Each week, we publish all the major news in the direct-to-consumer industry, focusing on the shift to retail shelves, tracking financials of major players in the space, as well as highlighting executive appointments and exits.

Have DTC tips or news to share? Email Phoebe Bain at [email protected]. 

Now in stores

Smile Makers: The DTC sex toy brand recently launched nine products into U.S. Sephora stores—and apparently, not everyone in Sephora’s Instagram comment section is thrilled about it, according to Beauty Independent. “Sexual wellness is part of wellness,” Sephora replied, according to the publication.

Mejuri: The jewelry brand is doubling down on staying direct-to-consumer only—Mejuri recently announced plans to open five more of its own retail stores. 

More: Noura Sakkijha leads Mejuri’s focus on female shoppers

Fly by Jing: The Asian food brand entered 1,200 Target stores on Sept. 24. 

BelliWelli: If you’ve ever driven past a billboard that reads “hot girls have IBS,” you have BelliWelli to thank for that. The gut health brand known for the aforementioned slogan recently rolled out its snack bars in more than 1,500 Target stores, according to a company spokesperson. It previously debuted at other retailers, such as Sprouts and H-E-B.

It’s been an exciting few months for Microsoft Advertising at the forefront of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) innovations which are transforming advertising. You can see how our vision to reimagine advertising with these new capabilities has been transpiring from the many AI developments launching across Bing, to the recent release of AI-generated asset recommendations for Responsive Search Ads (RSA), to the transformative innovations shared last week around Co-pilot and Conversational Ads. We’re focused on continuing to leverage this innovative technology to unlock new value for consumers, advertisers, and partners.

Following our industry first Chat Ads API announcement in May, we’re excited to announce a groundbreaking partnership with Snap. Snap is now tapping the unique capabilities of Microsoft’s Chat Ads API to serve highly relevant Sponsored Links in their popular and highly engaging My AI chatbot within Snapchat.

Sponsored Links within Snapchat’s “My AI”

Microsoft Advertising provided Sponsored Links in Snapchat’s My AI allows brands to:

• Engage with a highly active audience
  
  Snapchat reaches over 750 million people every month, on average, and Snapchatters send billions of messages, known as Snaps, to close friends and family every day. My AI is also now amongst the largest consumer chatbots available today as over 150 million people have sent over 10 billion messages within it.
• Naturally integrate Sponsored Links into the user experience
  
  Deep conversational engagement leads to richer understanding of user context and a seamless, relevant content experience for users, while providing a strong return on investment (ROI) for advertisers.
• Keep up with new customer behavior
  
  Generative AI chat is the fastest growing technology today, with high engagement and appeal. This is a great way to keep pace and get exposure on this emerging new medium. Today Snapchat reaches over 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds
  in over 20 countries, and the My AI chatbot is a key new offering within the app.

How to leverage this opportunity

Microsoft Advertising’s mobile momentum has never been better; especially with the growing usage of the new AI-powered Bing and the improvements across the network to make the mobile experience richer. We’re seeing this momentum lead to performance growth and continuing to expand on this quality mobile volume has been a top area of feedback we’ve heard from advertisers. Given Snapchat is a popular mobile application, with over 750 million monthly active users globally, this partnership is enabling us to further deliver on this request by extending our reach to their mobile-first audience.

• As an advertiser: Tapping into this opportunity is easy. Advertisers just need to maximize the mobile coverage within their Microsoft Advertising campaigns.
• In your Device targeting settings, check to make sure you’re prioritizing mobile traffic by having positive mobile bid modifiers across all your ad groups.
• As a Snapchatter: Snapchatters can access these chat conversational capabilities via My AI. This can be found on the Chat tab by navigating right from the home Camera tab.

How this impacts performance for your campaigns

The Snap traffic is reported in aggregate in the “Microsoft sites and select traffic” category in the publisher report in the Microsoft Advertising platform. This traffic has Microsoft properties as the benchmark. Advertisers can check their mobile traffic reporting for incremental volume.

