Jens Oliver Meiert
Articles and books on the craft of web development, with a focus on HTML and CSS minimization and optimization.
Latest Book: The Little Book of Little Books
A compilation and update of the previous O’Reilly titles The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines, and The Little Book of Website Quality Control (2015/2016)—and a different look at the craft.
HTML Concepts: Unstyled Documents
There’s unstyled and there’s fully unstyled. And then there’s also styled “in a manner that is useful for a developer.”
Website Optimization Measures, Part XVI
Spaces, HTTP headers, site generator exports, cite elements, variable fonts, social logos, no-break spaces, metadata—life is never boring when you run your own websites.
10 Quick Tips for a Great Mastodon Experience
Mastodon is a great alternative to Twitter, feeling refreshingly healthy. Here are 10 things that can help you get off to a great start—from finding a suitable server and interesting people to follow, to useful tooling and mindsets.
Minimal Dark Mode
What’s the easiest and fastest way to set up dark mode? Depending on the setup, something from one declaration to two rules.
Vegan Web Developers
If you’re a vegan and a web developer, why not join us on a humble list of vegan web developers?
Redo Websites Less Often (to Become a Better Developer)
You want to redo websites: The advantages are great, and the ability to put a website on a new foundation is a useful one to acquire. But—you also want to iterate, which means to constantly make small improvements over long periods of time. On how a bias for iteration contributes to becoming a better developer.
HTML 2022: 20 Additional Observations from Analyzing the Web Almanac Data
After the initial analysis for the HTTP Archive’s 2022 Web Almanac, here are 20 more observations about HTML as it’s being used today. From (no) doctypes to conditional comment zombies to verbose form markup to viewports to javascript: links.
A Short Story of the Google Error Page
Why is the Google error page the way it is? Why is it so plain? What drove development and design decisions? Anecdotes and notes from the time when the page was built.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XV
Automated lossless image compression, mini dark modes, favicon references, prerender, flat image folders, modest product promotions, compact navigation, theme colors—improvements to my own projects, maybe (or maybe not) of interest to your own.
HTML Concepts: Browsing Contexts
Welcome to another episode of HTML Concepts! Today, browsing contexts—what is that?
0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML (in 2022)
When you looked at the top websites in 2021, you learned that 98% of them included invalid HTML. When you do the same for the Top 100 globally, this year, would things have improved? Updated data, with a look at our field’s inability to produce valid HTML output.
An Attempt at Outlining the Many Factors Influencing Developer Experience
When looking at DX naively, it can seem that it depends on only one factor—DX = ƒ(x). But Developer Experience depends on many factors, and needs to be approached holistically. A quick attempt at sketching just what factors, each of which can tip the scale.
11 Tips to Read More and Read Faster (After Reading 791 Books in 9Â Years)
Are you content with your reading? Here’s a collection of tried and tested ideas to help you read more—from switching to ebooks to reading everywhere to establishing routines to embracing short books to varying your reading speed.
One-Dimensional Website Optimization Considered Harmful
There are many website optimization vectors—SEO, performance, accessibility, &c.—, but optimizing on only one dimension may not only be expensive, but also counter-productive. On optimizing optimizations.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XIV
About link relationships, Twitterbot, dark mode, tags, addresses, social markup, color-scheme, and—FLoC.
Minimal Social Markup
Every website and app these days relies on so-called “social markup,” metadata for a richer and prettier display in social media and messaging tools. On the absolute minimum you may need.
Thoughts on an Accessibility “Get Well” Plan
Have you wondered how to anchor accessibility in an engineering team, one that isn’t yet producing accessible sites or apps? Some options to start with, for further refinement and discussion.
The Machine-Illustrated Life of a Frontend Developer
You may know DALL·E, what you can do with it, what others do with it, and… be intrigued by it, too. And you may wonder, how would AI depict frontend developers?
HTML Concepts: Focusable Areas
When you hear “focusable area,” what comes to your mind? Anchors and form elements that receive focus when being “tabbed through,” i.e., that are highlighted and that can be interacted with? That’s not a bad description!—but also not a complete one.
“The One with the Biggest Hammer Wins”
On a game we could stop playing.
Write HTML, the HTML Way (Not the XHTMLÂ Way)
You may not use XHTML (anymore), but when you write HTML, you may be more influenced by XHTML than you think. You are very likely writing HTML, the XHTML way.
2 Approaches to Accessibility on the Web
One can distinguish two approaches to accessibility on the Web: to produce accessible websites and apps (active accessibility), and to produce accessible-making software (passive accessibility). On how largely using one approach would stand in the way of a greater vision for web accessibility.
The CSS Art Paradox
The fanciest CSS, standing on the shoulders of bloated HTML.
3 Books for Working with Reality
With or without The Complete Conversations with God, The Nature of Personal Reality, and Loving What Is?
4 Books to Become a Greater Person
We may be quite fine as we are, but—we can probably still cultivate our character, our values, our conduct. Summoning Character, Advice to Young Men and Young Women, Profiles in Courage, and The Continuum Concept for inspiration.
About Me
I’m Jens, and I’m an engineering lead—currently manager for Developer Experience at LivePerson—and author.
In web development, I specialize in HTML and CSS, contribute to technical standards, and write books (like The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, On Web Development, CSS Optimization Basics, the Upgrade Your HTML series, and The Web Development Glossary).
I love trying things: In philosophy, I’m interested in metaphysics (even in How to Work on Oneself). When it comes to art, I play with photography. And for adventure, I enjoy exploring places (Journey of J.) and activities (100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer).