Blog posts

All 164 of my blog posts, most recent first...

2024

25 Jul Code formatting and style guides

25 Jul A dedicated pull request channel

19 Jul Converting jQuery to vanilla JavaScript with an AI assistant

19 Jun Positioning popover elements (pseudo-anchoring)

19 Jun The connection between communication languages and programming languages

06 Jun Making a selected value readable when the text is long

22 May When should we use components and when should we just use HTML?

02 Apr The development burden of user choice

21 Mar Not enough or too much data

05 Mar Please stop using flags to represent languages

26 Jan Why should we care about Web Accessibility?

20 Jan Learning TypeScript

08 Jan Rebranding Tips - Part 4 - Typography

08 Jan Rebranding Tips - Part 3 - Colours

08 Jan Rebranding Tips - Part 2 - Brand Names

08 Jan Rebranding Tips - Part 1 - Logos

2023

27 Oct What to Validate on a Form

18 Oct Pronunciation of Terms in Web Development

09 Oct How Widespread is Ad Blocking?

13 Sep Practical Tips to Reduce your Carbon Footprint

18 Jun WordPress to Eleventy - Part 2, The How

18 Jun WordPress to Eleventy - Part 1, The Why

15 Jun Who'd be a front end developer?

09 Jun Prototyping in CodePen

30 Apr UI Performance - Critical Rendering Path Optimisation

2022

08 Jul CARPET - A Front End Checklist

27 May How I'd Learn Front End Web Development Now

2021

10 Dec Emmet - Write HTML and CSS Faster

23 May Progress Indicators

27 Jan New Image Formats - WebP and AVIF

05 Jan Transitioning to Modern JavaScript

2020

03 Aug Learning to Write Code that is Good Enough

26 Jul Reasons for Developers to Have a Blog

26 Mar The Dangers of Logic in CSS

25 Mar Clicking Off Things to Close Them

15 Mar Tips for Working from Home

17 Jan Print CSS Tips

2019

17 Oct Switching APIs

11 Oct Safer Passwords

04 Aug Edging Out of IE Support

03 Aug Performance Perception Trick: Processing Lists Faster

02 Aug Should Designers Be Able to Code?

03 May What Techies Tweet

13 Apr When to Reach for a Framework (and When Not To)

29 Mar Hiding UI Elements

2018

27 Dec What I Learned in 2018

15 Nov The DOM Diet and Year Pickers

24 Oct Why Are We Making Web Development So Hard?

06 Oct Learning Experiences as a Freelancer

05 Oct Super Fast Tree View in JavaScript

01 Aug Stop Linking to Nowhere

01 Aug Google Analytics - Why You Should Replace IDs in URLs

13 Jul Experiment: Font Size vs Colour Contrast

16 May Making Icons Accessible

09 May A New Found Appreciation for Images on the Web

13 Apr How to Be a Good Designer

01 Feb Lightning Fast Filtering in JavaScript

10 Jan Accessible Colour Contrast

10 Jan What I Learned in 2017

2017

10 Nov Native Browser Controls Rule

25 Oct Do IT Qualifications Hold Value?

22 Oct Shared User Accounts

20 Oct Setting Performance Targets

15 Oct To DOM or Not to DOM?

14 Oct Speed, Usability and Speed

09 Sep Component World

22 Jun Different Conditional Syntaxes in JavaScript

21 Jun Hacking Borders

24 May Take a Tour

19 May Why It's Still Worth Learning Bootstrap

05 May Presenting Multiple Layouts

03 May Measuring Front End Performance

01 May Front End Performance Enhancements

28 Apr Precision Level in CSS

07 Apr The Welsh Language Conundrum

19 Mar Pet Hate: Click Here

09 Mar HTML Semantics - Header or Sidebar?

08 Mar Reorganising Data Client Side

05 Mar Measuring Readership

10 Feb Talking to Machines

09 Feb Learning the Right Things

01 Feb International box-sizing Awareness Day

29 Jan iOS vs Android vs Windows in 2017

28 Jan Opera Neon - First Impressions

27 Jan Snark Overflow

18 Jan Blogging Nostalgia

15 Jan The End of the EU Cookie Law

13 Jan Cut the Crap!

08 Jan What I Learned in 2016 (Part 3)

07 Jan What I Learned in 2016 (Part 2)

06 Jan What I Learned in 2016 (Part 1)

2016

16 Dec Code Neat Freak

30 Nov Is UX Design Really a Thing?

23 Nov Displaying Options in a UI

22 Nov Emotional Response

18 Nov Let Off the IE9 Leash

17 Nov A/A Testing

16 Nov Click Fear

04 Nov Bad Web Dev

30 Sep When to Hide and When to Disable

28 May Getting Feedback on Codepen Demos

27 May Beautifying Native Form Elements

18 May Star Wars Mini Projects in Codepen

25 Apr Web Animation Tips

23 Apr Mother Nature in Web Design

21 Apr Lazy HTML :(

20 Apr Ordering CSS Properties A-Z

06 Apr What to Look For in a Web Designer or Design Agency

11 Mar Can I Track It?

09 Mar Google Maps - The Bits They Don't Tell You

06 Mar Tools of the Trade

04 Mar Learning Flexbox

03 Mar Loading More Items

10 Feb Boosting Web Performance

18 Jan Bilingual Equality with a Splash Page

13 Jan Website Redesign - chrissmith.xyz

10 Jan Setting Default Styling for Custom UI Components

02 Jan What I Learned in 2015

2015

24 Dec Easier Colours in Web Design

13 Dec Developing in Codepen

26 Nov Questioning the UX of an App I've Never Seen

10 Apr Forgotten Passwords

2014

31 Dec What I Learned in 2014: Part 3 - The Best of the Rest

30 Dec What I Learned in 2014: Part 2 - Javascript and Google Maps

29 Dec What I Learned in 2014: Part 1 - HTML, CSS, Fonts and Images

28 Sep If Facebook had a Yawn Button

07 Sep My New Website

2011

19 Jan How to choose the right web host

2010

22 Jun How to pick the right domain name

02 Jun Static Website or Content Management System?

2009

16 Sep Good web design – following conventions

14 Sep Fighting Spam

03 Jul Twitter explained simply

21 Jun Web traffic through quality links

21 Jun Introducing... Dinowebs.net

15 Jun My website is 5 today!

09 Jun Monitoring your Marketing with Unique URLs

05 Jun Don't put all your eggs in Google's basket

04 Jun Hits schmits! What do Web Statistics really mean?

12 May Need a website? Confused about what you need? Read this.

01 May My Firefox Add-ons

30 Mar Online ways to launch a website

23 Feb Web Development - it's not like building a shed

18 Feb The new language of Social Media

26 Jan Marketing through Facebook, for free

13 Jan My Software Preferences

09 Jan Moving from Print to Web in Stages

08 Jan Amazon - design a 4 year old can use

06 Jan Google's Personalised Search

2008

08 Dec I want an ecommerce site. Maybe you don't?

05 Dec eMarketing Award Distinction :)

28 Oct The Cheap Web Design Market

27 Oct The Information Hungry Search Box

15 Oct Website Design - the Finishing Touches

14 Oct Basic Website Integration

14 Oct Web Design for the non-designer

14 Oct Beat the Credit Crunch - Move Online

07 Oct Content Management Systems explained

30 Sep Web Design for Different Screen Sizes

29 Sep Links, link exchanges and strategies

23 Sep What is a website visitor worth?

15 Sep Google Chrome - first impressions

11 Aug The Web 2.0 concept - the basics

07 Aug The CIM eMarketing Award