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From projects to pets, you can bet there’s an S8 Slack channel for it. We use Slack for everything from general chit-chat to client comms – and we’re always searching for ways we can use it better.

Here are 6 tips for getting the best out of Slack and making everyday work a breeze.

It’s great to be in the know. But choosing what you get notified about and when is key. We’re pretty considerate when it comes to channel shoutouts, so we’ll notify teams (i.e. @designers, @pmz and @devs) for team-specific things – and only hit @here for the super important stuff. Some of us choose to only get notified during working hours, while others have set up alerts for specific keywords. But we aren’t afraid to mute channels or pause notifications if we need some focus time.

The ultimate to-do list tool. Hit the ‘Save for later’ icon on any messages or requests that you can't take action on right away and they’ll be stored in your Later list. You’ll then be able to organise items into ‘In progress’, ‘Archived’ and ‘Complete’ – plus, you can even set up custom reminders if you need nudging on anything time-specific.

Connecting your tools and apps to Slack means less juggling and jumping between things. We’ve synced up Slack with our most-used platforms and tools, including ClickUp, Figma, and Google, to make sure we’re immediately notified of any new tasks, comments, or requests. But our other favourite apps include Polly (for polls) and Timetastic (for time off).

Who doesn’t love a keyboard shortcut? Turns out Slack has a keyboard shortcut for pretty much anything. To check out all the shortcuts and familiarise yourself with the ones you’ll need, just hit Cmd + / (MAC) or Ctrl + / (Windows/Linux) in Slack.

Huddles are already great for ad hoc catch-ups. While the average booked-in meeting is 30 minutes, most Huddles tend to last around 10 – which already means a big tick in the productivity box. But you can use the Huddle Thread to drop in key action points, useful notes and more – then follow up afterwards or even ‘Save for later’ if you want to refer back to your notes during focus time.

We’ve recently set up Workflows to help fast-track the onboarding of new teamies. In a couple of clicks, new Slack users are added to all the social, project and team channels they need to be in – rather than waiting to be invited manually. Plus, we’ve created a built-in employee handbook in Canvas format so we can quickly access handy links and policies around things like booking holiday (yay!).

Our top Slack hacks for productivity

If there’s one annual conference we carve out time in our diaries for, it’s 

. Because there’s nothing we love more than nerding out with other devs about what’s new in the world of the web.

Here are our top takeaways from this year’s talks courtesy of Lead Developer, Alistair.

'Web standards: does anyone actually care?' by Michael R. Lorek

Michael R. Lorek kicked off the day with a talk about Web Standards, why they’re important and the state of the web currently as they relate to Web Standards. A perfect talk for this conference given it’s run by London Web Standards!

The key message Michael was getting at was that it’s really important to publish high-quality work on the web, and some of the things we need to consider as web developers to do so. He mentioned that HTML and CSS validation and testing the security of sites using pen-testing methods are really important for security and are very rarely done within the industry.

I definitely agree that for security and code maintainability, validation is really important. One argument he used was that it was also important for SEO. However he then went on to show that basically none of the top 1,000 sites have valid HTML – so you could argue that it doesn’t make much of an impact on SEO!

'It all means nothing in the end' by Amy Hupe

Amy Hupe is known best for her work on design systems and documentation, but her talk at SotB23 was on burnout and finding value and meaning in your work. It was absolutely fantastic, really making us think about how to work best in the tech industry whilst also caring for ourselves, our emotions and self-worth. It was also one of the funniest conference talks I’ve seen, perhaps only beaten by a previous talk of hers!

The inspiration of the talk was that Amy found she really didn’t care about her work. She had burnt out, lost the passion and drive for design systems and the tech industry, and was struggling with the fact her self-worth was somewhat tied up in her work. That’s a feeling that I’ve also felt before, when I’ve pushed with all I had to get a project over the line and then felt like sitting at a computer is the last thing I care for.

The best thing about this talk was the key points that Amy made about how best to structure the relationship we have with our job to keep ourselves validated and motivated whilst also enjoying and thriving in our work:

Having times where you’re not fully invested in your work is fine, but if you work a full-time job it’s not a solution for happiness.

We all have a “core perspective” that shapes how we see and interact with the world. Amy defines that as a combination of your skills, experience and values. By identifying that perspective and aligning it with our work it will help us be motivated, productive, feel successful and, most importantly, happy.

