Stef Walter

names.color.pizzaGolden Honey Suckle (#ffdb29)Bright as the nectar inside a honeysuckle flower. Honeysuckles are arching shrubs or twining vines in the genus Lonicera of the family Caprifoliaceae. The…

I adopted the Golden Honey Suckle color. Because, why not? Because, it's the one I use for my brand, but, also, honestly mostly, because the description made me laugh. names.color.pizza/color/golden...

Today is the day!! !

Stef Walter@stephaniewalter.bsky.social

Free online talk announcement: next week, I'll speak at @a11ytalks.com about accessibility pushback, and how to tackle them! Wed, October 28, 12pm ET Register: a11ytalks.com/posts/2026-oct #A11yTalks #Accessibility

The Designer’s Constitution is an attempt by Pablo Zárate at rethinking what makes someone a designer in the age of AI, based on Bauhaus principles. I like this quote “Every task can be delegated, except thinking, thinking is not a task it’s a privilege”.

constitution.designThe Designer’s ConstitutionA model for rethinking what makes a designer in the age of AI.

I get a feeling way too many people are happy delegating thinking too, and honestly, it’s scary. Full interactive article: constitution.design/

pablozarate.comDesign Manifesto: 10 Principles for Ethical, Human DesignTen principles for designers on ethics, craft, responsibility, respect for audiences, and knowing when less is better—written by Pablo Zarate.

You might also want to check out the 10 Principles for Ethical, Human Design:

21h

I am still confused why I would need an "AI grammar checker". Isn't the idea of grammar that, there are rules, it's predictable? (yeah I am a little bit annoyed all my tools are adding AI for the sake of AI)

Designers see performance as a constraint, or as a checklist item: “don’t forget the spinner.” What if we saw it as a design opportunity instead? In November, I'll explore what developers should expect from their designers and how to ask for it at @perfnow.nl in Amsterdam. perfnow.nl/

The Venn diagram of "I love a good Riso print, typography, and mini-zines" exist and it’s adorable! Meet Paths, Points, & Handles: www.arcanetype.com/product/path...

My curated weekly newsletter is out. This week: the "disability dongle" problem, where ecommerce customers get stuck, and the double-edged sword of AI-generated prototypes. Also, horror graphic novels for Halloween! 👉🏻 stephaniewalter.design/blog/pixels-...

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When you put "secondady" instead of "secondary" in a mockup and your chaotic brain goes: should I correct this, or, just, you know, just have a little bit of fun and wait for someone to notice?

uxdesign.ccVibe prototyping is a double-edged swordVibe coding prototypes is so fun we forget what prototypes are for

Vibe prototyping is a double-edged sword Yup, I have to agree here: super detailed prototypes can backfire on projects. People fall in love with the pixels and lose any ounce of critical thinking. We struggle to ask the important questions. What is the problem this is trying to solve? And why?

From "it's too expensive" to "we'll fix it later," accessibility advocates hear plenty of objections. This session explores nine common myths and how designers, developers, and project teams can respond using data, examples, and practical arguments.

Because knowing accessibility matters is one thing. Getting everyone else on board is another.

youtu.beNana Mouskouri - Guten Morgen SonnenscheinNana Mouskouri - Guten Morgen Sonnenschein ( 1977 )

Someone I won't mention because I won't shame (but I shall bite them in due time) put Nana Mouskouri in my head, and I don't like to suffer alone so here we are: Guten Morgen, guten Morgen Guten Morgen, Sonnenschein! youtu.be/eOvibLXJxQ8?...

adrianroselli.comDecorative Images……aren’t a thing. Three hand-drawn lines curling together like an S or three skinny snakes trying to spoon. At least not as far as people are concerned. Yes, this is an absolutist take, but sometimes it’s necessary to take the absolutist position to force someone to justify their own reasoning.…

Decorative Image …aren’t a thing. I tend to agree with @aardrian.bsky.social here, with modern CSS, any decorative image should go in the CSS anyway, so, if you have an image in the HTML, there’s a reason for it, might not be decoration. Otherwise: remove it? adrianroselli.com/2026/10/deco...

Most examples of “decorative” images I come across when teaching are actually not decorative, but redundant. For example: a button with an icon and a label. The label provides the information, so the icon is redundant.

This means you need an empty alt text (or SVG equivalent) for those if your image is in the HTML, but, even better, again: put that icon in the CSS.

youtube.comROSÉ & Bruno Mars - APT. (Official Music Video)YouTube video by ROSÉ

Me, upgrading PHP tonight, going APT APT, APT APT, A, Aha aha www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekr2...

Joke aside I'm grateful that the patch was quickly available, so kudos to all the volunteers and community who made this happen!

