📝 Issue #448: Why Do We Interface? Biden-Harris Logo, Exciting New Tools for Designers, 5 Most Annoying Website Features For a Blind Person, and more…

In Why Do We Interface? Ehsan Noursalehi takes an in-depth look at the history of interfaces, and how they allow us to redefine human experience. Exploring questions surrounding technology, information design, and user interface design, it’s an intriguing essay that asks how designers can shape the future.

While all professional web designers acknowledge the need for inclusivity and an accessible web, not all understand what that means, or implement it on their sites. Holly Tuke explains the five most annoying inaccessible web elements she faces as a blind person, and offers simple guidance on how to fix them.

Tired of expensive calls to remote servers and UX-destroying cookie notices, just to see who’s visiting your site? Umami is a free, self-hosted, open source alternative to established choices like Google Analytics. It’s a simple-to-use basic set of data that provides all the insights most websites will ever need.

As the US gears up for the most passionately contested election since the last one, Jonathan Hoefler writes about his process for his part in designing the Biden-Harris logo. The short post includes some fascinating detail on the challenges of designing for politics, or any time the client’s name is unknown.

Every month we put together an awesome collection of the most exciting new tools for web designers and developers, that we’ve found on the web in the previous four weeks. We published August’s edition this week, and in it you’ll find apps, scripts, a UI kit, free icons, and as always some great free fonts.

CleverTap’s Emotion Detection and Analysis Tool uses AI to identify the words in your text that generate emotion and engage users. You can analyse up to 40 words, and the free tool will identify those that boost, have no effect, or detract from anticipation, trust, joy, surprise, and fear of missing out.

Boost your design skills and learn practical insights from industry experts. Smashing Online Workshops cover UX, design, and dev topics, and are 2.5 hour sessions spread over weeks. Or maybe you’d prefer an Online Conference with practical talks and interactive sessions, Smashing have four in the coming months. Use the links for a smashing $50 off! Meow!

It’s possible to build a membership business into a thriving self-funding community, but it isn’t easy. Armando Dela Cruz looks at the process of growing your audience, shares stories of entrepreneurs who’ve made a success of the model, and discovers that a smaller following may actually be beneficial.

For many developers, open source contributions are a career-goal; the opportunity to work with accomplished colleagues on altruistic projects, and be treated as a professional equal. But when Benjamin Schachter decided to fix a single line of CSS in a project he found it was a lot harder than he expected.