During the testing of this new experience, the initial impact on our mobile traffic has been promising. This has led us to roll out the experience more broadly in the US and ramp up across 13 other markets, with more to come.
Our advertisers are experiencing increased mobile traffic year over year across the Microsoft network and are seeing, on average, over 15% more mobile impressions from Microsoft site and select traffic while maintaining or improving cost per acquisition (CPA).
This partnership is quickly proving to provide an excellent return for those who engage, while also giving our advertisers more brand exposure across mobile devices.

What’s ahead

We continue to listen to feedback from our advertisers and partners as we evolve our chat offerings to influence the next waves of innovation in generative AI. If you’re interested in partnering, reach out to discuss your chat experience needs. We’re here to help whether you need both algorithmic organic results and ads monetization or ads monetization only.

Help us improve Microsoft Advertising

Your comments and feedback are integral to shape and improve our product. You can use the Microsoft Advertising Feedback portal, in-product feedback, Twitter, or Instagram, and as always, contact Support.

Have you ever built an advanced slider for a project? If so, you might have taken advantage of any one of a number of JavaScript carousels. In the past, I’ve covered two of them: slick and Owl. Today, I’ll introduce another well-known one: Swiper.

Our Slider Project

Check what we’ll be building:

Be sure to open the demo on a large screen and resize your window to see how the page layout changes.

1. Identify the Layout

To get started, let’s first identify the project scope.

Today’s demo is a web page dedicated to Tanzania, a country with immense beauty. To set up the page, we’ll grab some content from Wikipedia and images from Unsplash.

Let’s determine how the page layout will appear on various screens.

The Mobile Layout

On small screens (<768px), its appearance will be like this:

Notice that each slider shows the first slide and half of the second one.

The Tablet Layout

Next, on medium screens (≥768px), its appearance will change as follows:

Notice that the first slider shows the first two slides and half of the third one, while the second slider still shows two slides.

The Desktop Layout

Finally, on large screens (≥1200px), it will have this appearance:

Again, consider that the first slider shows the first three slides and half of the fourth one, while the second slider shows the first two slides and half of the third one.

Also, pay attention to another thing: the right side of the first slider is aligned to the container width that, as we’ll see, will be 1100px. In the same way, the left slide of the second slider is aligned to the container width.

2. Define the HTML Markup

The markup for our page will consist of four sections:

• The first and third sections will contain info about Tanzania taken from Wikipedia.
• The second and fourth sections will include two equal carousels that will display Tanzania through Unsplash photos. These sections will only have a different class that will determine their layout. That said, the second section will have the section-with-right-offset class, while the fourth section the section-with-left-offset one. 

Here’s the page structure:

1

<section class="mt-5">

2

  <div class="container">...</div>

3

</section>

4

5

<section class="section-with-carousel section-with-right-offset position-relative mt-5">

6

  <div class="container">

7

    <h2 class="mb-3">...</h2>

8

  </div> 

9

  <div class="carousel-wrapper">

10

    <div class="swiper">

11

      <div class="swiper-wrapper">

12

        <div class="swiper-slide">

13

          <figure>

14

            <img width="640" height="480" src="tanzania1.jpg" alt="">

15

            <figcaption>

16

              <svg xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" height="20">

17

                <path d="M12 13.5a2.5 2.5 0 100-5 2.5 2.5 0 000 5z"></path>

18

                <path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M19.071 3.429C15.166-.476 8.834-.476 4.93 3.429c-3.905 3.905-3.905 10.237 0 14.142l.028.028 5.375 5.375a2.359 2.359 0 003.336 0l5.403-5.403c3.905-3.905 3.905-10.237 0-14.142zM5.99 4.489A8.5 8.5 0 0118.01 16.51l-5.403 5.404a.859.859 0 01-1.214 0l-5.378-5.378-.002-.002-.023-.024a8.5 8.5 0 010-12.02z"></path>

19

              </svg>

20

              Nungwi, Zanzibar, Tanzania

21

            </figcaption>

22

          </figure>

23

        </div>

24

        <!-- more slides here -->

25

      </div>

26

    </div>

27

  </div>

28

  <div class="carousel-controls">

29

    <button class="carousel-control carousel-control-left" type="button">

30

      <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="40" height="40">

31

        <path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M10.78 19.03a.75.75 0 01-1.06 0l-6.25-6.25a.75.75 0 010-1.06l6.25-6.25a.75.75 0 111.06 1.06L5.81 11.5h14.44a.75.75 0 010 1.5H5.81l4.97 4.97a.75.75 0 010 1.06z"></path>

