Going Offline is online …for free
Read the book I wrote about service workers. It’s all yours.
Journal archive: 2024
90
Syndicating to Bluesky
Posting notes from my website using the Bluesky API.
The meaning of “AI”
Naming things is hard, and sometimes harmful.
FFConf 2024
I’m very grateful to Julie and Remy for nourishing my soul.
Optimism
Is it better to be a disappointed optimist or a vindicated pessimist?
Myth and magic
I’ve been reading modern retellings of Greek myths with varying degrees of supernatural intervention.
Unsaid
I listened to a day of talks on AI at UX Brighton, and I came away disappointed by what wasn’t mentioned.
Making the website for Research By The Sea
Having fun with view transitions and scroll-driven animations.
Announcing UX London 2025
Save the dates: June 10th to 12th.
Archives
HTML for digital preservation.
Feed reading
Serendipity is the best algorithm.
content-visibility in Safari
Safari 18 supports `content-visibility: auto` …but there’s a very niche little bug in the implementation.
Docks and home screens
Apple is doing fantastic work with websites on their desktop computers …and awful with websites on their mobile devices.
Train coding
Generating a static copy of The Session from the comfort of European trains.
Travels in Europe
Cáceres and Strasbourg.
Mismatch
It’s almost as though humans prefer to use post-hoc justifications rather than being rational actors.
Preventing automated sign-ups
Here’s a bit of PHP I’m using on The Session.
The datalist element on iOS
Some buggy behaviour has been fixed in iOS 18 but now there’s a new bit of weirdness.
Last Minute
If you’re planning on going to a conference, please get your ticket as soon as you can.
What price?
Using generative large-language model tools? Sleeping well at night?
Manual ’till it hurts
Try writing your HTML in HTML, your CSS in CSS, and your JavaScript in JavaScript.
Belfast, Brighton, Cork, Boston, Pittsburgh, Saint Augustine
A six-week sabbatical devoted to travel, friends, and music.
Frostapalooza
A truly special event.
Ad tech
It is not the job of browser makers to prop up business models, especially ones that don’t even work.
Directory enquiries
What if there were a categorised directory of resources for front-end dev?
Teaching and learning
Consider interactivity over showing over telling.
Codebar Brighton
Celebrating ten years of the wonderful community event.
Wallfacing
Disregard previous instructions and fight back.
Filters
A web by humans, for humans.
That was UX London 2024
Three magnificent days of design knowledge.
The machine stops
Self-hosted sabotage as a form of collective action.
Web App install API
It’s kind of ridiculous that this functionality doesn’t exist yet.
Space dock
A bug report for Safari on Mac’s add-to-dock feature.
CSS Day 2024
A genuinely inspiring event.
Hosting
No conference talks this year, but three conferences I’m hosting.
Browser support
Here’s Clearleft’s approach to browser support. You can use it too (it’s CC-licensed).
Reading patterns
Bookshelf voyeurism.
Applying the four principles of accessibility
Here’s how I interpret the top-level guidance in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Another speaker for UX London
Peter Boersma is joining us for day three to nerd out about design ops.
Trust
How to destroy your greatest asset with AI.
InstAI
I object.
Speculation rules and fears
Browser are user agents, not developer agents.
Fluid
Going from delight to default in one straight line.
Speculation rules
A performance boost in Chrome.
Labels
Brighton library has an information architecture problem.
Baseline progressive enhancement
If a browser feature can be used as a progressive enhancement, you don’t have to wait for all browsers to support it.
Responsibility
Fear of a third-party planet.
Germanity
A trip back to the Black Forest.
Securing client-side JavaScript
Tightening up my content security policy.
Our web
The web is what we make it.
UX London 2024 closing keynotes
Rama Gheerawo, Matt Webb, and Maggie Appleton!
Composability in design systems
There’s probably a Pace Layer analogy in here somewhere.
My approach to HTML web components
Naming custom elements, naming attributes, the single responsibility principle, and communicating across components.
UX London 2024, day three
A veritable feast of outstanding talks and workshops on design systems and design ops.
UX London 2024, day two
A day of outstanding talks and workshops on product design.
UX London 2024, day one
A packed day of talks and workshops on design research.
Displaying HTML web components
You might want to use `display: contents` …maybe.
Pickin’ dates on iOS
Mobile Safari doesn’t support the min and max attributes on date inputs.
Pickin’ dates
HTML web components for augmenting date inputs.
Ad revenue
The myth of the effectiveness of behavioural advertising.
Onboarding on the Clearleft podcast
From onboarding to longboarding to non-boarding.
Headsongs
Playing and singing.
Hanging punctuation in CSS
A little fix for Safari.
Spring drop
The “Alright!” of Spring
Who knows?
Had you heard of these bits of CSS? Me too/neither!
Fidinpamp
A small-scale conspiracy theory from the innards of Google.
Progressive disclosure defaults
If you’re going to toggle the display of content with CSS, make sure the more complex selector does the hiding, not the showing.
What the world needs
Write for yourself.
Schooltijd
Going back to school in Amsterdam.
Indie webbing
Tinkering with my website and getting inspired at Indie Web Camp Brighton.
Bookmarklets for testing your website
Some handy services are just a click away.
Patterns Day
It’s all about the people.
UX London early-bird pricing ends soon
Get your ticket by March 14th, if you haven’t already.
A Book Apart
The independent publishing house that released 48 excellent titles.
PageSpeed Insights bookmarklet
With this bookmarklet you’re only ever one click away from the Lighthouse results for a page.
Tone and style
The Clearleft tone of voice and style guide microsite.
Speedier tunes
Improving performance with containment.
Rotten Apple
Apple are planning to kill mobile web apps. This is not an exaggeration. We must stop them.
Federation syndication
Solving a mysterious Mastodon cross-posting issue.
Speak up
Deceptive design dies in the light.
A week in Turin
Working from Northern Italy.
The schedule for Patterns Day
Eight talks on design systems in one fun day.
Switching costs
The enshittification of React …which was already pretty shitty for users.
This week
Four out of five evenings filled with music.
Patterns Day and more
The Patterns Day conference, the workshop the day after, and an Indie Web Camp on the weekend.
Linking
A collection of hyperlinks to collections of hyperlinks.
Continuous partial ick
Voigt-Kampff.
This week
Weeknotes from a culture vulture.
Resolute
Streaks and promises.
2023
A look back at the year.