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The More Things Change… (or: What’s in a Job Title?)

I’m not a “[full-stack] developer,” regardless of what my last job title says.

I’m not even a front-end developer, thanks to the JavaScript–industrial complex.

I’m a front-of-the-front-end developer, but that’s too long.

So, I’m a web designer. And I also specialise in accessibility, design systems, and design.

…Why do I think that this is the best title? Here’s why.

I’m designing for the web. The infinitely flexible web. The web that doesn’t have one screen size, one browser, one operating system, or one device. The web that can be used by anyone, anywhere, on any internet connection, on any device, on any operating system, on any browser, with any screen size. I’m designing with the web. Using the web platform (HTML, CSS, JS, ARIA, etc.), not a bloated harmful abstraction. I have a deep understanding of HTML and its semantics. I love CSS, I know how and when to utilise its many features, and I keep up-to-date as more are added. I have a strong understanding of modern JavaScript and most importantly I know when not to use it.

Front-end development’s identity crisis by Elly Loel

See also:

The Wax and the Wane of the Web (2024): Forget death and taxes. The only certainty on the web is change. Ste Grainer takes a brief look at the history of the web and how it has been constantly reinvented. Then he explores where we are now, and how we can shape the future of the web for the better. – A List Apart

The Cult of the Complex (2018): If we wish to get back to the business of quietly improving people’s lives, one thoughtful interaction at a time, we must rid ourselves of the cult of the complex. Admitting the problem is the first step in solving it. – A List Apart

Dear AIGA, where are the web designers? (2007): For all the brand directors, creative directors, Jungian analysts, and print designers, one rather significant specimen of the profession is missing. – zeldman.com

Standardization and the Open Web (2015): How do web standards become, well, standard? Although they’re often formalized through official standards-making organizations, they can also emerge through popular practice among the developer community. If both sides don’t work together, we risk delaying implementation, stifling creativity, and losing ground to politics and paralysis. Jory Burson sheds light on the historical underpinnings of web standardization processes—and what that means for the future of the open web. – A List Apart

The profession that dare not speak its name (2007): “No one has tried to measure web design because web design has been a hidden profession.” – zeldman.com

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Our Lady of Perpetual Profit

Corporations that take investors make an impossible promise to increase profits forever. Accordingly, they hire MBAs whose role is to juggle numbers to create ongoing, short-term profit. This juggling is frequently labeled “leadership.”

The juggling methods—abusing data, diminishing the primacy of the customer relationship, repeating what worked last year as if the demand for it will never end, and perpetually cutting costs—invariably remove value from the company. This, of course, results in more staff and cost cutting.

People who understand the customer and the product are ignored in favor of the number jugglers; research is disparaged in favor of a dogmatic relationship to data. 

The people who wreck the company get the big paychecks. Eventually a bigger company buys the first company, further destroying its value. The wreckers exit with more money, 1980s-corporate-raider-style. Skilled workers are laid off, quality plummets, and the cycle begins again. 

This picture of a business world with deeply misguided priorities—exemplified by horror stories from the worlds of tech, gaming, and entertainment—is brought to you by Doc Burford, whose discursive post, “the biggest threat facing your team, whether you’re a game developer or a tech founder or a CEO, is not what you think,” takes a while to get through, but is nonetheless worth reading.

It is not a picture of every company, to be sure. But it applies to many, and accounts for much of the worker unhappiness plus customer frustration that characterize this time and contribute to our political unrest.

I wrote this post so you’d know to check that one. Do it.

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The Valley of Hidden Sorrows

I have this friend. A mountain of unexpected medical debt buried his family at the start of last year. At the same time, the closing of his business stuck him with six figures of personal debt. Liquidating a retirement account and maxing out credit cards bought him short-term breathing room. Mostly, though, it added interest charges and tax penalties to what he already owed. 

A year on, the debts still crush him, and the poor fellow only just manages to keep his family housed, fed, and safe. I should add that he’s a professional who enjoys a great job with a generous salary and terrific benefits. One of the lucky people. Privileged, even. Somebody you’d expect to be quite comfortable. But he wakes in fear each morning.

To all who struggle in these times, be kind to others and gentle with yourself.

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AI Best practices Education environment ethics planet

AI Roundup: The Bad, the Ugly, and the Pretty Cool

Ay, ay, AI! Hype, fear, and strongly voiced opinions—the traditional currency of internet conversation—are unequal to this moment, where the Fate of Everything™ dangles from a single gossamer thread. So here are four useful links to pieces of the web that make differing and complementary sense of the threat and promise of AI.

Of course AI is a bubble. It has all the hallmarks of a classic tech bubble. Pick up a rental car at SFO and drive in either direction on the 101—north to San Francisco, south to Palo Alto—and every single billboard is advertising some kind of AI company. Every business plan has the word “AI” in it, even if the business itself has no AI in it…

Tech bubbles come in two varieties: The ones that leave something behind, and the ones that leave nothing behind. Sometimes, it can be hard to guess what kind of bubble you’re living through until it pops and you find out the hard way…

Cory Doctorow: What Kind of Bubble is AI?

de Vries calculates that by 2027 the AI sector could consume between 85 to 134 terawatt hours each year. That’s about the same as the annual energy demand of de Vries’ home country, the Netherlands. 

The Verge: How much electricity does AI consume?

The Elements of AI is a series of free online courses created by MinnaLearn and the University of Helsinki. We want to encourage as broad a group of people as possible to learn what AI is, what can (and can’t) be done with AI, and how to start creating AI methods. The courses combine theory with practical exercises and can be completed at your own pace.

Elements of AI

We define AI literacy as a set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace. We conducted an extensive review of literature (see paper) and distilled a set of key AI literacy competencies and considerations for designing AI literacy learning interventions, which can be used to guide future educational initiatives as well as foster discussion and debate in the AI education field. This page lists and describes the competencies and design considerations that we have outlined.

AI Unplugged
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Accessibility Advocacy architecture Authoring Best practices development ethics industry Performance Platforms Responsibility Standards State of the Web Usability User Experience UX W3C Web Standards

CAPTCHA excludes disabled web users

What’s widely used, no longer particularly effective, and makes web content inaccessible to many people with disabilities? It’s our old friend CAPTCHA! In a group note dated 16 December 2021, the W3C explains how CAPTCHA excludes disabled users, and suggests alternatives which may be kinder and more reliable:

Various approaches have been employed over many years to distinguish human users of web sites from robots. The traditional CAPTCHA approach asking users to identify obscured text in an image remains common, but other approaches have emerged. All interactive approaches require users to perform a task believed to be relatively easy for humans but difficult for robots. Unfortunately the very nature of the interactive task inherently excludes many people with disabilities, resulting in a denial of service to these users. Research findings also indicate that many popular CAPTCHA techniques are no longer particularly effective or secure, further complicating the challenge of providing services secured from robotic intrusion yet accessible to people with disabilities. This document examines a number of approaches that allow systems to test for human users and the extent to which these approaches adequately accommodate people with disabilities, including recent non-interactive and tokenized approaches. We have grouped these approaches by two category classifications: Stand-Alone Approaches that can be deployed on a web host without engaging the services of unrelated third parties and Multi-Party Approaches that engage the services of an unrelated third party.

W3C: Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA: Alternatives to Visual Turing Tests on the Web

We can do better!

Tell your friends. Tell your boss. Tell your clients.

Tip o’ the blue beanie to Adrian Roselli.

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State of the Web W3C Web Standards

Heal an ailing web

On the occasion of the web’s 35th anniversary, its inventor had this to say:

5 years ago, when the web turned 30, I called out some of the dysfunction caused by the web being dominated by the self-interest of several corporations that have eroded the web’s values and led to breakdown and harm. Now, 5 years on as we arrive at the Web’s 35th Birthday, the rapid advancement of AI has exacerbated these concerns, proving that issues on the web are not isolated but rather deeply intertwined with emerging technologies. 

