Journal

Here are my current go-to resources when building a new site using Eleventy (11ty).

A while back, Jake Archibald tweeted:

Don't render buttons on the server that require JS to work.

Astro looks very interesting. It’s in part a static site builder (a bit like Eleventy) but it also comes with a modern (revolutionary?) developer experience which lets you author components as web components or in a JS framework of your choice but then renders those to static HTML for optimal performance. Oh, and as far as I can tell theres no build pipeline!

Astro lets you use any framework you want (or none at all). And if most sites only have islands of interactivity, shouldn’t our tools optimize for that?

The GOV.UK Design System is a nice Design System success story. At 3 years old it’s reporting high traffic, usage and satisfaction ratings. GDS do so much great, thoughtful and inclusive work (which they also share with the community) and it’s inspiring to see it being a success.

There are now more than 900 live cross-government services using the GOV.UK Design System - 75% more than a year ago. It’s being used in more than 2,600 repositories on GitHub and has been forked more than 200 times.

Here’s a handy JS package for “copy to clipboard” functionality that’s lightweight and installable from npm.

@Amy_Hupe recently posed a great question on Twitter regarding inclusive language for buttons:

What's an inclusive way to describe what you do to a (digital) button, given it might be pressed with a mouse click, a screen tap, a key on a keyboard, and so on? I've tended to use "select" but wondering if that's right?

I’ve just finished reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Isihiguro.

Afterwards I was also keen to see the film, which I enjoyed. It featured great performances by Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield in particular, and a haunting score. Although I enjoyed the book, I found it a little slow-paced and so watching the film helped bring it all together (despite taking a few liberties with the plot).

Lastly, I enjoyed this short interview with the author in which he interestingly remarked that the sci-fi element was just a device to support the primary topic of managing friendship and loving relationships within our short lifetimes.

I should have bookmarked it long before now, but just revisiting the Lightning Design System I’m reminded that is really well organised and executed.

SLDS saves time and energy, freeing designers and developers to focus on larger issues of usability and meaning. Standardized, reusable components support collaboration, reinforce branding, and provide a consistent look and user experience.

Having a nice moment revisiting this amazing 2006 Ai records double-header from @datassette and @plant43_ and remembering pre-lockdown Glasgow life.

Lean, hackable, extensible slide deck framework

I’ve been on the lookout for a lightweight, web standards based slide deck solution for a while and this one from Lea Verou could well be perfect.