32

      </svg>

33

    </button>

34

    <button class="carousel-control carousel-control-right" type="button">

35

      <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="40" height="40">

36

        <path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M13.22 19.03a.75.75 0 001.06 0l6.25-6.25a.75.75 0 000-1.06l-6.25-6.25a.75.75 0 10-1.06 1.06l4.97 4.97H3.75a.75.75 0 000 1.5h14.44l-4.97 4.97a.75.75 0 000 1.06z"></path>

37

      </svg>

38

    </button>

39

  </div>

40

  <div class="swiper-pagination"></div>

41

</section>

42

43

<section class="mt-5">

44

  <div class="container">...</div>

45

</section>

46

47

<section class="section-with-carousel section-with-left-offset position-relative mt-5">

48

  <!-- content same as second section -->

49

</section>

3. Specify the Main Styles

Let’s now concentrate on the most important styles of our page.

Here are the remarkable things:

• The container will have a maximum width of 1100px.
• The initial dimensions of the Unsplash images won’t be equal. With that in mind, the carousel images will have a fixed height that will vary across the screen sizes. Here we’ll use the object-fit: cover property value for fitting the images within the container. Alternatively, we could have added the images as background ones.
• By default, all image captions will be hidden apart from the caption of the active slide. As the active slide changes, the associated caption will appear with small slide animation.

Here are the associated styles:

1

.container {

2

  max-width: 1100px;

3

}

4

5

.section-with-carousel .swiper-slide figure {

6

  position: relative;

7

  overflow: hidden;

8

}

9

10

.section-with-carousel .swiper-slide img {

11

  width: 100%;

12

  height: 320px;

13

  object-fit: cover;

14

}

15

16

.section-with-carousel .swiper-slide figcaption {

17

  position: absolute;

18

  bottom: 0;

19

  left: 0;

20

  right: 0;

21

  transform: translateY(20%);

22

  display: flex;

23

  align-items: baseline;

24

  justify-content: center;

25

  padding: 20px;

26

  text-align: center;

27

  opacity: 0;

28

  visibility: hidden;

29

  color: white;

30

  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);

31

  transition: all 0.4s;

32

}

33

34

.section-with-carousel .swiper-slide figcaption svg {

35

  flex-shrink: 0;

36

  fill: white;

37

  margin-right: 10px;

38

}

39

40

.section-with-carousel .swiper-slide-active figcaption {

41

  opacity: 1;

42

  visibility: visible;

43

  transform: none;

44

}

45

46

.section-with-carousel .carousel-controls {

47

  position: absolute;

48

  top: 50%;

49

  left: 0;

50

  right: 0;

51

  transform: translateY(-50%);

52

  display: flex;

53

  justify-content: space-between;

54

  padding: 0 12px;

55

  z-index: 1;

56

}

57

58

.section-with-carousel .carousel-controls .carousel-control {

59

  opacity: 0.25;

60

  transition: opacity 0.3s;

61

}

62

63

.section-with-carousel .carousel-controls .carousel-control:hover {

64

  opacity: 1;

65

}

66

67

@media (min-width: 768px) {

68

  .section-with-carousel .swiper-slide img {

69

    height: 370px;

70

  }

71

}

72

73

@media (min-width: 1200px) {

74

  .section-with-carousel .swiper-slide img {

75

    height: 420px;

76

  }

77

78

  .section-with-carousel .carousel-controls {

79

    padding: 0 50px;

80

  }

81

}

Customize Dot Navigation

The initial appearance of the dot navigation is this one:

Why not make it more informative and attractive? To achieve this, we’ll add some styles and update its default markup during the plugin initialization.

