Adrian Stainforth

The design team at Octopus Deploy has been looking at ways to modernize the UI. We’ve released an update for the process editor, a critical part of where teams build and maintain their deployments The redesign reduces clutter, visually groups parent and child steps (which customers have repeatedly asked for), and gives the UI a modern refresh. It’s intended to reduce friction, help customers move faster, and give them greater control over complex processes. This is the first of quality of life UI improvements to come 😄 For now, read more at https://lnkd.in/gf6zKNnz

40

4 Comments

At HMRC we used to debate whether to make our prototype pages trigger errors based on people's input. It's useful to do this if you want to test people's reactions to errors but adding validation to hundreds of screens creates bloated code too. 👾 Here's a lightweight solution which only accepts numbers. Express.js does the validation in the routes.js file. https://lnkd.in/enGb__4G password - sandpit 🤓 Fork my repo of govuk patterns and code snippets at https://lnkd.in/eqZsU7aG #govuk #prototypes

71

27 Comments

Love this! Designing for the web in code really does help you think differently about the medium. One thing I’d like to add is that it also gives you a sense of what things are easy vs hard. For example, name and address inputs are easy (especially with browser autocomplete), but custom calendar pickers are really hard. Sometimes the hard things may still be worth the effort, but other times not. Also good to think about URL structure early!

12

1 Comment

Most agencies talk about ideas. Very few actually build things. Yesterday, I took a concept and turned it into a live page using Vercel. Not a mockup. Not a wireframe. A working asset. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eUfJZ6jr What’s interesting is… I’m not a developer. But using tools like Node.js, Git, and modern frameworks, you can now build and ship things faster than ever. This is how we approach projects at Futura Digital: • Build • Test in real conditions • Improve based on behaviour Because in most businesses, the problem isn’t lack of ideas. It’s lack of execution. AI doesn’t fix that. Better systems do.

1

1 Comment

So much accessibility news, so little time - so here’s what I’ve been reading, and I think it’s all good news! 😇 New legislation on Netflix et al, new accessible web design tech, + more 👇 1️⃣ 18 million people set to benefit from new streaming accessibility laws Streaming giants must now meet the same accessibility standards long required of traditional broadcasters - including subtitles, audio descriptions, and signing. https://lnkd.in/eB9yyj4w 2️⃣ Microsoft previews tech to ease creation of keyboard-accessible websites Microsoft’s Patrick Brosset says we need better tools for accessible websites (we agree!) - and is seeking to replace the current WCAG standard ‘Tabindex’ with a better alternative. https://lnkd.in/exGbytu2 3️⃣ HSBC are sharing their in-house accessibility expertise HSBC have expended a lot of energy on training their staff on accessibility - and are now making the same teaching available to the public. More knowledge sharing can only be a good thing! https://lnkd.in/eezQe2GW ❓What have you been reading in accessibility recently? This is far from exhaustive, so let me know what I’ve missed.

5

As part of the work I've been doing on building an accessibility scanning tool, I wanted to see if I could take some of that thinking and bring it directly into the Umbraco back office, which led me to create... uAccessible! 🎉 uAccessible adds an accessibility tab to every content node workspace. Click it, and it launches a headless Chromium browser, runs a full axe-core audit against your published page, and returns an interactive graded report right there, without leaving Umbraco. ✅ A-F accessibility grade based on violation count and severity ✅ Violations broken down by impact level ✅ Quick wins panel surfacing the lowest-effort, highest-impact fixes first ✅ Flags what axe-core can't automatically determine ✅ Flags every passing rule, with the elements and criteria that satisfied it ✅ WCAG 2.0 / 2.1 / 2.2 coverage at Levels A and AA, powered by axe-core It's free and is compatible with Umbraco 17 and .NET 10. 👉 https://lnkd.in/esGwQZuq 👉 https://lnkd.in/eg5gP4NG #Umbraco #UmbracoMarketplace #UmbracoPackage #DotNet #Accessibility #A11y #WCAG #axecore #OpenSource #h5yr #UmbracoCommunity #Developer

29

1 Comment

The UK App Market 2025: Trends, Challenges &amp; Opportunities - << LINK IN COMMENT >> #dcpWebDesigners #knowledgeandwisdom #KnowledgeIsPowerful #Knowledgeable