Goals we make should align with our core perspective, but also should be achievable. Setting up impossible goals is a great way to disappoint ourselves. In Amy’s own words: “**** Moonshots”

It’s important to feel validated and successful, and we come to rely on certain structures to achieve that. Within big organisations, that may be promotion trees. On social media, the number of likes. By relying only on those structures, you risk losing your main source of validation so it’s key that you can also validate yourself based on the goals you’ve achieved also.

Amy gave us all a lot to think about, and it was an absolutely brilliant talk. It’s only been a couple of weeks but already I’m feeling better about the changes I’ve made to how I make goals, aligning my work alongside my core perspective, and making sure that both within and outside of work I’m enjoying how I spend my time!

'Accessibility is easy… except for when it isn’t' by Ian Lloyd

I always love an accessibility talk. State of the Browser always has at least one each year and they’re fantastic. And this year was no exception. Ian Lloyd gave a fantastic overview of some easy and really tricky accessibility points, featuring lots of examples, some serious stuff and also some great laughs. I loved that format – it makes me think I should put more jokes, memes and references in my talks…!

At the beginning, Ian covered some simple accessibility issues that most of the audience were familiar with, things like image alternative text, using headings and buttons etc. We then had a run through of “Accessibility Horror”, with some awful examples of developers getting it completely wrong in silly ways!

That was the “Accessibility Is Easy” bit done!

The “Except for When It Isn’t” for the rest of the talk was absolutely fascinating, and really went into the details of how you can make really complex UIs accessible. When it comes to accessibility, I know my stuff and do audits and such, but it was really evident how much experience Ian has – fixing some UIs I wouldn’t even know where to start with! It was extremely interesting to see how he went about working out interfaces that don’t match common patterns, like tab controls within a table, a theatre seat picker, multi-select menus or the “DiaMenuClosure” he showed.

Really inspiring and balanced, so it offered some new information to everyone in the audience — something very tricky at a conference with a fair few accessibility experts attending!

'Stop using JS for that: moving features to CSS and HTML' by Kilian Valkhof

I was really looking forward to Kilian’s talk because he has a really interesting insight on browsers and development. He develops the web browser 

, which is designed to make it easier for developers to debug and test the websites they build. That gives him a really interesting perspective on the industry, seeing what tools developers are using and what they’re testing, whilst also having insight into what makes a browser tick. This talk wasn’t about Polypane though, it was about HTML, CSS and how they can take the place of JavaScript.

It was a really good review of some of the new-ish features of HTML and CSS that have had support for a few years, but aren’t always being used in favour of JavaScript replacements. Browser vendors listen to developers and have been implementing features like accordions, input suggestions, smooth scrolling and dialogs, all in HTML and CSS. I’d recommend watching the recording to see them all, Kilian does a great job of demonstrating!

Two tips he mentioned that I found really interesting in particular was how the CSS appearance:none works to make replaced-elements styleable (I never knew what it did), and to use outline-color:transparent on a focus outline for free support for forced-colors mode!

This was a thematic masterpiece, with an ocean-themed talk on Progressive Web Apps with sea graphics and Attenborough-style narration throughout! Diego gave a really interesting overview about PWAs, their history, how they work and what the future holds for them.

It was looking at some of the future directions and options that really caught my attention, including some of the really challenging issues with implementing them. We want users to be able to easily see a site is installable, but don’t want spam popups like we have with web push notifications. We want to offer lots of new capabilities but how should we restrict them?

Although some of those decisions, challenges and options are really tricky and I don’t have an answer for them, Diego’s talk brought them to my attention and made me think. It also reassured me that even if I don’t know what the answer is for PWAs, the web community is wary and mindful of getting it right.

'Cache rules everything' by Harry Roberts

Harry has done some fantastic web performance talks and this is no exception. He went in-depth and focused on the HTTP cache, how to set it up correctly and some of the pitfalls and mistakes people commonly make. We were asked to put our hands up if we knew caching headers in-depth — I raised my hand and oh boy I was proven wrong!

Once again check out the recording as it really goes into the exact details of how caching works, what headers to keep or remove, how to come up with caching strategies and how caching works on public and private resources. It really was a complete and fantastic explanation of something that seems simple but really isn’t!

