Published inUX Collective·PinnedThe web we choose to buildPrinciples for user-centred front-end development — As a front-end developer, it’s sometimes difficult to place yourself in a company or even in a project. Principles can help frame what we do and give us a focus. What does a front-end developer do? I loved the framing of front-end from ‘Why you should hire a frontend developer’ “Ultimately the job of a frontend…Front End Development4 min readFront End Development4 min read
Oct 5Hidden link text, but is this accessible?I get asked a lot of questions about whether something is or isn’t accessible this week’s questions were around the GOV.UK Check your answers pattern. About half the time when I am asked a question the design system usually has either an example or guidance that helps to point people…Gov2 min readGov2 min read
Apr 27Visual component testing using playwrightEverything at scale gets a little bit more tricky, slowly but surely a lot of the building blocks of internal services have been DWP design system this includes structural components (header, key details, footer) and more functional ones like the timeline. Pre-this point in a lot of cases we had…Testing2 min readTesting2 min read
Mar 24Accessibility OKRs — part 1If like a lot of places your year start in April — then there is no better time to talk about accessibility metrics. I appreciate that talking about OKRs for some people will be dull, but at scale, it is the only way to set a clear outcome for multiple…Accessibility1 min readAccessibility1 min read
May 9, 2022Accessibility clinic 3 — notesEvery two weeks co-run an accessibility clinic with Craig Abbott and Nicki Berry. It is a safe space for people to come and get feedback and talk about something they are working on. From performing regular audits and speaking to teams we need more space to talk about early work…Accessibility3 min readAccessibility3 min read
Oct 16, 2018Building a community of speakersOne of the things I love most about Newcastle is the great community of meet-ups. As well as frontend NE there is Sunderland Digital, NUX Newcastle, JavaScript NE, Ladies of Code and PHP NE to name but a few. (You can find more at https://www.techdiary.co.uk/ne). We’ve started talking about recently…Public Speaking3 min readPublic Speaking3 min read
Apr 13, 2018Reflections on running a first conferenceWhen I started talking to Gavin, who ran both DIBI and Industry Conf, he said that “running a conference will be one of the most challenging things you ever do”, he wasn’t wrong. It seemed a natural progression from running a regular meet-up but I maybe underestimated the amount of…Conference4 min readConference4 min read
Mar 27, 2018Thoughts from DWP Digital design Patterns meet-up #2If you missed it I did some thoughts from Meetup #1. for this meet-up the focus was navigation. The day was split into two parts — in the morning Craig did a deep dive into the agent service for Bereavement payment service. …UX2 min readUX2 min read
Feb 7, 2018Story Sizing — the good the bad and the typesIf you’ve ever worked on an agile team you’ve talked at length about story sizing. If you’ve never been involved it is the process of development teams giving a size to user stories, this can help (or hinder) various other parts of the team. The good parts I have to admit, I hate…Agile3 min readAgile3 min read
Feb 1, 2018What is a component in a design system?When we talk about design systems, a lot of time is spent talking about what a thing is, creating a shared understanding to what things are is just as important as what the names themselves. These things are thought about as getting progressively bigger in size.Design Systems4 min readDesign Systems4 min read