Here’s the updated navigation:

The required styles:

1

.section-with-carousel .swiper-pagination-bullets {

2

  position: static;

3

  display: flex;

4

  justify-content: center;

5

  margin-top: 10px;

6

}

7

8

.section-with-carousel .swiper-pagination-bullets .swiper-pagination-bullet {

9

  display: flex;

10

  flex-direction: column;

11

  align-items: center;

12

  justify-content: center;

13

  width: auto;

14

  height: auto;

15

  background: transparent;

16

  opacity: 0.5;

17

  margin: 0 8px;

18

  border-radius: 0;

19

  transition: opacity 0.3s;

20

}

21

22

.section-with-carousel

23

  .swiper-pagination-bullets

24

  .swiper-pagination-bullet

25

  .line {

26

  width: 3px;

27

  height: 3px;

28

  background: black;

29

  transition: transform 0.3s;

30

}

31

32

.section-with-carousel

33

  .swiper-pagination-bullets

34

  .swiper-pagination-bullet

35

  .number {

36

  opacity: 0;

37

  transform: translateY(-7px);

38

  transition: all 0.3s;

39

}

40

41

.section-with-carousel

42

  .swiper-pagination-bullets

43

  .swiper-pagination-bullet.swiper-pagination-bullet-active {

44

  opacity: 1;

45

}

46

47

.section-with-carousel

48

  .swiper-pagination-bullets

49

  .swiper-pagination-bullet.swiper-pagination-bullet-active

50

  .line {

51

  transform: scaleX(8);

52

}

53

54

.section-with-carousel

55

  .swiper-pagination-bullets

56

  .swiper-pagination-bullet.swiper-pagination-bullet-active

57

  .number {

58

  opacity: 1;

59

  transform: none;

60

}

Be sure to click on a dot to see the little slide animation that happens.

4. Add the JavaScript

At this point, we’re ready to turn our attention to JavaScript.

Offset Carousel Sections

As you can see from the previous visualizations, the carousel sections will be full-screen on screens up to 1199px wide. On larger screens, their left or right side will stop being full-screen and be aligned to the container width. As discussed earlier, this behavior will be determined by the section-with-left-offset and section-with-right-offset classes. This way, we’ll be able to generate unique layouts that won’t be limited to sections that follow a grid system.

Here’s the JavaScript code that implements this functionality:

1

createOffsets();

2

window.addEventListener("resize", createOffsets);

3

4

function createOffsets() {

5

  const sectionWithLeftOffset = document.querySelector(

6

    ".section-with-left-offset"

7

  );

8

  const sectionWithLeftOffsetCarouselWrapper = sectionWithLeftOffset.querySelector(

9

    ".carousel-wrapper"

10

  );

11

  const sectionWithRightOffset = document.querySelector(

12

    ".section-with-right-offset"

13

  );

14

  const sectionWithRightOffsetCarouselWrapper = sectionWithRightOffset.querySelector(

15

    ".carousel-wrapper"

16

  );

17

  const offset = (window.innerWidth - 1100) / 2;

18

  const mqLarge = window.matchMedia("(min-width: 1200px)");

19

20

  if (sectionWithLeftOffset && mqLarge.matches) {

21

    sectionWithLeftOffsetCarouselWrapper.style.marginLeft = offset + "px";

22

  } else {

23

    sectionWithLeftOffsetCarouselWrapper.style.marginLeft = 0;

24

  }

25

26

  if (sectionWithRightOffset && mqLarge.matches) {

27

    sectionWithRightOffsetCarouselWrapper.style.marginRight = offset + "px";

28

  } else {

29

    sectionWithRightOffsetCarouselWrapper.style.marginRight = 0;

30

  }

31

}

Initialize Swiper

This is the last required step to initialize Swiper. Here, we pass as part of the configuration object all our customizations. Look at the relevant code snippet below:

1

const sectionsWithCarousel = document.querySelectorAll(

2

  ".section-with-carousel"

3

);

4

5

for (const section of sectionsWithCarousel) {

6

  let slidesPerView = [1.5, 2.5, 3.5];

7

  if (section.classList.contains("section-with-left-offset")) {

8

    slidesPerView = [1.5, 1.5, 2.5];

9

  }

10

  const swiper = section.querySelector(".swiper");

11

  new Swiper(swiper, {

12

    slidesPerView: slidesPerView[0],

13

    spaceBetween: 15,

14

    loop: true,

15

    lazyLoading: true,

16

    keyboard: {

17

      enabled: true

18

    },

19

    navigation: {

20

      prevEl: section.querySelector(".carousel-control-left"),

21

      nextEl: section.querySelector(".carousel-control-right")