There are two clear, connected issues to address. The first is the extent of power concentration, which contradicts the decentralised spirit I originally envisioned. This has segmented the web, with a fight to keep users hooked on one platform to optimise profit through the passive observation of content. This exploitative business model is particularly grave in this year of elections that could unravel political turmoil. Compounding this issue is the second, the personal data market that has exploited people’s time and data with the creation of deep profiles that allow for targeted advertising and ultimately control over the information people are fed.

How has this happened? Leadership, hindered by a lack of diversity, has steered away from a tool for public good and one that is instead subject to capitalist forces resulting in monopolisation. Governance, which should correct for this, has failed to do so, with regulatory measures being outstripped by the rapid development of innovation, leading to a widening gap between technological advancements and effective oversight.

The future hinges on our ability to both reform the current system and create a new one that genuinely serves the best interests of humanity. 

Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter from Tim Berners-Lee
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Death of a father

187” is a gorgeously lensed, strongly acted Samuel L. Jackson thriller, notable for its sun-dazzled Los Angeles setting, complex morality, and breakthrough trip-hop soundtrack. It would likely have been widely discussed at the time of its release, and might still be remembered, like the not thematically dissimilar “Falling Down”—filmed in the same city and released by the same studio a few years prior—if not for a horrible and tragic event.

187 is the story of a high-minded, humanistic public high school teacher (Jackson) who, after surviving a brutal assault by one of his students (Method Man, in one of his first film appearances!), fights back.

Vigilantism was hardly a fresh plot driver in 1997, but 187’s writer, director, and cast took it to unexpected and rewarding places. 187 challenged expectations. It deserved an audience.

Unfortunately for the film, 187’s release was overshadowed by a horrific real-life event. That year, Jonathan Levin, a public high school teacher, was murdered by one of his former students.

It was the kind of murder—tragic, senseless—that might have gone unnoticed by the press if not for one thing: Jonathan was the son of newly appointed Time Warner CEO Gerald M. Levin.

In the aftermath of the new Warner CEO’s son’s murder, there was no way that Warner Bros could promote a film about a high school teacher who kills his students. Warner buried the film by giving it a limited release with zero promotion.

I remember seeing 187 in a semi-private screening room before interviewing its star for Warner Bros, whose Executive Vice President of Marketing was my client at the time. The film’s moody music and cinematography transported me. I felt deeply engaged by the story, and riveted by Jackson’s performance. And, needless to say, I was also horrified to learn of Jonathan Levin’s murder.

Today’s death notice of Gerald M. Levin brought it all back in a Proustian rush. 

Deadline-driven topic-sentence journalists will remember Gerald Levin as the architect of the ill-fated, oh-so-90s Time Warner AOL merger. But I will always think of him as a grieving father.

Rest in peace.

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Open Source social media social networking State of the Web

Open-source moderation

Bluesky introduces open-source, collaborative moderation for federated social media websites:

Bluesky was created to put users and communities in control of their social spaces online. The first generation of social media platforms connected the world, but ended up consolidating power in the hands of a few corporations and their leaders. Our online experience doesn’t have to depend on billionaires unilaterally making decisions over what we see. On an open social network like Bluesky, you can shape your experience for yourself.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re open-sourcing Ozone, our collaborative moderation tool.

Bluesky’s Stackable Approach to Moderation

💡  Might it also work for Mastodon and Threads?


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launches music Pete Zeldman

New music from the beyond

Happy heavenly birthday to my dear, deceased, devil brother Pete Zeldman. Today, 5 March 2024, to celebrate Pete’s life…

Lost in Sound Records is releasing an album of solo drums, Enigma, which will keep rhythmic enthusiasts and scholars busy for…well, forever. And ALSO 2.5D, his crazy interesting NYC rock band… [has released] its first single.

