Note from Mark. I plan to periodically provide article summaries and insights. I am hoping this will happen once each month. Hope is the operative word. Here are my thoughts as we begin May, 2021. I welcome your comments about additional topics you would find helpful as well as your thoughts about these articles. I found them most interesting/ thought provoking.
Accessibility
Using Modern CSS to Improve Accessibility. This article by Stephanie Eckles provides a quick overview of what it means to have an accessible website. Stephanie then covers using some of the newer CSS to enhance accessibility. This includes use of outline-offset to position the outline away from the element. The focus-visible pseudo-class will display an outline only when the user agent determines it needs to be visible. There is so much more in this article, I encourage you to set aside time to read it in its entirety and digest how these CSS features can be used to solve real world accessibility issues.
A.I.
GPT-3 is a language supermodel which is quietly ushering in the A.I. revolution. This article by Luke Dormehl explains why this text generating algorithm makes a difference. The main difference with prior algorithms is that limited training is required. In the past, significant input was required for A.I. to “learn.” This no longer seems to be needed. Think. About. That. Here is a key quote from the article (it certainly resonated with me).
“Machine learning has been transformative in all sorts of ways over the past couple of decades. But machine learning requires a large number of training examples to be able to output correct answers. GPT-3, on the other hand, has a “few shot ability” that allows it to be taught to do something with only a small handful of examples.”
Ok, Mark, what does all this A.I. have to do with Web design and development? One example mentioned in the article is a layout generator which”renders a functional layout by generating JavaScript code from a simple text description.” Another example is a GPT-3 based search engine. I think you will find this article most interesting and informative. Our industry is changing and A.I. is going to have a major impact. Plan accordingly.
FLoC
Federated Learning of Cohorts is Google’s replacement for tracking cookies. Our advisory board member, Deborah Edwards-Orono, has a great article about this effort and her concerns. Simply put, FLoc is included by default in the new version of the Chrome browser [see our recent post on the popularity of this browser] and collects your recent browser activity. It takes that activity and labels it then shares the “cohort” with other websites and advertisers. The main concern with this approach is privacy. She also discusses a new WordPress plugin Disable FLoC which is easy to install and has no configuration settings, it just does what it claims to do. If you would like to learn more about the implications of FLoC, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a solid overview as well.
For those not using WordPress, Marko Saric has an overview article at Plausible which also includes the snippet of code you can add to your .htaccess file to disable FLoC as well.
Future of the WWW
Professor Sir Tim Berners’Lee (inventor ot the WWW) thinks his creation is out of control. In this interview, he explains his plans to save it.The big issue these days is privacy. He proposes Solid (a new system to decentralize the Web). His core idea is PODS (Personal Online Data Stores) which each person has control over. The fundamental change is that anyone wanting to use your information must ask for your permission. After you review the interview, I would be keen to learn your thoughts about this approach. Comments are open.
Hardware
Gizmodo recently discussed the fact that Verizon is recalling 2.5 million of its hotspots because they are literally too hot. There have been 15 reports of the devices overheating (6 instances of fire damage). Review the article to see if you have one of these hotspots (various models sold between April, 2017 and March, 2021).
WordPress
Easy WP Guide has been released for WordPress 5.7 (most current version). No discussion of PHP or the technical details, just a comprehensive guide to help you edit the content of your site. This is a free download. Web Professionals who build sites using this technology may wish to share this document with their clients (if you haven’t already). You can purchase the guide which allows you to brand it as you wish.
For those developers using Elementor as part of their WordPress installations, you may wish to review the recent Wordfence post discussing recent vulnerabilities with Elementor. For those who are not aware, Elementor is installed on over 3.5 million WordPress sites. The Wordfence team found over 100 vulnerable endpoints.
Final thoughts
Hopefully, you found these articles and insights helpful. What else would you like to see in future articles? What did you think about these? I look forward to reading your comments.
