Links, October 4, 2024

Sanding UI

It’s kind of a QA tactic in a sense, just click around and try to break stuff. But I like to think of it as being more akin to woodworking. You have a plank of wood and you run it through the belt sander to get all the big, coarse stuff smoothed down. Then you pull out the hand sander, sand a spot, run your hand over it, feel for splinters, sand it some more, over and over until you’re satisfied with the result.

While this piece is about the details, it touches on something I’ve said a lot: interface design is about feel. No amount of automated testing or detailed mockups can substitute for what the human hand knows instinctively. That the web has turned everyone into an interface designer hasn’t helped anything.

Related: I enjoyed this podcast (something I rarely say) about the design of the new Camera Control button on the iPhone 16. I’m still using an iPhone 12 and am not planning to upgrade anytime soon, but anyone who thinks Apple’s fanbase is deceived by marketing should listen to this (they won’t, but hey), as it offers a lot of insight into things like, for example, why people would prefer to pay for something like Affinity Design instead of using the free, open source, and subjectively way clunkier Inkscape.

I immersed myself in furry culture. You don’t understand them

Despite harboring a slight sense of hesitance toward furries — perhaps confusion is the better word — my opinion changed after seeing the arm of the state leveled at a group of kids. Kids, who, while I might have considered them cringeworthy, just want to kick it with their friends who understand them — kids who like animals and might not like themselves. I wanted to see for myself: Do these people deserve animal control?

I’m telling you, loud and clear: no.

Our times call for understaning and solidarity, and this piece makes a great case for both on a group I’ve always felt vaguely uncomfortable with despite the knowledge that I probably shouldn’t be.

To Forget is an Ethical Act

Twitter users had a preternatural ability to infer context that was never present in a post. They’d assume the worst possible intention, they’d latch onto an extremely common and benign turn of phrase and then just destroy you over it. Everyday people logged onto the timeline looking for blood and if they didn’t find it they would create it themselves. The worst part of it was the self-certain belief that in doing so they were engaged in a legitimate and effective form of activism.

From when I joined twitter in 2006 to about 2010 or so, the site felt like a party line for text messages. After it started catching on, it felt like every post had to be crafted similarly to a sound bite. A recent experience really hammered this home.

This piece is great for many other reasons — Emily delves into personal reflection & growth, cultural significance, and what bringing the joy back could look like.

Multi-factor panacea

Last one about the Software Supply Chain thing, I promise:

Because tech industry companies still don’t want to pay for the work they build on top of–with either their time or their money–they impose requirements on those strangers to attempt to protect themselves from a proxy for the threat, with zero cost to themselves. Those strangers have every right not to participate; it wasn’t what they signed up for back then. Any access to their work you had was a gift.

Web Components are not Framework Components — and That’s Okay

WCs primarily benefit the use case of generalizable elements that extend HTML, and are still painful to use for reactive templating. Fundamentally, it’s about the ratio of potential consumers to authors.

A good response to the piece I linked last week about Web Components, this quote in particular tracks.

Your Name in Landsat

I’ve always loved satellite imagery.