Cindy Shapiro

Hear that single, written by Pete, performed with fire by 2.5D, and released roughly 30 years after the fact:

Wish Pete a happy birthday on Facebook. You never know; whatever plane Pete now inhabits, he just might hear you.

Related:

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“Where the people are”

It’s nearly twenty years ago, now, children. Facebook had only recently burst the bounds of Harvard Yard. Twitter had just slipped the bonds of the digital underground. But web geeks like me still saw “social media” as a continuation of the older digital networks, protocols, listservs, and discussion forums we’d come up using, and not as the profound disruption that, partnered with smartphones and faster cellular networks, they would soon turn out to be. 

So when world-renowned CSS genius Eric Meyer and I, his plodding Dr Watson, envisioned adding a digital discussion component to our live front-end web design conference events, our first thought had been to create a bespoke one. We had already worked with a partner to adapt a framework he’d built for another client, and were considering whether to continue along that path or forge a new one.

And then, one day, I was talking to Louis Rosenfeld—the Prometheus of information architecture and founder of Rosenfeld Media. I told Lou about the quest Eric and I were on, to enhance An Event Apart with a private social network, and shared a roadblock we’d hit. And Lou said something brilliant that day. Something that would never have occurred to me. He said: “Why not use Facebook? It already exists, and that’s where the people are.”

The habit of building

Reader, in all my previous years as a web designer, I had always built from scratch or worked with partners who did so. Perhaps, because I ran a small design agency and my mental framework was client services, the habit of building was ingrained. 

After all, a chief reason clients came to us was because they needed something we could create and they could not. I had a preference for bespoke because it was designed to solve specific problems, which was (and is) the design business model as well as the justification for the profession. 

Our community web design conference had a brand that tied into the brand of our community web design magazine (and soon-to-emerge community web design book publishing house). All my assumptions and biases were primed for discovery, design, development, and endless ongoing experiments and improvements.

Use something that was already out there? And not just something, but a clunky walled garden with an embarrassing origin story as a hot-or-not variant cobbled together by an angry, virginal undergraduate? The very idea set off all my self-protective alarms.

A lesson in humility

Fortunately, on that day, I allowed a strong, simple idea to penetrate my big, beautiful wall of assumptions.

Fortunately, I listened to Lou. And brought the idea to Eric, who agreed.

The story is a bit more complicated than what I’ve just shared. More voices and inputs contributed to the thinking; some development work was done, and a prototype bespoke community was rolled out for our attendees’ pleasure. But ultimately, we followed Lou’s advice, creating a Facebook group because that’s where the people were. 

We also used Twitter, during its glory days (which coincided with our conference’s). And Flickr. Because those places are where the people were. 

And when you think about it, if people already know how to use one platform, and have demonstrated a preference for doing so, it can be wasteful of their time (not to mention arrogant) to expect them to learn another platform, simply because that one bears your logo.

Intersecting planes of simple yet powerful ideas

Of course, there are valid reasons not to use corporate social networks. Just as there are valid reasons to only use open source or free software. Or to not eat animals. But those real issues are not the drivers of this particular story. 

This particular story is about a smart friend slicing through a Gordian Knot (aka my convoluted mental model, constructed as a result of, and justification for, how I earned a living), and providing me with a life lesson whose wisdom I continue to hold close.

It’s a lesson that intersects with other moments of enlightenment, such as “Don’t tell people who they are or how they should feel; listen and believe when they tell you.” Meet people where they are. It’s a fundamental principle of good UX design. Like pave the cowpaths. Which is really the same thing. We take these ideas for granted, now.

But once, and not so long ago, there was a time. Not one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot. But a time when media was no longer one-to-many, and not yet many-to-many. A time when it was still possible for designers like me to think we knew best. 

