Blog posts from 2020

  1. An unexpected accessibility benefit of video calls

    Article posted 30th December 2020 in Accessibility

    COVID-19 changed the way we work. Now that we all work from home, remote team members report feeling more included, and I’ve noticed another benefit.

  2. Voice Control for macOS commands cheatsheet

    Article posted 29th December 2020 in Accessibility and Apple

    I have a list of all the commands for Voice Control for macOS, and it comes in handy pretty much every time I do any speech recognition testing.

  3. Why I prefer not to use CSS shorthand

    Article posted 23rd December 2020 in CSS

    Instead of using the padding declaration, I use the longhand padding-top, padding-right, and so on. Why? A few of good reasons: let me explain.

  4. Progressively enhanced animated content

    Article posted 2nd December 2020 in Accessibility and Development

    Respecting your users’ preferences with prefers-reduced-motion is great, but what about users with older operating systems and browsers?

  5. Google are spoiling my Blue Beanie Day

    Article posted 30th November 2020 in Development

    Web standards should be a done deal by now, but 8 years on from my last post on the subject, we need to be as vigilant as ever.

  6. Form styling limitations are an accessibility issue

    Article posted 27th November 2020 in Accessibility, CSS and Development

    A summary of the things missing in CSS got me thinking about how lack of some form styling may have seriously damaged accessibility on the web.

  7. Moving to Apple One with existing Apple subscriptions

    Article posted 19th November 2020 in Apple

    I had some questions before upgrading to Apple One, as I had existing Apple subscriptions. If you’re in the same position I was, this should help.

  8. The tempertemper newsletter

    Article posted 5th November 2020

    A while ago, I realised I didn’t have a great way to get all my articles out to people who want to read them. That’s where my newsletter comes in.

  9. Respecting people’s privacy

    Article posted 30th October 2020

    Collecting data, whether needed or not, is high on a lot of companies’ agendas. Me, I don’t track users and I collect the bare minimum data.

  10. Accessibility issues when removing list markers

    Article posted 12th October 2020 in Accessibility, CSS and Development

    If we remove the list markers from an ordered or unordered list, we’re likely to run into some issues with VoiceOver.

  11. Custom unordered list markers, done right

    Article posted 8th October 2020 in CSS and Development

    Did you know you can choose any icon you like for unordered/bulleted lists with a single line of CSS? Any Unicode character; no hacky CSS!

  12. Styling list markers the right way

    Article posted 7th October 2020 in CSS and Development

    Simple list styling like changing the bullets’ colour has always felt like a hack, involving a lot of CSS. But now there’s a proper way to do it!

  13. How to use the keyboard to navigate on Safari

    Article posted 6th October 2020 in Accessibility

    A great way to start accessibility testing is to navigate with the keyboard. Safari is limited by default, so here’s how get it working properly.

  14. Using the keyboard to navigate on macOS

    Article posted 5th October 2020 in Accessibility

    I’ve just set up a new Mac, and keyboard navigation is pretty limited by default. Here’s how to make it much more useful.

  15. Opening links in a new tab or window is better avoided

    Article posted 21st September 2020 in Design and Development

    A link to an external source opening in a new tab or window is something that appears innocuous but really isn’t as straightforward it seems.

  16. First impressions of iOS 14

    Article posted 18th September 2020 in Apple

    After 24 hours using iOS 14, I’ve found some of the new features unexpectedly useful. Here are my first impressions.

  17. 3D touch is gone on Apple Watch

    Article posted 17th September 2020 in Apple

    I noticed it when I went to try out the new Faces that arrived with watchOS 7: the new Apple Watch operating system has removed 3D Touch entirely!

  18. Splitting a hunk in Git’s patch mode

    Article posted 15th September 2020 in Development and Git

    When you enter Git’s patch mode, the chunks of code you’re offered to stage/skip can sometimes be too big. Here’s how splitting them works.

  19. Staging different parts of the same file with Git

    Article posted 14th September 2020 in Development and Git

    Since moving to command line Git, I’ve avoided patch mode; it looked too complicated. Turns out it’s really not, and very much worth learning.

  20. Include a date on your blog posts

    Article posted 10th September 2020

    Aside from the article itself, the most important thing to include on every blog post you write is the date published.

  21. Styling underlines with CSS

    Article posted 9th September 2020 in CSS, Design and Development

    Never mind border-bottom for making your links a bit more visually engaging, here’s how to do it properly with text-decoration.

  22. Why you should (almost) always underline your links

    Article posted 3rd September 2020 in Accessibility and Design

    A link should look like the text around it, but with a couple of differences: maybe a bit of colour and (almost) always an underline.

