Notices by Stef Walter (stephaniewalter@front-end.social)

Today's beautiful procrastination is Messenger, a cute cozy multi players game in the browser where you deliver letters

https://messenger.abeto.co/

AI isn’t optional anymore. It’s baked into everything, often without choice, consent, or accountability. @PavelASamsonov argues we are in the “age of no consent.” Data theft, manipulative design, and bots making life-altering calls are the new norm. The question isn’t if it’s wrong (sad). It’s: why does this feel normal now?

The AI age is the "age of no consent" (8min) https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/the-ai-age-is-the-age-of-no-consent-7559
https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/the-ai-age-is-the-age-of-no-consent-7559

FliiipBook is a fun animation tool in the browser where you draw frame by frame, over 24 frames and 2 full seconds, your animation in black and white.
Here you go, have fun: https://www.fliiipbook.com/animate

What’s the most pointless trend in modern web design?
If we check the top comments, the top 5 annoying things are:
1. scroll hijacking
2. cursor changed into a circle
3. animating everything on scroll
4. another round of useless animations (and cookie notifications / pop-ups)
5. hijacking browser back button / links (as in forcing them to open in a new tab).
https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1m5big7/whats_the_most_pointless_trend_in_modern_web/

AI will accelerate the democratizing of UX Resarch. While this should, in theory, allow researchers to focus on more critical area (I’m super skeptical about this argument), it will also enhance the risks of poor quality research.
To mitigate the potential future mess, Qiwen Zhao explains that we need clear discussions about roles and responsibilities between researchers, stakeholders and AI tools.
https://medium.com/@qiwenz95/learnings-from-the-trend-of-democratizing-ux-research-what-ai-means-for-researchers-d59165df4561

My curated weekly UX Research, Design, Accessibility & Tech Newsletter is out:
- What Makes A Good Accessibility Designer
- The Captcha Paradox
- Designing Through Uncertainty
- Design Accessible Annotations Part 1 And Part 2
- The Issues Of Democratizing UX Research With AI
- Fermented Miso In Space
- Whimsical Animations
- Image Editor Figma Plugin
- File Format Converter
- CSS Holographic Masks
- Apple New Accessibility Features

👉🏻 https://stephaniewalter.design/blog/pixels-of-the-week-june-8-2025/
https://stephaniewalter.design/blog/pixels-of-the-week-may-4-2025/

Duplicating components in Figma is quite annoying, this plugin solves it, and lets you also duplicate only one variant of a component, to play around and iterate without braking the whole thing.

Component Cloner : https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/736564662640346811/component-cloner

Most digital products today feel like vanilla ice cream: generic and uninspired!
Or worse: their journey is a nightmare, from poor copy that forces users to sign it to check if the product has what they need (plot twist: no), to the impossibility of leaving because their unsubscribe process is broken. This happens because they prioritize short-term performance metrics over meaningful user experiences.

Global Capslock Key You know I have a soft spot for fun, chaotic things. In case you need randomness in your life, install the client, and get you caps lock synchronized with everyone who uses this tool.
https://globalcapslock.com/

The Four Most Dangerous Words to People with Disabilities: "at least they tried"
The phrase "At least they tried" diminishes the significance of accessible design. It implies that those with disabilities should be grateful for any effort, even if it's half-hearted. However, accessibility is not a favor or charity—it’s a civil right. Regardless of their abilities, everyone deserves a fair and equitable experience when using digital tools.
https://buttondown.com/access-ability/archive/the-four-most-dangerous-words-to-people-with/

https://buttondown.com/access-ability/archive/the-four-most-dangerous-words-to-people-with/

Motion sickness is no joke. It doesn't happen to me often, but once in a while a website triggers my vestibular disorders so badly that I'm sent to brain fog for a couple of hours.
And I hate that I've had people make fun of me, call me "dramatic" when I explained how animations might cause issues to people.

I love cute subtle animations. Dmytro Tovstokoryi created this set of beautifully crafted animated icons
They are available under MIT Licence.
Full project: https://icons.pqoqubbw.dev/

I think I've reached the point of AI fatigue, where I can't read yet another article on how AI will kill my job.
So, my 2 cents: my job is about understanding people, processes, services and businesses. No AI can do all of that. We will adapt. Chill, breath, it will be alright.

Looking for a monospaced pixel font with a lo-fi technical vibe, serving old school interfaces? Meet Departure Mono. I love it soooo much!

https://departuremono.com/

A more accessible version of xkcd that offers some transcript for the comic strip, a dark mode, and a link to an explanation in case you didn’t get the reference. Love it. By @mayank
https://xkcd.fyi/

Draw an iceberg and see how it will float! We often draw icebergs vertically, with a little tip above the water, and a giant part under the water. This doesn’t work, it wouldn’t float, because of mass distribution. If you want to have fun, draw your best iceberg, and see how it would actually float!

https://joshdata.me/iceberger.html

Dark Patterns Hall of Shame is a place that collects deceptive patterns and exposes how they are trying to manipulate users: bait and switch, nagging, confirmshaming, primary zuckering, disguised ads, roach model, hidden costs, sneak into basket, misdirection and trick questions.
Resource: https://hallofshame.design/collection/

Brandur wrote a really nice tutorial on how to implement a dark mode, that uses prefers-reduced-motion and some local storage, plus some JavaScript to make a tri-state toggle to keep user preferences between always light, always dark, and follow device theme. Here you go: https://brandur.org/fragments/dark-mode-notes

Love it, especially since some of you asked for one, when I wrote Dark mode & accessibility myth (https://stephaniewalter.design/blog/dark-mode-accessibility-myth-debunked/) and explained it’s good practice to let user chose between dark and light mode.

How to design accessible forms in 10 steps?
- break long form into smaller ones
- provide a label for each field
- use text hint instead of placeholders for format and help
- use HTML5 native form controls when possible
- highlight elements on focus (and make sure the color of the focus follows WCAG standards too)
- help users recover from error with good styling and error messages
https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-design-accessible-forms-in-10-steps-22232d65de18

Designing a pronoun selector isn’t just about ticking a box for inclusivity — it’s about respecting your users. Do you really need a pronoun selector (aka, ask the why behind this information), avoid “other” option, allow for multiple pronouns, let people add tier custom, try to prevent misuse.

For more guidelines, check Asking users for their pronouns: A guide for UX designers, by Chelsea Roden (18min) https://uxdesign.cc/asking-users-for-their-pronouns-a-guide-for-ux-designers-4f31736ae808