It’s Halloween soon, may I interest you in the work of Adam Ellis, an horror graphic novels and comics author? He publishes amazing horrible horror short stories on his instagram, and a couple of more on his patreon Instagram: www.instagram.com/adamtots/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/adamtots

uxdesign.ccAI-generated UI is fast design, not UXThe call for problem discovery, the freedom and wander, and craft in the age of AI

AI-generated UI is fast design, not UX! Sophie Shrimpton compares AI generated UI to cheap furniture and fast fashion: prompt-first AI output can look polished but ignore real human problems, accessibility, context, and quality. The prompt first, think never mindset is producing decorative garbage.

uxdesign.ccAI-generated UI is fast design, not UXThe call for problem discovery, the freedom and wander, and craft in the age of AI

We sometimes don’t even know what is the problem to solve, but, here are some pretty pixels to solve it: this is AI slop. She urges designers to take back control, and preserve the problem discovery and exploration phase of our process.

But also to use AI as a tool to help prototype solutions, but only after you understand the problem.

Sometimes I feel like an alien on social media (especially LinkedIn). I've been asked multiple times "why don't you automate your weekly links, you could feed the 150 newsletters you follow to a tool that would cherry pick the most interesting ones.

I am just happy I still manage to find and follow a few fellow kindred spirits who also enjoy posting human thoughts, for other humans. And honestly: mastodon and bluesky are better than LinkedIn for that. Less AI slop, more genuine conversations. So, thank you people for that!

Full disclosure: I do automate on thing: the time I post. I often read in batch, so, I prepare multiple posts manually, and then schedule them over the week to avoid spamming you all.

Last: I might be strange, but I enjoy opening 50 tabs in the morning, and, like a butterfly, cherry pickings the ones that pique my interest. Call it "dopamine driven curation" hehe.

Call me naïve, but I think this is why some people follow my content: I actually take the time to do all of this, connect the dots, and share. But in an ocean of generic AI posts, yeah, I feel like an alien.

Second, summarizing things, with my own words, is a way for me to remember those things. To reflect. To draw more connections. It helps me, articulate, more thoughts, beyond what I read.

Which brings me to 3rd: I sometimes share just a summary of what I read, but often, that summary contains, "my two scents" on this topic. Because it reminded me of a discussion, of something that happened in my own career, etc. So the idea is here again, not just to share content, but build upon it.

It would summarize them, it could even, generate the social media posts for you". Yes, I could. Expect: where is the fun in that?

First, I love reading: articles, books, etc. This is the way my brain creates connections, discovers new ideas, etc. This is basically fuel for my brain. So trust me when I say: I am sad, the weeks I can't read as much as I would like.

sightlessscribbles.comThe "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and you., Sightless ScribblesA fabulously gay blind Romance author.

Stop trying to upgrade disabled people's body when the problem is your design! @weirdwriter.caneandable.social.ap.brid.gy argues that the tech industry needs to stop trying to sell useless expensive gadgets no disabled person wants, or can afford.

Instead, we need to start fixing actual accessibility barriers, like bad code, and poorly designed infrastructures This hurts, because, it's true: "Silicon Valley will spend millions developing a glove that translates sign language into speech (badly), ... sightlessscribbles.com/posts/disabi...

sightlessscribbles.comThe "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and you., Sightless ScribblesA fabulously gay blind Romance author.

but they won't spend ten minutes adding Alt-Text to their images. They will build a headset that describes the room to me (poorly), but they won't use semantic HTML headings so I can actually navigate a webpage." #Accessibility #DisabilityDongle #FixYourHTML

Honestly, I think we should be allowed to design like they fight in shonen animes. I want to shout "Autolayyyyyout, Floooow, Vertiiicaaaaaaal" in the office 😁 This post is sponsored by a new season of BlackClover. #LifeAsADesign

My curated weekly newsletter is out. This edition explores agentic commerce interfaces beyond chat UIs. Also, a fun clock made from trash, a webcam theremin, dataviz and a tool to know if a book chapter will make you sad. 👉🏻 stephaniewalter.design/blog/pixels-...

If you ever dreamed of playing the theremin (or are just curious), now you can, using your webcam and hands, your gyro on your phone, or a mouse. I hate the sound, but it's honestly quite a fun demo of cool things you can do with different device sensors. Created by Pavel Gurov. theremin.bizibah.com

Local pastry shop created some strawberry boobs pastry and 1 EUR goes to breast cancer research. I love this. Also I have high expectations for movember now.

Update: this was also very delicious. There was some mousse and a little fruit compote. Really nice 😁

medium.comBeyond the Chat: What Will the Interface for Agentic Commerce Look Like?There has been a good Medium post going around called “The Prompt Is Not an Interface.” Written by Joshua Leigh it argues that from a UX…

What Will the Interface for Agentic Commerce Look Like? I am usually not a big fan of the whole “everything will become a chat/ generative UI that adapts”, but, this article for once goes beyond and brings some interesting ideas

“When a customer is routed to you with intent already formed, the surface should assemble itself around that intent. If they are comparing, give them a comparison built from the two or three things they actually named, not a category page with forty options.”.

And this, calls for, a big work to understand real user journeys (instead of guessing like most people still do). Beyond the Chat (12min) by Jess Leitch medium.com/design-bootc...