I’m glad a friend knew better.

Afterword

I started telling this story to explain why I find myself posting, sometimes redundantly, to multiple social networks—including one that feels increasingly like Mordor. 

I go to them—even the one that breaks my heart—because, in this moment, they are where the people are. 

Of course, as often happens, when I begin to tell a story that I think is about one thing, I discover that it’s about something else entirely.

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R.I.Pete

It’s a year and one day since you died. At times, I feel your presence. I listen to your music every day. I miss you.

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Just add water.

Quick, before everyone else thinks of it. Set the word “SUCCESSION” in Engravers Gothic and export it to a transparent PNG. Download photos of confederate general Mitch McConnell and Republican Johns Thune (R-S.D.), Cornyn (R-Texas), and Barrasso (R-Wyo.). Grab and burn Nicholas Britell’s main title theme from Succession. Import all files into Final Cut Pro or Adobe After Effects. Add dissolves, fades, and film scratch overlays. Export. Upload to YouTube or Vimeo. Embed and amplify via all 500 social media networks. Sit back, relax, and bask in your 15 seconds of glory.

“Succession” is copyright HBO. Mitch McConnell is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA.

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Get it right.

“Led” is the past tense of “lead.”

L.E.D. Not L.E.A.D.

Example: “Fran, who leads the group, led the meeting.”

When professional publications get the small stuff wrong, it makes us less trusting about the big stuff. Trust in media is already at an all-time low. Don’t alienate liberal arts majors and obsessive compulsives. We may be the last readers standing.

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In search of a digital town square

Ever since an infantile fascist billionaire (hereafter, the IFB) decided to turn Twitter over to the racially hostile anti-science set, folks who previously used that network daily to discuss and amplify topics they cared about have either given up on the very premise of a shared digital commons, continued to post to Twitter while holding their noses, or sought a new digital place to call their own. This post is for the seekers, to compare notes. 

These are my personal observations; your views may differ (and that’s more than okay). In this quick survey, I’m omitting specialty platforms like Tribel, Post, and Substack. Feel free to comment, if you like.

The platforms

BlueSky: The most beautifully elegant web interface. Also the best features (other than omission of hashtags). What Twitter should have become. I joined late—Jack didn’t invite me, likely a sign that I was no longer industrially relevant. I have few followers there, and my posts so far get little traction, but that could change. It’s so pretty (and the few friends that use it matter so much to me) that I keep using it, and I reserve judgement as to its future potential. https://bsky.app/profile/zeldman.bsky.social

Threads: Currently my primary alternative to Twitter, and the only place besides Twitter where my posts get at least some response. Not as visually refined as BlueSky, and with a curiously restricted single-hashtag-only policy. Although this editorial decision helps focus the mind, and likely also cuts down on spam, it interferes with amplifying multidimensional posts. But I digress.

Rough edges and restrictive tagging aside, Threads feels like the place that’s likeliest to inherit the mantle of default town square—if any social platform can do that in these new times, that is.

Threads got its huge jump start because, while the IFB was busy finding new ways to make Twitter less useful and more dangerous, Meta leveraged its huge installed Instagram base to give users a more or less instant social network hookup. If it’s easy, and comes with a built-in network of people I already follow, it wins—at least initially.

Meta may also blow their opportunity if they pursue misguided policies, such as impeding (by algorithmic fiat) “political speech” when democracies hang in the balance, regional wars threaten to become world wars, and the climate crisis is approaching a point of no return. https://www.threads.net/@zeldman

Mastodon: How do you decentralize a digital town square? Provide universal social connection without locking in participants? Mastodon (and federation generally) are an attempt to do those things.

These are important and noble goals, but Mastodon (and federation generally) are a long shot at replacing a primary walled garden like Twitter because they require a fair degree of geekery to set up, and the price tag of mass acceptance is ease of setup. (Compare Threads—easy set-up, built-in friends and followers if you already use Instagram—versus the learning curve with Mastodon.)

