iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Luhr @luhr.co · 15/09/2026

Fair points! This is mainly intended for use with more recent dates for setting up reporting. If it was an open-ended use case, especially for entering birthdates and things, then faster year entry would be key. This will also be paired with date/time inputs.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 15/09/2026

Pleased with how this Calendar component is coming together for Kit's design system. It includes month, year, and single/range day pickers with full keyboard navigation/assistive technology support and lots of interesting styling challenges.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 03/09/2026

Stoked with how this combobox for Kit's design system came together. Lots of design engineering in a single component. It offers both single and multiple selection variants, with fuzzy match, search highlighting, and convenient clearing options, all with full keyboard support.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 03/08/2026

Submitted mine: `appearance: none;` or equivalent with `<table>` for full styling control while retaining semantics. This would unlock responsive design possibilities.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 12/05/2026

Spent a few hours on Sunday redesigning my personal site: luhr.co It's an intentionally simple site, so it's easy to work fast and make changes. But even a simple site always has room for improvement and further simplification.

luhr.co

David Luhr

David Luhr is a designer and engineer with a passion for accessibility, eliminating waste, and creating a responsible web. Learn more about his work.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 27/04/2026

Fun update: I've joined Kit as their Senior Design Engineer! I'm building Kit's design system, helping bridge the product design and engineering teams, and exploring the frontier of design workflows. I couldn't be more excited for this opportunity and will be working public along the way.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 10/03/2026

Stoked how these data visualizations came together last week at Buffer. Lots of data science, content, design, and design engineering went into these social media engagement insights. Check out the full page: buffer.com/insights/sta...

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 06/03/2026

Had a breakthrough recently with getting decent CSS from agents. Let's call it HTML-Driven Development: - Craft unstyled HTML to control the structure, semantics, accessibility, and even class names - Then, ask the agent to style it, using existing styles and variables CSS as reference

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 26/02/2026

Much of the value of coding agents comes from interpreting natural language requests and deciding which traditional software tools to use in response. They are increasingly useful as a flexible adapter/coordinating layer for existing, efficient, predictable software.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 19/02/2026

In essence, we're automating the wrong things. Sure, it can be helpful to get lots of ideas and discover something surprising. But, there's a risk in starting with high fidelity. It constrains our thinking. It implicitly embeds hundreds of tradeoffs without our involvement.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 19/02/2026

The challenges of design and engineering aren't creating high fidelity designs or writing the code. It's finding the value, making tradeoffs along the way, and knowing what still needs polish.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 19/02/2026

There's a disconnect with generating high fidelity designs with AI. The bottleneck of design and engineering isn't ideas, it's gradually defining the right idea.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 18/02/2026

A single content section can be packed with animation, interaction, layout, and accessibility considerations. I just published a behind-the-scenes of building Buffer's homepage hero: buffer.com/resources/ho... And here's a companion video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yDT...

buffer.com

Buffer: Social media management for everyone

Use Buffer to manage your social media so that you can create and share your content everywhere, consistently. Try our forever free plan or upgrade for more.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 09/12/2025

It was really handy for quick demos and examples in a recent talk I gave. Using a `<style>` block inside an element with `@scope`, `:scope`, and plain element selectors was fast to iterate without having examples affect each other.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 09/12/2025

Today I needed to scale an element I couldn't directly style. `transform: scale(0.5)` doesn't affect layout, which leaves empty space around the element. Then, I learned about `zoom: 0.5`, which is a newly supported CSS property that does exactly what I needed: scale an element and affect layout.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 20/11/2025

My team at Buffer is hiring a Senior Engineer – Growth Marketing. We'll work closely together on projects like referral programs, internationalization, and tracking/experimentation systems. - Fully remote - 4-day work week - $156.5K–$202.3K Apply: buffer.com/journey/a661...

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 29/10/2025

Dark mode isn't just to look cool. It's an important accessibility feature that makes the experience better for everyone. Light mode causes eye strain and discomfort for me across a day. Dark mode solves this and makes content more legible for me. Stoked dark mode is now available in Buffer!

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 28/10/2025

Eventually, I arrive at the lowest level with ridiculously simple utility functions. I get those low-level tests passing, then climb back up (inside-out). I go up a level, use my new functions, get tests passing, and keep climbing until my top-level functionality is done. (4/4)

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 28/10/2025

Instead, I start with top-level functionality and write tests for what the final expected output/behavior is (outside-in). These tests will fail. To get these tests to pass, I descend down, writing failing tests for simpler and simpler pieces of functionality. (3/4)

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 28/10/2025

Outside-in means writing high-level tests about the expected functionality, then testing and extracting smaller and smaller pieces of functionality. Inside-out means testing and writing the smaller pieces of functionality and composing them into larger functionality. (2/4)

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 28/10/2025

With testing code, there are competing approaches of outside-in vs. inside-out. Instead, I work outside-in *then* inside-out: (1/4)

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 16/10/2025

I was originally thinking of the implementation process, but both could be interesting. I've learned a little about the prioritization process, but I hearing the approach to gauging feasibility and how features are spec'd (such as test criteria/acceptance tests) would be great as well.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 16/10/2025

I would love to learn more about the process of developing features for browser engines. What are the languages? What is the testing approach?

