Nic Chan

You've broken your streak Thoughts on perfectionism and burnout, and how to move away from an all or nothing mindset

Life is messy, doing something is nearly always better than doing nothing - but we have to let ourselves off the hook when we (inevitably) can’t do everything. Streaks make that harder. Duolingo I am looking HARD at you.

I wrote a bit about streaks here 👇🏻

amyhupe.co.uk/articles/you...

2/2

I had a dream where I was invited to meet with a potential client, so I prepared for the standard conversation, but it turns out it was actually a group interview of 30 teams trying to answer questions that were taped onto a moving train, and that's kind of what tech hiring feels like right now 😂

Eric has managed to put my vague feeling of discomfort around inclusive personas into actual words. A must-read!

I'll be there, can't wait!! 🎉

I need a how to design a killer landing page course pls

I may be biased, but the new marketing pages are looking incredible.

I was laid-off and am looking for a new role.

Working were design meets code is my jam. I am skilled at building accessible design system components, working with Web Components APIs, and creating scalable CSS architecture.

I work remotely from my home in Manitoba, Canada. 🇨🇦

Shares appreciated!

Thanks for the shoutout Nathan!

Does Bill Hunt's website count? 👀
billhunt.dev

Branch issue 9 magazine cover - Summer 2025 - Attunement: Designing in an era of constraint. Illustration by Tessa Curran.

Issue 9 of Branch magazine (which I worked on as copy editor) is out now! branch.climateaction.tech/issues/issue...

Published by the Green Web Foundation, Branch is an online mag written by and for people who dream of a sustainable and just internet for all.

Highly recommended reading!

The hater blood within me runs strong 😂💛 Thank you for your kind words!

Read the latest issue of Branch Magazine - Nic Chan Bridging the gap between web development and sustainability.

📝 Read the latest issue of Branch Magazine

It's so great to hear from people who actually want to address impending climate disaster!

www.nicchan.me/blog/read-th...

Please, can we have ARIA Notify - Nic Chan A hate letter to live regions.

I forget standards wonks aren’t the only ones paying attention to proposals.

“Please, can we have ARIA Notify”
www.nicchan.me/blog/please-...

I was meh initially, and gave a pile of feedback in ARIA WG and at TPAC. It has matured since. It does not replace live regions.

#accessibility #a11y

📝 Building my new website:
A modern approach to font fallbacks with font property adjustments

I finally took the three screenshots I needed to publish this post. I also got round to adding drag and drop for all the windows 🎉

www.nicchan.me/blog/buildin...

I'm amazed this ecosystem (Twine) has flourished for so long, without feeling the need to cause a breaking experience by ripping things out unnecessarily, and I respect the hell out of them for that... However, it causes an itch in my brain whenever I type that dollar sign again 😂

I have the opportunity to help someone with a text-based game in Twine, which lets you build games with web technologies! My initial thoughts are:
1. Wow, this is super cool
2. Holy shit, it's still using jQuery

Nic Chan’s Delightfully Retro Website Is a Visual and Accessible Triumph - Opus It’s always inspiring to see such a detailed and intentional website design.

It’s always inspiring to find a website like @nicmakesstuff.bsky.social’s that was obviously designed with a lot of care, intention, and personality. #webdesign

Thank you for the lovely write-up, this was so wonderful to wake up to! 🥹🎉

As more journalists are driven out of their jobs, I keep hearing this drumbeat of "it's ok -- they can start their own newsletter or publication." Some can. But becoming your own business is a huge job, and will eliminate many talented reporters from the public sphere. Here's why. (1/5)

I tried to make a website that was a color not purple and failed instantly, let's just call it a strong brand

A handy use of subgrid to enhance a simple layout subgrid in CSS is really handy for getting a nice level of design detail in place, especially in terms of maintaining a nice reading line, as Andy shows in this article.

subgrid in CSS is really handy for getting a nice level of design detail in place, especially in terms of maintaining a nice reading line, as Andy shows in this article.

piccalil.li/blog/a-handy...

Day ruined

Saw a totally cool font that I would have happily shelled out for but it turns out the creator decided to release it as a limited nft in 2025!!! I'm clearly not mad about this at all!!!

Totally unrelated, anyone have some cool variable fonts they love?

Beware of the Google AI salesman and its cronies Exposing the overly salesy AI Overviews that will push you to buy bad products and exploring the system making it possible.

I love the thoughtful research into something I think we all feel but find it difficult to quantify. Fuck AI overviews.

housefresh.com/beware-of-th...

Why Women in Tech isn't enough Women in Tech spaces help, but fall short in the long run. Real progress needs systemic change and active involvement from men in positions of power.

I have been back and forth over the span of 5 years about whether to publish this article.

All opinions and experiences in this post are my own, or from people I personally know, backed up with recent reports and statistics.

I spent hours and hours trawling through the sites of some of the world's best web developers, and despite the horrors I regularly experience in my daily work in Big JavaScript Territory, what I saw left me hopeful:

infrequently.org/2025/07/links/

I've criticized the IAAP a lot and again they are in the spotlight for their policies regarding continuing accessibility education credit. They strictly control what's allowed as one and you need various amounts of them to continue holding a certification.

I will be there! 🎉 So excited!

But yeah, making ARIA Notify announcements automatically translatable does require something like this available to more than just AT, so overall I'm in favor, I hope that was communicated in my article!

terrible practices means useful things shouldn't exist (ie. SEO keyword stuffing doesn't mean we shouldn't have alt text), but it did come to mind as ripe for exploitation 🫠

Part of me is torn, like my first gut instinct was I love this idea, the second thought was that if there is some kind of HTML API for notifs, I know marketers are instantly going to stuff it with absolute shit instead of keeping it for state communication... Not that I think the existence of -