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Thoughts on the current state of the web and taking action to make itmore ethical.

The modern web often forces all developers to adhere to more and morespecifications (have you seen how long and convoluted the RFC manualis?), and lives in a world where only the companies that create thestandards can practically adhere to them.

This is bad abstraction! This process is no different from forcingeveryone who uses a technology to add specific components to theirwork rather than taking on this responsibility as the browser.

Of course, information like a robots.txt, a webpage title and thesesorts of things should be standardized and mandated by the user – butthere are lots of sensible defaults, like keyboard-navigable websites,that could be applied and later overridden by the user if they don'tlike these defaults.

Resource Usage

Resources

• Website Carbon Calculator
• This Website is killing theplanet
• go green with localfonts
• no, your clean code won't save theplanet
• energy consumption measurement of astudio. may not bethe best place for this
• low tech mag: the printedwebsite
• Web Design and Carbon Impact – Carl MH Barenbrug – Minimalissimo –Minimalism Life

Thinkpieces

Stop pushing the web forward -QuirksBlogReplacingJavaScriptThe reckless, infinite scope of webbrowsers

Web Minimalism

Size Compression

There are transpilers and minifying tools, but to best optimize forsmall websites you might as well roll your own static site generator.I've been using Python's Jinja2 template engine but I'm sure there arebetter options.

Lots of resources suggest that your site, or its critical resources atthe least, should fit in the first ten packets:

• https://www.tunetheweb.com/blog/critical-resources-and-the-first-14kb/
• https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/01/front-end-performance-checklist-2020-pdf-pages/#setting-realistic-goals
• https://tylercipriani.com/blog/2016/09/25/the-14kb-in-the-tcp-initial-window/

There are obvious performance improvements to some actions as well:

• https://blog.logrocket.com/improve-site-performance-inlining-css/
• https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/load-css-simpler/

writing css with accessibility inmind

Behavior

Stop breaking links withjavascript:: the web app should act exactly as one would expect a typical websiteto do. Back buttons should be reproduced to have consistent behavior atthe last!

Accessibility

Resources

• REact ESLint Plugin
• Picking friendly colors for error messages forPyret
• Axe-core (+Storybook a11y addon): checks rendered HTML foraccessibility; browser extensions and react integrations are bothavailable
• Spectrum:browser extension to examine how those with different color visiondeficiencies will view the application
• Tab through you application! Make sure that the tab key proceeds in anorder that makes sense. A 'skip navigation' link should appear thefirst time the 'Tab' key is pressed (a la GitHub) to enable users totab through the relevant content rather than the heading.
• Always try to zoom to 200%; many users use the web this way! The sizeshould behave in exactly the same way.
• Use a screen reader to browse. This will ensure that your semanticmarkup, interactive elements and other utilities are up to spec.
• Open content in browser reading mode; ensure that the minimum viableamount of content is available.

WCAG Standard

Text

• All non-text content must have a visible text alternative.
• Any prerecorded audio and video media must have alternativescompletely presented via text. Captions and descriptions for thesemediums must always be provided.
• Sign language interpretation is provided for all prerecorded audiocontent on synchronized media.
• Information, structure and relationships can be programmaticallydetermined via text. Tags, aria labels and semantic elements should beused to strictly define navigable websites.
• The purpose of an element must always be determined independent of thecomponent, icon or region (use names and text everywhere).
• Content does not restrict its viewing to a specific displayorientation.
• Never use color as the only means of conveying information.
• Contrast ratio is very important, and text should be resized 200%+without loss of content or functionality.