We hosted the Nile x Anthropic x WTW Neuron panel last week (read as: Sam Irving, Adriaan and I sat on a couch for an hour and chatted about AI) We focused on AI in regulated businesses - what's actually working, what's harder than expected, where it's heading. Against the backdrop of Gemini 3 and Opus 4.5 being released, it was a good time to compare notes! Some bits I'm still thinking about: The junior role question is one we need to take seriously. Traditionally, entry-level work has often been grunt work - the stuff that teaches you the ropes through repetition. If AI takes that away, what does a first role actually look like? How do we develop people deliberately rather than through osmosis? The tech is moving faster than most organisations can absorb. The bottleneck is rarely the AI itself - it's culture, structure, permission to experiment. If the technology stopped improving tomorrow, we'd still see massive gains year on year just from companies learning how to use what already exists. And if you're designing around today's AI limitations - hallucination, context, memory - without thinking about how fast those are being solved, you're probably aiming too low. Thanks to Lucy Barrett for keeping us on track, and to Hampden Bank for hosting us! Some of the sharpest points came from audience engagement on the day - so opening it up here too. Anything to add or challenge?

51

Ethical design isn't optional - it's the law! The CMA is investigating 'dark patterns' What does it mean for you? All these are off the menu now in the UK: Fake countdown timers (Only 22m 10s left!!) Misleading was/now pricing (was £999, now £499) Fake stock scarcity warnings (only 2 left!!) Confirm or Cancel shaming ("No, I'd rather lose money") Pre-ticked boxes or auto-enrolment (12-point text hiding monthly sub) Hidden fees & drip pricing ("Handling fee £2.99") Manipulative or Ambiguous language (various) Biased Defaults (express shipping by default) Misleading social proof messages ("100 bought today!!") Simba Sleep 4 Jul 2024 – CMA announces Simba has signed legally binding undertakings. Simba must use only genuine “was” prices and countdown timers that match real deadlines. CMA stated Simba’s earlier “was/now” pricing and timers risked giving a false impression of urgency and savings. Emma Group / Emma Sleep 9 Nov 2022 – CMA opens a consumer-protection investigation into Emma Sleep’s urgency timers and “was/now” price claims. The CMA alleges the countdown clocks and “high-demand” banners could mislead shoppers about genuine savings. 17 Oct 2024 – Emma declines to give undertakings, so the CMA issues High Court proceedings seeking an injunction. (Case still before the court.) Wowcher 23 Mar 2023 – CMA opens a case into Wowcher’s urgency claims, “was/now” pricing and pre-ticked VIP Club opt-ins. 2 Jul 2024 – Wowcher signs undertakings to: * Remove misleading countdown timers and scarcity banners * Stop pre-ticked opt-ins that auto-enrol shoppers into paid subscriptions * Refund more than £4 million to over 870,000 VIP Club subscribers for fees taken via those opt-ins. W<ouch>er :-) So what's happening here? The CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) is investigating companies for a whole range of questionable techniques, some of which are still popular. Unwittingly, your website could be using them. Even worse, several companies I know have had competitors report them to the CMA, which is pretty underhand, like wtf! You can't ignore this stuff either - it's a board-level risk you have to manage. Under the DMCC (Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024), you can now be fined up to 10% of global turnover for having these dark patterns on your sites, if you trade in the UK. Sarah Cardell of the CMA said on 2 July 2024 that the action is "part of our wider work" and the CMA "will not hesitate to act". These examples show that the CMA is taking this stuff seriously. The checklist below will help you avoid the most common patterns the CMA are looking for! This will also impact sites that aren't genuinely intending to deceive people - even if you think that's a reasonable defence ;-) Please check the legislation and guidelines for online choice architecture in the comments too :-)

27

18 Comments

Good week this week. Had a great session with a seriously talented UI developer who's brought some fresh thinking to the table — we've come away with some brilliant ideas for adding a bit of sparkle to our applications. Watch this space. On the product side, we've been diving into something we're genuinely excited about. We're working with a manufacturer to help them get a clearer picture of their CO2e footprint — and the good news is, a lot of the data they need is already sitting inside FactoryIQ. We're using it to analyse things like raw material consumption versus finished product output as an early indicator of environmental impact. But that's just the start. The real goal is getting FactoryIQ EdgeMonitors fitted to their machines, so they can see exactly how much energy each machine is using — down to individual jobs. Proper visibility, not guesswork. Sustainability in manufacturing doesn't have to mean starting from scratch. Sometimes the data's already there — you just need to know where to look. #Manufacturing #Sustainability #CO2e #FactoryIQ #MadeInBritain

9

1 Comment

At Audiense we have 5 permanent designers and 2 interns. Titles? We’re not obsessed with them — but we’re also not naive. After being acquired and becoming part of a a big number of people organization, clarity matters more than ever. A single word like “designer” doesn’t help teams collaborate better. It creates confusion. Are you designing for product, marketing, brand, multimedia, or the design system? Different skills, different roles, different impact. Just like all doctors aren’t the same — you want to know if someone’s a pediatrician, gynecologist, or surgeon. So yes, at Audiense, we use designer — but also product designer, brand designer, multimedia designer, and so on. Not for the hype. Not for the ego. But to communicate better, move faster, and build trust across disciplines. Shopify’s CDO said they dropped all labels and went with just “designer” or “writer.” Cool in theory. But in practice? It helps no one but those already in the room. Am I right ?

