Full disclosure: I shamelessly stole this idea from Marc Thiele because I like it so much.

Like Marc, I am also motivated by FOMO. Trying to stay on top of things in a fast-paced industry has been made difficult on account of social media fragmentation.

RSS has its own place in my daily reading rituals. So does doomscrolling. That said, I also really like newsletters. Enough, in fact, that I also put out my own.

Email newsletters occupy a comfortable space between the accidental discovery of browsing social media and the intent-driven act of reading a feed of subscribed blog updates. They also break up the tedium of staying on top of email, most of which is regrettably transactional at this point.

So, with that established! Here’s a sampling of some of the newsletters I look forward to reading as of late:

Accessibility

Accessibility Weekly

A must-read if you work in digital accessibility.

As the name implies, this newsletter is sent out weekly. It covers digital accessibility and inclusive design-related topics and news, expertly curated by David Kennedy.

One thing I especially like is the "New to A11y" section. I really appreciate that David gives space for new voices and perspectives in the space, as well as the exposure being featured confers.

Web Design Update

I view this as the second of the two required reading newsletters for digital accessibility practitioners. This also comes out weekly, and is also expertly curated.

Laura Carlson does a great job covering accessibility related topics, as well as other frontend and web design-related concerns such as performance, usability, HTML, CSS, content design, upcoming events, and environmental considerations.

Access * Ability

Curated by the incomparable Sheri Byrne-Haber, Access * Ability provides deeper, more longform guidance and analysis on disability and accessibility-related topics.

One thing I especially appreciate about this newsletter is that Sheri was willing to move it off Substack and onto a more ethical platform. I try to avoid Substack as much as possible, so this was great to see.

Design

Pixels of the Week

Stéphanie Walter’s newsletter is a well-established part of my Monday work rituals.

I enjoy the blend of design articles and tools and resources. I also appreciate that accessibility and inclusive design links are threaded throughout, as I would argue that those contribute towards good design as a whole.

The Product Picnic

I’ve got to confess: I always procrastinate on reading The Product Picnic. Not because it is bad, it’s because Pavel Samsonov is able to reach deep into the scarred and gnarled core of my dissatisfaction with contemporary design culture and give it form and shape. That takes time to work through and process.

Forget glassmorphism CSS generators, Spotify redesign featurettes, and uncritical fawning over Pentagram. If you care about the meta of how digital design works—or fails to work—you should be reading this newsletter.

Fun and educational

The Morning News

I’ll let its tagline of “Newsy, artsy, bloggy since 1999” speak for itself. A great mix of politics, world events, weird phenomena, and art sprinkled across my work week.

weird wide web hole

Salma Alam-Naylor puts this out weekly, and it one hundred percent delivers what it promises: cool, weird web stuff! This sort of thing so feels like a sign of life in an increasingly bland and corporatized web.

I was also more than pleasantly surprised to have something I wrote featured in one of the editions.

Perfect Sentences

Oh, but I love a good turn of phrase.

Ingrid Burrington does an incredible job of sifting through so, so many words to pluck out the good stuff every week. It’s also a wonderful, lateral way to discover news, new voices, and new publications and people.

Frontend development

Friday Front-End

The rule of never shipping on a Friday does not apply here.

Cloud Four does a great job sending a small collection of links on front-of-the-frontend development and design. Seeing links like these make me feel a lot less lonely about what I specialize in, it’s a nice aperitif before the weekend starts.

The Index

Similarly, Piccalilli also delivers small collections of frontend development and design articles on the regular. I enjoy their very short and succinct preview copy for each article, it makes for a satisfying quick hit of industry goings on.

Web Weekly

Another weekly publication, Stefan Judis always a great job including a mix of web development articles, news, and resources. I also like the nice touches like a “halfway through the content” indicator, an “open tabs” section, and a random MDN link.

What newsletters are you reading?

I’d love to turn this into a thing, along the lines of the “Tag, you’re it” phenomenon that was making the rounds earlier this year. To that point, I nominate:

I’d also like to nominate anyone reading this who is interested. If this is something you’re interested in sharing out, go for it!