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A List Apart
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Responsive Images and Web Standards at the Turning Point
Responsible responsive design demands responsive images?images whose dimensions and file size suit the viewport and bandwidth of the receiving device. As HTML provides no standard element to achieve this purpose, serving responsive images has meant using JavaScript trickery, and accepting that your solution will fail for some users.
Then a few months ago, in response to an article here, a W3C Responsive Images Community Group formed?and proposed a simple-to-understand HTML picture element capable of serving responsive images. The group even delivered picture functionality to older browsers via two polyfills: namely, Scott Jehl?s Picturefill and Abban Dunne?s jQuery Picture. The WHATWG has responded by ignoring the community?s work on the picture element, and proposing a more complicated img set element.
Which proposed standard is better, and for whom? Which will win? And what can you do to help avert an ?us versus them? crisis that could hurt end-users and turn developers off to the standards process? ALA?s own Mat Marquis explains the ins and outs of responsive images and web standards at the turning point.
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Application Cache is a Douchebag
We?re better connected than we?ve ever been, but we?re not always connected. ApplicationCache lets users interact with their data even when they're offline, but with great power come great gotchas. For instance, files always come from the ApplicationCache, even when the user is online. Oh, and in certain circumstances, a browser won't know that that the online content has changed ? causing the user to keep getting old content. And, oh yes, depending on how you cache your resources, non-cached resources may not load even when the user is online. Lanyrd?s Jake Archibald illuminates the hazards of ApplicationCache and shares strategies, techniques, and code workarounds to maximize the pleasure and minimize the pain for user and developer alike. All this, plus a demo. Dig in.
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Say No to Faux Bold
Browsers can do terrible things to type. If text is styled as bold or italic and the typeface family does not include a bold or italic font, browsers will compensate by trying to create bold and italic styles themselves. The results are an awkward mimicry of real type design, and can be especially atrocious with web fonts. Adobe?s Alan Stearns shares quick tips and techniques to ensure that your @font-face rules match the weight and styles of the fonts, and that you have a @font-face rule for every style your content uses. If you?re taking the time to choose a beautiful web font for your site, you owe it to yourself and your users to make certain you?re actually using the web font ? and only the web font ? to display your site?s content in all its glory.
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Content Modelling: A Master Skill
The content model is one of the most important content strategy tools at your disposal. It allows you to represent content in a way that translates the intention, stakeholder needs, and functional requirements from the user experience design into something that can be built by developers implementing a CMS. A good content model helps ensure that your content vision will become a reality. Lovinger explains how to craft a strong content model and use it to foster communication and align efforts between the UX design, editorial, and technical team members on your project.
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Tinker, Tailor, Content Strategist
What does content strategy mastery look like? As in any field, it comes down to having master skills and knowing when to apply them. While there are different styles of content strategy (from an editorial and messaging focus to a technical and structural focus), the master content strategist must work with content from all angles: messaging architecture and messaging platforms; content missions and content management. Above all, she must advocate for multiple constituents, including end users, business users, stakeholders, and the content vision itself. Rachel Lovinger shares the skills that go into achieving CS mastery.
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