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As someone who has been involved in a greenfield design system build for the last six months, I empathise a lot with Amy's well-worded explanation of why content design should never be …

Have design systems helped bridge the gap between designers and developers? Probably not. Is part of that potentially the increasing complexity of frontend build tooling? Possibly. Design and …

A new tool that allows an organisation to check how, where, and why components are being used across shared codebases, and gain insights into their usage and …

A very detailed and thorough overview of how to use design tokens to power a distributed design system and site architecture. The crux is ensuring design (Figma), code (CSS), and content management …

The combination of the Carbon design system and NextJS should make for rapid website development, but I ran into a few small hurdles getting them to play nicely with one another using existing documentation and community guidelines.

An interesting look at the early draft proposal for an official design token specification and file format. The pitch is a strong one: standardise design tokens so that every tool can understand …

Daniel has created an extremely useful HTML template that includes most common elements, perfect for kickstarting a CSS design scheme, and all in a handy GitHub …

Very useful tool: just upload an SVG and it will attempt to output the file as a single path 👍 Fantastic for converting icon libraries for design …

I've always thought the utility of Tailwind was promising, but it bugged me that the way it worked was so counter to both best practices and the web stack's architecture. Well, introducing …

Building a tooltip? A carousel? A password input? I can strongly recommend checking if the Component Gallery has a page on whatever UI pattern you're working …

Notes from the fully remote React Summit 2020 (or at least the talks I tuned in for). Lots covered, from static-site generators and the Jamstack through to React state management and accessibility. What a fun day!

Notes from my second fully remote conference, this time Sparkbox's UnConference. Being able to freely access talks from the US is a rare bonus of everything going on right now, and this did not disappoint. Musical cameos, great talks on UX, accessibility, design systems, and amazing speakers. Great event (despite the time difference).

A fascinating look at how modern front-end architecture and practices can help solve some of the communities issues; even the ones they initially created! Really neat to see how Brad has been using …

Where has this article been my whole life! Andy's posts are often brilliant, but this an absolute gold mine of information, from ideal character lengths to clever type-setting tricks. And I thought I …

Heydon's video is an excellent overview of their much-loved owl selector and "stack" layout pattern. I actually didn't realise that Heydon was the original "inventor" of the owl, though it makes a …

A wonderful overview of why progressive enhancement and inclusive design go hand-in-hand, and why both are still necessary and deeply useful techniques for modern web development. I particularly …

CSS? Fonts? Italics? Sidebars? What witchcraft is this? Is this not theAdhocracy, the home of plain HTML and nothing more (despite the clear problems associated with that)? Well: yes! But at …

I enjoyed reading this article, written by Ethan Marcotte. It makes some interesting points, aligns with my own cognitive bubble and provides some deeper insight into areas of stuff that I …

I've recently been spending a lot of time researching, and ultimately buying, a new camera. From an outsider perspective it might seem a little odd, as I already have a very good DSLR that, whilst by …

I just fell down a rabbit hole learning about Dark Patterns, thanks largely to a link in an, as ever, well thought out Adactio post. To be clear, I knew what a Dark Pattern was, I just hadn't come …

A look back and a look forward... it must be the start of a new year. 2019 held a lot of change and personal improvement, but I can't help but feel that 2020 is going to be a big one. So what exactly do I have planned and what am I hoping for the next 12 months?

It's my third time seeing Goldfish and the first time with Alison and pretty much all the usual suspects. In other words: it was amazing! Goldfish pulled out a blinder of a set, with several of their …

The GOV.UK UX and design team are fascinating. Every time I've had to use the website I've found it a breeze, which is an enormous achievement on their behalf. Better yet, they're incredibly …

In which I start off asking a simple question: what content categories should I use on this website? Four hours later, I've discoverd information gardening, now pages, digital-me libraries, and oh so much more. And yes, I think I've answered that first question. Fancy a trip down the rabbit hole?

An interesting thought experiment from Chris: if a client asked you to build a website that could last a minimum of 10 years, what would you do? Lots of influential people in his answers, but I'm …

Of course I fell down a rabbit hole with Tom Scott videos after the last note, but I had to save this one as well. Not just because it's a perfect example (with incredible simulations to visualise …

Progressive summarisation may not be ideally suited for me right now, but it's an idea which stuck with me whilst I was undergoing my own taxonomy building process. It's worth stepping through the …

Disclaimer: The title link is an affiliate link, which means I get credit if you use it to sign up. Not really why I made this post, but figured why not …

Notes from the 2020 Jamstack Conf. Some interesting dives in the Jamstack community and various applications of Jamstack technologies, with tweet threads as usual.

We're almost at the midway point of 2020, so I thought it would be a good moment to take a look at my New Year's challenges list and see how things were going.