James Royal-Lawson

Designer, digital analyst, economist and podcaster.
UX Podcast (npub15qe…9uta) host
Founder of Beantin AB.

Website: https://beantin.net/
Podcast: https://uxpodcast.com/
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Semlor: https://semlor.info/

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[email protected]

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Last Notes

2026-06-12 08:58:36 UTC

"With so much generated code, the complexity of a system can grow exponentially. It can be so complex that the only way to make sense of it is to use an LLM. Developers, teams, whole companies can become addicted and dependent on generative AI."
I think "code" can be dropped from that initial sentence. The exponential effect hit at all levels, not just code.
https://www.codingwithjesse.com/blog/rockstar-developers/ by @npub1tj3…rgt3

2026-03-11 08:09:36 UTC

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eller byta till Axebomb AB 😅

2026-03-10 22:07:19 UTC

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Jag tror att det kan blir svårt eftersom det är ett efternamn...
Jag hittade faktiskt en konversation från 2018 när vi pratade om den här faktiskt!

2026-03-10 13:57:06 UTC

I wasn't happy with how I've implemented half-stars on my semlor.info website. It made use of a "dimmed" colour. Even though the rating is written out in text elsewhere, it wanted to improve it.
Sadly the half star unicode character is badly supported and "tofu" in all the places I tested. https://unicode-explorer.com/c/2BE8
So instead I've gone for a css based solution. Take a look at this Codepen: https://codepen.io/beantin/pen/VYKKzVq

2025-11-27 20:31:09 UTC

RE: https://toot.cafe/@slightlyoff/115606336344833098
Many great insights.
Here's one...
"if you spend a majority of your time in front of a computer looking at a screen that's larger than 10", you live in a privilege bubble."
#note14t5…k23e

2025-10-06 19:31:55 UTC

When did you last do any user research?
I've worked with teams that know research is a Good Thing, and want to do more, but struggle to keep up momentum. There are always reasons (and excuses!) as to why. 🙂
Over the years, I've found that reminding teams of when they last talked to users can work really well for nudging them towards making it happen more often.
So, I've made a tiny tool to help you with that.
Talk to users!
https://talktousers.beantin.net/

2025-09-01 12:31:59 UTC

Small but interesting study about user preferences for web design when combined with information about the emissions caused by those design features
https://branch.climateaction.tech/issues/issue-9/design-constraints-in-grid-aware-web-development/

2025-06-26 12:53:24 UTC

Anyone with knowledge of css efficiency - what is the impact of doing say:
a[href^="http"]:not([href*="example.com"])::after
compared to:
.external-link::after
or even :
a.external-link::after?
#css #webperf

2025-06-13 15:07:30 UTC

It's a myth that developers are responsible for accessibility. In truth, the biggest impact comes from design.
Staggeringly, over 90% of accessibility could be our responsibility as designers.
https://beantin.net/accessibility-is-90-percent-design/
#a11y #design #ux

2025-05-26 07:51:29 UTC

Doing the maths on the Roles and Responsibilities table from W3C's ARRM group, about 80% of criteria have design as a primary role.
Eighty percent!
And yet, lots of designers still think that accessibility will be fixed by engineering.
(Or perhaps even their AI driven design tool!)
https://www.w3.org/WAI/planning/arrm/wcag-sc/
#a11y #ux #design

2025-04-21 09:06:59 UTC

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I must confess Thomas, I was pretty pleased with finding that one 😄 Made me smile again thinking about it now.

2025-04-02 07:56:03 UTC

That thing when you're self employed and need to find new projects/assignments from next month, but are way too busy this month to do what's needed to get any! 😅

2025-03-25 21:33:01 UTC

Last Friday I took part in a Letterpress workshop at Thin Ice Press in York, England.
We did that as part of a "Workshop Retreat Conference" @npub1aer…7756 and
@npub1njj…t9aq arranged. A "Wocker" Per has nicknamed it (a workshop-conference-kenning-retreat).
Really good fun, inspiring, and generated a whole load of reflections.
https://beantin.net/thin-ice-press-workshop/

2025-03-07 17:12:50 UTC

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I kept this first conversation to the privacy issues. I'll contact them again next week and bring up accessibility 😊

2025-03-07 16:28:11 UTC

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I emailed and got a reply from BetterStack. They assured me they take privacy seriously and were forwarding my email on. They also turned off GTM on my status page and all setting of cookies. https://status.beantin.net/

2025-03-07 07:52:16 UTC

I made a thing. A thing about Semlor, the Swedish lent bun. https://semlor.info/
It's only the first version with a single page showing basic details. It's taking me time to collate all of my reviews and photos!
I'm a nerd and a semla nerd...

2025-03-05 18:45:20 UTC

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yes that's a nice way of handling it. My preference is tag manager self hosted and a restrictive csp. Not always possible to achieve in some organisations (both small and large!)

2025-03-05 18:42:29 UTC

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they accept crypto as payment Per 🙄

2025-03-05 17:52:55 UTC

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a few reasons 😊.
First that their privacy policy, GDPR page and data processing declaration don't mention this. Or collecting data from your visitors.
Secondly, I've seen many times how things like GTM and GA get added to sites then individuals with access to GA change settings and don't understand the impact.
And as for accessibility, we know how that gets missed... 🙄

2025-03-05 14:30:09 UTC

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Per set me on that task of investigating this. Oh my. I think this is a case of ignorance rather than deliberate. Yes they are tracking and yes they've activated the connection to Google ads so it's setting loads of nasty tracking stuff.
Oh, and it's not fully accessible either.
Why can't we just have nice things!!

2025-02-04 12:47:11 UTC

Ok, so I really didn't expect I'd be writing a thing about goats.
https://beantin.net/feeding-curiosity-and-bursting-bubbles/

2024-12-04 19:37:48 UTC

Searching the interwebs earlier out of frustration with text-less buttons (I was playing with voice navigation) and stumbled on this article by @npub152t…grcj which also happens to mention @npub1aer…7756
https://www.tempertemper.net/blog/what-i-wish-was-in-wcag-prohibit-icon-only-buttons

2024-12-04 15:28:53 UTC

@npub1aer…7756 and I have just recorded an episode of @npub15qe…9uta about Dark Mode.
And it got us wondering...
What's your preferred way of designing and implementing light and dark mode?
#webdev #ux #webdesign #a11y

2024-11-25 07:41:28 UTC

A new thing from me 😊 I've created a bookmarklet to help check that "language of parts" (and "language of page") is correct on your webpages, and written an article to go with it.
https://beantin.net/language-of-parts-bookmarklet/
#a11y #accessibility #t12t #lang

2024-10-29 13:01:46 UTC

Are you using Microsoft Clarity? Are you collecting the appropriate consent from your visitors?
The TLDR: You need to place Clarity under the advertising category for consent due to the T&Cs of using Clarity.
https://beantin.net/microsoft-clarity-and-privacy/
#analytics #research #ux #privacy

2024-10-11 14:56:52 UTC

The Gartner hype cycle curve.
Working in tech means you've almost certainly seen it.
You've probably suffered at the hands of it in a meeting as well.
I've written a thing where I highlight the lesser known, but more common, "hidden" curves...
https://beantin.net/the-hidden-curves-of-the-gartner-hype-cycle/

2024-09-07 11:55:41 UTC

Inspired by a post by @npub1p3y…7ppn I've written about the rise and fall of web design and how modern day webmasters in the form of bridging roles might set us right. https://beantin.net/making-your-design-suck-less-with-bridging-roles/
#ux #uxdesign #webdev