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 10/10/2025

You're too busy to fix your problems because you're too busy to fix your problems. The reason why you can't slow down to make improvements is because you never slow down to make improvements.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 29/09/2025

Playing around with animation and content ideas for an upcoming Buffer feature. If people have animation enabled (accessibility-first design), comments spawn in random positions. Might include a button to clear the comments and a scroll-driven animation that ties into the page.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 20/09/2025

Staycations are underrated. I took this past week off and spent my time wherever my interests took me. Without any worry of productivity, I still: - Practiced piano - Read - Organized my digital life - Rearranged garage workshop for upcoming projects - Worked on creative videos

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 12/09/2025

If 10x engineers exist, they pair on their work. Engineers who pair grow rapidly from cross-mentorship, keep each other unblocked, create focus and motivation, and offer continuous code review. This is more efficient, higher quality, and yes, faster than working solo.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 05/09/2025

A 10x engineer isn't what you think If 10x engineers exist, they don't work 10x faster or create 10x the output. Speed and output without quality are waste. A 10x engineer creates 10x the value with the same resources. Read more in my latest blog post: luhr.co/blog/2025/09...

luhr.co

A 10x engineer isn't what you think

10x engineers don't work 10x faster or create 10x the output. They create 10x the value with the same resources by questioning ideas and eliminating waste.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 28/08/2025

There's all this hype around generative design tools enabling teams to create prototypes before committing to high fidelity design and empowering designers to build and ship directly. This opportunity has always been there. All it requires is designer-engineer pairing.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 21/08/2025

I often get stuck using `position: sticky;` and forget the requirements: 1. Element must have an `inset-` property set 2. Element only sticks within its containing block so the parent must be taller than the min content 3. No ancestor element can have `overflow` other than `clip`

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 12/08/2025

Sneak peak of my work this week: rich, interactive charts with follower growth, posting frequency, engagement, and reach benchmarks we gather at Buffer. This project got me deep into charting/dataviz libraries and SQL queries. Excited to launch it soon!

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 07/08/2025

I recently built a new homepage hero section on Buffer.com with this fun interactive animation. I'm writing a post to break down the build since there are lots of cool tricks I learned along the way. What do you want me to cover? What questions do you have?

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 30/07/2025

Not sure if I'm part of an A/B test, but really excited to have faster playback rates available on YouTube. My playback options now go from 0.25x to 4x. I usually listen to informational content at 3x so this is a nice accessibility win! No more manually setting it to 3x with JavaScript.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 22/07/2025

10 things that shaped my work: 1. Everything is a process 2. There's always a customer 3. Blame the process, not the person 4. Learn to identify (and not tolerate) waste 5. Stop and fix 6. Make daily improvements 7. Prioritize improvements 8. Mistake-proof 9. Follow one-piece flow 10. Achieve flow

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 17/07/2025

We're hiring for 3 engineering roles at Buffer! - Senior Product Engineer (Frontend) - Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - Senior Backend Engineer (Platform and API) These roles offer $156.5K - $202.3K + equity. We're a fully remote, global team with a 4-day workweek. Apply: buffer.com/journey

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 12/07/2025

I've started a secret YouTube channel and I'm not going to share it. It's an experiment in starting from scratch, posting to the void, and also making videos solely for myself. From experience, growing an audience from 1, to 10, to 100 is the hardest part. From there, it's easier to build momentum.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 02/07/2025

I accidentally wrote almost 2,000 words on the UX of number inputs and feel like I just scratched the surface. My favorite part of design engineering is thinking through details at every level. Here's the post: luhr.co/blog/2025/07...

luhr.co

A deep dive on the UX of number inputs

Number inputs have deceptively complex UX, interaction, and accessibility considerations. Let's explore this element through the lens of design engineering.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 25/06/2025

Utilizing 100% of capacity seems efficient, but isn't. When something is at 100% utilization, it's actually the bottleneck, which can't withstand increases in demand. It's best to aim for ~80% utilization. This principle applies to any process.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 20/05/2025

This is the core tradeoff of using a custom rendering and layout engine in Figma vs. building a tool directly with the web: it's going to be extremely difficult and costly to partially replicate features that entire browser teams spend years on, and there will always be a substantial lag.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 26/02/2025

JSDoc with TypeScript only as a type checker is the right balance for me. No build step means even more time to wrestle with types.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 23/01/2025

We're kicking off an experiment with Shape Up in the Buffer marketing team. I'll be livestreaming this Friday, January 24 at 2 PM PST to read Shape Up live. As I read the book, I'll be sharing my notes, reflections, and experiences.

youtube.com

Let's read Shape Up

We're reading Shape Up live. I share my thoughts on advice on Shape Up after implementing it with 4 teams of various sizes, most recently with the team at Bu...

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 14/01/2025

This is a very thoughtful move. Removing barriers, especially for beginner-oriented content, really benefits the wider industry. For more advanced content, charging feels fair, as it's basically scaled consulting. But, I've always found providing all my content for free brings good business.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 26/12/2024

Thank you for the kind words! Glad you found it useful.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 20/12/2024

There's a vast difference between questioning how things are done and being negative. Wondering if there's a better way is one of the most positive activities you can do.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 19/12/2024

Meetings are a symptom of bad process. They are a form of batch processing, a result of batching work. They are an outlet for a lack of shaping and pairing.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 18/12/2024

One of the most effective things you can do as an individual and team is reduce work-in-progress. With one-piece flow, working on the same thing together, you will dramatically reduce overhead, increase quality, and increase velocity.

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David Luhr @luhr.co · 17/12/2024

Everything is a process. Every process can be improved. And the best process is no process.

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