Journal — AI, commerce & the craft of the web

Featured / Automation

Small automated tools, clear responsibilities

A collection of small tools can be easier to understand when each has a specific responsibility.

3 min read

A note on the practice

The field notes

Thinking, in progress.

46 articles across the practice

Experience3 min read

A product card should work beyond the mouse

Designing useful catalogue cards across keyboard, touch, image alternatives and changing product states.

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AI & Tools3 min read

A useful content review workflow with Claude

Turn a page review into a clear set of evidence-backed suggestions, with the original copy and the final decision kept visible.

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Marketing3 min read

An AI-assisted creative review for Meta ads

Review the connection between the creative, the offer and the destination page before turning variations into an advertising test.

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Automation3 min read

Build a support workflow that prepares the reply for review

Connect the customer question, approved information and a proposed response, with clear escalation when the evidence is incomplete.

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Development3 min read

Build a WordPress site that someone can keep looking after

A practical handover starts with content patterns, clear ownership, tested updates and a way to recover.

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AI & Tools3 min read

Choose an AI model by testing the workflow it needs to support

Build a practical evaluation around your own inputs, review criteria and operational constraints before comparing model configurations.

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Design3 min read

Choose case-study images that explain the work

Real screenshots, complete interfaces and precise captions make a stronger project story than decorative imagery alone.

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AI & Tools3 min read

Compare product images and catalogue records with Gemini

Design a review that uses images alongside product data, without mistaking a visual observation for a verified product specification.

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Marketing3 min read

Design a Google Ads review agent around useful questions

Turn a campaign export into a focused review queue, with clear context and evidence before any budget or targeting decision.

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Search3 min read

Design the search that finds nothing

Keep the query, explain the state and offer a relevant next step when a catalogue search returns no matches.

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Automation3 min read

Designing a product branch workflow that can explain its choices

A practical way to turn a messy catalogue into reviewable category proposals, without treating a suggestion as a confirmed product fact.

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Marketing3 min read

Draft LinkedIn posts without losing the person behind them

Use AI to organise real notes into a reviewable draft, while keeping experience, evidence and the final publishing decision with the author.

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Development3 min read

Give a storefront a performance budget before adding more

Turn performance from a final score into a practical decision about images, scripts, interaction and everyday ownership.

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AI & Tools3 min read

Make DeepSeek output usable in a structured workflow

Move from a plausible response to a checked data object, with explicit fields, validation, evidence and clear recovery states.

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Analytics3 min read

Measure a checkout change before calling it an improvement

Connect the hypothesis, event definitions, journey checks and decision record before interpreting a conversion result.

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Commerce3 min read

Prepare the catalogue before connecting an AI tool

Identifiers, sources, missing values and review samples: the unglamorous foundations that make catalogue assistance useful.

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Commerce3 min read

Review product variants before small inconsistencies spread

A practical agent workflow for checking option names, identifiers and image relationships without inventing missing variants.

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Automation3 min read

Show the action before the agent takes it

Design an action preview that makes the target, proposed change, evidence and next step easy to inspect.

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Automation3 min read

Test an agent with the cases you hope it never sees

Build a small evaluation set around incomplete inputs, conflicting sources, interrupted actions and human review.

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AI & Tools3 min read

Use ChatGPT to make e-commerce research easier to check

A practical way to organise product, competitor and customer research around clear questions, traceable sources and useful next steps.

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Development1 min read

A calmer way to review a theme update

An update review needs a clear starting point.

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Commerce1 min read

A stock feed needs a clear boundary

An integration joins two systems with different assumptions.

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Development1 min read

A theme redesign that leaves room for updates

A visual redesign becomes difficult to maintain when every improvement depends on an undocumented change.

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Experience1 min read

An experimentation practice starts with better questions

An experiment should make an uncertainty easier to understand.

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Commerce1 min read

An unavailable product does not need to be a dead end

An unavailable product page still has a job to do.

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Analytics1 min read

Campaign creative needs a useful structure

A campaign is easier to review when its creative assets, landing pages and intended audience tell a coherent story.

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Development1 min read

Choosing what to build and what to adopt

Choosing a platform starts with understanding the work it needs to support.

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Analytics1 min read

Define the event before drawing the funnel

A useful measurement plan begins with language.

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Search2 min read

Designing a search experience around the catalogue

Search quality starts with a clear understanding of the products and the language people use to find them.

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Search1 min read

Filters should make a catalogue easier to understand

A filter is a promise about how the catalogue is organised.

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Commerce1 min read

Good product data is part of the interface

Consistent product information makes many interface decisions simpler.

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Automation3 min read

Human review is an interaction to design

A review step is more than a button labelled Approve.

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Experience1 min read

Make a complex enquiry form easier to follow

A detailed enquiry form needs to explain why it is asking questions and what happens next.

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Automation3 min read

Make an automated workflow understandable

When a workflow runs without constant supervision, its status becomes part of the interface.

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Development1 min read

Make important content easy to discover

Search visibility and a useful user experience often depend on the same foundations: clear content, meaningful links and pages that communicate their purpose.

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Development1 min read

Making WordPress maintenance a routine

Maintenance works better as a repeatable practice than as a response to a worrying message.

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Analytics1 min read

Operational reports should explain themselves

A report is useful when a reader can understand what a row represents and where its information came from.

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Experience1 min read

Payment choices need clear, consistent presentation

Different payment options add another decision to a checkout.

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Experience1 min read

Reading a product page as a series of decisions

A product page asks a visitor to understand something, decide whether it fits and choose what to do next.

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Search2 min read

Search begins before the search box.

Why useful labels, clear categories and thoughtful empty states belong to the same conversation.

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Automation3 min read

Small automated tools, clear responsibilities

A collection of small tools can be easier to understand when each has a specific responsibility.

Read field note

Commerce1 min read

The quieter work of improving an online store

An online store is shaped by many small decisions: how products are named, where information lives and what happens after a visitor chooses an action.

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