'Speedy dev insights' by Chris Ferdinandi

Chris put together three short pre-recorded videos that were played between longer talks, giving a bit of a demo and some tips on a range of development stuff.

The first was building a custom Web Component, which are web-native ways to build custom components in JS. I’ve found Web Components can be a bit tricky to learn, but Chris made them look easy!

 two was on data binding using Proxies, which is super cool! In our websites we use Proxies through Alpine but it was really cool seeing how you can also work with them directly!

The final insight was a rapid-fire run through of 13 smaller tips, really delivering on the “Speedy” promise! There were some great tips in there that you could use in day-to-day development. Unfortunately, he then went and spoiled all the good favour he’d gathered from the audience by trolling us and mispronouncing GIF. What a shame!

'Exploring the potential of the Web Speech API in karaoke' by Ana Rodrigues

As the end of the day approaches at a conference, and the attendees start looking forward to the afterparty and dinner, it can be a bit tricky to keep everyone engaged. Ana had absolutely no problem with that however, with a brilliantly entertaining, fun, and interesting talk on karaoke in the web browser!

The Web Speech API is a new in-built browser feature that allows developers to receive audio input and easily turn it into text, without need for a third-party service. Ana decided to build a karaoke machine using web technologies and added the Web Speech API to score her singing!

It was great fun and a really good walkthrough of how she built it and how the Web Speech API works! It was also really impressive for her demonstrating the karaoke machine by singing, during her first conference talk!

That final talk got everyone excited and energised again, just in time to go to the pub for the afterparty!

What we learned at State of the Browser 2023

Last weekend, we all downed tools and gathered in Prague for our annual team retreat. Four days, 24 teamies, and more merch than you can shake a schnitzel at. Here’s the full round-up of what went down at this year’s S8 (+P9 👀) team retreat.

Our base for the week was Prague’s Mama Shelter: once a luxury communist hotel, now home to vintage cartoon reels, a restaurant DJ and foosball. The Cyprus crew (who arrived the night before) and the other early arrivals got stuck into some Georgian dining and castle-touring. But it wasn’t long before we were all united (some of us for the first time ever) over drinks in the bar that evening.

The next day was all about Czech culture. Coffee shops, beer halls, and chimney cakes – all while soaking up the last of the autumn sunshine. That evening, we learned about the history of the old town, the new old town, and the old new town during a city tour with a night watchman. Our favourite fact? Once upon a time, the city’s residents were told to drink three litres of beer a day to stay healthy. They even used beer to put out fires (but we have a feeling a few were started on purpose).

Day three kicked off with escape rooms, where we divided and conquered everything from zombies to dark magic. We only found out afterwards that those who escaped first got to watch the remaining teams struggle. But one thing we were all 100% certain of was that “our room was the hardest”. After testing our teamwork skills, our resident photographers Bruno, Biel and Nate got snap-happy at Studio 71: a quirky basement studio and backdrop for our all-new team photos.

On the final evening, we all headed to the Medieval tavern, 

, for a traditional five-course feast in a setting that was straight out of a movie set. Think sword fighting, fire shows, and more Czech food and beer than we could manage. And for the final nightcap? A visit to one of Prague’s best absinthe bars, of course.

It’s not often we all get together. So every time we do, it’s pretty special. Shout out to Ellie, this year’s t-shirt and sweatshirt designer, and Sam and Jack – the merch mules who got it there safely. Big up Biel, for his ability to make any BTS photo look incredible, and also the trip’s official after-party planner, Rachael. But a special mention to Fran and Mario – for letting us put our out-of-offices on for four fun-filled days so we could hang out IRL.

S8 (+P9) team trip 2023: Prague

How to give better design feedback from a web design perspective

. But this time, we’re talking branding. Because great feedback means fewer delays and a new visual identity that everyone’s stoked about. Let’s go.

Branding tells a story – of who you are, where you’ve been and where you’re headed. The best brand identities have depth, character and meaning. It will look the way it does for a reason. And if that rationale isn’t immediately clear, then just ask. Your designer should be able to talk you through any exploration work, previous iterations, and how they reached the endpoint. If you feel they’ve swayed off track, then gaining a better understanding of the bigger picture can help set them straight.

We can’t emphasise this enough. Your brand is a many-faceted thing, so think about every single detail. Colours, typography, spacing, illustration – even photography style. It all comes together to create something that’s uniquely you. Take the time to say what you like, don’t like and why. And that goes for every single element. This will help get rid of any guesswork and prevent delays further down the line.

