We launched a new app yesterday at Lickability. Buildwatch is a brand new Mac menu bar app for iOS developers that lets you track, graph, and analyze your Xcode compile times. I’ve wished this app existed for a long time, and now it does. 📊
The latest episode of 99% Invisible details the history of and hopeful future for bathroom design. With a focus on the needs of trans and nonbinary people, Susan Stryker and the other members of a project called Stalled! have recently won a major victory in the International Building Code that will allow for better bathrooms for everyone. In her words:
What I feel is so elegant about the Stalled! public toilet project is that at some level… it doesn’t matter what most people think about trans people. It doesn’t matter if you feel like you should accommodate people with disabilities… The design of the space just solves the problem.
If you’re a parent or thinking of becoming one, read this essay about my friend Sarah (they/them) and how their mom, who’s an anthropologist, responded when they came out to her as agender. I was already crying five sentences into this piece, but the conclusion is what really got me.
I am thankful for their permission to tell a part of their story here. As I think how best to end this essay, I am filled with one upwelling sensation. I am proud to be the mom of a wonderful person—one who works tirelessly for social justice, and who lives as neither a woman nor a man. To love them as they are is a gift of my life.
Apple’s first online-only Worldwide Developers Conference is just a couple days away, and I’m excited to watch as many sessions as I can and chat with new and old friends in the Apple developer community.
Things are changing. People around the country are finally recognizing what black people have been telling us forever: that white supremacy, structural racism, and police violence are endemic in our culture, and it’s killing them. If you’re overwhelmed or having a hard time figuring out what to do right now, my friend Jillian Meehan collected this list of places to start. #blacklivesmatter
If there’s one aspect quarantine life has shown me is that there’s a wide orbit of things you’ll refrain from wanting to do because the results may not come close to what what you’re use to. There’s limitations. The quality may be different. Heck, the actual process of doing this new thing may require a different side of you that you probably haven’t developed yet and on top of that the people you may ask to assist you with it might consider you crazy. In the end what’s mostly permeating through my mind is how can one explore ways to continuing being creative during times where it seems like there’s not much to work with.
Absolutely gorgeous portraiture from my friend Jorge, shot entirely over FaceTime. Another perfect example of constraints breeding creativity.
What does it take to build software that’s truly usable for as many people as possible? This morning, I’m giving a talk on this topic called Apps for All: Making Software Accessible at App Builders CH 2020. The presentation focuses on improving the accessibility of the software we build.
Stand clear of the closing doors please. This NYC subway soundboard app, by my pal Elle Lewis, made my day yesterday. If you’re a New Yorker, you should have this on your phone. 🚇
I’m not much of a gamer, but I am a nerd about the creative process. As such, I’ve really been enjoying Robin Sloan’s new development diary newsletter where he is chronicling the creation of a game called Perils of the Overworld. Consider subscribing if you’re nerdy about maps, game making, typography, sound design, or interactive fiction. 🗺
There is no gate keeping, no screening, just a calendar form. I just show up to whatever appointments folks booked on my calendar with hopefully a little context of what they’d like to discuss. I don’t think I’m some industry pundit, but I do recognize that anyone who has been doing roughly the same thing for 10 years might be able to provide advice for someone earlier on in their career. Also, it just feels like the right thing to do to try to give back to folks in this very small way.
My pal and former Tumblr coworker Brian Michel is opening up his office hours to the public and wrote a great post about why experienced technologists should be open to new connections and offering support, as well as some instructions on how to set it up.
If you’re in tech and wanna talk to one of the kindest, smartest folks I know, you can sign up for his office hours here. I just did.
In addition to the now page that launched last week, there’s now a short and sweet contact page with lots of ways to get in touch with yours truly. ✌️
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control recommended that every American wear a face covering when in public. Masks will be the hot, bold look for summer.
The medical evidence for the practice is overwhelming. The post-SARS countries in East Asia have known this for a long time, and America and Europe are finally coming around. I’ve put a bunch of resources about the medical benefits of mask wearing in a further reading section at the bottom of this post.
But in this essay, I want to persuade you not just to wear a mask, but to go beyond the new CDC guidelines and help make mask wearing a social norm. That means always wearing a mask when you go out in public, and becoming a pest and nuisance to the people in your life until they do the same.
A very persuasive essay from Maciej Cegłowski, the founder of Pinboard, about the whys and hows of wearing masks in public. I started wearing one yesterday for the limited time I was outside, and the medical community seems to now be recommending that everyone do the same. It’s also worth reading Ben Thompson’s take and checking out these simple mask-making instructions from Loren Brichter.
While there are lots of great guides on how to work remote from companies like Notion, Zapier, and Slack, we thought share some of the specific tools we’re using to make this easier for our team. Hopefully, if you’re a newly remote employee or manager, you’ll see something here that can help smooth out a part of your workflow.
I wrote a new blog post over on the Lickability blog about the new tools we’re using to work from home better and some tips about how we’re using them. 🛋
As I mentioned the other day, I’m bringing back my App Critique video series, and the first submission is the app Learn Your Lines! from Andrew Cote. In this video, I walk through the app as a brand new user and point out some potential areas for improvement in the app’s UX and UI.
Want your app critiqued like this? Submit it here.
This xkcd is exactly what I needed today. Well, that, and some pasta.
Since starting on the site redesign last year, I’ve known I wanted the website to have a now page:
Most websites have a link that says “about”. It goes to a page that tells you something about the background of this person or business. For short, people just call it an “about page”.
Most websites have a link that says “contact”. It goes to a page that tells you how to contact this person or business. For short, people just call it a “contact page”.
So a website with a link that says “now” goes to a page that tells you what this person is focused on at this point in their life. For short, we call it a “now page”.
I finally had some (quaran)time to make one this weekend, so if you’re ever curious what I’m up to, you can now visit /now.
As I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I’m bringing back a project I did in 2016 called App Critique 🧐. The goal is to show how I evaluate the design of software with short video design reviews.
If you’d like your app design scrutinized, fill out this form. Preference will be given to indie devs and small companies.
The delightful weirdos over at performance art/tech company MSCHF just launched a new app. The app does what they used to do via text messages until the phone companies starting blocking their numbers: allows you to chat with them and sends you a notification every two weeks when they announce drop their new project.
It’s good to see that even in a global pandemic, the crew over there will continue to bring us absurdly joyful things like All the Streams, Puff the Squeaky Chicken, and MSCHF Box.
Helpful Engineering is designing, sourcing and executing projects to help people suffering from the COVID-19 crisis worldwide.
We are an open community of volunteers without a commercial purpose. We believe that through a utilitarian approach, we can do the most good in the quickest time. Applying unused engineering and manufacturing resources, we can help the world cope with the threat of COVID-19.
I’m super impressed by the speed and organization of this group of volunteer engineers that are working on a number of really useful projects in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you’ve got spare time, resources, or engineering know-how, consider joining their efforts.
At Patent Pending, a Flatiron coffee shop cum speakeasy, every cocktail order automatically comes with a bag of chips so as to not run afoul of the liquor delivery rules, and any order over $50 gets a free roll of toilet paper, one of the most popular items during this pandemic panic. But despite the quick response to sell delivery alcohol under the new rules, this will not save the bars and restaurants.
“We could survive a month and a half on delivery,” said Nicholas Ruiz, general manager at Patent Pending. “We’re just trying to be a little beam of light for some people.”