Dev Diary Entry, 3rd October 2023

I’m having another go at Blogtober starting this week, where I post something every day through October. I haven’t posted a Dev Diary for ages and in my made-up rules this will count towards my count of 31 posts this month.

What have I been up to? Professionally, I’ve moved from a design role back into a development role which has been very fun. The world of web development has changed a lot since 2019, but coding is like riding a bike.

Personally, I’m building a small Astro project which is my first encounter with the framework - it’s been simple and pleasant to get something working. However my progress has ground to halt now that I have to style the UI. I’ll probably keep Astro’s default fonts and colours just to get something shipped!

Dev Diary Entry, 5th April 2022

I haven’t posted any content for so long that I’ve become afraid of publishing again. I lose my nerve and inevitably my confidence and go back to square one where I feel I have nothing to share. This is after blogging and working in tech for A Long Time Now (8 years I think?). So here I am writing about nothing in particular just to break the cycle and start posting again.

Conversely, the last full blog post on this site, which is now a year old, has been my most popular ever and appears to gaining traffic each month. People really want to learn about One Sided Borders in Figma!

Dev Diary Entry, 15th November 2021

I revisited the codebase of this blog recently for the first time in months and was very grateful for the Readme file. Past-Claire had written enough instructions so that Future-Claire could get developing quickly. This is your regular reminder to create documentation for whoever maintains the code after you, even it’s yourself!

What I've been doing this week:

• Spending some focussed time creating ideas for content. I love posting content for lots of reasons (most of them healthy and not narcissistic!) but struggle to come up with ideas lately. There’s no shame in spending some time coming up with ideas in advance which can make the process easier.

What I've been reading this week:

• Respecting Users’ Motion Preferences - I improved the CSS for how I handle smooth scroll on this site after reading this. Just like doing mobile first, we should add animation within a media query only if users have no motion preference.
• Color and contrast, what does it mean? - A good explanation of how colour contrast ratios work, something that I use all the time in my current role

Dev Diary Entry, 8th November 2021

How has another 3 months gone by with me barely posting anything? All my 2021 goals are looking very unrealistic (post x number of blog posts, read x number of books) so it’s easy to think 2021 has been “unsuccessful”. However, since the last UK lockdown ended in Spring, 2021 has been a vast improvement on 2020 for me personally, and content creation and consumption have been replaced by actually getting out and doing things in real life 🎉.

I’ve got into a nice rhythm of working in the office again now. It was a big readjustment at first, especially as I was only going in an average of once a week, which made it hard to get used to. However, a few months in and I now look forward to the change of scenery from the desk in my spare bedroom.

What I've been doing this week:

• Having a think about what I want Dev Diarys to be in the future. Maybe even getting round to the much-thought-about redesign of this and clairecodes

What I've been reading this week:

• Why debate non-text contrast of UI elements? - I knew about the recommended 4.5:1 colour contrast ratio for text, but this article taught me about the 3:1 contrast ratio required for other UI components.
• How to respond when a job interviewer says “Tell me about yourself” - After doing some recruitment in work recently, this is great advice and a question that also trips me up everytime.

Dev Diary Entry, 9th August 2021

It’s been over three months since I published something on the internet! Did I even exist for that period of time?? The reason for not being on the internet was being out in the real world instead. The UK has gradually eased lockdown restrictions since Spring and at the time of writing we are the most pre-pandemic than we’ve been since March 2020. Workwise this means I’ve been able to return to an office! Really enjoying the spontaneity of in-person conversations and the posh coffee-maker. So as my routine is changed up again, let’s see if I can create content a little more regularly - maybe I’ll make use of my new commute.

What I've been reading this week:

• I’ve bought ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Donald N. Norman to begin my UX library, another book for my commute.