Weeknotes #9

Another week of getting back into a normal routine. Releasing Contensis 12, defining new application behaviour and documenting a design system.

• The week started with our review, retrospective and planning. Si provided a really good overview of all the changes that have taken place in our search. From where we were to what will ship as part of Contensis 12. A summary can be seen on Contensis blog.
• Mike gave us an update on the new blocks API, an API that will be used by developers to define docker containers that represent individual components of a website.
• As a team we’ve been cooking a meal together at each review. This time around we had Asian Salmon, green Beans and stir fried kale with garlic and chilli.
• We’ve been having a lot more conversation about accessibility and this week was no exception. As a UI team we spent a little time looking at a couple of scenarios of our content type builder and what improvement could be made quite quickly.
• As we build out the Contensis Design system we’ve identified other application uses for our components. Jon has been sharing his insights to design tokens and how they can be used across our platform.
• I’ve spent more time defining tasks in our backlog, writing acceptance criteria and shaping out a few features.
• Finished writing the search changes blog post, our release notes as well as reviewing a few release communications for Contensis 12.
• I fought a lot with Storybook this week trying to document stories in their angular version. I was hoping for better things with their recent support for MDX files. But its either our configuration or the lack of support for angular in the project that has meant I’ve had to look at other approaches.
• Made efforts to start documenting our design system, taking cues from Atlassian, Salesforce as well as material design to bring some structure to our component documents. I’ve leant on the familiar MKDocs to give me a visual framework to work with until we can get Storybook working in the way we expect.
• I ended the week in Little Man coffee for my Friday off to meet up with a good friend Dai. He’s one of the directors of Manumit Coffee and needed some advice on their website and integration with some back office processes. Hopefully in the coming weeks I can help them draw up a set of user stories to address some of their key issues.
• I also took my MacBook Pro into Apple to be looked at. It’s had a service battery warning for some months and also seems to be affecting its charging. It’s had to be sent away for a week to be fixed.
• A friend and their daughter came to stay with us Friday night. We’ve enjoyed time catching up, taking the girls out on their bikes and trikes and enjoying hearing of Gods goodness in our lives.
• I ran again this week, I’m certainly not where I was two years ago, but my friend Matt and I got out on the canal for 30 minutes to stretch the legs.