Best always,
Mark DuBois, Executive Director
Web Professionals (a.k.a. World Organization of Webmasters)
The internet! Completely useless without a single piece of software. Well, maybe not completely useless, but it wouldn’t be the service we enjoy every day. Accessible, easy to use, and easy to find content.
Much of this is down to a single type of software, the web browser. It does what it says, allowing you to search and browse the internet. Taking what would be a bunch of ugly HTML files written in confusing code and rendering them into something we can all understand and interact with.
There has been a long-standing joke in the community, about the ‘other’ web browser. Some people call it Internet Explorer, and others call it “The Chrome Downloader.” This is because Google Chrome has a 67% of the market share. This is incredible when you consider that Internet Explorer—and more recently Microsoft Edge—browsers come preinstalled on every Windows computer. That means 67% of the market makes an active choice to ditch that Microsoft browser and install Google’s Chrome browser instead.
Microsoft recently based its newest version of Microsoft Edge on the Chromium Browser, which is the open-source project that powers Google Chrome. Safari, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox—four web browsers that get completely dominated by Google’s offering.
A Brief History
But how did this come to be?
Back in 2008, the picture was very different. Internet Explorer was the dominant browser. In fact, it had 64% of the market around this time. But Internet Explorer was unstable, prone to crashes, and had many problems. Firefox was running as the second browser of choice—it was open source and more stable. However, both browsers suffered from the fact that they had been around for a long time. Firefox came from a browser lineage that was even older than Internet Explorer. When Netscape decided to release the source code of its dying browser to the open-source community, Firefox was born.
Because both these browsers came about within a year of each other, Netscape came out in 1994 and Internet Explorer 1 came out in 1995. They suffered from the same stale internet ideas that had been present throughout the ’90s—the idea that the internet was designed to show you pictures, some video and a lot of text, then link you to the next thing.
Google came in at a time when the internet was evolving into something a little different, seeing the internet as a platform not unlike an operating system—and, of course, this philosophy has come to pass with Chrome OS, as it is an entire operating system effectively based on the internet.
Google saw the web as a location to play games, run applications and operate services—and it very much treated it that way. The company created Google Docs (a replacement for Microsoft Office) Google Maps (a replacement for AutoRoute) and many other application services. While these products didn’t come until later, it can be argued that without Google Chrome’s application-focused approach, many of the services wouldn’t exist today.
Google Chrome was built from the ground up with applications in mind. To this end, Google began poaching Firefox developers as well as experienced developers from the Netscape team, and they were put in charge of the project. Their job was to create a new browser from what was deemed Web 2.0 at the time.
While the Chrome team faced the problem of creating brand new technologies from scratch, the approach proved advantageous because their rivals Microsoft and Mozilla were both trying to make better browsers too—but they were reworking legacy technologies instead of creating new ones.
This allowed the Google team to focus on building their own custom tools, without any of the “but we’ve always done it this way” arguments.
The biggest difference between Google’s approach and the others was the invention of the sandbox. The sandbox is Google Chrome’s biggest advantage. Every time a new tab is opened in Chrome, that website is run inside a sandbox. It is completely isolated from the rest of the browser. By isolating them, no two tabs could communicate with or interfere with each other. If you landed on a bad website, the tab would be forced to close or freeze—but nothing else in the browser was affected.
The drawback to this approach lives with us today. Google Chrome takes up a lot of memory every time it creates a new sandbox environment for a web page to load in. But the improved stability proved a greater boon.
Google called upon a massive community of open source developers by beginning the Chromium project in 2008, allowing the company to effectively gain free labor from the open-source community. This allowed Google Chrome to align with open-source community web standards.
Because they made the project open source very early on, the browser became very popular with the developer community. Because it was open-source it was much easier for developers to understand how the browser worked, allowing them to push the limits of web technologies in ways you couldn’t do with other browsers. The result was an ever-growing number of web apps that worked extremely well with Google Chrome but poorly with other browsers. This gave the average user even more reason to download the browser if they wanted their favorite web app to work right.
