Some collected thoughts and ideas around applying a functional approach to writing and maintaining documentation, especially for design systems.
In programming, you have these things called functions. Functions are chunks of code, typically identified by name.
How you write...
Recently, I perpetrated a serious tactical error that resulted in a number of User Experience Designers (UXers) being found unexpectedly dead. As a front-end developer, this has done little to buoy my professional reputation.
I first knew there was something wrong when I was...
Facebook memes taught me that, instead of facing my fear of needles, I could instead pretend I conscientiously object to vaccination programs, now my lungs are riddled with Covid and I can’t breathe.
Sitting in my legally parked car eating a zinger burger was such an affront...
I meet a lot of people who describe themselves as libertarian. When they learn I have socialist inclinations, they imagine that places us at either end of some political spectrum or other. That’s not the case.
The term libertarian comes from the mid 19th century and a French...
“Shit yourself.”
The voice startles me, being unaccompanied by a face.
“Go on, shit yourself.”
I turn towards the sound, and find a man, about my age, fixing me with an insistent stare.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry, have you mistaken me for—”
“No time for chat, only time for shitting ...
This is going to be a very short article, because it turns out working with design tokens in Eleventy is a partition of urine (very easy).
Eleventy’s root /_data folder lets you define some global (you guessed it) data that can be accessed in templates anywhere in the site/p...
I recently converted this site from an old Wordpress to Eleventy. I then promised I’d share how I did it, because it really doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, with the small node script to follow, you should have everything set up in about 5 minutes.
Step 1: Get the old ...
I just released Ga11ery, a minimalist kit for sharing photos, illustrations, or your web comic. I figured a lot of folks are diving into their art right now, as a way to find purpose and peace during isolation. I wanted to make it as easy as possible to share the output.
Ga1...
We who work in web development are getting more comfortable with talking about burnout. This is a good thing, or it would be if we were prepared to acknowledge what burnout really represents.
Burnout is not just overwork, or the ensuing exhaustion. Some of you will already k...
In the lead-up to the UK’s last general election, I took it upon myself to campaign with my party, Labour. Most days for a few weeks this entailed going to people’s houses, trying to navigate their Murdochian talking points, and being scolded for trying to trick them into vo...
A few months ago, I was consulting an organization; helping them to make their interfaces more inclusive. I tend to be engaged because I have experience in accessible interaction design, and the implementation of technical accessibility provisions. But the advice I offer is ...
Words are powerful things, and some wield an exclusively destructive power. Given the recent spate of aging comedians—mostly Pythons—adopting the absurd alt right notion that discriminatory language is a necessary component of free expression, it was a relief to hear Billy C...
Since the landmark Domino's case, I've been having some conversations about web accessibility with people who wouldn't ordinarily take an interest. Some of these conversations have been productive; others have not. The following is a dramatization based on true events.
DEVE...
In case you haven't already heard: the full version of Every Layout is now ready for purchase! You'll find all the information you need on the Every Layout site.
This post is just an opportunity to tell you that in a different channel (done!) and to share some fun™ facts abo...
It's important you sign and share this petition. Right now, it's the closest thing Britain has to averting serious disaster in the next few days. It's really important, unlike the status of a single open source JavaScript project. Thank you.
You may want to read the original Flexbox Holy Albatross post but basically, I missed a step (I was hungover): You can switch between horizontal (multi-column) to vertical (single column) Flexbox layouts just using flex-basis. No min-width or max-width needed — in fact, they...
For the last 6 or so months, I've been engaged in a number of activities including (but not limited to):
Scratching my head
Staring out of the window
Laying in bed and staring at the ceiling
Screaming into a pillow
Rolling around on the floor sweating feverishly while ...
Just for the sake of some links for the most part — in case you missed anything.
I helped Bulb make their new, accessible design system
Inclusive Components went from blog to book
I created a customizable generative art gallery with SVG and Vue
I learned lots about web c...
Much of my career as a web designer has been spent, quite happily, working alongside programmers, engineers, people with computer science degrees. In this symbiotic relationship, each party has a secure job with a well-defined role, and gets to work on the thing they are bes...
Originally published on Medium.
Those familiar with the web platform will be well-versed in its two complementary technologies: HTML for documents and their structure, and JavaScript for interaction and styling.
For as long as anyone can remember, styling documents — affecti...
Tooltips are implemented all over the place. Badly. Let me count the ways.
It's attached to a non-interactive element
It's not a tooltip if there's no tool (control, button, whatever). What you're really doing is just hiding content away. Why?
It's attached to a non-interact...
Internationalization is a major component of inclusive design. But with automatic translation features provided by Google and Microsoft, it's mercifully simple to support — at least at the most basic level. Just include a default language for the page, like lang="en", on the...
I've just been listening to the new Linkin Park album. The first thing that jumped out at me was that, in keeping with previous Linkin Park albums, it is not in fact an album by Nasum. This appears to have caused disappointment among their audience, and rightly so. In one ca...
Yes, HTML is broken (see title ↑). Anyone who has used HTML on a big project knows it.
Just the other day, I went to code a submit button for a form. Should be pretty straightforward. Well how come this is what I wrote, then?
<table>
<td>
<a class="submi...
Before Hitler set about exterminating Jewish people, he practiced on the disabled. The Aktion T4 programme was particularly fond of administering "involuntary euthanasia" to children. Parents were tricked into relinquishing their little ones with the promise that they would ...
2016 has not been an exemplary year in some ways. What with the anti-intellectualism and fascism and kleptocracy and all. And you know what? I'm not completely convinced everything's going to be okay again when the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve.
I'm not convinced th...
You spend more time contemplating and discussing code than you do writing it.
You spend more time thinking about how the end product affects users than you do about how pleasurable it is for you to write its code.
You think in terms of relationships and systems, not just th...
Design is a wonderful thing. It's an integral part of how we work to shape the world around us.
But it is not a discrete profession or occupation.
We are not divided into designers and people who are not designers.
If someone says you don't have the right background, you hav...
We need to talk about aria-controls. It's poorly supported, does very little, and does what it does when it does badly. It is poop and we rely on it way too much. We are short-changing assistive technology users when we do.
What it is
The aria-controls attribute is a 'relati...
