My Notebook :: Page 59 :: Aaron Gustafson

The Problem with Progressive Enhancement

Saved on: 06 Jan 2016

Alex Lande doesn’t believe optimizing for a no-JavaScript scenario makes sense, but he does believe in building a robust web experience pays huge dividends.

Progressive enhancement is a tool that will help you build faster, tougher sites. It is an investment in the strength and quality of your application. It will make your users happy because the app will still work, if imperfectly. It might just save you when disaster strikes, and if you’re interested in building the best websites possible, you should give it some thought.

Eloquently put.

Affirming User Choice with Checkboxes

Posted on: 06 Jan 2016
Filed Under: forms web design accessibility

“Checkbox” form controls have long been a part of software. They enable users to provide a simple binary response—yes or no. On the Web, we often see them in two scenarios: confirmations and multiple choice.

Strategies for Website Accessibility, for Ecommerce

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

Accessibility is just good customer service. If you run an commerce shop, you should be following this article’s advice. Heck, if you run any kind of site, you should do it.

Accessibility Advocacy and Pragmatism

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

Some very interesting thoughts about accessibility advocacy from Pratik Patel.

“Learn More” Links: You Can Do Better

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

“Learn More”/“Read More” has definitely inherited the mantle of “Click Here”. Do your users a favor and write descriptive link text. It’s really not that hard.

Updated WebGL Benchmark Results

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

If you’re into this kind of thing…

Joomla 3.4.6 Fixes Zero-Day Remote Execution Bug Used in the Wild

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

I harp on this a lot: You can never trust the client (as in “the browser”). In this case, Joomla was not sanitizing User Agent strings before storing them in the database, opening a garage door-sized security hole.

Progressive Enhancement only a client side thing? No!

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

There are lots of places the progressive enhancement mindset can be put into practice. Of course you do often control the server, so a particular feature being unavailable isn’t usually an issue, but good open source software looks for alternative tools—ImageMagick vs. GD, for example—and adjusts it’s program accordingly.

Turner & Google Vets Create New Content Technology

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

Some semi-locals (ATL is only 2 hours from Chatty) look to be taking on the likes of ReadSpeaker (who I’ve worked with on Web Standards Sherpa) in the automated HTML-to-spoken-word automation space. If SpeakPage can pull it off, this has some real potential.

Photo upload and progressive enhancement for FixMyStreet

Saved on: 21 Dec 2015

An excellent overview of progressively enhancing image uploads in what many would call a “web app”. See also this great writeup they did on their progressively enhanced maps.

Dispatches From The Internets