Designing in the open

It’s been a while since I last redesigned (or should I say, realigned) this site. Six years, in fact. My regular visitor, if they are still regular, will have noticed that this site has been somewhat broked for a week or so.

I’m not sure what I did, but I clearly mangled something. Anyway, it’s an excuse to realign.

This time I have some simple requirements for myself:

  1. Mobile first. The reality is that most browsing is done on a mobile device of some kind, so I want to primarily cater to those constraints. That means mobile-first CSS, Service Workers, small images only where necessary etc etc.
  2. Performance second. Closely related to the mobile thing, good performance is a must. I’m aiming for sub-second render times. I also want to use no JavaScript. This is a content site, why would I need it?
  3. More emphasis on the IndieWeb. I’ve started doing this, by pulling in my tweets. But I want to go much further down that road.

And I’m doing all this in the open, live on the site. I may fail completely, in which case it will be a public humiliation. But maybe it will force me to get on with it!