22

    },

23

    pagination: {

24

      el: section.querySelector(".swiper-pagination"),

25

      clickable: true,

26

      renderBullet: function (index, className) {

27

        return `<div class=${className}>

28

            <span class="number">${index + 1}</span>

29

            <span class="line"></span>

30

        </div>`;

31

      }

32

    },

33

    breakpoints: {

34

      768: {

35

        slidesPerView: slidesPerView[1]

36

      },

37

      1200: {

38

        slidesPerView: slidesPerView[2]

39

      }

40

    }

41

  });

42

}

As you can see, we pass in an array the number of slides that should appear depending on the viewport width. By using, not only integers but also decimals, we’ll be able to show just a portion of a slide.

Even though it isn’t necessary, the breakpoint values that determine when the number of visible slides changes will match Bootstrap’s breakpoints. Anyhow, be sure to read the API documentation to get a better understanding of what all these configuration parameters do. 

EXTRA: Custom Mouse Cursor

Let’s now adjust our demo to showcase a custom cursor each time we hover over a slider.

In actual fact, this isn’t the first time we discuss custom cursors effects. Both I and Jemima have written tutorials about it in the past.

Concerning the current development, let’s highlight the key aspects:

• We’ll use the generic pointermove event to detect the hovered element. Note that in this case, the mousemove event won’t work as expected. This has only to do with how Swiper.js works. A workaround as per this Stack Overflow thread is to keep the mousemove event and pass touchStartPreventDefault: false to the slider config object. However, this solution breaks the swipe functionality on Firefox. Of course, there might be other solutions. Consider the problematic use case in the following demo.

• We’ll show the cursor only if the hovered element is a descendant of the .carousel-wrapper one and the device from where we view the demo allows us to hover over it. To fulfil the last requirement, we’ll use the hover CSS4 media feature which has solid support. That said, as a generic rule, we expect desktop computers and laptops to show the cursor while smartphones don’t. Of course, here things can change under certain conditions like in case we use a stylus/pen on our phone. But let’s keep things simple and don’t add more strict rules to match all possible scenarios.

• By default, the cursor will be a fixed position element. We’ll use the cursor-x and cursor-y CSS variables to update its top and left values based on the actual position of the mouse pointer.
• We’ll override the styles of the .carousel-controls element and create additional ones for the child arrows. As you can see from the visualization above, only the left arrow sits within the boundaries of the hovered area. Each time a user hovers over it, the cursor will disappear.

With all the above in mind, let’s examine the required additions in our initial demo:

1. HTML

First, we’ll add the cursor markup:

1

<div class="cursor">

2

  <img width="40" height="42" src="cursor-swipe.svg" alt="swipe indicator">

3

</div>

2. CSS

Then, we’ll continue with the styles limiting them only to devices with hover support:

1

@media (hover: hover) {

2

  .section-with-carousel .carousel-wrapper {

3

    cursor: none;

4

  }

5

6

  .section-with-carousel .carousel-controls .carousel-control {

7

    position: absolute;

8

    top: 50%;

9

    transform: translateY(-50%);

10

    z-index: 1;

11

  }

12

13

  .section-with-carousel .carousel-controls .carousel-control-left {

14

    left: 50px;

15

  }

16

17

  .section-with-carousel .carousel-controls .carousel-control-right {

18

    right: 50px;

19

  }

20

21

  .cursor {

22

    position: fixed;

23

    left: var(--cursor-x);

24

    top: var(--cursor-y);

25

    width: 120px;

26

    height: 120px;

27

    display: flex;

28

    align-items: center;

29

    justify-content: center;

30

    color: white;

31

    background: black;

32

    border-radius: 50%;

33

    transform: translate(-50%, -50%) scale(0);

34

    z-index: 1;

35

    pointer-events: none;

36

    opacity: 0;

37

    transition: opacity 0.2s, transform 0.2s;

38

  }

39

40

  body.show-custom-cursor .cursor {

41

    opacity: 1;

42

    transform: translate(-50%, -50%) scale(1);

43

  }

44

}

3. JS

We’ll finish with the required JavaScript code:

1

const cursor = document.querySelector(".cursor");

2

const body = document.body;

3

const toggleClass = "show-custom-cursor";

4

5

function pointermoveHandler(e) {

6

  const target = e.target;

7

  if (

8

    e.target.closest(".carousel-wrapper") &&

9

    window.matchMedia("(hover: hover)").matches

10

  ) {

11

    body.classList.add(toggleClass);

12

    cursor.style.setProperty("--cursor-x", `${e.clientX}px`);

13

    cursor.style.setProperty("--cursor-y", `${e.clientY}px`);

14

  } else {

15

    body.classList.remove(toggleClass);

16

  }

17

}

18

document.addEventListener("pointermove", pointermoveHandler);

Conclusion

And we’re done, folks! In this tutorial, we created an asymmetric page layout with just a few lines of JavaScript code and the power of Swiper.js.

We only covered just the very basics of this plugin. There are so many more advanced sliders that you can build with minimal effort. Just get some inspiration from a source like Dribbble and practice yourselves! This is the best way to learn!

Let’s look again at what we built:

As a bonus, we covered how to impress our visitors by adding an animated mouse cursor effect to the sliders. To make it a bit more accurate and limit the functionality only to desktop devices, we took advantage of a CSS4 media query. Of course, nothing stops you from incorporating this effect in your own sliders or pages. 

As always, thanks a lot for reading!

A few months ago, I worked on what is probably the most remarkable and exciting project of my career so far. It’s a wonderful free platform that brings together inspiration and action called WaterBear, and I’m thrilled to tell you all about it in this two-part article series.

I want to introduce you to the WaterBear project and cover the goals, technical stack, and team dynamics that went into it. As this is also my first time taking on the role of lead developer on a project, I’ll also share some important engineering management challenges I encountered and insights from this experience where I felt like I was learning on the fly. In the following article, I’ll focus on specific technical challenges that came up in the process, including front-end performance, accessibility, and SEO.

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, you might be wondering what makes WaterBear stand out among the plethora of competing services. Let’s find out!

About WaterBear

WaterBear is a free platform bringing together inspiration and action with award-winning high-production environmental documentaries covering various topics, from animals and climate change to people and communities. The WaterBear team produces their own original films and documentaries and hosts curated films and content from various high-profile partners, including award-winning filmmakers, large brands, and significant non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like Greenpeace, WWF, The Jane Goodall Institute, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Nikon, and many others.

This is where the value proposition of other similar services would usually end — users binge-watching videos into perpetuity. WaterBear, however, takes a different, more mindful approach. Think back to an impactful movie or a documentary that moved you so much that it left you feeling like you needed to do something about the topic or issue you just learned about. But maybe you didn’t know where to begin or if it was even possible for you to make any difference.

WaterBear actively invites and encourages users to participate in some meaningful way. We want people to be engaged in the issue by signing petitions, donating to a cause, spreading the word, volunteering, or simply changing their habits in a positive way. Essentially, WaterBear aims to turn passive viewers into active and mindful participants by offering impactful content with options to be informed on an issue and inspired to do something about it.

WaterBear and its work have been regularly featured in various publications, and the platform is highly praised and endorsed. And, hey, if you spot a familiar-looking tardigrade while walking around London or somewhere else, make sure to snap a picture and share it with me!

Defining Project Objectives

For context, I am currently working at a software development company called Q Agency based in Zagreb, Croatia. We collaborated with WaterBear and its partner companies to build a revamped and redesigned version of the web and mobile app from the ground up using modern technologies.

The WaterBear app was originally launched in December 2020, and the team learned a lot about the user experience by gathering feedback. This data was then used to create a fresh new design and outline some new features.

While I am unable to share specific data from that research effort, I can tell you that it led us to the following main goals:

• Create a responsive web app and mobile app using a modern tech stack based on the design provided by the WaterBear team.
• Develop tools that will allow the WaterBear team to easily create and customize landing pages for promotional campaigns and videos.
• Identify potential performance bottlenecks and address them early on.
• Build dynamic, server-side generated sitemaps for improved SEO.
• Listen to user feedback to constantly iterate and implement new features.