  23. Saying goodbye to UK government

    Article posted 26th August 2020

    Monday marked my last day working on the UK government’s digital services, after two and a half years. It has been an amazing experience.

  24. WebKit has fixed the implicit role on footers

    Article posted 24th August 2020 in Accessibility and Development

    Last year, I wrote about implicit ARIA roles; an issue I encountered was that VoiceOver didn’t give an implicit role to footers. Well, it’s fixed!

  25. iOS 14’s Back Tap; a better way to access Control Centre

    Article posted 21st August 2020 in Accessibility and Apple

    My most anticipated iOS 14 feature wasn’t mentioned at WWDC 2020, but will sort my biggest issue with iPhones X and above: Control Centre access.

  26. Putting the time in up front

    Article posted 18th August 2020

    Taking time to learn or improve a skill, or set solid foundations for a project can often be the difference between it happening or not.

  27. Text snippets on Apple devices

    Article posted 13th August 2020 in Apple and Workflows

    I’ve been using Apple’s built-in Text Replacement instead of TextExpander for a while now. It’s pretty basic, but it’s free and it does the job.

  28. The right way to use break tags in HTML

    Article posted 28th July 2020 in Development and HTML

    Break tags are often misused. I’ll demo some markup patterns to avoid them, and reveal the one and only legitimate use case I can think of.

  29. Using WebP images

    Article posted 27th July 2020 in Design and Development

    Safari will soon support the WebP image format, which purports some great advantages, but is it actually better than the formats we already use?

  30. Searching for a Git commit by name with grep

    Article posted 24th July 2020 in Development and Git

    When you need to dig out a commit you made a long time ago, you’re going to need something a bit more powerful than a standard git log.

  31. Using address in HTML won’t be problematic for much longer

    Article posted 22nd July 2020 in Accessibility, Development and HTML

    There’s a bug in Safari that adds an implicit role to <address> which causes problems for screen readers. The good news is, a fix is very close!

  32. Using horizontal rules in HTML

    Article posted 20th July 2020 in Development and HTML

    The horizontal rule is pretty widely misunderstood and often abused. It’s not an HTML element I reach for very much, but it’s worth writing about.

  33. How to change the first number of an ordered list in HTML

    Article posted 15th July 2020 in Development and HTML

    What happens when starting an ordered list at 1 doesn’t make sense? HTML has an attribute that lets you start your count at any number!

  34. Reversing an ordered list in HTML

    Article posted 14th July 2020 in Development and HTML

    When the order of a list matters, you might find yourself in a situation where you need to reverse the order. Fortunately, you can do that with HTML.

  35. Frontend NE draws to a close

    Article posted 13th July 2020

    Frontend NE is coming to an end, but I’ve decided to come back for one last hurrah at the postponed final meet-up, whenever that might be!

  36. Self-closing elements in HTML

    Article posted 10th July 2020 in Development and HTML

    Some elements don’t look like the others; those are self-closing elements, which are just an opening tag with no content and no closing tag.

  37. An introduction to HTML attributes

    Article posted 9th July 2020 in Development and HTML

    An HTML attribute lives on the opening tag of an element and gives that element powers it might not otherwise have had.

  38. A handy Git shortcut to fetch and prune

    Article posted 8th July 2020 in Development and Git

    I’m still writing my Git commands long-hand. Turns out a fetch and prune can be more concise than I’ve previously suggested, all without aliases.

  39. Chaining Git commands

    Article posted 7th July 2020 in Development and Git

    Writing a sequence of Git commands is really handy and much quicker than running one, waiting for it to finish, writing the next, etc. Here’s how.

  40. Using image aspect ratios to avoiding janky page loading

    Article posted 6th July 2020 in Development, HTML and Performance

    Adding dimensions to images in HTML is useful again! They’re a progressive enhancement to calculate the image’s aspect ratio and prevent jank.

  41. Lazy loading images without JavaScript

    Article posted 3rd July 2020 in Development, HTML and Performance

    Non-JavaScript lazy loading is a great progressive enhancement for image-heavy pages on the web. Just a simple HTML attribute and you’re away!

  42. The briefest of histories of responsive images

    Article posted 1st July 2020 in Design and Development

    There are a lot of things to consider when using images on the web. But why is it so complex? And how can we tackle that complexity?

  43. ‘Frontend’, ‘front‑end’ or ‘front end’?

    Article posted 30th June 2020 in Development

    As a frontend developer, something has always bothered me. How on earth do you spell ‘frontend’!? Or should that be ‘front-end’? Or ‘front end’…?