A brand refresh should stand the test of time, and this will always be top of your designer’s mind throughout the rebranding process. But it’s also worth considering this at every feedback stage, too. Does it align with your overall company strategy? Have you thought about swag placement, app designs, or any other assets you have in the pipeline? Your brand will naturally evolve, so you can afford to make small refinements. But you still want it to work for the long term.

The great thing about design is that it’s subjective. And when you’re going through something as big as a brand refresh, the more opinions you can gather from stakeholders, the better. Just be sure to resolve any conflicting comments before you share them with your designer. Plus, keep everything to Figma. It’s more efficient that way.

Designers can do amazing things, but they can’t do the impossible. Be conscious of contradictory feedback. Plus, be aware of accessibility, too. Your designer designs with users in mind, so if it doesn’t meet the minimum accessibility requirements, it simply won’t work. And finally, you might love the look of a competitor, but you aren’t them. So instead of asking to imitate their brand, focus on celebrating yours. The results will be way more inspiring.

Client-agency 101: How to give great design feedback (branding edition)

Providing feedback is part and parcel of working with an agency. But knowing how to give great feedback as a client matters more than you think. Fewer delays and pushed deadlines, less back and forth, and most importantly – the finished result you were hoping for. Here’s how you do it.

Say what you do like, what you don’t like, and always expand if you can. For example, instead of saying ‘I don’t like this, can we try something else?’ try ‘I like this style of font, but can we see it in a different colour?’ Or ‘I don’t think this photography style works. It feels too old school for our brand’ rather than ‘This image isn’t for me’. It’s this kind of detail that will help your designer nail it the next time round.

Provide everything, everywhere, all at once

Take the time to review the entire design so you can submit all your feedback at once. And the same goes for any other stakeholders who plan on providing feedback. Receiving everything at the same time, rather than in multiple rounds, helps us action amends more efficiently and minimises any hold-ups.

If the reasoning behind some design decisions isn’t clear, then ask for clarity. Your designer will have done everything for a reason. So if it will make providing feedback easier, then ask about previous iterations, design exploration, or just how it aligns with your brand mission, values and purpose.

Figma is great for giving feedback. Comment on specific elements, tag team members, and store all your thoughts and ideas in one place. Thinking of it as your central source of feedback means comments don’t get lost in Slack channels, inboxes, or Trello boards. It also lets your designer respond to you directly in threads if they need clarification.

Give guidance, but let your designer design

Screenshots, animation examples – even photography styles. If there’s inspiration that you feel will help the design process, then it’s always going to be useful. But still be open-minded enough to let your designer take the lead. They’ll know what works and what doesn’t and will have a clear overall vision for the project. So it’s important that feedback doesn’t impact creative freedom.

Client-agency 101: How to give great web design feedback

Here at S8, annual leave is a biggie. Everyone gets 28 days to cash in whenever they like. Plus, local bank holidays, a long Christmas shutdown, and extra days for our team retreat. Here’s why we think more time OOO is the way to go.

As a fully remote agency, WFH is all we know. But when you work from home, it’s even more important to get that work-life balance down. Your workplace doubles as a place for downtime. And although we’re big on flexible working – and choosing when, where and how we work best – it’s still important to step away from the desk and fully disconnect. Because with regular breathers come fewer burnouts and big productivity boosts.

Different locations mean different bank holidays

The fact we’re based in different countries means we all benefit from different bank holiday dates. Although we all get roughly the same number (except for lucky Biel in Barca), having that extra annual leave means we can celebrate our home country’s traditions the way we want to. Tag extra days onto already long weekends, travel to meet family during big festivities like Easter, or (if you’re based in the UK) turn the month of May into one big holiday.

A bigger holiday allowance means more flexibility when it comes to taking time off. Instead of weighing up whether to take time off at Christmas or squeeze in a last-minute summer getaway (especially if you’re holding out for great British weather) – you can do both. Plus, more holiday to spend means more time to really disconnect (or just get over the jetlag) and come back to your desk fully refreshed on Monday.

We all know that weird period between Christmas and New Year. You have no idea what day it is – or what the heck you should be doing. But in our book, the last thing on our minds should be work. That’s why we give ourselves two wonderful weeks to switch off, hit reset, and simply celebrate the holidays however we want to. It’s the best way to reflect on the year and come back with a brand-new focus for the year ahead.