By July 2009, just nine months after Google officially launched Chrome, they had 30 million people browsing the web. This was when Google announced the Chrome Operating System.
In December of the same year, Google released the extensions gallery which allowed the browser to be extended with extra plugins and extensions quickly and easily.
The extensions provided a welcome replacement to the myriad of toolbars you could install in other browsers, which often created cluttered interfaces. Some toolbars would even cause the browser to crash outright upon loading. Google’s approach was far more streamlined and simple.
While all this was going on, Microsoft was being attacked by the U.S. federal government over anti-competitive practices. The government argued that bundling internet explorers into Windows was just a way to dominate the market. Google capitalized on this by giving everyone a choice to install their browser. By 2010, Microsoft was forced by the European Commission to provide an alternative choice to the standard Internet Explorer. Windows users were faced with a new window offering them a browser of their choice.
In 2010, the Chrome Web Store replaced the Chrome Gallery. It was a bigger and better incarnation of the feature that is still around today.
One of the oldest browser extensions is Adblock Plus. The extension could be argued to have created the online subscription model we see more and more today as ads are blocked in browsers.
But in 2015, the combination of the clean interface, fewer crashes, better extensions, and a growing collection of web apps that worked best in it resulted in Chrome browser increasing its market share to 52%—more than all the other browsers combined.
Over time, Google has created more and more web services including YouTube, Drive, Calendar, Docs, Earth, Maps, and much more. Chrome is no longer a simple web browser. It is a gateway into Google’s ecosystem of online services, many of which are completely free to use.
Three months into 2021, there are several web development trends that have clearly emerged. The digital market is competitive, and it’s important for developers to stay abreast of the latest trends impacting the industry. Let’s take a look at the trends that all web professionals should be aware of in order to stay ahead of the competition through the rest of 2021.
Artificial Intelligence and Bots
AI and bots continue to be used more than ever before by developers. Their ability to collect data, learn about users, and solve issues with human intervention make them highly attractive for companies seeking to streamline operations and customer service. Today’s consumers expect 24/7 service, and AI can deliver just that for companies seeking to maintain their engagement with customers while saving money. AI and bots can be incorporated into sites and mobile apps for a wide variety of devices. Staying on top of the latest in AI and bots can give your company a leg up on the competition.
Voice Search Optimization
Today, many internet users access web services without typing or even looking at the screen of a device. People can control garage doors, lights, security systems, thermostats and much more just by talking to a smart device in their home. It’s clear that voice recognition will continue to be an important aspect of web development for years to come, and it is estimated that as many as 50% of households with internet access will utilize a voice assistant by the end of 2022. Companies are in need of developers who can create web services that are accessed by voice command.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
The primary idea behind this technology is to speed up page performance to keep the user engaged with the mobile site and reduce the chance that the user leaves before the site page loads. Essentially, AMPs are optimized pages with a simplified and scaled-down design. This allows the pages to load quickly while only displaying basic features. They have easy-to-read content and are formatted to work seamlessly with smartphones and tablets. AMPs level the playing field for users, as even people with slower internet speeds can access and enjoy AMP features.
Automation Testing
This helps developers test their products more effectively than the traditional manual testing. Put simply, web development is judged by how fast and efficient it is for the use. Automation testing promotes better testing coverage, makes the development process cheaper and reduces the time of the test cycle, allowing smaller web development companies to compete with those with more resources. This form of testing also creates a better user experience and allows developers to more quickly and efficiently identify issues.
App Accessibility
This trend is about making web applications more accessible for consumers, organizations and businesses. Single-Page Applications (SPAs) are on the rise, as they don’t require users to reload the page while using it. An example of a platform that uses SPAs is Facebook. As users scroll down, new content appears automatically. Another growing trend is the use of Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), which offer stripped-down versions of native applications with the benefit of not requiring the user to download a new app. PWAs are cost-effective and can deliver users an easy experience.
