The Big Web Show

Latest Episodes:

Episode 187: On beyond Pantsuit with Mina Markham Mar 29, 2019

Show notes

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.

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Episode 186: Tantek Çelik—web standards, toolchains, and the decentralized web Mar 17, 2019

Show notes

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.

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Blockstack (The Blockstack ecosystem is hard at work and we’d love to have you, learn more and get started at blockstack.org/bigwebshow).
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Episode 185: Design is a Relationship Business, with Joe Rinaldi Feb 24, 2019

Show notes

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.

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Honeybook (Visit Honeybook.com and enter promo code BIGWEBSHOW to get 50% off your first year).
Green Chef (For $50 off your first box of Green Chef, go to GreenChef.us/bigwebshow).

Episode 184: Accessibility is not a “nice to have” – with Derek Featherstone Feb 18, 2019

Show notes

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.

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Honeybook (Visit Honeybook.com and enter promo code BIGWEBSHOW to get 50% off your first year).
Robinhood (Robinhood is giving you FREE stock like Apple, Ford, or Sprint to help you build your portfolio. Sign up at bigwebshow.robinhood.com).

Episode 183: Open Source, Google, and WordPress 5.0 with Matt Mullenweg Dec 31, 2018

Show notes

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?

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Honeybook (Visit Honeybook.com and enter promo code BIGWEBSHOW to get 50% off your first year).

Episode 182: It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, with Jason Fried Nov 29, 2018

Show notes

Basecamp founder, New York Times best-selling author, and web software pioneer Jason Fried is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. The two discuss Jason’s latest book (co-authored with David Heinemeier Hannson), It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, which The Economist called “by far the best thing on management published this year.” Also: the secrets of Basecamp, the magic of sleep, the sameness of agencies’ portfolio sites, why Basecamp doesn’t user test, and more.

Note: We apologize for Jeffrey's audio quality in this episode, but Jason Fried says so many smart things we decided we had to share this conversation anyway. It's worth it!

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Episode 181: Last Agency Standing – with Clearleft’s Andy Budd Oct 29, 2018

Show notes

Web design pioneer, Clearleft chief executive, and UX thought leader Andy Budd chats with Big Web Show host Jeffrey Zeldman about the failings and triumphs of our design community over the past 20 years, why the success of design thinking killed the market for design studios, and how to reinvent your studio or agency for today’s market.

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Episode 180: Where AI Meets IA: Improving Digital Personalization with Jeffrey MacIntyre Oct 18, 2018

Show notes

Jeffrey MacIntyre, a long-time independent UX consultant and researcher specializing in thoughtful digital personalization, is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. The two Jeffreys discuss personalization and its intersection with AI, the business opportunity of responsible personalization, aligning personalization with business operations, the secret history of berry picking, the value of a good taxonomy, personalization versus customization, avoiding the “creep” factor, and much more. A worthwhile episode for business executives and marketers as well as the designers and coders who serve them.

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ZipRecrutier (Visit the link to post jobs on ZipRecruiter for FREE).
.TECH Domains (Visit the link and use the code TBWS to get 90% off on 1 & 5 year registrations).
Linode (Visit the link and get $20 credit when you use promo code 'bigweb2018').

Episode 179: The Future and Past of Web Typography with Jason Pamental Oct 01, 2018

Show notes

Long-time (since 1994) web design practitioner Jason Pamental, author of Responsive Typography from O’Reilly, is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. For more than an hour, the two designers geek out over responsive typography, the history of type on the web, and the explosive creative potential of the new variable fonts.

Multiple Masters. FF Meta. Storing the offsets of the curve points. The three second timeout. Why FOUT is a feature, not a bug. Compensating for the differences between the web font and the backup font. The tragedy of Typecast, the new hope of Figma. Adidas. Nick Sherman. Paula Scher. Mandy Michael. And more.

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.TECH Domains (Visit the link and use the code TBWS to get 90% off on 1 & 5 year registrations).

Episode 178: Pay attention to that woman behind the curtain – with Katel LeDu Sep 20, 2018

Show notes

Katel LeDu, Co-founder of the No, You Go podcast and CEO of A Book Apart, is Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest. Topics include: Getting comfortable putting yourself out there when you’re really more of a behind-the-scenes person. Starting a podcast. The life of a photo director at National Geographic. Asking for help. Community outreach—diversity and inclusion. What it’s like to have your therapist as a guest on your podcast. Leading by example. Walking the walk. Finding new authors and new voices. Imposter anxiety and narcissism.

Links for this episode:

Brought to you by:

.TECH Domains (Visit the link and use the code TBWS to get 90% off on 1 & 5 year registrations).
Linode (Visit the link and get $20 credit when you use promo code 'bigweb2018').