental impact of bloated websites and unnecessary assets. Digital is physical. It seems cheap and free, but it’s not—it costs the Earth.
Building the Woke Web: Web Accessibility, Inclusion & Social Justice
From banking to civil services to education, the internet intersects every part of our lives in a way that was unthinkable 20 years ago. And yet the web remains inaccessible to vast swathes of people, with code issues far from the only roadblock. Olu explores the complexity of true accessibility, and offers a thoughtful approach to building a safer and more welcoming web.
Nothing Fails Like Success
Money and tech have a complicated relationship. We trained our users to expect things for free. Quickly we realized that wasn’t a sustainable business model, so we sold their data and served ads, which invites its own problems.
Now, we’re trying to undo this tangled web. How do we get back to a democratized web? Our own Jeffrey Zeldman invites us to discuss how and to #LetsFixThis.
Canary in a Coal Mine: How Tech Provides Platforms for Hate
Like a mine can fill up with toxic gasses, technology can become a toxic platform for hate. As the people building the web, we have an ethical responsibility for how these products are used—whether we intended it or not. ALA’s own Tatiana Mac lays this out using her own experience as a woman of color in tech.
Web Developer Representation in W3C
Fronteers, the Dutch front-end association, is announcing their plans to become a member of the W3C, and to appoint Rachel Andrew as their representative. As a member, Fronteers will be entitled to four representatives, whom they intend to compensate for their time. Their mission is not without its challenges, however. Learn how you can help keep independent web developers’ voices from slipping through the gutters.
Make Something Great: Become an Open Source Contributor
You may think that contributing to an open source project is only for developers. But code is by no means the only thing software is made of. Whether you’re a designer, writer, doctor, or lawyer, the open source community needs you. Andrés Galante shares everything you need to know to set out on your journey, from first steps to becoming a core contributor.
Onboarding: A College Student Discovers A List Apart
A List Apart has covered a lot of ground in 20 years. Samantha Lynn, a younger designer just entering the industry, gives her thoughts on 350 ALA articles and how far we’ve come as an industry.
Mental Illness in the Web Industry
In the midst of a seemingly endless stream of harassment and discrimination exposés throughout the tech industry, A List Apart thinks we should also be talking about mental health. In this article, we feature the stories of five web professionals who were willing to share their struggles in the workplace.
Focus on What You Do Best and Outsource the Rest
There’s all this other “stuff” that has to get done in support of what you actually do for a living. It slows you down and takes away from overall productivity in your specialty, yet you think you have to do it yourself no matter how hard it is for you. Suzanne Scacca says it may be a good investment to offload and outsource some of the tasks that aren’t in your wheelhouse. It just might free up your time to do more of what you do best.
