the writing web design · 5 essays

Web Design

Real websites drawn at random, checked live and measured on a phone. The design patterns worth borrowing, and what each one costs in load time.

31 oct 2026 20 Best Portfolio Websites in 2026, Checked Live and Speed-Tested 20 portfolio websites drawn at random, checked live and measured on a phone. None of the 8 with enough real-visitor data passes all three Core Web Vitals, and only GØDN.studio scores 90 or above in the lab.
31 oct 2026 20 Best Restaurant and Food Websites in 2026, Speed-Tested 20 restaurant and food websites drawn at random, checked live and measured on a phone. 5 of the 13 with enough real-visitor data pass all three Core Web Vitals, including Slurp, the heaviest page in the draw at 53.4 MB.
31 oct 2026 64 Beautiful Websites in 2026, Checked Live and Speed-Tested 64 beautiful websites drawn at random, eight per category, each checked live and measured on a phone. Only 11 of the 35 with enough real-visitor data pass all three Core Web Vitals, and the median Lighthouse score is 61.
19 oct 2026 Web Design Inspiration Sites: 14 Galleries Worth Bookmarking Fourteen galleries, award sites and pattern libraries for web design inspiration: what each is best for, where it falls short, and how to turn it into a brief.
25 aug 2026 The Neuroscience of UX Design: What Holds Up in 2026 Two things called TRIBE v2. One predicts fMRI response to films and podcasts. The other is my copy framework, tested on 91,000 live pages. The gap is the point.