I'm Ketan ‐ A Melbourne web designer and developer
with over 20 years of industry experience.
octagonbolton.co.uk
This week, the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, the UK town where I was born and grew up, released a short documentary film produced way back in 2001. It features the untold story about my dad, Uttambhai Mistry, who arrived in the UK from Kenya in the late 1960s with practically nothing and made a life in Bolton. Here’s the interview… Read more
10 November 2021 history bolton life-stories
www.getstark.co
A great article about correctly using focus states to improve website accessability. Read more
27 October 2021 accessibility
I recently switched my website from using a .com.au domain to a .design instead. Here’s why.
I’ve been working for myself for over 20 years now, and this is the first time that I have truly had the opportunity to set up my own office space at home. In the past I’ve rented office space which has always had its limitations - small room, sharing the floor with staff, open-plan office, not enough space for my stuff, etc.
7 October 2021 work space office
Drop caps have been used in printed media for a long time to add styling to the first letter of the first paragraph of piece of content.
css-tricks.com
I wasn’t aware that all browsers on iOS are restricted to Webkit, so effectively there is no browser choice on iPhones or iPads. This raises the question of whether there is any point testing websites with different browsers on these devices if their engines are unsupported? Read more
28 September 2021 web development browsers ios
This month, I’ve been working on designing and building the new shop for Hearing Dogs, a UK charity that trains dogs to alert deaf people to important and life-saving sounds they would otherwise miss.
24 September 2021 front-end development web design shopify ecommerce
With the arrival of Shopify 2.0, it’s now thrown my development workflow out of the window. The `config.yml` made development much more manageable when working on different store features because it linked directly to a particular theme and excluded any changes made to the `settings_data.json` file. But, the new CLI seems to add extra complications to the workflow by requiring frequent pulls and pushes.
13 September 2021 shopify 2.0 development
css-tricks.com
I’m not sure why anybody, developer or not, would want to turn off/hide scrollbars on a desktop. This macOS setting has always puzzled me. Read more
If you work for yourself, this book is a must-read! It’s insightful, down-to-earth, and Austin Kleon explains everything in a simple, enjoyable format. I could relate everything within it to my own personal experiences. Definitely worth reading.
24 August 2021 inspiration creativity book
I’ve been using Sass for a few years now, and I’ve gotten so used to using it on new projects, I never gave it a second thought. I thought it was making my life easier, but it’s caused me more hassle than it’s worth in recent weeks.
16 July 2021 sass web design css
A couple of new books to add to my reading list: “New Frontiers in Web Design” by Smashing Magazine and “Art Direction for the Web” by Andy Clarke.
10 July 2021 web design books
youtu.be
A few days ago Shopify announced some of its upcoming features at their annual Unite event. Some of the exciting announcements for me were themes 2.0, improved performance, metafields (finally, and it looks flippin’ awesome!), more focus on store content, GitHub integration for devs, and more checkout customisation possibilities. Read more
This week, I deployed some page speed/core web vitals updates to my clients Shopify website. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks now, tweaking code and assets here and there wherever I can - it’s been an interesting task.
28 May 2021 web design core web vitals page speed
spotify.design
An insightful article by Spotify about tweaking elements for better accessibility. Read more
22 May 2021 accessibility ui design
www.smashingmagazine.com
Great article about the problems with mega-dropdown menus. I’ve never been a fan of them, and implementing them is always a tricky task. I recently redesigned the menu on AbilitySuperstore.com from being a mega menu to a traditional “slide-out” structure, akin to how OS (macOS, Windows, etc.) menus work. Read more
20 May 2021 ux usability design patterns
css-tricks.com
A brilliant post about how important HTML and CSS truly are today more than ever. I’ve been watching the JS and React craziness going on over the last few years and have refused to take part. The fundamentals of the web are, and always will be, HTML and CSS. Without these at the core, JS, React, or even PHP (or any other web-based language for that matter) would not even exist. Read more
The paragraph you are reading right now is styled differently from the rest of the paragraphs down below. This only applies if there are more sibling paragraphs below.
9 May 2021 css
In my previous post, I mentioned that I’d added an archive page containing images of old work to my website. To build this, I decided to use CSS columns to create a masonry-style layout without using complex JavaScript or frameworks - just plain old CSS and HTML.
6 May 2021 page speed css
