Highlights from Pixel Pioneers 2024: AI, CSS, Accessibility, and Developer Insights

In June I had the pleasure of attending my first ever Pixel Pioneers conference in Bristol.  It’s been a while since my last venture into the developer conference space, and I was excited to connect with my industry peers, as well as hear from those who are helping to lead our industry locally and internationally. Below are a few of my highlights:

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You are an AI Engineer

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As with every conference everywhere right now, Pixel Pioneers couldn’t get away without having at least some coverage on how AI is changing the landscape.  With developers though the topic is less about how to use it, and more about the burden of it as another technology. Developers often suffer heavily from imposter syndrome, worrying we aren’t good enough at this or that, given the depth and breadth of software skills that are now expected of us. AI as yet another technology, is just another of those causes of insecurity and anxiety. 

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Tejas skillfully tackled this topic, encouraging us to see that being an AI engineer doesn’t mean understanding the full intricacies of vectors and neural nets, or writing our own decision matrix, but that combinations of our current skills and AI such as integrating via an API can be enough.

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CSS is functional

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CSS - Cascading Style Sheet - the language used to style web pages including colours, layouts and animation

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In the past I have met developers who downplay the power of CSS, those who don’t see it as a development language given its less functional nature. As a CSS evangelist I have always loved working in CSS and highly dispute this approach, so finding a like minded individual in Michelle was great. CSS, like every language, has been growing and diversifying over recent years, and in her talk Michelle covered new features in CSS that can help us create more dynamic results more quickly.  Many of these features are now more functional than ever, from min and max content, to clamp and container queries, allowing developers to build complex layout and styling patterns with only a few lines of code.

Don’t overthink your accessibility

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Even today as the focus on equality, diversity and inclusion increases, accessibility on the web is under utilised. Technology should be a force for good in this space, enabling those who need support, but more often than not a lack of appropriate accessibility leads to increased frustration and in some cases can make sites and services completely unusable.  

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In his talk Ian demonstrated how well meaning developers trying to fill the accessibility gap can misuse accessibility tools and actually make experiences worse for users. For example, adding accessibility attributes is not always a good idea, because if the necessary information is already available this can lead to duplicate output from screen readers. In some cases less is more and using properly formatted HTML just the way it should be can be the most effective option.

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Never underestimate developer effort

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As a somewhat intangible skill set, where the code we create and work we do is not easily measurable by what the user sees, developer effort is often misunderstood. It’s always great to hear from the big technology companies at events like Pixel Pioneers, as it often brings a sense of validation and realism to the complexity of what we as developers create.  

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Sophie’s talk on technical migration at Monzo was a perfect example of this. To a layman, the task their team was assigned sounds simple, to transition the Monzo web type system from Flow to Typescript. This isn’t a new feature, or a new product, it's updating an already existing part of their product from one format to another. So the complex stuff is done right? Wrong… making a change like this in itself can result in re-writing 1000s of lines of code, and everything has to be thoroughly tested along the way to ensure each part continues to work with the system as a whole. 

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All in all, amongst other work, the highly skilled team took 2 years to complete the migration. To Monzo’s customers, nothing much had changed, but for Monzo, this meant a more reliable, faster, and supported codebase for the years ahead. So next time it takes a few weeks, or a few months to see the results of your developers work, consider not just the time, but the effort that the work might have taken.

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In Summary

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So how would I sum up my first visit to Pixel Pioneers? All in all it must have been a good one as I came away with plenty of notes, and a few new friends. Most of all I left with a sense of community and shared experience from people who face the same day to day challenges I do, and I look forward to 2025 when I can attend the next one.

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If you are looking to develop an app, website or digital service, be that a brand new idea or an old system in need of a reboot, we would love to help you on your journey so get in touch with us today.

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