Jim Remsik

We've been working really hard on making Angular better over the past years and it's wonderful to see people from other communities noticing that 🙏 "Angular 19 is way cooler than I expected" https://lnkd.in/g4w_advY #angular #typescript #programming #webdev #webdevelopment #javascript

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This week, I came across Maggie Appleton's term "barefoot developer." The concept is as follows: non-tech folks have been pushed to learn how to code/program (e.g., doctors, teachers). These folks may not be interested or have the time to learn. On the other end of the spectrum are professional developers. In the middle are "barefoot developers" who use pre-existing software and tweak it to meet the needs of a small group. Their needs will never be fully met by commercial products nor can they hire a professional developer. The barefoot developer is the person who creates a "home-cooked" app to fill that gap. I work in a small library and fulfill this barefoot developer role. Some of my projects have included using * JotForm to develop readers' advisory tools * Coda.io to build an interface to manage book groups * Notion to create a dashboard/homescreen for book groups * Floorplanner to design 3D models to reuse elsewhere including in home-built kiosk software What do you think of this concept and are you a "barefoot developer" for your library? If yes, what projects have you been built? Read Maggie Appleton's conference notes at https://lnkd.in/eN6yjrxw

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Take good screenshots when you are doing accessibility audits. They will help the person doing the remediation identify where the problem is. But they will also help you when you go back six months down the road, or even a year later! They will help you quickly identify which area needs to be checked. A good screenshot ideally encompasses the whole viewport around the issue. Not just the problematic element. This will give context. A whole viewport screenshot also allows you to see if there’s been significant changes to the interface that indicate further assessment is required rather than just checking if a specific issue was fixed. I like to include the URL in the screenshot. Because it helps with making sure you’re in the right place. A good screenshot also uses annotations to highlight which part of the page is a problem. A good screenshot only highlights one issue at a time. If you have more than one issue on the same page, use different screenshots with different annotations. Like this screenshot of my homepage, where I highlighted the Podcast menu item in red.

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Design-to-Dev handover is historically riddled with confusion — especially for accessibility. Watching the Grammarly design team use Stark to make their product accessible is so exciting (especially as users*). *Yes, we use Grammarly to fix Stark.

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🎙️ New Podcast Episode Alert! 🎙️ Accessibility in tech isn’t just a feature; it’s a necessity. This week on the EnvisionTech Podcast, I dive into the game-changing power of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes—one of the key tools in making the web truly inclusive. 🌐 In this episode, I cover: ✅ How ARIA roles, states, and labels make navigation smoother for people using screen readers and assistive tech ✅ Real-world examples and insights on applying ARIA effectively ✅ Why accessible design benefits everyone, not just users with disabilities If you’re a developer, designer, or simply passionate about inclusivity, this episode offers practical tips to make your work more accessible. Let’s build a digital world where everyone can engage equally. Check it out and let me know your thoughts! 🎧 Listen now! YouTube: https://lnkd.in/e2Mn_e2Y Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e79W_MUE Audible: https://lnkd.in/ePUAVbfZ Amazon Music: https://lnkd.in/eciQtURv Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/e_PSy5uf #WebAccessibility #InclusiveDesign #TechForGood #Envisiontech #ARIA #Podcast #WebDev #Development #WebDevelopment #SoftwareEngineer #SoftwareEngineering #Programming #Web #Website #Accessibility #ARIARoles

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Donald Raab and I recently had a conversation about his upcoming book Eclipse Collections, Categorically, his 40 years of programming experience, and the sheer joy he still gets from writing code. Whether you’re looking to up your Java collections game, learn career or life lessons from an industry veteran, or just want to be entertained, tune in to my latest podcast episode (link to episode in the comments)

