Development workflow Advanced
The design QA checklist to run before release
Most design problems found after release are catchable before it, in order. Here is the pass, in three stages: rules, states and real devices.
Technote
WordPress guides for Designers
For designers who own the look and the experience: how theme choice, webfonts and image handling decide whether the design survives contact with the browser.
80 articles· Designers
Development workflow Advanced
Never deploy without a way back
A rollback is not one button. It is two tracks — code and database — with an order to reverse them in, written down before you deploy.
Development workflow Practical
Review the build against the rules, not against pixels
"Nudge it up two pixels" fixes one spot. "That value is outside the scale" stops the same mistake recurring.
SEO Practical
The fortnight after launch: what to watch
A few unsettled days after launch are normal. A decline that persists for two weeks is not. Here is what to watch across indexing, speed and conversion.
Development workflow Practical
Hand over a spacing scale, not a list of numbers
"37px here" solves exactly one spot. "Spacing is chosen from these twelve steps" solves every screen you never drew as well.
Themes & plugins Practical
Three reasons old content breaks in a new design
Inline styles baked into the body, shortcode remnants from plugins that are gone, hard-coded widths. These are where a new design system stops being honoured.
Servers & infrastructure Intro
Favicons and share images: the sizes, and the cache that bites
A favicon is not one file, and fixing the share tag does not update links already shared — because the platform cached the preview.
Security Intro
Actually reading the licence on a “free” image
"I found it on a search engine" is not a source. Commercial use, attribution, modification, and consent where people appear — four lines that head off most later…
Development workflow Advanced
Visual regression: guarding the screens that must not change
Change one line and something unrelated shifts — an everyday CSS event. Screenshot comparison catches it, but the real work is choosing what to guard and keeping false…
Development workflow Practical
Turning taste arguments into rule checks
"It feels a bit cramped" can be neither argued with nor fixed. Spacing off the scale, colour off the palette, contrast below threshold, missing states — four rules…
Themes & plugins Practical
Decide the editable regions before you design them
A design the CMS cannot express stays up for negotiation long after it ships. Deciding what editors may change, first, removes the negotiation entirely.
Development workflow Practical
Do not swap everything at once
A full swap makes every problem appear at the same moment — which means none of them can be attributed. So you switch one template at a time.