Web Dev Notes gets back to its roots: building community, giving a platform to new voices, and getting people excited about the web. We’re making changes to the way we work—starting with our decision to open-source the code that powers vpsbm.com itself—and we want you to participate. Our Mat Marquis invites you to contribute code and concepts via GitHub, get to know our acquisition scouts, and use ALA and its editors to share your ideas and insights with the whole web design and development community.
When you write about your work, it makes all of us smarter for the effort, including you. Done well, this kind of sharing means you’re contributing signal, instead of noise. But writers are made, not born. We often hear from people who say they’d love to write for Web Dev Notes or start blogging, but don’t know where to start. They feel unfocused and overwhelmed by the task. If this is beginning to sound like you, read on, as Sally Kerrigan walks you through how writing works, and how you can get better at it.
Designers are good people. Some designs exclude people anyway. Alan Dalton offers a practical fix: accessibility personas that help you recognize problems while you're designing, not after. Homework included.
Computing was born in a Viennese café. Between 1928 and 1934, while Hitler plotted and Europe crumbled, a motley crew of mathematicians, philosophers, architects, and economists gathered weekly to puzzle out the limits of reason—and invented Computer Science in the process. What made their collaboration possible wasn't just brilliance (though they had plenty). It was amiability: the careful design of a social space where difficult people could disagree without destroying each other. Longtime Web Dev Notes contributing author Mark Bernstein mines this forgotten history for lessons that might just save today's embattled web from its worst impulses. Spoiler: it involves better coffee service and the looming threat of public humiliation.
Design systems aren't component libraries—they’re living languages. Rigid adherence to visual rules creates brittle systems that break under contextual pressure. Fluent systems bend without breaking.
Having both a Design Manager and a Lead Designer on the same team is beautiful, but can be messy. To make it work without creating confusion, overlap, or “too many cooks,” check Michel Ferreira’s Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership.
Building towards bedrock means sacrificing some short-term growth potential in favour of long-term stability. But the payoff is worth it: products built with a focus on bedrock will outlast and outperform their competitors, and deliver sustained value to users over time. Liam Nugent shows us how.
At a time when budgets for user experience research seem to have reached an all-time low, how do we get stakeholders and executives alike invested in this crucial discipline? Gerry Duffy walks us through how the research we conduct is much like telling a compelling story, complete with a three-act narrative structure, character development, and conflict resolution—with a happy ending for researchers and stakeholders alike.
Web Dev Notes founder and web design OG Zeldman ponders the moments of inspiration, the hours of plodding, and the ultimate mystery at the heart of a creative career.
