Notes on frontend, tooling, and experiments on the web
writing
All posts7 entries
- 9 min read
Design system: reading Figma is pattern recognition
The hard part of turning a Figma file into components was never the SVG. It's that a design file is a document written by humans, and humans are inconsistent.
- Design System
- figma
- Design Tokens
- automation
- 10 min read
Design system: one line, four hundred screenshots
We rebranded the product by changing values in two theme files. Then we had to prove that thousands of screens had changed correctly rather than accidentally.
- Design System
- Visual Regression Testing
- CI
- Storybook
- 12 min read
Design system: making the wrong thing impossible
A designer tweaks a sealed component. A developer implements it faithfully. Six months later nothing matches. Here's what it took to make that impossible to type.
- design system
- design
- react
- vanilla-extract
- 8 min read
Design system: documentation that can't rot
Documentation doesn't rot because people are lazy. It rots because it's a second copy of the truth. Here's what we generated instead of writing.
- Design System
- Documentation
- Developer Experience
- Typescript
- 9 min read
Design system: the system comes before the components
Everyone starts a design system by building a Button. We spent thirteen months not building one, and it's the decision I'd repeat.
- Design System
- React
- TypeScrpt
- Frontend Architecture
- 7 min read
I Had to Review a 330-File PR. Here's How AI Actually Helped
A 330-file, 15,000-line PR that couldn't be split. Tests were green, but green isn't the same as correct. Two AI review attempts gave two different lists of findings, which raised an uncomfortable question: what else were they missing? The answer: about 300 items.
- ai
- code review
- 12 min read
Accessibility is not about them. It's about you, next Tuesday
You're at a parking meter on a sunny day and the app's UI has vanished into screen glare. You're on a tram, one hand on the rail, and the "Buy ticket" button is in the top-right corner. In that moment, you have a temporary disability — and accessibility just became about you.
- accessibility
- w3c