Because there’s a whole world out there

We love what we do – partly because of what it enables us to do. Visit new places, experience new things, tackle house renovations, or just go hard on our hobbies. Those extra days of annual leave mean we can take time out for what’s really important. Plus, it means more travel/foodie/DIY tips for the rest of us.

Why our holiday allowance is hefty

Back to the journal

Shopify's Summer '23 Editions is here – and there’s some pretty major announcements on the development front. Our Lead Dev, Alistair, outlines the biggest and best of this latest feature drop.

Bundles have always been something that is annoying to do on Shopify. We could build the functionality ourselves, but it took a surprisingly large amount of work. The alternative? Pay for a third-party app which adds additional dependencies and complexity to the site.

Now Shopify has implemented its own 'official' bundle system. It's only 'fixed' bundles at the moment, which means store owners need to specify exactly which products are in the bundle. But we're hoping that 'flexible' bundles — where a customer can pick which products they'd like — are added soon!

This one is huge! We've been working with subscriptions apps for a long time and the addition of an official integration will really shake the scene. Subscriptions are a core part of loads of businesses and we're all really excited to see how this could streamline and simplify subscription management.

The official app looks pretty simple compared to the big apps – and for a really well-optimised or custom setup, they'll still be the best option for a long time at least. But, for simple setups, Shopify’s new app looks ideal and will definitely open up subscriptions to more stores.

'Duplicating' a store has previously been pretty hard. We actually built our own internal tools to make it easier to spin up a staging store or to create a new store for a multi-currency setup.

Now when you create a new store, you have the option to copy your product catalogue, files and themes to the new store. Super handy for development and if you need multiple stores that are similar!

This is a really interesting and easy way to sell products from other brands in your store  – or, become a supplier yourself. You can choose a product from another company, add it to your store, and when someone purchases it, they handle the order, shipping and process for you!

Most exciting for me though is that you can do both! I love the idea of a group of stores with similar products 'teaming up' as suppliers and retailers to give customers the best possible purchasing experience.

So this might sound like the most boring sounding feature to come out of this Editions, but it's actually got us developers jumping for joy.

The previous limit of 100 variants sounds high, but it’s actually easily reached. I once built a clothing store that sold a specific jumper in Loose and Slim fit, in 6 different sizes and 10 different colours. That’s 120 variants.

So, the upcoming increase to 250 variants will make it much easier to build products with lots of options.

Customising content across B2B and Markets

Only a few weeks ago, a couple of our developers were wishing for this exact feature! Clearly someone at Shopify somehow got the message!

Shopify has added a 'context switcher' to the theme customiser, allowing store owners to change the content of the site depending on the customer’s Market (based on their location) or if they're a B2B/Wholesaler. You had a bit of control previously using Localisation, but it was pretty difficult to use, particularly with sections and blocks. Now if you need to change the content, images, products on display or anything else in the customiser per country or currency, it's as simple as going to that dropdown.

It'll be interesting to dig into how this feels to use, as it looks like it might be pretty easy to get confused about which context you're editing. Hopefully it's really clear and Shopify adds features to sync changes to make it easier to manage.

During the Shopify Editions Winter '23, I voiced our concerns about the deprecation of checkout.liquid and how Checkout Extensions didn't have all the functionality we needed. This is a definite step in the right direction from Shopify, giving a clear route forward for upsells and recommendations on the checkout page which were uncertain until now.

Similar to upsells, there were features we'd been relying on checkout.liquid for that there were no clear replacements for. Shopify has made it easier for developers to add or change the validation rules within the checkout. A regular request we get for the checkout is preventing users from shipping to PO boxes. Until now, the best we could do was add a warning banner above the address input for all users –  but still allow orders to PO boxes anyway. With these new validation rules, we can prevent checking out with a PO box and give the user more direct feedback that their address is invalid.

The editor experience on Shopify has been a constant bugbear of ours. It's not bad, but when you have a large site with lots of flexible JSON templates and sections, it can get really confusing. On some of those projects we've even gone to the extent of creating a 'cheatsheet' of screenshots of each section to help.

