Why Tooltips Are the Wrong Answer Most of the Time
Tooltips are invisible by default. Users do not hover icons looking for hidden help — they tap and hope.If the label is essential, put it next to the control. If…
Read article →Choosing a Default That Does the Right Thing
The first default beats the user's first decision. The longer it persists, the more users you affect — and the more you should sweat the…
Read article →The Quiet Power of Plain HTML Forms
Native form elements have decades of accessibility, autofill, and platform integration baked in. A custom div-and-JavaScript dropdown rarely improves on <select> when measure…
Read article →Designing With prefers-reduced-motion
About 5% of users have prefers-reduced-motion set — vestibular disorders, headaches, or just a preference for calmer interfaces. Respect it.The CSS pattern: @media (prefers-reduced…
Read article →Search That Feels Instant
Three rules: debounce keystrokes, cancel in-flight requests, render results progressively. Together they make a slow backend feel responsive.The minimum debounce that still feels i…
Read article →Buttons vs Links: The Five-Second Rule
If the control navigates to a URL, use an anchor. If the control performs an action, use a button. Get this right and middle-click, copy-link,…
Read article →INP Replaces FID — What Changed
FID measured the delay before the browser could start handling the first input. INP measures the round-trip latency of every interaction, then reports the worst…
Read article →CLS Root Causes
The four classic CLS sources: images without explicit dimensions, ads and embeds, dynamically injected content above existing content, and fonts loading after the initial render.Fi…
Read article →font-display: swap vs optional
font-display: swap shows fallback text immediately, swaps to the web font when ready. The cost is a visible swap on slow connections.font-display: optional gives the…
Read article →Critical CSS in the Modern Era
Inline the CSS needed to render above-the-fold content; load the rest asynchronously. The savings on slow networks are real — first paint happens on the…
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