Web Captions 4 – Final Styling Recommendations

After exploring history, what formats the web natively supports, basic UX content principles, and what actually works cross-browser, it’s time to talk about my final caption styling recommendations. What You Should Do In Your VTT file First, start with a VTT file. Make sure the text is accurate to the content presented. Make sure it […]

Landscape with Torii and deer (1900–1910) by Ohara Koson. Original from The Rijksmuseum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

UI is UX, UX isn’t UI

For those who don’t know, there is a classic confusion among the term UX and UI. User experience (or UX) is streamlining how people move through intent. Business goals are often added alongside this flow. User interface (or UI), is commonly where a user moves through that flow. User interface is commonly visual in nature, […]

Kleine Welten V (Small Worlds V) (1922) print in high resolution by Wassily Kandinsky. Original from The MET Museum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

UI is an Abstraction

Just a small thought, but I think an important one for this week. Have you ever thought about why we use apps, websites, and devices? It’s not because we like it – it’s because UI is an abstraction. We need to know if someone needs something from us. We want to let a company know […]

Daughter in a Rocker (1917–1918) painting in high resolution by Henry Lyman Sayen. Original from the Smithsonian Institution. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

You Don’t Need College?

Taking a quick break from my web captions series as I work through bug review with Mozilla, and also happen to be on kid duty this evening. I wanted to share a bit about my journey as a designer to encourage those that either may not have the resources for college, don’t want student debt, […]

Head of a rabbit (1821) drawing in high resolution by Jean Bernard. Original from the Rijksmuseum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Web Captions 3 – Caption Styling Challenges

You’ve learned how the industry uses captions, now let’s take a look at browser defaults and spec compliance to see what’s even possible to style. Here we go! What Browsers Do By Default Web captions render very differently from OS-to-OS and browser-to-browser. I’ve tested what rendering looks like on the latest versions of everything: MacOS […]

Sumi-e of Cherry Blossoms: Sakura Collections from the Library of Congress

Incredibly Useful Online Tools

There are so many incredibly useful online tools on the web these days, just lying around for free. And with CSS Tricks recently posting an article about lots of the neat helper sites, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite online resource as well, that help me (and others) design at warp speed. […]

Extra Articles and Visitors to the Exhibition (185) by Richard Doyle. Original from The MET Museum. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Design Hacks – More Color Hacks

Last time in the series, I highlighted some really nice hacks others shared to up your color game. This time, I’d like to share a few of my own design color hacks for UI design. Avoid Intense Neutrals Just because white on black is the best contrast you can get and great for web-to-print, some […]