Typography Manual by Mike Mai
A short list of opinions on typography. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but it’s all fairly sensible advice.
Link tags: manual
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Beyond automatic accessibility testing: 6 things I check on every website I build - Manuel Matuzović
Six steps that everyone can do to catch accessibility gotchas:
- Check image descriptions
- Disable all styles
- Validate HTML
- Check the document outline
- Grayscale mode
- Use the keyboard
NeXT Software and Peripherals catalog Fall 1989
Brian found this scanned copy of a NeXT manual on the Internet Archive. I feel a great fondness for this machine after our CERN project.
Manual Aspire
If only all documentation was as great as this old manual for the ZX Spectrum that Remy uncovered:
The manual is an instruction book on how to program the Spectrum. It’s a full book, with detailed directions and information on how the machine works, how the programming language works, includes human readable sentences explaining logic and even goes so far as touching on what hex values perform which assembly functions.
When we talk about things being “inspiring”, it’s rarely in regards to computer manuals. But, damn, if this isn’t inspiring!
This book stirs a passion inside of me that tells me that I can make something new from an existing thing. It reminds me of the 80s Lego boxes: unlike today’s Lego, the back of a Lego box would include pictures of creations that you could make with your Lego set. It didn’t include any instructions to do so, but it always made me think to myself: “I can make something more with these bricks”.
How To Write Telegrams Properly by Nelson E. Ross
A delightful and informative booklet from 1928.
On File Formats, Very Briefly, by Paul Ford · The Manual
A history lesson and a love letter to the early web, taking in HTML, Photoshop, and the web standards movement.
Those were long years, the years of drop-shadows. Everything was jumping just slightly off the screen. For a stretch it seemed that drop-shadows and thin vertical columns of text would define the web. That was before we learned that the web is really a medium to display slideshows, as many slideshows as possible, with banner ads.
Perennial Design, by Wilson Miner · Issue 4 · The Manual
A deeply thoughtful piece (as always) by Wilson, on the mindset needed for a sustainable way of working.
When we start with the assumption that optimizing for rapid, unbounded growth is a goal, we immediately narrow the possibility space. There are only so many choices we can make that will get us there. The same choices that made annual monoculture and the shopping mall the most efficient engines for short-term growth and profit are the same qualities that made them unsustainable in the long term.
There are more ways to scale than growth. There are more ways to deepen our impact than just reaching more people. What if we put just as much effort into scaling the impact of our work over time? Can we build digital products around sustainable systems that survive long enough to outlive us, that are purpose-built to thrive without our constant cultivation?
SKYLON Users’ Manual (PDF)
Tech specs for a spacecraft that doesn’t exist (yet).
Советские плакаты по гражданской обороне
This cold-war era soviet manual for post-nuclear life is as fascinating as it is horrifying.
The Manual
I’ve written a piece for issue three of The Manual. Despite that, it’s well worth getting your hands on a copy.
ZX81 BASIC Programming by Steven Vickers
The manual that came with the ZX81 has been lovingly converted to HTML. This was my first contact with programming (or computers, for that matter).
peterme.com :: Thoughts on (and pics of) the original Macintosh User Manual
Peter Merholz takes a trip down memory lane with pictures from the first Mac user manual.