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The implications of set forced play spaces in work
I was listening to the Post Status podcast this week where Cory Miller and David Bisset discussed creating time for play within work. I write this not thinking they were advocating for what I disagree with, but the podcast inspired me to share my perspective. Creating space for play absolutely resonates; we learn through play…
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Seek the sketching state
Sketching state is where everyone in product creation is collaborating enough and sharing enough that sketches work. All too often, spending lengthy time coming up with a complete prototype can be far too time-consuming. Passing pixel precision backwards and forth limits the flow and stops that spark of creativity. However, it’s not a state that…
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Theme creation is now easier
The way that themes have evolved within WordPress has made creating them easier. That feels like a bold statement, but it’s true. Themes have been on quite a journey from their origins of simple files through to complex compilers, frameworks and now have come back almost full circle with more levels, options for creation and…
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The importance of testing early and often
This week saw the release of WordPress 5.8 ‘Tatum’. It’s a huge milestone on the full site editing journey, the new WordPress experience’s grand adventure. With every release comes a pause, a moment to reflect, yet it’s important to consider testing continually. We all create this experience together by testing and finding the problems, the…
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Technical words matter
Words matter; we put labels on things, we put labels on each other. Those labels lead to judgements. The ways we judge what capability someone has or hasn’t in something technical only tend to lead to harm, I’ve found. It’s a way to limit before you even know someone, and that’s one way to block…
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Strike while the fear is low
Today I happened to be taking a tea break and saw a post in Slack by Cory Miller sharing a challenge he’s embarking on of 30 days clicking publish. I paused; I found myself wanting to click away, but for some reason, I wasn’t able to, and I found myself in this editor writing this…
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Gutenberg design basics
Have you ever wondered what something is called within Gutenberg? This guide is meant to help by giving the names and the expected behaviour of some of the basic design elements. If you want to build blocks and extend Gutenberg, knowing what to use or not is important. This is meant as a starting point,…
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Gutenberg inspired redesign
I set myself a little holiday project this year, to consolidate and create a theme to use across a few of my sites. With this move I merged my two writing blogs into one and began a long needed update to my portfolio. I wanted to do this using Gutenberg and the Gutenberg theme as a…
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The importance of triage practice
Every designer at Automattic is writing a monthly design post, this month my post was about triage practice. For me the process is an integral part of being a designer. Triage for me is a constant part of my journey within Automattic and in the wider WordPress community. It continues to be really important to me…
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Back to Qwerty
A few months ago I began a journey to learn Colemak. Yesterday I switched back to Qwerty. There were a number of reasons I stepped off my adventure into Colemak, but perhaps its better to start at the why I began that journey. The luxury of trying In my job I have the luxury of…