Now that I’m running iOS 13 on my new iPhone, I’ve installed the Corona Warn App.
Feeds from people participating at the IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf, May 2025.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Lateral Thinking With Withered Technology
One evening in the late 1970s, an engineer from Kyoto was riding home on the Shinkansen, when he recognized the man sitting next to him playing around with his LCD calculator, punching buttons in boredom. The engineer, who worked at a toy and gaming company, had an idea: Wha...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
The Idea Machine
I used to dream of a magical machine. It was about as big as a microwave, all silver metal (with rivets, of course), and it had little knobs, lamps, and indicators everywhere. On the left, there were two buttons: One was green and the other one red. On the right, the machine...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Hell Yeah or No
Derek Sivers just published a new book. It is called “HELL YEAH OR NO” and you can get it on Derek’s website. Having enjoyed Derek’s blog articles and podcast a lot, buying his book, which also includes an audio version, was a no-brainer for me. Derek is a musician, producer...
📄 New Macbook Keyboard
Recently, I had my Mac’s keyboard replaced. Because, unsurprisingly, I started having regular double-types, which got increasingly annoying. Luckily, Apple acknowledges the problem and offers a free repair program.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Progressive
Ethan Marcotte wrote this on Twitter on Monday:
Nostalgia for the heyday of web design has to be balanced with the knowledge that much of what we did “in the old days” was woefully, thoroughly...
📄 Last Week's Purchases
Last week was unusually purchase-rich for me, buying three new items.
🔗 August 2019 – Daniel Pietzsch’s Photo Journal
📷 “August 2019” is now up in the Photo Journal: https://photojournal.danielpietzsch.com/2019/August. 📷
Desperately trying to catch up… ;-)
A family gathering near Brussels, commuting photos and the usual documentation.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Their Fault
It is clearly their fault.
The clients just don’t get design.
The designers only care about how it looks.
The developers have no sense for aesthetics.
CSS is broken.
The users are just too stupid.
It is clearly their fault. Is it, though?
Whenever we struggle or ...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Always at Your Service
Jeremy Keith and the team at Clearleft have started a new podcast. In each episode, they are looking at a different theme related to design, development, and beyond. The first episode covered design systems and was already very worthwhile. But I especially enjoyed the latest...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Wicked Design
Problems come in two flavors. There are the problems we know how to solve, or at least know that there is a solution to them. Like mathematical equations, for example, or beating another chess player in five moves. For those problems, the mission is clear. And then, there ar...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Scrolling Elements Into View
Although you should not mess with scrolling unless it is really necessary, scrolling an element into view is something that is needed from time to time. In my case, I recently wanted to scroll to the top of a table after a user clicked on the pagination underneath the table....
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Useless Is Useful
Much like every other weekend, I spent several hours cleaning the apartment this Sunday. Although I enjoyed the result of it, I had always looked at cleaning as a tedious task. Yet, I have come to enjoy it over the last few years. This is because I have started to listen to ...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Fear
I knew it would happen again. The fear. The tunnel vision. The blackout.
Only a few seconds left. I don’t want to be here.
“Next is Matthias, who will play the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 for us.”
Applause!
I can’t think straight. The tunnel vision is here...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
The New Urgency of Climate Change
The COVID-19 crisis has temporarily shifted our attention away from the most pressing and life-threatening of all challenges: Climate change. But while we – at least in Europe and other parts of the world with responsible leadership – are on a flattening curve, the issue of ...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Don’t Assume, Validate.
As we gain more and more experience in building digital products, we tend to think ever so often that we already know what a good solution looks like and how people will use our design. But that’s not true. Far too often, we are assuming that things work in a certain way or ...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Necessity Is the Ultimate Teacher
Remember that thing you wanted to learn? You know what I mean. That thing that keeps on nagging in the back of your head. That thing that comes to mind now and then and reminds you that there are so many things that you could explore. You know it would be interesting and, al...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
TeamOps
Ethan Marcotte just wrote a great piece about design systems and how the promise that design systems would hugely improve collaboration between designers and developers never really materialized. Many teams are still working in silos, which means there is a clear separation ...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
One Egg
The kids wanted pancakes. But there was only one egg left. Usually, I use four eggs to make pancakes. But the kids wanted pancakes. So I made pancakes. With only one egg.
They turned out delicious.
Sometimes, one egg is enough.
Sometimes, you should just try although the conditions seem less than ideal.
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This is the 32nd post of my 100 days of writing series. You can find a list of all posts here.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Thoughts on Writing: Read It Out Loud
For me, 2020 started with a few posts about writing. I had read and listened to a lot of material on writing and wanted to share some of the things I had learned about how other writers approach writing as a craft, a process, and a passion. So I wrote posts about shitty firs...