From a first look, Section previews looks like it will make managing sections a lot easier. There hasn't been much detail over how it actually works, is it automatically-generated? Or do we upload screenshots when we make our sections like we have to with other CMSs? It'll be interesting to see when it rolls out.

Flex sections look like they could be a huge addition, allowing editors to drag+drop blocks in a page more easily. The real proof will be when we can see how it's implemented – plus, how useful it is for third-party themes that aren't based on Dawn.

Sidekick seems really powerful and a great time-saver – particularly for store admins that just want to get the information they need and move on. In terms of finding information about your store and Shopify, it seems super handy.

Like many AI tools however, make sure you keep an eye on its output. We've seen Sidekick returning information about Shopify that is completely incorrect, and breaking themes when instructed to make code changes. Hopefully these will be ironed out, but it's worth being a little cautious with this one!

Shopify Flow is an automation tool that allows you to automate actions in your store with simple If-This-Then-That style rules. It's been available for a long time on Shopify Plus, but now it's available on all plans. Nice!

Metaobjects were the big star of Editions Winter ‘23, and we've been loving them since their release. Metaobjects make it so much easier to build advanced CMS setups that are still really easy to manage and edit. During our first development call after their announcement, we talked about our disappointment that they could only be used on existing pages and products, not be given their own URLs and Templates.

Once again Shopify listened! Metaobjects can now have their own URLs, allowing us to take that same advanced CMS setup onto the frontend of the site like many other full-on CMSs. Previously for a site with an event system, we'd be building that part on a different platform or by re-using blogs. But now we can build that system right into metaobjects in a way that makes more sense, works better for SEO and is so much easier to manage!

I'm really excited about this feature and looking forward to seeing what our team can do with it!

Klaviyo is a standard recommendation for our stores, providing really helpful and advanced email+SMS flows. We use them to help engage with customers and do effective email marketing. It’s the bread and butter of our sister agency Parallel 9.

That's why we're really interested in Shopify stepping up their digital marketing game with Marketing Tools, providing flows and templates that might just rival Klaviyo's at some point. They currently seem a little simple. But, for smaller stores with less complex marketing needs, they could do the job and keep everything nicely within the Shopify platform. Definitely one we've got our eye on!

Shopify Summer ‘23 Editions: first impressions and best additions

We’re rounding off our 5-part accessibility in design series with 

: how best to approach movement and animation on your website – and what not to do if you want to make sure it passes the WCAG’s AA accessibility testing.

First up, is motion bad for accessibility?

Believe it or not, a video background is actually a lot more accessible than a static image. Why? Because the motion allows users with accessibility needs to clearly differentiate the static content from the moving content – and that, friends, makes it much more legible.

You see this kind of format on common streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, ITVX and iPlayer. The sites play trailers in the background of the hero – sometimes with shadows and overlays to help the text stand out more. For a refresher on colour contrasts and backgrounds, visit our 

How to make your movement and motion accessible

On the average website, motion makes up 20% of the user experience. It’s known to  increase interactions and sales on some sites, but that doesn’t mean everything should move. Overdoing it can result in really bad drop-offs and just frustrate users – so approach it with caution.

Guidance from the WCAG states that anything with motion on a website, whether it be a simple transition, video content or a gif, should never flash more than three times. Not only is it pretty distracting, but too much flashing can be harmful to users with accessibility needs.

Some accessible users might experience anxiety as well as vision impairments. This is why it’s so important not to bombard your users by causing everything to move at once. Time things intelligently – and don’t trigger anything too crazy at a point where they might be reading some important copy.

Accessibility in design - Motion

In this blog series, we’re unpacking all the vital areas of accessibility in design. It’s been a legal requirement since 2017 for websites to meet the AA criteria outlined by W3C – the global community that believes in a web for all of us – on anything.

 – something that’s super important not just from an accessibility standpoint, but for general usability, too.

We all know how important first impressions are. But put this in the context of a user’s first interaction with your brand, and the stakes just got higher. And that just goes for those that don’t have accessibility needs.

The snap decisions that a user makes could be the difference between them trusting, buying or even engaging with you or not. And when you strip away all the other elements of your brand and are left with just the plain-text format of a screen reader, you can see why it’s so essential for your content to be structured as intelligently and logically as possible.

Let’s take product descriptions, for example. The goal is to draw your readers in, build trust, and encourage them to convert. Do we talk about features first? Or should we start with product names? Navigating a page with a screen reader means your content will be presented in the order it’s positioned, so it’s important to get it right.

