The datalist element is all fucked up on iOS. Again.
I haven’t “upgraded” my iPhone to iOS 26 and I have no plans to. The whole Liquid Glass thing is literally offputting. So I wouldn’t have known about the latest regression in Safari if a friend hadn’t texted me about the ...
A bit has been flipped on Google Search.
Previously, the Googlebot would index any web page it came across, unless a robots.txt file said otherwise.
Now, a robots.txt file is required in order for the Googlebot to index a website.
This puzzles me. Until now, Google was al...
Stop me if this sounds familiar to you…
There’s a conference you heard about it. It sounded really good but you never got ’round to getting a ticket. You were too busy thinking about work stuff. It was just one of those things that remained in the idle thought stage.
Then ...
Toward the end of 2021, I wrote about working a four-day week. It really suited me. So much so that I’ve gone one further. For the past year or so I’ve been working a three-day week.
I work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. From Friday to Monday, my days are my own.
Thi...
Here’s the new year, same as the old year. Well, not the same, but pretty similar.
At the end of 2024, I wrote:
It was a year dominated by Ukraine and Gaza. Utterly horrific and unnecessary death courtesy of Putin and Netanyahu
See what I mean?
2025 added an extra do...
I really like it when people post their end-of-year music round-up. Colly, Jon, and Naz have all posted about music they listened to in 2025.
I recognise almost none of the albums that they’ve listed. That’s because my musical brain has been almost entirely conquered by Iri...
I read 28 books in 2025. Looking back over that list, there are a few recurring themes…
I read less of the Greek mythology retellings than last year but I seem to have developed a taste for medieval stories like Matrix, Nobber, and Haven.
I finally got ‘round to reading so...
It’s getting towards the end of the year. That’s when I put together a post reviewing the books I’ve read in the previous twelve months.
I think I might change things up in 2026. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to write all the little reviews at once, I think I...
In an Irish session, tunes are almost never played in isolation. They’re played in sets.
A set of tunes might be as few as two. More usually, it’s three or more.
It’s unusual to change from one tune type into another. You tend to get a set of jigs, or a set of reels, or a ...
Maureen has written a really good overview of web feeds for this year’s HTMHell advent calendar.
The common belief is that nobody uses RSS feeds these days. And while it’s true that I wish more people used feed readers—the perfect antidote to being fed from an algorithm—the...
There’s the old adage “nobody gets fired for buying IBM”. Or to put it more broadly, “everyone else is doing it.”
It’s dispiriting how often this explanation is given as justification for a dubious design decision, from home-page carousels to cookie banners.
Nic Chan has w...
Safari, Chrome, and Edge all allow you to install websites as though they’re apps.
On mobile Safari, this is done with the “Add to home screen” option that’s buried deep in the “share” menu, making it all but useless.
On the desktop, this is “Add to dock” in Safari, or “In...
Here’s the schedule for Web Day Out—what a fantastic collection of talks!
Web Day Out
10:00 – 10:30
I can’t believe it’s not JavaScript
Jemima Abu
10:30 – 11:00
A pragmatic guide to browser support
Rachel Andrew
11:30 – 12:00
Progressive web apps from the trenches
...
This isn’t a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know why developers choose to build websites using React.
There are many possible reasons. Alas, none of them relate directly to user experience, other than a trickle-down justification: happy productive developers will ...
As part of their on-stage banter, The Dubliners used to quip that “All the books that are banned in Ireland should be published in Irish, to encourage more people to learn their native tongue.”
There was no shortage of banned books back in the day. I’m reading one of them now. The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien.
About halfway through the book, I read this passage:
The parcels for the Halloween party were coming every day. I couldn’t ask my father for one because a man is not able to do these things, so I wrote to him for money instead and a day girl brought me a barmbrack, apples, and monkey-nuts.
Emphasis mine, because that little list sounded so familiar to me.
The line-up for Web Day Out is now complete! The final speaker to be added to the line-up is the one and only Manuel Matuzovič.
You may know Manuel from his superb Web Accessibility Cookbook (full disclosure: I had the honour of writing the foreword to that book). Or perhap...
I find Brian Eno to be a fascinating chap. His music isn’t my cup of tea, but I really enjoy hearing his thoughts on art, creativity, and culture.
I’ve always loved this short piece he wrote about singing with other people. I’ve passed that link onto multiple people who hav...
If you’re building software, it’s generally a good idea to avoid the Not-Invented-Here syndrome. This is when you insist on writing absolutely everything from scratch even if it would make more sense to use a third-party provider.
Need your app to take payments? Don’t try t...
UX London will be back in 2026. It’s on June 2nd, 3rd, and 4th:
Each day features a morning packed with inspiring talks followed by an afternoon of practical hands-on workshops. It’s the perfect blend!
As with last year, each day will be themed:
2 June 2026: discover...
England is criss-crossed by routes that were originally laid down by the Romans. When it came time to construct modern roads, it often made sense to use these existing routes rather than trying to designate entirely new ones. So some of the roads in England are like an early...
Almost two months ago, I put out the call for speaker suggestions for Web Day Out. I got some good responses—thank you to everyone who took the time to get in touch.
The response that really piqued my interest was from Aleth Gueguen. She proposed a talk on progressive web apps, backed up with plenty of experience. The more I thought about it, the more I realised how perfect it would be for Web Day Out.
Find out about the most important capabilities in progressive web apps and how to put them to work.
I’m really excited about this line-up! This is going to be a day out that you won’t want to miss. Get your ticket for a mere £225+VAT if you haven’t already!
On the last day of UX London this year, I was sitting and chatting with Rachel Coldicutt who was going to be giving the closing keynote. Inevitably the topic of converstation worked its way ’round to “AI”. I remember Rachel having a good laugh when I summarised my overall fe...
I had a very pleasant experience last week while I was reading through the RSS feeds I’m subscribed to. I came across two blog posts that were responding to blog posts of my own.
Robin Sloan wrote a post clarifying his position after I linked to him in my post about the sli...
I’m very happy to announce that the one and only Jake Jaffa-The-Cake Archibald will be speaking at Web Day Out!
Given the agenda for this event, I think you’ll agree that Jake is a perfect fit. He’s been at the forefront of championing user-centred web standards, writing sp...
Tim recently gave a talk at Smashing Conference in New York called One Step Ahead. Based on the slides, it looks like it was an excellent talk.
Towards the end, there’s a slide that could be the tagline for Web Day Out:
Betting on the browser is our best chance at long-...
I don’t get out to gigs as much as I’d like. But for some reason, the past week has been packed with live music.
On Tuesday I saw Ye Vagabonds. I’m particularly partial to their nice mandolin playing. It was a nice concert that felt like being in a Greenwich Village folk cl...
I was messing about with some images on a website recently and while I was happy enough with the arrangement on large screens, I thought it would be better to have the images in a kind of carousel on smaller screens—a swipable gallery.
My old brain immediately thought this ...
When I talk about large language models, I make sure to call them large language models, not “AI”. I know it’s a lost battle, but the terminology matters to me.
The term “AI” can encompass everything from a series of if/else statements right up to Skynet and HAL 9000. I’ve ...
I was supposed to be in Cork over the weekend.
Not only was it high time I paid my mother a visit, but the Cork Folk Festival was happening too. So I booked some relatively cheap plane tickets for myself and Jessica back in August and noted down the days in my calendar.
We...
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