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What we learned building it

Notes from real projects — the fixes that worked, the decisions we would make differently, and the numbers behind both. No thought leadership, no listicles.
EDITOR'S PICK

How to brief a web project so the quote is accurate

Most quotes are wrong because the brief left out the same nine things. Here is the list we send clients before a scoping call — it has cut roughly two weeks off every project since we started using it.
9 min
READ
Sep 2026
PUBLISHED
Guide
FORMAT

Latest writing

9 POSTS · ALL TOPICS
GUIDE

How to brief a web project so the quote is accurate

Nine things to include in the first email that cut roughly two weeks off every project we run.
SEP 2026 · 9 MIN
PERFORMANCE

What actually moved our clients from 4.1s to 1.3s LCP

The five fixes that account for most mobile speed gains, ranked by effort against impact.
AUG 2026 · 7 MIN
E-COMMERCE

Migrating a store without losing a single ranking

The redirect discipline behind a 2,400-product move that kept organic traffic flat through launch.
AUG 2026 · 11 MIN
PROCESS

Why we quote fixed price instead of hourly

What changes when the estimate is our risk rather than yours — including the parts we dislike.
JUL 2026 · 6 MIN
ENGINEERING

Choosing between WordPress, Shopify and a custom build

A decision tree we use on discovery calls, with the trade-offs stated plainly.
JUN 2026 · 10 MIN
ACCESSIBILITY

The accessibility work that takes an hour and matters most

Focus states, contrast, labels and keyboard order — the four fixes that clear most audits.
JUN 2026 · 5 MIN
INTEGRATIONS

Designing an integration that survives a vendor outage

Idempotency, dead letters and replay tooling, without the distributed-systems jargon.
MAY 2026 · 9 MIN
MAINTENANCE

What a maintenance retainer should actually include

A checklist you can hold any agency to, including us.
MAY 2026 · 6 MIN
CASE NOTE

What a booking rebuild changed for a field service business

Phone-and-paper scheduling to online booking in two weeks — and what we would do differently.
APR 2026 · 8 MIN
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FAQ

About the journal

Short answers about what we publish and why.

The engineers who did the work, edited lightly for readability. If a post contains numbers, they came from that project.

Only with written permission. Otherwise we describe the sector and keep the numbers, which is the useful part anyway.

Two or three posts a month, whenever a project produces something worth writing down. We would rather skip a month than pad it.

Yes — reply to any newsletter issue or send it through the contact page. Several posts started as client questions.

With attribution and a link, yes. Ask first if you want to edit it.

One, at the start of the month, with no follow-up sequence. Your address is never shared or sold.

Reading is fine. Building is better.

If one of these posts describes a problem you have, send it over with your context. We answer with an approach, not a brochure.