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Weekly Tech Tip #4: Test with Assistive Technologies This week, we're diving deeper into the world of accessibility testing! While writing clean and accessible code is essential, there's no substitute for real-world testing with the assistive technologies users rely on. Why Testing Matters: • Identify and Fix Issues: Even the best code can have hidden accessibility barriers. Testing with screen readers and other tools helps uncover these issues before they impact real users. • Ensures Functionality: Testing verifies that assistive technologies can properly interact with your website or app. This ensures users with disabilities can access and use all features effectively. • Improves User Experience: A website or app that works seamlessly with assistive technologies creates a smoother and more positive experience for everyone, not just users with disabilities. Tools of the Trade: • Screen Readers: These software programs convert on-screen text to speech, allowing blind and visually impaired users to navigate websites and applications. Here are some popular options to get you started: ◦ NVDA: https://www.nvaccess.org/ (Free and open-source screen reader for Windows) ◦ JAWS: https://lnkd.in/eAVXY4ys (Commercial screen reader for Windows) ◦ VoiceOver: https://lnkd.in/emU6nGui (Built-in screen reader for Apple devices) • Keyboard Navigation Testers: These tools simulate keyboard navigation to identify areas where users might get stuck or encounter difficulties using only the keyboard. Some browser developer tools offer built-in keyboard navigation testing functionalities, or you can find online testing tools. • Color Contrast Checkers: These tools help ensure sufficient contrast between text and background colors, making content readable for users with visual impairments. Here are a couple of options: ◦ https://lnkd.in/eXdHiFUW ◦ https://color.a11y.com/ Testing Tips: • Start Early and Often: Integrate accessibility testing throughout the development process, not just as an afterthought. • Test with Different Tools: Don't rely on a single testing tool. Use a combination of screen readers, keyboard navigation testers, and color contrast checkers for a more comprehensive evaluation. • Involve Users with Disabilities: Whenever possible, involve users with disabilities in your testing process. Their firsthand experience can provide valuable insights into real-world accessibility challenges. Remember: Testing with assistive technologies is an ongoing process. As you update and add new features to your website or app, be sure to retest to ensure continued accessibility. Bonus Tip: Many online resources offer tutorials and guides on accessibility testing. Take advantage of these resources to deepen your knowledge and become an accessibility testing pro! #AccessibilityTesting #InclusiveDesign #TestEarlyTestOften

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Reboot Communications And to many many friends and colleagues who have helped me refine my ideas about complexity and systems thinking, please let me know if you find this helpful and feel free to spread the url.

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If you're the kind of person who's excited about all the recent S3 feature announcements (bucket policy unlocks via temporary root sessions, up to millions of buckets per account, pagination and region filtering for ListBuckets, conditional writes, ListCallerAccessGrants API) and you're attending re:Invent, then you should come to our storage track session, STG306 Advanced security patterns on Amazon S3. Learn how to use all the exciting new stuff securely in the most interactive format available at re:Invent!

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This is a bittersweet post (more on that later) and long. When I joined The ASSISTments Foundation over 4 years ago, our platform was a hodgepodge of code and frameworks accumulated over decades. Ruby on Rails, GWT, JSP, Java, an API with no standard, and a database and data structures that had long since lost their ability to scale with the kinds of things we needed it to support. All running on a few physical servers at WPI. There was SO much work to do if we were ever going to have a foundation on which to truly innovate. Over the last few years, we’ve moved our entire infrastructure to the cloud, rebuilt the teacher experience and student experience in Vue.js from the ground up, and launched a brand new product for school admins and instructional leaders. But the last step was the biggest: we had to refactor all five of our products to use our new RESTful API (SDK 3.0), migrate terabytes of content to our new database structures and build an entirely new content management and authoring system to support everything. Plus, we wanted to include some of the first new features not possible on the old system: new item types and an alpha version of teacher authoring for our longtime ASSISTments 1.0 users. On Tuesday, after well over a year of the most complex refactoring you can imagine, the team delivered flawlessly. Even though this is not the Oscars (and I certainly am not “the winner” of this), I’m now going to go over my time limit and praise the amazing team responsible for this: First, Director of Engineering Ryan Emberling and Senior Product Manager Cindy Starks organized and managed the entire project through the many, many curve balls we were thrown and pivots we had to make, building the management systems on the fly as we figured out this herculean task, with help from Michael Weingarth owner of our district admin product. Lead Designer Kyle Scheuing, working with our Director of Content and now Product Owner Dawn Peterson designed an intuitive but amazingly powerful authoring environment that is legitimately worthy of a design award if such things were given for authoring environments. Our engineering leads, Christopher Donnelly, Joan Wong, and David Magid—along with Ryan—self-organized in true agile fashion to lead the rest of the engineering team through countless hours of analysis, architecture decisions, code review, and God-knows-what-else. And finally, our amazing engineering team: Danita Forbes-Sample, Manuel Gonsalves, Rownok Nowrose, Brian Rojas, Jaime Torres, Jose Velazquez did months and months of work rewriting vast swaths of our codebase. I am so proud of this team, and honored to be able to work with them. Their achievement has set the stage for innovation at ASSISTments for years to come. The bittersweet part of this is that I will not be with them for that journey. I will miss this team incredibly, and I hope our paths will cross again.

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What if every grant gave you an AI tool to help you apply for the grant? I built just that for North Dakota Department of Commerce's Automate ND grant. Try it out in the comments below. I walked through the AI grant tool - along wtih grant details and recommendations - in our workshop. Just comment "AI" if you want me to send you a recording.

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The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML https://buff.ly/3XDBfg6 What vital information or services are forbidden to you due to being trapped in PDFs or horrendously complicated web sites?Are you developing public services? Or a system that people might access when they’re in desperate need of help? Plain HTML works. A small bit of simple CSS will make look decent. JavaScript is probably unnecessary – but can be used to progressively enhance stuff. Add alt text to images so people paying per MB can understand what the images are for (and, you know, accessibility).Go sit in an uncomfortable chair, in an uncomfortable location, and stare at an uncomfortably small screen with an uncomfortably outdated web browser. How easy is it to use the websites you’ve created?Source: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML – Terence Eden’s Blog (https://buff.ly/3olVM57)

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A wee tip for those doing #usability testing on a system, software, or website design: Do not use your actual #design comps for testing. Create a separate mockup or prototype. Design comps are where you show what various system "states" would look like. They're where you show what different heading styles, data, page elements, and alerts would look like. Comps are where you can show everything, all at once. That's more than is needed for testing design concepts and layouts, information architecture, language, and implied functions. For usability testing, it's best to keep screens simple. Create a mockup from a set of screen shots linked to each other, or a clickable prototype (e.g., in Figma or Axure) meant solely for testing. Make sure it shows only the page elements and fake data necessary to imply the system's function. For example, if you are asking a test participant to pretend to create an account in the system, later screens could show "prefilled" fake data that confirms their prior actions. "Oh, right--I put in my name, mailing address, and email address earlier, so the system filled those in for me when I went to make a purchase." Don't show any fake data that, in your testing scenarios, wouldn't be relevant. That could distract and confuse testers and get them focused on figuring out the discrepancies rather than giving feedback that will help you refine your design. And if you have different scenarios to test--e.g., different types of users who would see very different data on the screens--create separate test prototypes, so if testers click around, they don't suddenly see things that their user type would not encounter. That would be confusing, and could limit the value of their feedback. Finally, don't skip usability testing just because it takes some preparation. It's an important step toward a successful product launch and can avoid costly missteps. Just make sure to prepare for testing in a thoughtful way that will yield the most useful feedback. Need help planning or conducting your testing? Get in touch! [email protected] or message me. #UX #Usability #UXR #Research #Product #Design

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It tickles me how folks say something today (because they run in narrow and overly-biased circles usually) as if nobody's said it before. I've been addressing how folks suppressed and ignored information architecture for YEARS!!!!! IA is at the CENTER of the user experience, due to what it produces, but many are completely unfamiliar with IA and its benefits AND many supposed educational resources barely scratch the surface on this topic, if they mention it at all. Information architecture is a critical part of user-centered design. Optimal user experiences can't be designed without it. Resharing my Tech Circus talk from 2020 — "Long Live Information Architecture."

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Last week, I gave a presentation on the Accessibility Flywheel at the Accessing Higher Ground 2024 conference. Who was this presentation for? If you have ... - Huge PDF/document remediation backlogs - Creators who don't take responsibility of the accessibility of their content - A lot of rework, addressing accessibility at the end - Tools that don't make accessibility easy Download the presentation and learn how you can build a flywheel that creates momentum with accessibility. 🚀 https://lnkd.in/eXpffjDu #Accessibility #PDF

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Matt Watson, this is a really insightful post with a strong foundation in cutting edge use cases, which is exactly where businesses thrive in a fast-moving market. I agree that clients prioritize communication and ownership over code elegance. That said, there's a case to be made for the role of 'beautiful code'—not for the client, but for the engineers. As products mature and stabilize, maintaining clean, well-structured code can make it much easier for engineering teams to iterate, onboard new talent, and stay adaptable to evolving customer needs. Refactoring as part of the R&D cycle can keep costs manageable and ensure your team remains productive long-term. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on how they have balanced this in practice! #CTO #Leadership #TechStrategy

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You're probably splitting stories too late! If you're waiting until Sprint Planning to split stories....you're definitely splitting stories too late. To learn when you should be splitting stories, check out this short video: https://lnkd.in/gX6crvtx

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