October 30, 2023 — Passkeys are beginning to make their way into popular apps, from password managers to multi-factor authenticators, but what exactly are they? As this new technology promises to make passwords a thing of the past, Neal Fennimore explains the concepts behind passkeys, demonstrates how they work, and speculates what we might expect from them in the future. Read more…

October 27, 2023 — Victoria Johnson began a career in front-end development upon graduating from college. Now, roughly one year later, she reflects back on the decisions she made to crack into the field and find her first full-time job. This is her story, and she’s sharing it to provide those who are just starting out with another beginner’s perspective. Read more…

October 26, 2023 — Inuit (short for “Interface Usability Instrument”) is a new questionnaire you can use to assess the usability of your user interface. It has been designed to be more diagnostic than existing usability instruments like, e.g., SUS and for use with machine learning, all the while asking fewer questions than other questionnaires. This article explores how and why Inuit has been developed and why we can be sure that it actually measures usability, and reliably so. Read more…

October 24, 2023 — Having access to a free reporting tool like Lighthouse in DevTools is a great start for diagnosing performance issues by identifying bottlenecks on the main thread. Even better are paid tools like SpeedCurve to dig deeper into the data for more targeted insights and to produce visual reports to help make a case for performance improvements for your team and other stakeholders. Read more…

October 23, 2023 — Removing properties from an object in JavaScript might not be the most exciting job, but there are many ways to achieve it, each revealing a fundamental aspect of how JavaScript works. Juan Diego Rodríguez explores each technique in this article. Read more…

October 20, 2023 — WCAG 2.2 officially became a “W3C Recommended” web standard on October 5, 2023, and with it, new success criteria and changes to existing guidelines for accessible user experiences. What are the changes, and how can you conform to them? This roundup provides links to WCAG 2.2 explainers that have been published or updated since the release. Read more…

October 20, 2023 — Finding the right typeface is tricky as a whole. Dividing the process into steps and having the right information at hand will make this journey a design adventure full of surprises. To avoid sinking into unnecessary details, use this guide as a map for your path. Review various font paraments and learn how to apply them to your designs. Read more…

October 18, 2023 — CSS loaders and progress indicators are some of the most widely used examples in tutorials and documentation. In this article, Preethi demonstrates an approach using animated custom properties, a conic gradient, CSS offset, and emoji to create the illusion of a scooter racing along a donut track. Read more…

October 17, 2023 — In today’s Smashing Podcast episode, we’re talking about Tech Unions. What part can unions play in a modern tech workplace? Drew McLellan talks to Ethan Marcotte to find out. Read more…

October 16, 2023 — In the final part of this two-part series on solving headaches when working with media files in Gatsby projects, Juan Rodriguez demonstrates strategies and techniques for handling various types of documents, including Markdown files, PDFs, and 3D models. Read more…