Blog
-
Vampire Weekend
A weekend of live music in Cardiff and Manchester.
-
Never half-ass two things
A weeknote starting 18 November 2024.
-
Moving teams again
A weeknote starting 11 November 2024.
-
What makes a successful usability test?
A weeknote starting 4 November 2024.
-
Travelling for user research and design workshops
A weeknote starting 28 October 2024.
-
Front-end dev standards
A weeknote starting 21 October 2024.
-
Prototype kit and nunjucks special
A weeknote starting 14 October 2024.
-
Observing users on site
A weeknote starting 7 October 2024.
-
New team and some great gigs
A weeknote starting 30 September 2024.
-
A tough week
A weeknote starting 23 September 2024.
-
Service assessment looming
A weeknote starting 16 September 2024.
-
Worrying about the future of interaction design
A weeknote starting 9 September 2024.
-
Contract extensions
A weeknote starting 2 September 2024.
-
Back from hols to a team shake-up
A weeknote starting 26 August 2024.
-
Design links and live music
A weeknote starting 17 June 2024.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 18 and 19
User acceptance testing, music festivals and snakes.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 17
Some good interaction design habits I'm trying to adopt.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 16
Inclusive language and the contenteditable attribute.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 15
Struggling with JavaScript, usability testing, and design systems.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 14
Planning user research and getting the prototype ready.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 13
Reflecting on 1 year contracting, and nice things to do in Swansea.
-
Thundercat at Bristol Beacon
Finally managed to get to a gig in Bristol. Here are a few photos from the night (and following morning).
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 12
Prototyping, beach safety forecasts, digital inclusion, co-design.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 11
Refining business requirements, a uses page, X-GOVUK show and tell, a design system for Wales.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 10
Design debt, mentoring, RSS feeds and white default in autocorrects.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 09
Design Swansea, RSS feeds and Jakob Nielsen.
-
3 interaction design things
My slides and talk transcript for Design Swansea Cropped on Thursday 7 March 2024
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 08
Breaking words in tables, visit to Sheffield, remote working and designing Welsh services.
-
Why I love remote work
Remote working enables me to be a better parent, a better partner, be happier at work and to do better work.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 07
1500 commits, adding a now page, visiting Sheffield and Axe-con.
-
Why Markdown is a great design tool
Different ways I use Markdown to help me design and write.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 06
Designing with uncertainty, accessibility strategy resources, Bombay Bicycle Club.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 05
Stress, stakeholder demos, links without hrefs and Bluesky.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 04
Design Swansea, Shoreline management plans, testing prototypes in other devices, design debt and target size.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 03
Prototyping rhythm, design authority presentations, design histories and Design Swansea.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 02
Deadlines, new laptop, flow diagrams and accessible notifications.
-
Weeknotes – series 07 episode 01
Contract extension, joining a design community of practice in Wales and some interaction design bookmarks.
-
Helping to get quality code into production as an interaction designer
My notes on how interaction designers can work with software developers and testers on agile delivery teams.
-
First 6 months contracting
I’ve just started my 6th month as a contractor, and wanted to share some notes around the practicalities of being employed inside IR35.
-
Seb
A collection of memories I have of my cousin Seb who died last year.
-
My contracting goals 2023
Here are some work goals I've set myself, now that I've started contracting.
-
First 3 months contracting
Contract extensions and cross-gov working
-
This is forty
I'm turning 40 this month, so I thought it was worth marking it with a blog post
-
Inclusive design for interaction designers
What can interaction designers do to make services more inclusive?
-
My first few weeks contracting
My first few weeks contracting, and thinking about interaction design versus service design.
-
Setting up a new mac for interaction design
A round up of interaction design software that I'll install first on a new Macbook.
-
The stickers on my laptop, 2023 edition
Time to clean the stickers off my laptop (again).
-
Lining up my first role
Good news, it looks like I've lined up my first contract role.
-
I’m going contracting
Hey friends, I've decided to take the plunge and go contracting.
-
Accessible PowerPoint presentations
A collection of tips for making PowerPoint presentations more accessible.
-
Inclusive design resources
A collection of posts, articles, guides and podcasts about inclusive design.
-
Visiting all the beaches in Swansea and Gower
I’ve set myself a challenge to visit all the beaches in Swansea and Gower. There are about 39 in total.
-
Starting a blogroll
I've decided to start a blogroll. A list of sites that I read or recommend.
-
List of inclusive design books
Some inclusive design books that I'm reading, or are on my wish list.
-
Showing the post excerpt on blog post lists
A brief look at how I'm using front matter to add blog post descriptions to my site.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 14
Design Swansea, user research and design reviews.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 13
My Gran’s funeral, passing probation, watching service design in gov via Twitter, Liverpool.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 12
A look at the accessibility best practices and exclusion mapping guides I've been working on.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 11
My first sprint, user research with people with access needs, and exclusion mapping.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 10
Device testing, accessibilty at beta phase, and random 8s
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 09
New sprint, writing UCD tickets, design QA (including basic accessibility checks).
