Weeknotes – series 04 episode 01

It's been a while since my last weeknote, (almost a year and a half!) but I'm trying to get back into a blogging rhythm again, plus I've got time to spare as Wales has just gone into lockdown 2.

Coronavirus

This week we've been in isolation for various reasons. I had a test last weekend, but luckily after a few days, it turned out to be negative. More worryingly, there was a positive case in our youngest's nursery class. So they're in isolation until the middle of next week. It meant we couldn't really do much during our last week before Wales's firebreak lockdown thing.

Accessibility testing tools and techniques

I've been focussing a lot on accessibility testing over the summer. Next I'm thinking how I can integrate these testing techniques into my day-to-day workflow. So this round-up of accessibility testing tools and techniques from Artem Sapegin is timely. It starts off quite technical, but quickly gets into useful browser plugins and manual things you can do without technical knowledge, like using the humble 'tab key' to navigate.

Switching back into design mode

After a few weeks when I've been mostly focusing on user research it's been nice to switch back to interaction design mode for a couple of projects. Although I love variation in my work, I think tinkering around in HTML and CSS is my happy place. Which always makes me think of Procrastiworking by Jessica Hische.

I use 11ty (static site generator) for my most of my prototyping. It's compatible with the same templating language (Liquid) that I use on this blog, so it was easy enough for me to pick up. Although I'd really like to push myself and switch over to something a bit more powerful like Nunjucks at some point.

Swirrl are hiring again (and we've started a podcast)

There's been lots of Swirrl news recently. We're hiring junior and senior software engineers. I can't tell you much about the specifics of that role, but if you have any questions about what it's like to work at Swirrl, feel free to get in touch!

Sarah has also started a podcast. You can listen to the first episode where she chats to Jamie about telling stories with data.