If they’re using a screen reader, the user will see the name of the product first. This means they may not know what they’re looking at.

A screen reader would tell this user what the product is before talking about its features. Visually, it feels much more desirable to non-accessible users, too.

Your path to purchase should be suitable for all users – both the skimmers and the in-depth readers. And the fact that this is your primary CTA should also be reflected in your content hierarchy.

But we’re not just talking preheadings, headings, and sections on the page. Your button hierarchy is important, too. Think about users that could be browsing through your site and trying to quickly find a contact or “buy” button – only to find all the CTAs look the same.

As a general rule of thumb, make sure no two CTAs in the same port follow the same styling. This makes navigating your content, and committing to a call to action, much easier for the user.

Accessibility in design - Content hierarchy

If you’ve already been following our accessibility in design series, you’ll know that we’ve so far covered colour testing, typography and legibility. And if you’re new here; welcome.

This time round, we’re chatting about the impact of 

 on accessibility. As many as 20% of audiences worldwide require some kind of accessibility in the digital world – and so we’ll talk you through how we make sure our UI elements meet the W3C’s minimum AA standards.

Why are sizing, spacing and states important for accessibility?

Short answer: all three are key to usability. The spacing, sizing and overall alignment of your UI elements play a huge part in how your users interact with elements and differentiate between page content.

States are the visual representations we use to communicate the status of a component or interactive element.

States allows all users to navigate through your website without the use of a mouse and only a keyboard. If you’ve ever tabbed your way through a website, the visual representation you see to demonstrate the element you are on is a focus state.

And when it comes to accessibility, you may have users that simply don’t have access to a mouse – or, you could have audiences that aren’t able to use a mouse at all. That’s why states matter.

Here are some examples of elements and their states.

The holy grail of grid systems. In web design, the sizing and spacing of every UI element should be in increments of 8px. Why? Because not only will your designs convert seamlessly to rems (for development), but it makes designing for different screen sizes super simple. Every viewport is an increment of 8px, so every element within a page follows the same rule and gives you the best responsive results.

A couple of tips when it comes to spacing.

It’s important to make sure all of your UI elements that follow the 8px grid system have enough spacing so that accessible users can clearly differentiate and identify content.

Between 24-40px is a good range of padding to have within your containers or spacing between elements so that they are visually different to users with visual impairments.

All of your interactive elements should be accessible to see, click or touch.

As a general rule, these elements should be no smaller in width or height than 40px – the average size of a touch point on touch screen device, and therefore the size that’s most finger-friendly.

Accessibility in design - UI states, spacing and sizing

Next up in our accessibility in design series, we’re talking 

Our last post covered all things colour testing, from contrast to psychological connotations. And now it’s the turn of fonts, sizes, and characters to be scrutinised by the W3C’s AA accessibility standards.

Here’s how we tackle everything from accessible font styles to legibility as part of our ongoing mission to build a better internet.

The AA accessibility standards set by the WCAG are a legal requirement in the UK and Europe. Over 2 billion people live with a disability that we need to consider when designing user interfaces – and font size is just one area we need to look at.

Your average headline is always going to be larger. Similar to a traditional eye test, the larger the font the more legible it is to the reader.

Body copy should remain the same on mobile and desktop devices. This size is the most common across the web. Research also shows it’s the most accessible size for users to read.

Similar to body copy, button text should always follow the same sizing or larger.

Smaller, less important pieces of text such as legal footer terms and image captions are the only reason that font sizes should be below 14px.

Here’s how accessible font styles might look based on an 8px grid system

When it comes to accessibility, using the right sizes of fonts isn’t enough.

Yes, size matters – but it’s important to always do quick checks to test the legibility of the font itself. Why? Although it might sound crazy, not all typefaces are created with legibility as a primary design function. Many fonts are designed to create a typographic statement or instil a particular feeling. And some typefaces are just designed to stand out from the crowd.

Some typefaces have letterform designs that are virtually identical for multiple letters. Here’s the number 1, upper case “i”, symbol “|” and upper case L in Gill Sans to show you what we’re talking about.

Try to choose a typeface or font with distinct features on both the top and/or the bottom of the capital 'L' and a short but noticeable arm on the top of the number “1”.

