Zeldman on Web & Interaction Design » The Essentials

Poachers, when caught stealing content from our website, always blamed the theft on an “intern” or “freelancer.” We always pretended to believe them. The post Ah yes, the famous “inte...

https://zeldman.com/2024/05/22/ah-yes-the-famous-intern-did-it-syndrome/

Why did leading designers in 2000 look down their nose at the web? And are things any better today? The post This Web of Ours, Revisited appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design...

https://zeldman.com/2024/04/19/this-web-of-ours-revisited/

The bots who shit in your sandbox are bigger, brassier, and better than ever! The post Akismet means never having to say you’re sorry appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design ...

https://zeldman.com/2024/04/09/akismet-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry/

A business world with deeply misguided priorities—exemplified by horror stories from the worlds of tech, gaming, and entertainment—accounts for much worker unhappiness and customer frustratio...

https://zeldman.com/2024/04/01/our-lady-of-perpetual-profit/

Fortunately, on that day, I allowed a strong, simple idea to penetrate my big, beautiful wall of assumptions. The post “Where the people are” appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interacti...

https://zeldman.com/2024/03/02/where-the-people-are/

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...

https://zeldman.com/2024/02/21/in-search-of-a-digital-town-square/

Knowledge management (KM) is the process of organizing, creating, using, and sharing collective knowledge within an organization.  Unlock and unblock For companies, institutions, and projects s...

https://zeldman.com/2024/01/22/knowledge-management-for-the-win/

Examining last week’s Verge-vs-Sullivan “Google ruined the web” debate, author Elizabeth Tai writes: I don’t know any class of user more abused by SEO and Google search than the writer. W...

https://zeldman.com/2023/11/10/algorithm-blues/

Posted here for posterity: Design kickoff meetings are like first dates that prepare you for an exciting relationship with a person who doesn’t exist. The post Design Kickoff Meetings appear...

https://zeldman.com/2019/11/17/design-kickoff-meetings/

TEACHING is a great way to find out what you know, and to connect with other human beings around a shared passion. It’s an energy exchange as well as an information one, and the energy and info...

https://zeldman.com/2019/04/29/on-teaching-plus-monday-links/

THIS year’s Poynter Digital Newspaper Design Challenge was an attempt by several designers and pundits, working and thinking in parallel, to save real news via design. In Part 1 of my report f...

https://zeldman.com/2017/02/06/readable-branded-design/

SORRY. I disagree. Nonsemantic classnames that refer to visual styles will always be a bad idea. I’m sure you’re a good coder. Probably much better than I am these days. I know most of you we...

https://zeldman.com/2017/01/03/kiss-my-classname/

IN a world where newspapers are dying and half the public believes fake news, what online news experiences need is design that is branded, authoritative, and above all, readable: Branded, because...

https://zeldman.com/2016/12/19/save-real-news/

A few years ago, my Swedish friend Peyo cofounded a start-up that brought affordable solar power to rural villages in India—profoundly poor villages where, until that time, folks had relied on ...

https://zeldman.com/2016/11/07/climate-change-swedish-hip-hop/

MESMERIZED as we have been by the spectacle of the flaming garbage scow of U.S. election news, it would have been easy to miss this other narrative. But in the past few days, just as Google, AT&T...

https://zeldman.com/2016/10/30/private-parts-unlikely-advocate-fights-for-online-privacy-anonymity/

2006 DOESN’T seem forever ago until I remember that we were tracking IE7 bugs, worrying about the RSS feed validator, and viewing Drupal as an accessibility-and-web-standards-positive platfo...

https://zeldman.com/2016/09/22/ten-years-ago-on-the-web/

AS MY design career has taken on more and more strategic and managerial freight, I’ve done less and less hands-on design. This year, I decided to change that. As part of my reimmersion, I found...

https://zeldman.com/2016/03/18/14027/

Mobile is today’s first screen. So design responsively, focusing on content and structure first. Websites and apps alike should remove distractions and let people interact as directly as possib...

https://zeldman.com/2015/12/24/the-year-in-design/

The world has finally caught up with Been, Inc. Three years ago, this tiny start-up company shared my studio space in New York. Their product idea was remarkably original: instead of passively ac...

https://zeldman.com/2015/12/19/ad-blocking-phase-ii/

Ethan Marcotte’s Responsive Design: Patterns and Principles and Karen McGrane’s Going Responsive are now available in our A Book Apart store. The post Responsive times two: essential new ...

https://zeldman.com/2015/11/18/responsive-times-two-essential-new-books-from-ethan-marcotte-karen-mcgrane/