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I’ve always avoided terms like “click here” or “click below” on any interactive element, and now that I’m doing more accessible design work, avoidance of these things is so important. This article by Stark explains why. Read more

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

A great article about correctly using focus states to improve website accessability. Read more

I recently switched my website from using a .com.au domain to a .design instead. Here’s why. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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

I wasn’t aware of the CSS is() pseudo-class, but this would help avoid that much-hated selector duplication. Read more

Essential tips, advice and useful links on improving the page speed and Core Web Vitals on Shopify stores. Read more

An insightful article by Spotify about tweaking elements for better accessibility. Read more

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

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. Read more