These are a handful of the trends that will drive web development through the rest of 2021 and beyond. As a web professional, stay on top of what is going on in the industry so you can stay a step ahead of the competition.
2020 has been an unprecedented year for businesses in all industries. Societal and economic shifts have made web professionals like you more important than ever, so it’s critical to remain at the forefront of industry trends that will shape the rest of the year leading into 2021. As a web professional, connecting with your target audience while continuing to meet the needs of your customers or clients requires spending time strategizing how your web presence will propel your business forward. Let’s take a look at 5 of the trends that are driving web design and development.
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
AR and VR have been growing for some time, and that will certainly continue in the coming years. People today consume web content on a variety of devices, including tablets and mobile phones. Utilizing AR and VR to show customers how products work, no matter what device they are on, puts businesses a step ahead of the competition. AR and VR tools include videos and images, with many of them available in 360 degree viewing experiences. Some of the most influential tech companies like Google and Facebook have invested in AR and VR as a technology that will drive business in the future.
Maximizing the possibilities of cybersecurity and AI will continue to be important for business heading into 2021 and beyond. Web professionals need to be aware of the latest cybersecurity tools and how to best protect customer information from hacks and data breaches. AI plays a big role in cybersecurity, with AI networks and machine learning helping web and security professionals learn about the latest tools hackers are using to disrupt websites. Stay up-to-date with the latest news on cybersecurity to ensure you are doing everything you can to keep the data of your customers safe and give them peace of mind in doing business with you.
Companies are finding that highly sophisticated chatbots can replace humans in meeting various customer service needs. Customers love chatbots for their ease of use and instant answers to questions—eliminating the need to send an email or call you and wait for an answer. In addition to all of the technical aspects that web professionals must worry about, it’s important to not forget about keeping customer service on point so that you retain existing customers while attracting new ones. Chatbots are exploding in popularity so rapidly that Gartner estimates that by the end of 2020 85% of customer interactions will be held without a human customer support representative. Additionally, chatbots are projected to be the biggest consumer application for AI in the next 5 years.
Voice Search
Digital voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri have had a huge impact on the web in a relatively short period of time. Driven by AI, which we have touched on, these are more than just tools. They are an example of machine learning, as they can learn about user habits and utilize it to improve performance. Voice search is a real example of how AI impacts our daily lives—including checking the weather, playing music, ordering groceries and staying in touch with friends and family. In fact, Alexa can perform over 70,000 skills. With people increasingly using voice search rather than typing keywords into Google, it is important for web professionals to understand how voice search will impact consumer behavior.
Let’s face it: it can be difficult getting your business to stand out from the crowd. One of the best ways to maximize online exposure, and do so at minimal cost, is to focus on search engine optimization (SEO). Doing so will help improve your content in search results and put you above the competition. The higher up you are for keywords related to your business, the more traffic you will generate to your site. SEO can be achieved through optimizing your web pages and creating content frequently, such as blog posts about news in your industry.
As you seek to develop and maintain user-friendly websites, keep these trends in mind. Consider how they are impacting and will continue to impact customer behavior. Staying informed about these trends will improve your company’s web presence and keep you a step ahead of the competition.
WebProfessionals.org Announces Certification Grants to Support Small Businesses Impacted by COVID-19
WebProfessionals.org, a not for profit association for the global web design, development and web community, is proud to announce certification grants for web students and teachers in the U.S.
In this unprecedented time that has caused economic and educational uncertainty, WebProfessionals.org, along with industry and member support, is making these certifications available to meet high job demand for web professionals. The goal of this effort is to help the U.S. economy and small business especially pressing now during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“WebProfessionals.org certifications established with the support of the U.S. Department of Education provide competent and ethical employees and contractors. We’re proud to be a supporter of this important initiative,” said Steve Waddell, Director of Education and Training of WebProfessionals.org and Founder and Lead Developer of curriculum development partner CTELearning.com.
How will small businesses benefit?