3

3 Comments

There's just so much noise around the European Accessibility Act that it's hard for UK businesses to know where to turn... or if it even applies to them! Misconceptions about the #EAA are costing UK brands conversions, and loss of trust; not just legal compliance headaches. Read our latest post, then ask: which change would unlock the most new customers this quarter? #EuropeanAccessibilityAct #Accessibility #DigitalInclusion #InclusiveDesign

1

All the talk of Shopify dropping the term UX from the title of Designer makes complete sense. They are years behind UK 🇬🇧 Government Digital Services (GDS) in doing that. Government hires service, interaction and content designers and they all do something very valuable. This is not to say other design disciplines aren’t valued, it’s just that they know that specialists make sense. However, when Shopify do it you get all the noise and conversation.

13

2 Comments

I've been thinking about Agentic AI quite a bit, and wanted to share some thoughts on what it might take for us to trust Agents, and how we can break that down into something we can unpack and solve for. https://lnkd.in/ez7MUgS8

10

2 Comments

We've just put out an RFI for design research tooling at the BBC and I wanted to share it here in case it's relevant to you or someone you know. https://lnkd.in/eM3wphTs We're looking to consolidate our research tooling, bringing moderated and unmoderated methods into one place, with better support for insight storage and reuse as we move towards continuous discovery. We're particularly interested in platforms that support: - Mixed methods research - Quality participant recruitment - Responsible self-serve for teams This is tooling only, not an agency or service model. We want something we can genuinely grow with as our ways of working evolve. If that sounds like your platform, we'd love to hear from you. 🚀

50

11 Comments

Good Services is an essential read for anyone involved in designing, building or frankly using services. Cannot wait for this follow up!

3

1 Comment

Aer Studios appoints Creative Director to lead user centred design practice Creative technology company, Aer Studios, has appointed Jay Robinson to lead its user centred design practice as the studio continues on its growth trajectory. Taking up the role of Creative Director, Jay rounds out the leadership team while bringing additional expertise to develop the company’s creative and design capabilities. Jay is a senior creative leader with a track record of delivering complex, high-impact work across brand, digital and experience. He has led global teams, built design capability and delivered work that operates at both cultural and commercial scale. He has worked across leading agencies (such as Taxi and Epoch Design) and direct client engagements, partnering at board, client and team level to deliver for brands including Netflix, Microsoft, Samsung, Clarks and Cube Bikes. Amongst Jay’s recent achievements, he led the end-to-end brand and digital design for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare Curriculum, a nationally scaled education platform reaching thousands of UK schools. He also headed digital delivery on a year-long engagement with Nestlé, overseeing a UX transformation across 70 international markets and lifting global performance rankings. Bringing a wealth of expertise in creative strategy and user-centred design to Aer Studios, Jay champions purpose-driven ideas, craft and clarity to create products and services that people love to use while delivering genuine business impacts. Jay will join the senior leadership team alongside Head of Technology, James Hobbs, Head of Marketing, Sarah Dennis, Head of People, Culture and Operations, Emily Armstrong and Head of Finance, Kate Stubbings. The cohort will work closely with CEO Tom Harber, and Director, Geoff Wells. Jay Robinson – Creative Director , Aer Studios Aer Studios continues to grow steadily year on year with a mission to create meaningful digital experiences that have a positive impact on people and planet. The last few years have seen the agency expanding their partnerships with key clients including the BBC and Dogs Trust as well as winning multiple clients both locally and globally, including CEPI, GAVI and Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. CEO Tom Harber says, “Last year we set out our vision for the next five years, and Jay’s appointment is crucial to delivering on that. Having come highly recommended from across the ecosystem, Jay brings a brilliant blend of creative firepower and design thinking capabilities needed for this next phase of growth. This is a really exciting time for Aer Studios with a number of significant projects landing and with Jay’s leadership, we’re looking forward to being able to deliver even more impact for our clients and their audiences” Source: Aer Studios https://ift.tt/NmcLeSt

2