If you’re riding through the suburbs in a train, you might recognize that houses usually come in two flavors. For one, there are the townhouses: Tightly packed, not too large, repeatable, convenient. And then there are the individual single-family homes which come in all for...
When you are developing a statement about something, this advice can be useful: If you can turn the statement into the opposite and it sounds like the most ridiculous thing on earth, chances are that your original statement isn’t that distinctive.
For example, if you were t...
I spent the last days of 2018 listening to an amazing podcast: Stephen Fry’s Great Leap Years brilliantly tells the story of the evolution of information technology throughout human history – from Johannes Gutenberg inventing the printing press to Alexander Graham Bell and h...
We all know that we should backup our data regularly and ideally with some sort of backup strategy but let’s be honest: Many of us don’t. Over the years, I got a bit better, but after listening to one of the highly recommended episodes of the (mainly German) Working Draft po...
I have a confession to make. I’ve become utterly terrible at finishing books, especially non-fiction. I once even published a list of books I will definitely maybe read one day. The reasons why I don't finish them are manifold: For one, there is always some work to do that s...
I recently listened to an interesting episode of the podcast “The Design of Business | The Business of Design”, in which Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut talked with Mariana Amatullo, who teaches strategic design and management at Parsons School of Design at The New School...
This morning, I read a tweet by Dave Rupert that made me smile:
Hey, Internet. My son loves drawing. This is great. My house is filled with 1000s of pieces of paper tho. This is not so great. Has anyone converted a ~...
Yesterday, I shared some advice by Seth Godin from an interview with Chase Jarvis. Today, I’ll do the same again, but not because I’m lazy (at least not this time) but because I think it’s a great follow up and just as actionable and useful advice.
It goes like this: Wheneve...
Last weekend, I listened to a highly interesting episode of the Chase Jarvis Live Show, a podcast featuring interviews with creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs. The episode’s guest was Seth Godin and as you might expect, he dropped a lot of knowledge and good advice. And...
Recently, I read two posts within a few days that both resonated a lot with me. The topic of both pieces was the same: Writing. Or more specifically, writing on your own site. The first piece, “Just write.”, is by Sara Soueidan and if you haven’t read the article, I highly e...
Prototyping has been captivating me for quite some time now. Since 2012, I teach Interface Prototyping at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, Germany and especially over the last few years, I could watch prototyping slowly attracting more and more atten...
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The Illusion of Control
We have a problem. And ...
Edit on 09-04-2022: This article is quite old and I have since realized that the conclusion I draw in the article was wrong. The upsides of using EMs as the unit in your media queries, especially in terms of accessibility, far outweigh the one downside I described in the pos...
In all of the posts I published on my site so far, I’ve never shared a single line of code. But since this is going to change with the next article on pattern libraries, I spent a little time over the weekend implementing syntax highlighting for my posts. I settled on Lea Ve...
CSS Grid is here and I bet you also heard that it's a game changer that could once more completely change the way we approach web layout.
A New Kid on the Block
The new layout module is a great achievement for all people involved in the process and also the fast implementati...
Once more, net neutrality is under attack. This founding principle of the open web guarantees that all data packages are treated equally – regardless of content or the amount of money you pay your service provider. Net neutrality keeps the internet open and uncensored and by that fosters freedom of speech and an exchange of ideas.
Today, 12 July, is the internet-wide day of action to save net neutrality. And we all have a voice and a responsibility to stop this threat to the open web.
When we design and build things for the web, it’s tempting to fall into the trap of doing things the We-have-always-done-it-that-way™. And this doesn't necessarily have to be our fault alone. We are all part of project teams and work environments that shape our perception of...
Despite the proclaimed death of RSS I know a lot of people who still love to read their feeds on a daily basis. So feeds are definitely here to stay and providing your readers with different ways of consuming your content is also an important part of a website, especially if...
This is the second article of a two-part series on digital citizenship. Part one was all about online privacy and how to protect it, this second part focuses on how we can build and promote tools that enable an open, independent, and resilient web.
“I need your clothes, your...
This is the first article of a two-part series on digital citizenship. Part one is about online privacy and how to protect it, the second part focuses on how we can build and promote tools that enable an open, independent, and resilient web.
Invasion of the Data Snatchers
Gl...
As we are moving from pages to patterns when creating and documenting websites and other digital design systems, pattern libraries are becoming increasingly popular. Ethan Marcotte, who famously coined the term responsive web design, recently published a nice little piece ab...
Today, I added a basic weighted search to this site. You can find it here and in the footer below. Providing a search functionality is one of the pillars of an IndieWeb site, mainly because it offers improved access to the content you create and own on your site. But: Search...
Tantek Çelik wrote a post in 2015 called “js;dr = JavaScript required; Didn’t Read.”. It was about a fundamental problem regarding sites that depend on JavaScript for rendering content: Indexability. Although search engines got much much better at indexing JS, it still remai...
It’s that time of year when most people publish their „books I have read“ articles. Tim for example, and also Jeremy. I for myself am what you could call a book taster. There are a lot of books on my shelves that I started reading but somehow never finished. But this year th...
In May 2016, I flipped the switch for the redesign of this site. My last site was never updated once it was online, so I wanted to do things differently this time. Inspired by numerous people who use their web presence to share and promote their thoughts and ideas, I decided...
Once again, beyond tellerrand, a great conference about design, development, and all things web, took place in the cold November air of Berlin. After walking over from Bahnhof Friedrichstraße to the Admiralspalast, an historical theater opened in 1910, where the spirit of th...
Do you remember when you wrote your first line of HTML? Watching my students sweat blood while I introduce them to the basics of HTML and CSS always reminds me of my teenage self, learning the ropes of HTML back in the 1990s. Although I loved to fiddle around with my compute...
Lately, I travelled to Düsseldorf and attended the IndieWebCamp and also beyond tellerrand, a conference about design, development, and all things web. I’ll say it plain: If you never have been at a conference, you should go. If you never have been at beyond tellerrand, you ...
Far too long, we have thought of web projects like rocket launches: You plan, design, and build the thing, maybe you train people how to steer it, and most of all you sweat blood only to be prepared on that magical date: launch day. That one decisive moment when yo...
