FeedCity: Matthias Ott

Matthias Ott
28 Sep 2022 • Matthias Ott

Shitty Code Prototypes

I love building prototypes. They allow me to explore and sketch ideas, test my assumptions, and try out things at an early stage to make better design decisions. Prototyping is the single best tool we have in our toolbox as designers and developers. And because anything can...

Matthias Ott
30 Aug 2022 • Matthias Ott

Better Bridges

I couldn’t agree more to what Dave wrote in his recent blog post about the increasing demands of the front-end web: the job of a front-end developer is getting ever more complex. From writing well-structured, semantic HTML to the latest (fantastic) new CSS features, to acces...

Matthias Ott
10 Aug 2022 • Matthias Ott

Foundations

Please use whatever tool gets the job done and makes sense for you.

But then again, I’ve seen so many frameworks and tools come and go that it can be dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. You know what really is time well spent and a worthy investment into your future, your career, and your team? Learning the basics and becoming really good at them.

Therefore, don’t let tools cover up weak spots in your or your team’s knowledge. Because what looks like a flaw at first glance is actually an opportunity to learn and improve.

And don’t let any tool make you believe that it isn’t worthwhile to learn the foundations of web technology or let it stop you from participating in the vital dialogue that pushes the platform and its standards forward.

Matthias Ott
28 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Detecting CSS Selector Support with JavaScript

There are many ways to adjust your CSS code to a browser’s support for a specific CSS feature. If you want to check if a certain property is supported, you can write a feature query using the @supports at-rule, for...

Matthias Ott
25 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Doing Our Part

I’m right with Dave on this one! 💚 I’m tired of environmental responsibility always falling on the consumer. I know consumer demand bubbles up into societal change, I’m willing to do my...

Matthias Ott
20 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Patch That Package

You probably know this situation. You are working on a project and one of the npm packages you are working with contains a nasty bug or is lacking a critical feature. Of course, you first head over to the repositor...

Matthias Ott
13 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Brain Dump

You know what makes it so easy for many people to just dump their thoughts into a silo like Twitter instead of writing a post on their own site?

You don’t have to come up with a title for your post.

Matthias Ott
12 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Level Up Your Headings Game

Providing a proper document outline is one of the most effective things you can do to improve the accessibility of your HTML. Like the headings of the chapters and subchapters in a book, the structure of the heading elements in our HTML should have a semantic, tree-like stru...

Matthias Ott
12 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Generating Accessibility Test Results for a Whole Website With Evaluatory

Yesterday, I shared how to test a whole website for accessibility issues with Pa11y and how to output the results as HTML. I also shared the link on Twitter, as I usually do, and Darek Kay chimed in, mentioning an alternative tool he created: Evaluatory. Just like Pa11y, Eva...

Matthias Ott
11 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Generating Accessibility Test Results for a Whole Website With Pa11y CI

This week, I’m doing an accessibility audit for a client. One of the first steps is to have a general look at the site. You can – and should – do that manually for sure, but another very useful way to get a good fi...

Matthias Ott
10 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

The CSS Cascade, a Deep Dive

The Cascade is legendary. Legendary because it is the C in CSS. Legendary in how well it works to determine which selector wins when browsers apply styles to HTML. And legendary in how little many of us really know about it. Bramus van Damme recently gave a fantastic talk ab...

Matthias Ott
09 Jul 2022 • Matthias Ott

Eleventy Plus Vite

What’s the single best thing you can do if you want to learn a new tool or evaluate a new technology? Right, it’s getting your hands dirty. Only by building something tangible, like a realistic prototype or even a real project, you’ll get immediate answers to the questions t...

Matthias Ott
29 Jun 2022 • Matthias Ott

You, a Million Times

Who should you write for? Your friends and family? Your colleagues and peers? The people you look up to? Everyone in the community? Everyone on the Internet? The answer? None of those people. You should only write for one person and one person only: you. Me? But who would r...

Matthias Ott
26 Jun 2022 • Matthias Ott

Updates About Updates

I love reading posts in which people talk about recent updates to their personal sites. It does three things: It shows the person reading your post that you care about this little corner of the Web and that it is worth doing so. It (most often) demonstrates why you picked ...

Matthias Ott
26 Jun 2022 • Matthias Ott

In and Out of Style

One of the most fascinating things about the Web is how it has evolved. By that, I don’t mean so much the mind-blowing speed of growth, but rather how the foundational languages, APIs, and browsers have been able to adapt to an ever-evolving, ever-changing environment. With ...