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 08
Design system day tickets, user research planning and writing design acceptance criteria.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 07
Native app design, accessibility best practices, and my inclusive design reading list.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 06
Gower beaches, heat wave and pizza
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 05
Summer holiday edition - Alton Towers, Stanton village and Gower beaches.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 04
Paddle boarding, manuals of me, design leadership for introverts.
-
My interaction design tools, version 3
-
A user manual for me, version 3
A 2022 update to my user manual, based on Cassie Robinson's template.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 03
Extreme heat, end of school, user-centred design training, mobile app design and 1-to-1s.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 02
More onboarding, being in the chalet and getting my kit setup.
-
Weeknotes – series 06 episode 01
-
Things to do in Swansea
My non-exhaustive list of nice things to do in Swansea. Mostly places that serve pale ale. And beaches. Roughly East to West.
-
My first 3 months in the inclusive design team
-
Joining NHS test and trace
-
A user manual for me, version 2
-
Adding some basic CSS
Adding some basic CSS to stop Google shouting at me.
-
Switching to Eleventy, but still naked
-
Family friendly TV shows with LGBT characters
-
Redirect custom domain name from GitHub pages to Netlify
-
Checking for visual changes with BackstopJS
-
Some personal goals for 2021
-
Deploy my Jekyll site to Netlify
-
Create a list of sample pages for testing
-
Change default branch from master to main
-
A plan for accessible maps
-
Weeknotes – series 04 episode 04
-
Weeknotes – series 04 episode 03
-
Weeknotes – series 04 episode 02
-
Weeknotes – series 04 episode 01
-
A user-centred design and data community
-
11ty resources
-
Teams who share their accessibility processes in the open
-
Accessible close buttons
A short post about designing close buttons with SVG icons and accessible mark-up.
-
Generally, it’s better to avoid opening links in new windows or tabs
-
My first year at Swirrl
-
Pens for UX sketching and note taking
-
User research activities for testing interface content
-
Making data part of the web sticker
-
Books about racism in the UK
-
Accessible search form mark-up
-
Some personal goals for 2020
-
Making data tables more accessible
-
User research questions for data users
-
What have I accomplished this decade?
-
Accessibility checklist
A list of accessibility recommendations; covering typography, content, layout and interaction.
-
Using Shortcuts app to add location data to my posts
-
Going full Monzo
-
Work trips 2019
I've been making a note of all my work trips this year.
-
Finally went to Ty Cwrw in Mumbles last night, tried a lovely Tenby Brewing x Tiny Rebel ale
-
Coffee beans
-
Tiny Rebel beer mat
-
Design workshops
-
Writing user stories
-
Co-working spaces in Cardiff centre
-
Remote working pros and cons
-
Weeknotes – series 03 episode 05
-
Weeknotes – series 03 episode 04
-
Weeknotes – series 03 episode 03
-
Weeknotes – series 03 episode 02
-
Weeknotes – series 03 episode 01
-
How to be a more resilient service designer
-
Weeknotes – series 02 episode 06
-
Weeknotes – series 02 episode 05
-
January 2019 bookmarks
My read later list from January.
-
Weeknotes – series 02 episode 04
-
Weeknotes – series 02 episode 03
-
Weeknotes – series 02 episode 02
-
Weeknotes – series 02 episode 01
-
Christmas day dinner timings 2018
-
December 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from December.
-
Five things Andy taught me
-
A user manual for me
-
NaBloPoMo round-up
-
Learnt recently that definition lists (DLs) can have multiple definitions (DDs) for every term (DT) and I’m so here for it.
-
Nice people saying nice things about the ONS website
-
November 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from November.
-
Blog stats
-
The stickers on my laptop
-
I’ve added previous and next links, so users can skip to the posts published before and after this one.
-
Speaking at Service Design in Gov 2019
-
A quick review of the Netflix She-Ra reboot
-
This is a quick test note from my phone. I’m using Working Copy GitHub client for iOS.
-
This is a simple note template. A note is a post that is typically short unstructured plain text, written & posted quickly, that has its own permalink page.
-
My first “no meeting” day
-
Adding h-entry to the posts template
-
Getting started with indieweb
-
A single word that makes the tricky task of changing nappies so much easier
-
Introduction to interaction design in gov
-
Leave me feedback
-
How improving typography can help us to meet user needs
What is typography? What problems does good typography solve? How do we know poor typography is a real problem?
-
100 blog posts
This is my 100th blog post. Here's to 100 more.
-
Interaction design tools
The tools that I use every day. Interesting to note the lack of any design apps like Sketch.
-
Swn 2018
A quick round-up of the things we got up to at Swn.
