Best Practices

"Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist." — Falsely attributed to Pablo Picasso

Using the native HTML disclosure widget for a burger menu is so enticing. Unfortunately, the details/summary elements come with accessibility issues, so it's not an inclusive solution.

Progressive enhancement or a great Cumulative Layout Shift metric score? Why not both?

Font subsetting allows you to split a font's characters (letters, numbers, symbols, etc.) into separate files so your visitors only download what they need. There are two main subsetting strategies that have different advantages depending on the type of site you're building.

Components are everywhere, but they are rarely reusable across systems. A design system component is written differently than a CMS editor component. But does it have to be this way? Could we take one set of components and port them to multiple JavaScript frameworks, import them into design tools, and use them for the editing interfaces in content management systems?

Web design software makers saw the pain caused by the design to developer hand off and built features to help. Unfortunately, these features don’t help as much as the software makers hope. At best, they are unwanted features to be ignored. At worst, they reinforce faulty assumptions that undermine design systems.

The traditional web design process hopes that static mockups—representing mobile, tablet, and desktop breakpoints—provide developers with everything they need to know to turn the designs into functional web pages. In reality, design happens between breakpoints.