Small businesses adjusting to the economic disruptions resulting from COVID-19 will need to improve their online presence to continue meeting customer and client needs. To do so they will need skilled web professionals who also know how to reach target markets. A group of members in the Web Professionals Organization is making these certifications available to meet this high job demand with competent employees and contractors who can ensure businesses stay competitive through a robust web presence.
Who qualifies?
Qualifying schools in all of the 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico will receive grant certifications for select schools, districts and students.
How to participate
Eligible middle and high school students who complete eligible web professional training courses such as Web Development and Design; Coding Internet Games, Apps and Sites; and Web and Mobile Application Coding and Design can apply.
Webprofessionals.org certifications have been created with the backing of industry and small business hiring managers making them extremely valuable portfolio additions for students who may wish to pursue high-demand STEM fields and the digital arts as career pathways.
Support material
Courseware offered by WebProfessionals.org curriculum development partners gives students the chance to continue learning from home during COVID-19. Courses can be taught and learned 100% online, so students can continue to grow and work toward these certifications from their own kitchen or dining room table.
About Webprofessionals.org
Established in 1997, WebProfessionals.org is a non-profit professional association dedicated to advocacy and supporting individuals and organizations who create, manage and market websites, apps and web technologies. The organization provides education, training resources and certifications for those who work and teach in web technologies as well as those aspiring to enter this growing career field. WebProfessionals.org also manages and heads up the Web Design National Competition with a team of industry experts with SkillsUSA, the largest student to work organization in the U.S.
About SchoolofWeb.org
Sponsored by WebProfessionals.org the School of web provides web design, web development and web business training and education.www.schoolofweb.org
Gold Medal Winners of the 2020 Web Design and Development Competition Announced
WebProfessionals.org is pleased to announce the Gold medal winners of the 2020 “Virtual” Web Design Challenge
This year’s innovative and totally online event invited and challenged
Challengers documented their progress as they demonstrated their skills in Web Programming (HTML, XHTML and CSS), Web graphics, Web site design, Web accessibility and usability, Web site management, project management, Web multimedia and equally important, professionalism.
A panel of experts from the Web professional community based their winning selection on the following criteria developed by Webprofessionals.org:
• Design and Layout: Navigation • Programming: Compatibility • Programming Code Structure & Design • Scaffolding of Process – Diagram/Flowchart • Video production and presentation • Professionalism
Winners at the Secondary/High School: Gold:
• Kevin Downing, Whitinsville, MA • Daniel Cardone, Blackstone, MA
Winners at the College/Postsecondary Gold:
• Matthew Connors, Massachusetts • Joey Higuera, Massachusetts
“On behalf of the WebProfessionals.org organization, the Technical Committee and challenge judges, I want to say thanks to all the teams for putting forward all the great efforts. So much in the world has changed since last year in Louisville. But one thing has not changed, and it is the quality of our Web Design challenge participants. In chatting with the judges, each team excelled in different areas, and they enjoyed seeing all the creativity in all the submissions. If these winners stay on this trajectory, keep practicing, growing their career portfolios, and adding international industry-recognized certifications to their resumes, I have no doubt they will get snatched up by industry when they start looking for that first career move. I am proud to say this is my seventh year as part of the WebProfessionals.org Web Design challenge support team, and even though I didn’t get to see everybody in Louisville, I had a terrific time.”Lead Judge – Steve Waddell Founder CTeLearning.com
The Web Design Contest provides quality education experiences for students in leadership, teamwork, citizenship and character development. It builds and reinforces self-confidence, work attitudes and communications skills. It emphasizes total quality at work, high ethical standards, superior work skills, life-long education and pride in the dignity of work. For additional information visit www.webdesigncontest.org
SkillsUSA is a United States career and technical student organization serving more than 395,000 high school, college and middle school students and professional members enrolled in training programs in trade, technical and skilled service occupations, including health occupations. For additional information visit www.skillsusa.org
