“Why Is Chinese Web Design So Bad?” and other links…
Nick Johnson: “I think this insight into how most Chinese learn might be a key component to how most Chinese read and interact with websites as well. As Westerners, we desire and expect enlightenment, an ‘ah-hah’ moment, an understanding, even entertainment (whether that is the intent of the website or not). Easterners don’t operate that way. They acquire data first; they indulge in it later. The premise of my theory is that when Chinese are accessing a website, they are in data acquisition mode. It’s all about input from the site to the brain, and not nearly as much about interaction, reaction or understanding.”
“The Demise of Plain CSS: Why Sass and Languages Like It Will Triumph”
Harry Roberts: “Sass is essentially a programming language for designers. It is extremely limited when compared with other languages, but it does a magnificent job of translating the core concepts of a programming language in a way that makes sense for styling a document.”
“New JavaScript library for OData and beyond”
WCF Data Services Team: “Today we are announcing a new project called ‘datajs’, a cross-browser JavaScript library that enables web applications to do more with data. datajs leverages modern protocols such as JSON and OData as well as HTML5-enabled browser features. ‘datajs’ is an open source project, released under MIT.”
“Stealing content was never easier than with HTML5”
Serge Jespers: “HTML5 makes adding video and audio content to your site very easy but there is currently no way to protect that content. If we’re all completely honest we know that content protection is still a big deal for record companies, movie studios, and TV channels, yet HTML5 puts their content just up for grabs.”
“LESS, CSS Frameworks, and Rails”
Geoffrey Dagley: “I recently came across LESS, a Ruby gem similar to SASS. The idea is that you can write .less files that are CSS-like and they will be translated into CSS. The advantage, as I see it, is that you can use existing .css files as .less files since the syntax is so similar. In addition to the standard CSS syntax, you also get nested rules, variables, and mixins, just like SASS, but without the extra dependency. You can also import other CSS files as-is, like the CSS frameworks, and mix those styles into your semantic styles. This eliminates the need for Compass to provide the SASS-ified version of the framework.”