A List Apart, for people who make websites

09/08/2026

Wisdom from the creative behind the iPod, iPhone, and Nest.

“Build” (an unorthodox guide to making things worth making) by Tony Fadell and Dina Lovinsky: https://www.buildc.com/the-book

TL;DR “Build” book notes by Dave Martin: https://davemart.in/2022/07/18/build-by-tony-fadell-book-notes/

Learn the secrets of Tony Fadell's success.

08/31/2026

Live on Friday, Sept. 4, from 2-3 PM ET, join Patrick Neeman and ALA publisher Jeffrey Zeldman on the need for standards to protect the open web and web content creators in the age of AI.

A generation ago, Jeffrey Zeldman helped end the browser wars by making one case relentlessly: build to standards, not to vendors. That fight is back—now o

08/20/2026

Improved CSS Text-Stroke: Position the text stroke beneath the text fill, preventing it from crowding out the letterforms. Not a hack or workaround! How can work now.

08/17/2026

Missing important titles in your web UX and content design collection since we were forced to shutter A Book Apart? Our authors have your back!

Authors Together: The classic books published by A Book Apart.

A directory of books by the former authors of A Book Apart

07/13/2026

Who’s the internet for? Who owns it? What will it take to keep it free? If you missed the July 1 premiere of “Code for the People” in NYC, there’s video of the live panel discussion that followed the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xelBdOXU9bc

What is the internet actually for? Who gets to own it? And what wil...

07/13/2026

“Every team building with artificial intelligence right now believes it is working on a blank frontier. New interface, new rules, no map. That belief is wrong, and it is expensive.”

Patrick Neeman argues it’s time for a new standards movement. I approve this message.

https://medium.com//92394884dc0d

07/10/2026

Replace modal and popover glue code with plain HTML:

Invoker Commands: Wiring Buttons to Dialogs and Popovers Without JavaScript | By Dan Halloran

The Invoker Commands API lets a button declare what it controls with command and commandfor, replacing modal and popover glue code with plain HTML.

07/08/2026

“Treat every platform as temporary, because it is. Archive out of love—for the things we’ve made, the conversations we’ve had, the small, stubborn act of leaving a mark.”

The web is still the best hope we have for a durable, shared memory. But it requires us to be gardeners, not merely tenants.

07/07/2026

“We need to stop pretending that ‘the cloud’ is a place. It’s not a place. It’s a promise—and promises are only as good as the entity making them.”

The web is still the best hope we have for a durable, shared memory. But it requires us to be gardeners, not merely tenants.

06/15/2026

✩ We Ran a Huge Social Experiment on a Whole Generation. It Turned Out to Be Terrible

Gorgeously written, eminently readable mini-essay by the always memorable Jamie Marsland.

Today, the UK government announced plans to ban social media for under-16s. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the restrictions are needed to protect children’s wellbeing and mental health. Slightly to my own surprise, I think they are right. This is awkward for me. I am a huge free speech advocate....