Natalie Downe describes a simple approach to usability testing for those of us working to tight timescales or budgets. That’d be nearly all of us then. Learn how to make the most of your available user testing time, and perhaps this year you’ll not end up quizzing auntie as she stuffs her face with turkey.
Ross Bruniges demonstrates a way JavaScript can be used during the development phase to highlight errors in the markup as they occur. By constructing simple tests you can spot problems fast and fix them before they become an issue.
Veerle Pieters gets up close and personal with geometric patterns and presents us with a handy Photoshop technique for slicing and dicing seamless tiles. Keep your repeating geometric patterns deep and crisp and even with these simple steps.
Alicia Sedlock embodies the Ghost of Code Reviews Yet-to-Come with a call to start testing. Do you know your unit from your integration, your acceptance from your visual regression? And will you pass the ultimate Christmas test; are you naughty or nice?
Derek Featherstone contemplates the effects that the lack of CSS or JavaScript may have on your scripts. Let the spirits of Christmas past, present and future guide you so that your scripts needn’t give up the ghost in the face of adversity.
Harry Roberts prepares for Christmas by squirrelling away experiments and drafts in private Git repositories, and here he neatly explains how he puts it in his pantry with his cupcakes. Once you’ve stuffed a stocking, most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids.
Patrick H. Lauke returns our focus to accessibility, and in particular to styling sites to be usable by visitors browsing with something other than a mouse. All this, whilst still maintaining aesthetic appeal.
Jake Archibald scratches the responsive images itch with a client-side riposte to Matt Wilcox’s server-side solution. Christmas is all about giving and receiving, after all.
James Edwards takes the good stuff down off the shelf and illustrates how forms can be built to be both highly stylable and remain accessible to all comers. Good looking and accessible all at once? Surely it can’t be so.
Paul Boag challenges us to think about what makes our sites successful, which has interesting implications on how resources are spent. I once asked my aunt what makes her Christmas pud successful, and when I found out I never ate there again.
Jeremy Keith leads us gently back to the basics of progressive enhancement with a simple navigation example. Ask yourself: does Christmas need to look exactly the same in every browser? Nope. Well, as long as you’re reading 24 ways…
Geri Coady bends low the Christmas tree branches with bright and contrasting baubles. This isn’t some gaudy seasonal distraction, though. It’s responsible accessibility advice you can work with throughout the year.
Geri Coady extends goodwill to all with some insights about colour and how it impacts everyone using our sites and apps. Full of practical tips and tools, this gift keeps on giving.
Laura Kalbag stamps the snow off the boots of web accessibility, making positive cases for its foundational place in our work. Accessibility is like the washing up after dinner on Christmas Day: you could leave it to someone else, but it won’t be done right.
Anna Debenham harnesses the console browser huskies to the sled of web design and races off into the deeply forested landscape, leaving in her wake only an in-depth analysis of the new Wii U and its internet capabilities.
Drew McLellan kicks off our 2007 festive season by revisiting the thorny issue of support for alpha channel PNGs in Internet Explorer 6. Why not be charitable and lend a helping hand to those poor IE6 users? They could use some Christmas cheer.
Frances Berriman puts the sled firmly behind the reindeer with her approach to documenting feature-rich APIs. Creating good documentation needn’t be a chore and it reaps benefits – you wouldn’t expect presents at Christmas without writing your list to Santa first, would you?
Ethan Marcotte dashes through the wintry landscape, his sled of flexboxed content drawn faithfully by a team of well-ordered hierarchical HTML huskies. For when it comes to structure and presentation, we must take care not to put the sleigh before the hounds.
Amy Kapernick sings us through numerous ways of improving the robustness and reliability of our front end code with a comprehensive rundown of ideas, tools, and resources. The girls and boys won’t get any toys until all the tests are passing.
Ethan Marcotte explores methods of delivering browser-tailored CSS to uncooperative user agents if the need arises. Like the brightly coloured, ill-fitting sweater granny gave you last Christmas, there’s some styles that are only appropriate in certain company. Choose wisely, my friend.
Christian Heilmann unwraps local storage, one of HTML5’s very useful new features. Speed up web services and cache frequently accessed data or even an application’s whole interface – local storage isn’t just for Christmas.
Relly Annett-Baker turns our minds to the oft-neglected subject of website copy, and how the small things you say can have a big impact on your customers, revenues, fame, fortune and luck with the opposite sex.
Rebecca Cottrell speeds through the dark landscape of web wireframes towards the snowy slopes of early prototypes with glittering animations and transitions that show your developing product at its best.
Sibylle Weber finds ways to make our workflows more collaborative, and advocates more positively asserting the benefits of responsive design to the people who matter: colleagues and clients.