Michael Simmons, designer and CEO of Flexibits (makers of Fantastical and Cardhop) is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. Designing “professional but not professional boring” experiences. Usefulness versus “garnish.” How animation can convey brand values. Creating experiences instead of feature sets. Instagram vs Snapchat. “The car that sells itself” and marketing by letting the product speak for itself.

166: Floating Words and the Mechanics of Delight – with designer Michael Simmons

The award winning Big Web Show features special guests and topics like web publishing, art direction, content strategy, typography, web technology, and more. It's everything web that matters. Hosted by Jeffrey Zeldman.

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

Front-end architect and speaker Mina Markham is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. Mina discusses her career path, her work at as a senior engineer at Slack, how she came to create the Hillary Clinton UI pattern library “Pantsuit,” her time at IBM, helping others and inviting women of color into STEM fields, becoming a public speaker in spite of deep introversion, a recent South African safari, air travel, conferences, the joys of visiting Italy, and more. Enjoy a relaxed and illuminating glimpse into the life of a private and highly creative person.

187: On beyond Pantsuit with Mina Markham

Legendary computer scientist, web standards pioneer, and indie-web proponent Tantek Çelik is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest.

The secret history of standards in our web browsers. How web standards moved from academic ideas that sometimes couldn’t even be implemented to the foundation of our modern web. The rift between standards-oriented, CSS-and-accessibility-loving web developers and those who rely on powerful and sophisticated toolchains: can it be bridged?

The Flash years and today. Indieweb tools and the independent web community: what it’s about and how to get started. Readers versus social readers. Taking back privacy and the ownership of our content.

186: Tantek Çelik—web standards, toolchains, and the decentralized web

Founder and business development consultant Joe Rinaldi (That Was Clutch, Philamade, Bureau of Digital) is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. Agency and freelance networking, mining contacts for work, honesty in client services, what they don’t teach in design school, the value of having worked in service.

185: Design is a Relationship Business, with Joe Rinaldi

Why do companies de-prioritize accessibility? Making a digital map accessible to the blind. Pros and cons of the straw test. Why simulating a disability is not the same as working with disabled people. Using Twitter threads to prototype book chapters. How diversity (including neurodiversity and diversity of ability) makes for a better product. Changing small habits in your life leads to changing big ones.

184: Accessibility is not a “nice to have” – with Derek Featherstone

Coder, writer, composer, and founding developer of WordPress Matt Mullenweg is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest.

Open Source will save us. The WordPress 5.0 rollout. When Matthew met Jeffrey. Browsers in the age of Blink. AMP & HTML. Gutenberg: blocks and key commands. IE5. Box models. Google: still doing no evil?

166: Floating Words and the Mechanics of Delight – with designer Michael Simmons

Download our free app to listen on your phone