• No loss of content functionality occurs from:

  • Line height 1.5x
  • Spacing 2x
  • Letter spacing 0.12x
  • Word spacing 0.16x
  • hover on focus: can dismiss without focus

Keyboard navigable

• No keyboard trap; all available through keyboard shortcuts, alwaysremap or turn shortcut off
• No more than three flashes in one second period
• Any animation motion can be disabled
• Bypass repeated blocks of content
• Focus order preserves meaning
• Link purpose can be determined by link text alone
• More than one way to locate a web page
• Focus always visible
• Pointer gestures very important! Target at least 44x44 CSS pixels

Understandable

• Identify specific definitions used in an unusual way, jargon, idioms
• Definitions provided for all abbreviations
• Changing the setting does not change context
• Navigational mechanisms are repeated in many web pages
• Error location is identified and error described to user in text
• Labels & instructions provided for all user input

• Error prevention: legal, financial:

  • Submissions are reversible
  • Data is always checked and validated
  • Method for reviewing, confirming and correcting information beforefinalizing
• Context sensitive help is always available to the user. (What doesthis mean?)

Robustness in Context

• Parseable: properly nested, unique IDs, no duplicate attributes
• Name and role can be programmatically determined
• Status messages can be determined programmatically for assistive tech

Tips

• Episodic memory can be hard. Introduce product features gradually.
• Never divide screen into multiple actions.
• Provide clear feedback on progress or completion
• Provide reminders and alerts for habitual actions
• Do not assume anything; abbreviations, acronyms, scrolling, search,back button
• Long-form text is okay as long as attention is focused
• Font size of at least 16px.
• Always pair icons and symbols with text.
• Avoid using blue for colors and never use color to convey a message.
• Reduce the distance between sequential interface elements. Buttonsshould be at least 9.6mm diagonally for ages up to 70.
• Interface elements to be clicked with a mouse should be at least 11mmdiagonally.
• Clear, bold headings to gravitate to are vital to navigation.
• Standard treatments for links should be used as they're familiar.
• Buttons and links should all be clearly labeled and show that they'vebeen clicked; some graphic buttons can be distracting rather thaninformative, and here text is better.
• Use static menus – leading to another apge on click - rather thanwalking menus – exposing a sub menu. Sub menus should be on clickrather than hover.
• Do error pages provide a robust description to the user?
• Is there a clear site map available from every page that provides anoverview of the entire site?
• Can the page be skimmed? Is there an easy starting point? If pages aredense is it grouped?
• Is there an obvious way to increase the font size?
• Is the content written in the active voice?

Sources

Designing user interfaces for an agingpopulationW3C WCAG: Web Content AccessibilityGuidelines

• Suggested AccessibilityTechniques

Designing for theelderlysamethingAARP SiteAccessibilityISO: Accessing the WorldA myriad of accessibility testing tips, links,resources humane-tech.com

Organizations

Disroot: an organization that stands forinternet freedom and provides free services for git, hosting, mail andmany others. https://opensource.builders/: open source alternatives toyour favorite tools (Primarily web-based!) The evolution ofHTTP

web hostility

article"Facebook is at odds with the open web that I love and defend…" NetscapeNavigator (small internet) -\> big internet! The modern web is beingdestroyed – personalized content, growth hacking, social mediaactivation, CMS and user experience. These websites are not built toappreciate the visitor – they are constructed to make the user acustomer. Cookies bad! Small blogging good! what is wrong withads?

today's js

https://lea.verou.me/2020/05/todays-javascript-from-an-outsiders-perspective/article The modern web is painful. Interfacing with js and node resultsin conflicts between es and js versions, node incompatibilities,different import syntax in different circumstances, etc. it's painful.How do you import with node? without node? \ tag or not toscript? Where did the node modules go? This is a good rant of questionsand things to feature on the website.

Cont

choose boring tech. asolar protocol hosted across a network of solar poweredservers!

bootstrappable builds

http://bootstrappable.org/ on trusting trust. ken thompson talk linkedat the bottom is great, as are the other articles. great compilersliterature http://bootstrappable.org/projects.html good projects towork on this is a general build philosophy addressing the chicken andegg problem – to trust platforms, we must see how each part is producedfrom source, but we do not have access to the source of compiled codewhen we run it against the language they are compiling!