All sighted young children horizontally flip letters as part of their early neurological development. At around six years old, this neurological trait usually resolves itself as part of ongoing physiological development. But, in extremely rare occasions, the mirroring effect may also be reintroduced following some types of brain trauma.

D and b, or q and p, should be obviously unique in shape and have no ambiguous characteristics. But believe it or not, as many as 90% of fonts do have similar traits, and it’s something that often isn’t considered enough in the font’s design.

For those of us with more severe vision impairments, the characters o, c, e or a can be easily confused. And that, in turn, can make some words harder to identify.

If the shapes are too closed, have tight apertures, or their counters are too small, they can start looking very similar. On the flip side, more open counters within the letterforms can help emphasise the unique shape – and that means better legibility.

Similar shapes can sometimes be resolved with more letter spacing. Play around with spacing and see how it improves things.

Like similar shapes, other elements that can impact character recognition are heights and ascenders. Check out the example of Figtree vs. Work Sans:

Raising your ascenders and incorporating other features will do wonders for legibility. As a general rule, there should be a visible difference between the capital height and ascenders.

Accessibility in design - Typography and legibility

Accessibility has always been embedded in the agency. But with research showing that the internet may not be as inclusive as we want it to be, our mission will always be to ensure we’re doing everything we can to create exceptional experiences for everyone

In a recent Lunch + Learn, our Design Director, Simon, talked us all through the ins and outs of web accessibility. And in this 5-part journal series, we’ll cover the key elements required to meet the minimum AA web accessibility standards set by the W3C (a community founded by the inventor of the World Wide Web himself, Tim Berners-Lee).

First up – we’re tackling all things 

As many as 217 million people worldwide have a moderate to severe vision impairment, with this number expected to rise to 588 million by 2050. But we’re not just talking about low vision or colour blindness. We should be designing for dyslexia, autism, anxiety and many more conditions, too.

And this, friends, is why colour testing is so important.

Colour contrast plays a huge part in legibility. It’s the difference in lightness/darkness between a font (or anything in the foreground) and its background.

And when it comes to web accessibility, how well one colour stands out from another colour determines whether or not most people will be able to read the information.

Which elements does a colour contrast apply to?

In UI design, the minimum requirements set by WCAG for colour contrast have to be followed for anything that a user has to read or interact with. And by that, we mean:

Carousel arrows, pagination, filters etc.

Any written content that appears on a website

The legal requirements aren’t as strict when it comes to branded elements like graphics or illustrations. If a user doesn’t have to read or interact with them, and they’re more of a brand aesthetic, then meeting the WCAG accessibility standards isn’t 

. But – if we’re talking about elements like infographics, or illustrations that are key to telling a brand’s story, then we’d always recommend following best practice.

Connotations with colours for web accessibility

There’s a psychological impact on colour choices for web accessibility, especially for people with visual impairments.

For example, red is psychologically negative, so using this for key user journeys and CTAs may impact how users interact with your website.

Green is seen as positive and progressive, so this may entice your user to click a CTA, or add anxiety if they feel they’re committing to something by clicking this.

What’s the best way to test colour contrast?

Luckily, the internet’s made it easy for us to test for colour contrast. From Figma plugins to website widgets, here’s our pick of the best tools of the trade:

What’s the AA rules for normal text vs. large text?

In some cases, colour contrast isn’t always so clear cut. Your design may fail the AA’s minimum requirements for normal text, but pass for large text. So while you can’t use the colour combination for body copy, it’s safe to use on headlines.

But – it’s a risky one. So to avoid clients running into any trouble in the future, it’s much easier to go by the rule of: if it doesn’t pass for normal and large, don’t use it. Simple!

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Accessibility in design - Motion

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Accessibility in design - UI states, spacing and sizing

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Accessibility in design - Colour testing

Let us take you further than you’ve ever been

Take it from our people people

Our top Slack hacks for productivity

What we learned at State of the Browser 2023

S8 (+P9) team trip 2023: Prague

Client-agency 101: How to give great design feedback (branding edition)

Client-agency 101: How to give great web design feedback

Why our holiday allowance is hefty

Shopify Summer ‘23 Editions: first impressions and best additions

Accessibility in design - Motion

Accessibility in design - Content hierarchy

Accessibility in design - UI states, spacing and sizing

Accessibility in design - Typography and legibility

Accessibility in design - Colour testing

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