-
Articles I’ve written that have been published somewhere else
A collection of posts that I’ve written for other blogs.
-
Sid’s words
A list of our 2 year old's unique words.
-
Good coffee in places we go for meetings and user research
-
New design team retro
-
Work trips 2018
I've been making a note of all my work trips this year. Here’s a run down of the key things I spotted.
-
NaBloPoMo progress
It’s not a dashboard. Definitely not a dashboard.
-
Creating the image post layout
A round-up of the key things in my new image post template.
-
9 miles to Glasto
-
October 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from October.
-
September 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from September.
-
How to focus in open plan offices
Earlier this week, I asked the Twitter hive mind for tips how to get focussed work done when working in open plan offices.
-
A plan for accessible charts
A list of user research findings, accessibility report findings, best practice, resources and good ideas that I’ve collected over the past 2 years.
-
How to lead user-centred design
My brief notes from the Government Digital Service (GDS) essentials of leadership training, run by Rebecca Kemp and Ade Adewunmi.
-
August 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from August.
-
July 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from July.
-
June 2018 bookmarks
My read later list from June.
-
Weeknotes – series 01 episode 06
Inflatable bowels, Twitter charts and busy, busy days.
-
What's the best way to mark-up an SVG map?
-
Weeknotes – series 01 episode 05
A trip to GDS to discuss service and graphic design. Plus prototypes, pattern audits and moaning.
-
Kicking things off with the graphic design team
Make your work visible, zoom out, and create some great British public service design.
-
How to start a service design community
My notes from today’s cross-gov service design call.
-
Weeknotes – series 01 episode 04
We got a new graphic designer and a new UX designer. Ryan Dunn popped in too.
-
May 2018 bookmarks
-
Service walkthrough
Observe a service by going through the stages of the user journey.
-
Weeknotes – series 01 episode 03
Featuring service design, accessible maths symbols and pizza.
-
Hiring a user experience (UX) designer at ONS
-
Weeknotes – series 01 episode 02
Heatwave edition.
-
Weeknotes – series 01 episode 01
-
April 2018 bookmarks
-
March 2018 bookmarks
-
February 2018 bookmarks
-
My link sharing workflow
-
Use fewer layouts
-
Add a list of page layouts
-
January 2018 bookmarks
-
Change date format
-
Add SVG icons
Why SVG is best for icons, and which attributes to use.
-
Add aria-current to the site nav
-
December 2017 bookmarks
-
Accessibility for designers
A guide to web accessibility for graphic, visual and UI (user interface) designers.
-
We’re hiring 5 graphic designers at Office for National Statistics (ONS)
3 digital designers and 2 brand and print designers in Newport. Closing 22 Jan 2018.
-
November 2017 bookmarks
-
My first 12ish months
You'll never guess what happened after I joined Office for National Statistics (ONS).
-
Disney data
Data from our family trip to Disneyland Paris.
-
My 12 year quest to get a public service design job
There have been a lot of 'I'm leaving government posts' recently. It feels a bit weird because I've been trying for years to get in.
-
Retrospective (my first 2 months)
-
User experience (UX) designer objectives
-
User research activity cards
-
Work with me at Office for National Statistics (ONS)
-
Creating a digital delivery culture
-
Visual note-taking with Eleanor Beer
-
Things my little girls have taught me about feminism
-
User experience (UX) designer skills
-
Should designers design content?
-
The first UK Government accessibility meet-up
-
The New ABCs of Research by Ben Schneiderman
-
Port80 2016
-
The last ten percent
-
Research findings over the long term
-
Training for the Welsh 3 Peaks
-
Speaking at Design Swansea in April
-
Great service design at Premier Inn
-
Usability research labs in the UK
-
Tools for recording usability tests
-
Baby guerrillas
-
When things get tedious
-
Goodbye WordPress
-
What’s the best way to learn UX?
-
Finding work and managing money as a freelancer
-
Reasons London
-
My top albums 2014
-
Responsive HTML email talk at Winter LocalHost 2014
-
Swansea design meet-up
-
My BlogConf slides
-
Who inspired me
-
Making responsive HTML emails
-
Freelancing and switching off
-
Notes on creating Twitter, Google+ and Facebook profile page images
-
Responsive email design
-
Worrying about health
-
User experience design
-
My name is Benjy and I’m a web designer
-
Readable, guessable and hackable urls
-
Web design tools
-
Why I like to use “smart quotes”
-
30 things done before I'm 30
-
Stickiness and lumpy bits
-
Crafting animation on the web
-
Crafting animation on the web an introduction
-
Animation as a design material
-
Immersive animation on the web
-
On knolling
-
An excuse for a blockquote
-
Design is an actual job
-
Designing user experience in casinos
-
BBC Newsnight talks graphic design and infographics
-
Swansea town sea shanty