If BlueSky is MacOS and Threads is Windows, Mastodon is Linux: a great choice for techies, but likely too steep a hill for Ma and Pa Normie. A techie friend invited me to join, and I write there frequently, but, for whatever it’s worth, my Mastodon posts get very little in the way of responses. It is, nonetheless, a highly effective network for most who use it. https://front-end.social/@zeldman

Tumblr: A bit o’ the OG weird wacky wonderful web, and a special place for nonconformist creative types. By its nature, and the nature of its fiercely loyal users, it is a cult jam. I was an early and enthusiastic Tumblr fan, but it was never my main axe, probably because, since the dawn of time itself, I have had zeldman.com.

For a while, when the IFB first started wrecking Twitter, an uptick in Tumblr usage suggested that the funky old network just might take over as the world’s town hall, but this hope was unrealistic, as Tumblr was never about being for everybody, and Tumblristas are mostly happy keeping the platform a home for self-selecting freaks, queers, and creatives.

I’ll note that Tumblr is part of the Automattic family, and I work at Automattic (just celebrated my fifth anniversary there!), but my opinions here are mine alone. BTW—in nearly 30 years of blogging, that’s the first time I’ve used that phrase. https://apartness.tumblr.com

LinkedIn: A comparatively safe social network with a huge network built up over years, hence a great place to share work-related news and ideas.

Some early Twitter adopters of my acquaintance—especially those who mainly write about work topics like UX—have made LinkedIn their primary social home. For most working folks, it is undoubtedly a place to post and amplify at least some of the content that matters to you. OTOH, it’s not a place where I’d share deep takes on CSS (that’s probably Mastodon), cosplay (Tumblr), or personal true confessions (one’s blog, Threads, Twitter before the IFB took over). https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeldman

Twitter itself: During its heyday, before the IFB, and when it was the only game in town, I loved going there to see what clever things my smartest friends were saying, post my own bon mots, and promote content that mattered to me.

I’ll limit my comments on Twitter’s current state to noting that I still post there, from stubbornness as well as habit, and primarily in the (increasingly forlorn) hope that the IFB will eventually tire of his toy, or of the ceaseless financial hemorrhage, and go away, leaving the site to rebirth itself as an open source project or under the care of new, non-fascist owners.

Though the algorithm punishes my posts, and though I’m continually appalled by the MAGA posts, Russian disinformation, racist/ misogynist/ anti-semitic spew, and Trumpian ego of the current owner, I shall, at least for now, continue to defend my tiny turf there.

7 responses to “In search of a digital town square”

  1. L. Jeffrey Zeldman Avatar

    Psst. Comments are back. This is a test.

  2. dusoft Avatar

    I follow you on Mastodon and even when usually don’t respond to bunch of posts, I can still appreciate people being there. Since I use RSS, I get to read your posts that way usually coming to your website.

  3. Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design Avatar

    It’s nearly twenty years ago, now, children. Facebook had only recently burst the bounds of Harvard Yard. Twitter had just slipped the bonds of the…

  4. […] In search of a digital town square – L. Jeffrey Zeldman, non l’ultimo dei fessi sul web, cerca di fare il punto sullo stato dell’arte del self publishing oggi; […]

  5. […] In search of a digital town square – L. Jeffrey Zeldman, talks about the state of the art on mantaining a presence on the web today, with the available tools. […]

  6. […] In search of a digital town square (Jeffrey Zeldman) […]

  7. Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design Avatar

    Bluesky introduces open-source, collaborative moderation for federated social media websites: Bluesky was created to put users and communities in control of their social spaces online.…

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Boys! Ragu!

When you were a kid, what was a meal you always looked forward to?

Spaghetti with Ragu™ sauce. My mother did not enjoy cooking. We ate many convenience meals and enjoyed the heck out of ’em.

“Boys! Ragu!” Mom would holler from the kitchen.