Design needs clarity. Notes from the studio.
Practical notes on websites, products and systems: how to structure them, brief them and keep them easy to change.
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Accessibility basics: ten fixes with the biggest effect
Ten changes that make a small business website usable by more people, from colour contrast and keyboard access to labels, link text and tap targets, with how to test each in minutes.
Product designHow to choose the right chart for a dashboard
A chart should answer one question quickly. How to match the question to the chart, the mistakes that make charts misleading, and a few habits that make a dashboard easier to read.
WebsitesA website content audit: what to keep, improve, merge or remove
Most sites collect pages that nobody decided to keep. A step-by-step content audit that lists every page, gathers a few numbers, chooses one of four actions and tidies up safely afterwards.
WebsitesCore Web Vitals for small business websites: what to fix first
Three measurements describe how a page feels to real visitors: how fast it loads, how quickly it responds and whether it jumps around. What each one means, how to check them and what usually fixes them.
Product designEmpty, loading and error states, the screens most products forget
Every screen in a product spends time without its ideal data. How to design the empty, loading, partial and error versions so people know what is happening and what to do.
SystemsMap the workflow before you buy the software
A team repeating the same steps across spreadsheets, chat and email often decides it needs software. Five steps to see the process first, and decide whether to change it, buy a tool or build one.
WebsitesWhat to put on a pricing page when you sell services
Services are harder to price publicly than products. Four honest ways to handle pricing on a website, what to include whichever you choose, and what the page needs to answer.
ProcessHow to read a design proposal: scope, timeline and price
A design proposal is easy to compare on price and hard to compare on anything else. What a good one contains, the questions that reveal what is missing, and the warning signs.
WebsitesRedesign or fix? Deciding what your website needs
A website that underperforms does not always need a redesign. Five questions that separate a problem with the words, the structure, the build or the business, and what to do about each.
WebsitesWhat to check on a phone before you launch a website
Most first visits happen on a phone, yet most sites are reviewed on a laptop. A practical pre-launch check of layout, text, taps, forms, images and speed on a real phone.
WebsitesHow to write a service page that answers what buyers ask
A service page does the work of a first conversation. The questions every buyer brings, a structure that answers them in order, and the common ways these pages fail.
WebsitesA website audit checklist, 25 checks before you redesign
Twenty-five checks across message, structure, trust, mobile, speed and accessibility that show what is actually wrong with a website before you spend money redesigning it.
WebsitesWhat a service business homepage needs above the fold
A visitor decides in seconds whether a service business is for them. Four things that should be visible before the first scroll, and a five-minute way to check them.
ProcessHow to write a design brief in twenty minutes
A good brief is short. Eight questions that give a designer what they need to scope a project, and what to attach so you do not have to explain it twice.
Product designDesigning a dashboard? Decide what the first screen answers
Dashboards fail when the first screen shows everything. Start with the question the user opened it with, then design the few numbers and states that answer it.