Why Your Menu Shouldn’t Match Your Org Chart
I just thought of the perfect (and very obvious in retrospect) example to help explain why nonprofit website menus should never match their org charts.
Usability
Information Cascades and Bad Website Decisions
Why do people put bad design elements and features on their websites? Information cascades are a good way to think about it.
22NTC Field Notes: Day 2
Today included three really fun community conversations—the “hallway track” of this online conference—and then a lot of sessions about including stakeholders in technology projects, usability testing, and the combination of the two!
Celebrating My Accomplishments in 2021!
I always tell my clients that they need to celebrate their victories. So it’s time to follow my own advice. Building off my site launches from last year, I wanted to quickly recap some of the other exciting things I did and built in 2021.
On CSS Tricks: In Praise of the Unambiguous Click Menu
I just had another post published on the CSS Tricks blog! This one shares why click-triggered submenus are better than ones that appear on hover, complete with diagrams and a demo!
The Limits of the Web’s Width
A website’s design determines the width of text and, subsequently, how easy it is to read. That limit and the lack of “solutions” means filling a wide browser screen is nearly impossible. But maybe that’s ok.
WordPress 5.0 is Not Ready
WordPress 5.0 contains a massive change to content editing. Without working through a systematic review of what’s been built, I don’t know how anyone can be sure that it is ready for release. The project needs more time and public validation that it’s ready.
8 Reasons Not to Use a Slideshow for Your Nonprofit Website
Slideshows aren’t the new, hip things they used to be, and they never should have been! Now is time to cut the cord on your nonprofit website’s home page slideshow.
No Justification: Don’t Use Right, Center, and Full Justification on the Web
Last week’s post on formatting in WordPress makes way to this in-depth discussion of a simple topic: text alignment. In nearly every case, don’t do it!
A WordPress Formatting Manifesto
I recently released the MRW Web Design Simple TinyMCE plugin for WordPress. It’s a plugin that came directly out of the work I do to serve clients and make using WordPress as easy as possible. In this post, I want to share how I made the final decisions for what buttons I removed from the default WordPress editor, and provide a framework for what it means to format content well on the web.
Open Letter: Gravity Forms 1.9 Placeholder and Label Settings Mean More Inaccessible Forms
One of my very favorite WordPress plugins, Gravity Forms, is making a mistake with the implementation of two new form field settings. But it’s not too late to change it!
Why I Still Underline Links [link]
What’s so bad about blue underlined links anyway?
Following Best Practices Doesn’t Have to Be Ugly
Many websites and interfaces will have you failing this short pop quiz. That’s their fault and not yours.
Just Because You Can…
You probably know the phrase and how it ends. Sadly, not all web developers who build website tools have users’ best interests in mind (or at least they didn’t stop to think about all of them). It’s up to us all to avoid using common and popular features that shouldn’t be.
Messing with Expectations and UI. Feedback Needed!
I need some quick feedback. I’m releasing a major update to a plugin and I’ve made a simple tweak to the settings form. Will it help or will it hurt? You tell me.
What are We To Do About Hover Drop Down Menus?
Hover-triggered drop down menus have long been the standard, but they come with loads of problems that have emerged over time. It’s time to drop them and move to something better.