  44. Pushing to a differently named branch on your remote

    Article posted 29th June 2020 in Development and Git

    When using Git, you’ll normally push work to an identically named branch on your remote, but what if you want to push to a different branch?

  45. Redirect a filename in Netlify without specifying the path

    Article posted 26th June 2020 in Development and Serverless

    Redirecting a file in Netlify is easy, but what if you don’t know the path? Here’s how to redirect a particular filename, wherever that file may live.

  46. When design breaks semantics

    Article posted 25th June 2020 in Accessibility, Design and Development

    Semantic HTML is great. But sometimes following the rules is tricky. Grab a cuppa and let me tell you a story about links that look like buttons.

  47. How my website’s design has evolved

    Article posted 25th June 2020 in Brand and Design

    My post on portfolio redesign got me wondering how my website has evolved. I had an enjoyable look on the WayBack Machine and took some snapshots.

  48. Why I haven’t ‘redesigned my portfolio’ since 2014

    Article posted 24th June 2020 in Design

    There’s a thing in the web design community where we re-do our websites every couple of years. Confession time: I haven’t redesigned mine since 2014.

  49. WWDC 2020 roundup

    Article posted 23rd June 2020 in Apple

    I did it last year, so here it is again. Far from a complete list of the features Apple announced at WWDC 2020, but the ones that stood out to me.

  50. Sleep on watchOS 7

    Article posted 23rd June 2020 in Apple and Design

    One of only a handful of real stand outs from the WWDC 2020 Keynote was native sleep tracking on watchOS. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time!

  51. Keeping git status short

    Article posted 22nd June 2020 in Development and Git

    git status is one of the Git commands I use the most, but I’ve always thought that it overshares. Well, I’ve found a way to make it more readable!

  52. Optional closing tags in HTML

    Article posted 18th June 2020 in Development

    One of the interesting things about HTML5 is its flexibility. You don’t even need a closing tag on some elements! But be careful with that.

  53. The difference between elements and tags in HTML

    Article posted 15th June 2020 in Development

    People often refer to HTML ‘tags’ and ‘elements’ interchangeably. They’re related, but very much different things. Here’s the deal.

  54. Why I always raise a pull request on solo projects

    Article posted 4th May 2020 in Development and Git

    The whole point of a PR is to get feedback and approval on a piece of work from someone else before it’s published. But what if it’s just you?

  55. De-prioritising design

    Article posted 8th April 2020 in Design

    When a friend asked for some CSS tips for a website he works on, I noticed a design issue that actually highlights a common problem in our industry.

  56. HTML is more complicated than you think

    Article posted 6th April 2020

    HTML, like CSS, is easy to learn. Trouble is, if you want to write it well, it gets difficult very quickly.

  57. Using the HTML document outline

    Article posted 3rd April 2020 in Accessibility, Design and Development

    What is a document outline? Sounds complicated, but it’s really not – it’s just headings! Find out more about them and why they’re a good idea.

  58. Pixels, constraints, minimalism, and temper­temper

    Article posted 14th March 2020 in Brand and Design

    As a designer, I thrive on constraints; as a minimalist, I enjoy boiling something down to its essence. Happily, my brand now allows room for pixel art.

  59. Even the finest of details can be important

    Article posted 28th February 2020 in Brand and Design

    Since my post on refining my brand I’ve encountered a tiny issue where, with a circular crop, the underscore is too close to the edge of the circle.

  60. What watchOS 7 might have in store

    Article posted 27th February 2020 in Apple and Design

    I was pretty pleased with watchOS 6 when it landed last autumn, but a recent article got me thinking about what watchOS 7 might have in store.

  61. Why is accessibility so often seen as a low priority?

    Article posted 20th February 2020 in Accessibility

    A couple of recent CSS-Tricks articles got me thinking about how website owners prioritise their legal (and moral!) obligations to their users.

  62. How to rename a remote repo in Git

    Article posted 10th February 2020 in Development and Git

    Renaming a Git repository feels pretty fundamental – surely something will break? Well, worry no more – it turns out it’s a piece of cake!

  63. The simplest solutions are usually the best

    Article posted 25th January 2020 in Brand and Design

    I’ve spent more than 5 years working on an icon for my brand. It has been a lot of fun and the right solution turned out to be under my nose all along!

  64. How to diff branches in Git

    Article posted 11th January 2020 in Development and Git

    Turns out it’s pretty easy to look at the differences between two branches in Git. This is useful when coming back to a feature branch after a while.

Other years

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011.