Weeknote 7: Smashed fruit
Welcome to the first late edition of the Owen Weeknote. I was sparked out last night and then getting this written just slipped my mind. Not a big deal.
I've been thinking this week about the time of year. There are some trees around the estate where my flat is that obviously lose their leaves when it gets to autumn. I don't know what these trees are but they also lose some nondescript fruit. With the pavement full of leaves and fruit, these get stepped on and rained on and it gives off this particular, soft, fermented smell. I catch it when I leave. That probably doesn't sound very nice but it doesn't bother me. I've been in this flat 3 years now and the smell is becoming a nostalgic sensation. A reminder that the year's winding down.
Anyway here's what I've been doing at my job or whatever.
Link text design
The thing that I've been focused on the most is contributing to the audit of all our link text. We want our link text to make sense out of context for screen reader users who might be navigating a page by links on that page, so we're going through all our link text and making sure it describes accurately where it's going.
This is a lot harder than I thought it'd be. Firstly because we've got just under 1300 links on the website. Even with everyone on the team contributing, that's no small feat. Secondly, as I found out, it's really easy to get into an existential crisis about what you're reviewing. Should this link be the whole sentence? Is that too much? We have this link at the top of the page and then later on near the bottom but there are no links in between so a screen reader user will read these things one after the other; is that ok???
It's been tricky, but enlightening. There's a part of me that's hopeful that this could set the foundations for more consistent content auditing, something I think we're lacking right now.
Speaking of links...
Whilst I was doing link text checking, it prompted me to quickly finish off something I had on my mind for a little while: a way to check if any of our external links are broken whenever we want. Credit to Colin for looking into this originally.
It's not perfect but having it is valuable. I've found it interesting to think of this as an auditing tool which could be used by someone doing content auditing of our website. As I said above, it'd be cool if we had more space to do regular content audits. Stuff like this and the techniques we used to collect links for the link audit make that process more feasible.
A reflection on leading projects
Last week I mentioned that this cycle was the last cycle we'd spend on addressing work that's come out of the DAC audit for now. Wrong. Following a chat with the team leads, we've been given one more. I'm feeling good about this since I feel like we're really really close to getting this finished.
This whole project has made me consider my approach to coordinating work. The design system team has a process of assigning 'epic leads' to projects. These team members are responsible for 'representing' the work, kinda like a mini product manager that's closer to what's going on. That's been me for this project.
I've been feeling a bit dejected that we're 3 cycles in and the project still doesn't feel finished. How has stuff taken so long? I think part of this on reflection is that we were (I was) probably overambitious in what I thought the fairly small squad could handle. That's on top of underestimating how big stuff was, like the link text audit.
I had a really good chat with Kelly about this and it prompted 2 thoughts:
- I've got a storied history of being in teams where the people responsible for the delivery and management of work would not be interested in finishing things, so I've developed a muscle of trying to run work myself. That's made me a little bit of a control freak. If I'm handling the coordination of work and not letting anyone else do it, I'm not contributing to the meat of the project.
- I think I expect other team members to work in the same way I do. That being: talk about the work that needs doing a little bit, tell everyone to leave me alone so I can get on with the thing, pop out of my cavern to ask for help or clarification when I need it. That's not everyone's vibe. People work at different paces and need different things.
I've still got a ways to go in terms of team coordination in that respect. I don't even know if I want to get to whatever that location is. In the mean time, for the next cycle I'm gonna try to rely more on whichever delivery manager is attached to the squad.
Enough about the job already
This week has been a little mundane on the work side but kinda busy on the not-work side.
Spicy working from home takes
The big change is my wife started a new job that's 100% in the office, so I've been alone most of the week. I've been reflecting on how little I go into the office and if I should go in more and, in fact, I'm perfectly fine with how much I go in. For me, the main sell for office attendance is human contact. I don't feel more efficient in offices, power to you if you do.
There's a caveat to that though: who in the office are you having human contact with? Being frank I don't know everyone at my job and I don't want to go around talking to everyone, and not everyone wants to talk to me. I get a lot out of coordinating when I go in with the people I know better to spend time with them (and collaborate! I'm working as well!). That's cliquy, yes, but I don't feel like I need to be meeting new people and making new connections all the time. None of that is touching on social anxiety, which may appear to run counter to my comments about human contact on one hand but on the other I know myself and that my social battery is a cliff edge.
I get plenty of human contact in a week outside of the office and my wife, so once or twice a week suits me fine.
Everything else
My sister in law had her last week in the UK this week and on Monday we took her to a pub quiz to round out her UK experience. We went to the Pembury Tavern, the best pub in London (don't @ me about that comment I'm not interested in your terrible pub takes), and came... not last. I once was on a team that got 2nd place at the Pemb quiz and it's been down hill ever since. One day I'll assemble a crack quiz team and we'll reach those lofty heights again.
On Thursday I went to see BODEGA live at EartH, my favorite music venue that's round the corner from me. A fantastic, heavy, vibrant gig. The very low ceiling at EartH's downstairs room really lends itself to squeaky guitar music like what BODEGA does.
I'm back to twice a week for BJJ. I thought I'd be rusty after missing the past 2 weeks but I've lost very little. That comes from doing it enough that it's harder to forget, I guess.
I finished 1000xRESIST this week and what a game. A good sci-fi story and a great family story. Maybe my favorite game so far this year. If you have a switch or a steam account, buy it and play it. I'm not negotiating with you. Do it now.
I've been trying out Rave as a coffee supplier and they're very good. The signature blend is very tasty. The Italian job is delicious.
I also saw yesterday that Cartoon Darkness is finally out. I haven't listened to it yet but I know what I'll be doing when I've finished writing.