Matthias Ott
16 Jun 2022 • Matthias Ott

Just Put Stuff Out There

Even if you have been posting on your own site for quite some time, blogging regularly can still be challenging. Ask almost anyone who blogs and they will probably tell you the same: They would very much like to hit that publish button more often, but, somehow, it just doesn...

Matthias Ott
08 Jun 2022 • Matthias Ott

How to Delete Your Commit History in Git

Maybe you want to publish a project but don’t want everyone to see what mess you created before your initial release. Maybe you want to hand over a Git repository to a third party who should not peek into your complete git commit history. Whatever the reason, here is how you...

Matthias Ott
19 May 2022 • Matthias Ott

Unblocking Your Writing Blocks, Part 3: I Can’t Write

Maybe you are afraid to start writing because you think that you can’t write. I don’t believe that’s true. Everyone can write. You have written letters or email before, right? You are constantly writing coworkers, friends, and family text messages or are chatting on your soc...

Matthias Ott
13 May 2022 • Matthias Ott

Unblocking Your Writing Blocks, Part 2: I’m Not an Expert nor a “Thought Leader”

One of the reasons you’re not blogging on your own personal website might be that you’re thinking: “Why would people listen to what I have to say? I’m not an industry expert, after all.” I get that. You might not work for the Apples, Googles, or Microsofts out there. You mig...

Matthias Ott
03 May 2022 • Matthias Ott

Connections

I’m sitting in the ICE 205, one of the German high-speed trains, traveling back home after two days in Düsseldorf at Beyond Tellerrand, Marc Thiele’s lovely conference about design, development, the Web, and creativity in general. It was the first time I went to an in-person...

Matthias Ott
10 Apr 2022 • Matthias Ott

CSS :has( ) A Parent Selector Now

I don’t remember the exact moment anymore. But I remember that it was with a mix of disbelief and disappointment that I realized one day that there was no way to select the parent of an element in CSS. Wait, what? This can’t be. Why? Obviously, I wasn’t alone. Everyone who ...

Matthias Ott
08 Apr 2022 • Matthias Ott

Don’t Play It Like the Flute

Hans Zimmer just won an Academy Award for his musical score for “Dune,” and if you have seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack, you know why. Zimmer’s soundtrack for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel is an otherworldly masterpiece th...

Matthias Ott
13 Mar 2022 • Matthias Ott

Unblocking Your Writing Blocks, Or: Debunking the Reasons That Keep You from Writing Your First Blog Post Today.

Why is it that although we are now in the millions building and creating for the Web, only very few share their knowledge and experience on their own websites? Or, in other words: Why doesn’t every one of us have a blog? Zach Leatherman asked this question on Twitter the oth...

Matthias Ott
31 Jan 2022 • Matthias Ott

Changes – 2021 ➔ 2022

Over the first couple of days of 2022, I read a lot of year-in-review posts, like Michelle’s, Dave’s, Hidde’s, and Jeremy’s, to name a few. What a pleasure to read about such a great variety of different perspectives and realities! Thank you, everyone. In my case, last year ...

Matthias Ott
09 Aug 2021 • Matthias Ott

Turning 30

30 years ago, on August 6, 1991, a computer scientist working at CERN introduced a project to the public he had been working on for several months. The project, as he described, combined “the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful glob...

Matthias Ott
25 Jul 2021 • Matthias Ott

Starting Again (Again)

It was about the same time last year that I decided to change something. I hadn’t written and published as many posts on my site as I had wished to get done. And it was nagging me. If this site was meant to be a place of reflection and experimentation, if it was supposed to ...

Matthias Ott
21 Apr 2021 • Matthias Ott

No Wrong Notes

He played the piano like no other. Literally. When legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk sat down at the piano and started playing, he would hit the keys with his fingers held flat, almost attacking them to produce the ringing, percussive sound he was known for. His composi...

Matthias Ott
18 Apr 2021 • Matthias Ott

Play At Work

I love to watch my children play. How they invent things and stories. How they jump into roles and, just as quickly, change roles again. How they interact and react to each other’s ideas and the twists and turns of their play. Let’s cook something! Oh, we are knights now! Ca...

Matthias Ott
10 Apr 2021 • Matthias Ott

Less but Better

You know that feeling when you are leaving a movie theater after having watched a superhero movie and it almost feels as if you had superpowers yourself? I just had a similar experience, but this time with a feeling of calmness, focus, and appreciation for my surroundings. ...

Matthias Ott
06 Feb 2021 • Matthias Ott

I Will, I Should, I Might

It happened again. And I bet this has happened to you before, too. I’m talking of New Year’s resolutions. Every year we make them and tell ourselves that this time, yes, this time it is going to work, for sure. But then, suddenly, it is February, and nothing has changed. (Ex...