Fast Company: Inside Russia’s cartoonish propaganda website made for kids. “It has been almost six months since the world watched in horror as Russia invaded Ukraine, under the false pretext of protecting Russia from potential aggression. But Russia’s very own presidential website may have been laying the groundwork for years.”
Fossbytes: ‘Classic Facebook’ Will Die In September, Confirms Facebook. “The social media giant has started throwing notifications in users’ profiles, announcing that the Classic Facebook interface will be discontinued and become inaccessible for everyone starting this September. It’s yet to be known whether it will be a gradual process, or Facebook would just press the OFF button on September 1.”
The Next Web: Companies made millions building unemployment websites that didn’t work. “States continue to spend millions of dollars hiring Deloitte, IBM, and other contractors to build and fix unemployment websites, even amid growing concerns about the quality of their work. And the crush of unemployment applications flooding in around the country since the pandemic hit have only made the situation worse.”
The Conversation: Yes, websites really are starting to look more similar. “Over the past few years, articles and blog posts have started to ask some version of the same question: ‘Why are all websites starting to look the same?’ These posts usually point out some common design elements, from large images with superimposed text, to hamburger menus, which are those three horizontal lines that, when clicked, reveal a list of page options to choose from. My colleagues Bardia Doosti, David Crandall, Norman Su and I were studying the history of the web when we started to notice these posts cropping up. None of the authors had done any sort of empirical study, though. It was more of a hunch they had.”
Digital Inspiration: The Best Places to Download HTML Templates for your Website. “Are you looking for responsive, beautiful and professional looking HTML templates for your next website but don’t have the budget? Well, here are a couple of free resources on the Internet where you can regularly find good templates for use in your web projects without restrictions.”
AIGA Eye on Design: Lubalin’s Radical ’60s Magazines Are Giving Us A Lesson in Archiving on the Web. “Around 2013, Mindy Seu was in San Francisco, browsing through Adobe Books in the Mission District, when she stumbled upon the iconic fifth volume of Avant Garde magazine, the short-lived 1960s publication by Ralph Ginzburg and Herb Lubalin that to this day retains something of a cult status among designers. She snatched up the copy and started buying more rare issues where she could find them—in used bookstores, flea markets, and on eBay. By time she amassed the complete collection, she’d also formed a plan to digitize the issues and make them publicly accessible online.”
Digital Library of Georgia: Digital Library of Georgia launches new web site. “The newly redesigned web site of the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is now available…. The site connects users to a half a million digital objects in more than 700 collections from over 130 institutions and 100 government agencies. The new site is designed to provide quick and direct access to these resources for all audiences and was developed by incorporating input from end users, librarians, and other stakeholders.”
American Alliance of Museums: The World Doesn’t Need Another Website. “So many of those websites assume that we are merely passive consumers who gobble up whatever content is in front of us. Today – when information seems to proliferate without end and when discriminating quality and trustworthiness is becoming increasingly more difficult, ‘just a website’ can’t hope to represent the complexity that is part-and-parcel of what it means to understand the world today. It strikes me that these are the same challenges that you as museum professionals are faced with every day. It seems right, therefore, that a digital platform built for this community should endeavor to wrestle with the same complexities that you do.” Lot of great thinking, lot of pointers to great thoughts.
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