The Technical Stack

Before my team started working with WaterBear, the majority of the tech stack and infrastructure was set in stone, so we only had to decide on the front-end and mobile technologies we would use to build it. We agreed to use the React-powered Next.js framework for the web app and Flutter for mobile apps (i.e., Android and iOS). The work was split between the two teams: the web app team and the mobile team.

Next.js was our go-to choice because it allowed us to easily create dynamic server-side rendered sitemaps and use advanced optimizations for images and JavaScript bundle that provide options for improved performance. We’ll cover these topics in more detail in the next article. For now, let’s highlight the remaining integral parts of the project:

• Sanity CMS
  An open-source headless content management system (CMS) that can be easily integrated with Next.js and other front-end frameworks.
• Firebase Authentication
  A back-end service can authenticate users through social media accounts, as well as a standard email and password.
• Cloud Firestore
  A flexible and scalable NoSQL cloud database for mobile and web. This was a logical choice for our database, as Firebase Authentication was required right from the start.
• Video.js
  A versatile open-source video player with customizable UI and plugin support.

Strategy And Communication

As the work began, we came across our first hurdle. As you can see from the previous diagram, both web and mobile apps had to interact with the same services (including the CMS, database, authentication, and so on), so we also had to ensure consistent behavior between them.

For example, we needed to ensure that our CMS queries yielded the same results to the extent that videos appeared in the same order on both the web and mobile apps and that duration filters and sorting worked consistently.

We had to do the same with our Cloud Firestore instance to keep the database structure intact while being mindful to write the correct value types and read the correct fields so they are mapped to the structure. Each developer worked on their local instance using Firebase Local Emulator Suite to speed up development, so we had to ensure everything was in order when we were ready to switch to staging and production databases.

It was important to establish a collaborative atmosphere between the two development teams from the start, even more so considering we were all working in a remote environment. We made sure to keep in touch either through quick video calls or Slack messages to share knowledge and queries that we’d be using.

As for the database, we kept a detailed diagram of our database structure and value types in order to eliminate all doubt and ensure both apps interact with the database identically. This served as our single source of truth and was made readily available to the teams for reference at all stages of development.

These strategies proved surprisingly more useful than we expected, as they allowed us to quickly and safely switch from the emulator to the staging and production database without any hiccups. As a bonus, it resulted in fewer bugs that originated from the interplay between the web and mobile applications.

My takeaway from this experience: It’s vital to keep the communication channels open to collaborate, discuss challenges, and share knowledge about the integrations and features both of our teams had to implement. It’s also worthwhile investing some extra time and care into maintaining crucial project documentation and diagrams. Having information readily available in a convenient format can save time and clear any doubts during development. Not only that, this documentation can even end up being a great onboarding guide for new team members in the future.

What I Learned As A First-Time Lead Developer

As I’ve mentioned before, this was my first gig as a lead developer. Developers are usually thrust into this sort of role at some point in their careers. Other than that, there is usually little or no preparation or training for it — we have to learn quickly and adapt on the fly based on our own experiences as developers.

The day-to-day development work on my team gets a bit managerial as a result. As a lead developer, I am responsible for the work the team does, supporting and mentoring individual team members, and advocating for the team’s priorities. I was also more directly involved with planning and communicating with clients and stakeholders. For me, it was a lot of added responsibility that could feel overwhelming at various times.

I decided to approach the role thoughtfully by setting rules and guiding principles for myself, as opposed to putting the new responsibilities aside and focusing primarily on development work. What are those rules and principles? Let’s discuss them one at a time.

Leading By Example And Mentoring On The Fly

First, I wanted to ensure that my team was producing consistent code quality across the board, with a priority on performance, accessibility, SEO, and usability. I like to refer to these as The Four Pillars of quality development.

In my own experience, it is easier to follow existing, well-established, and documented footsteps. That’s where The Four Pillars served a significant role on our team, as they were emphasized during our team check-ins, demos, and reviews. Moreover, I set these expectations through my own pull requests (PR) by asking the team to review my work along those principles.

At the very start of the project, I asked my team to scaffold the project and complete basic integration tasks that could be completed by following existing documentation. Meanwhile, that allowed me to chart the path forward by working on a set of feature tasks that established the foundation of The Four Pillars, then asking my team to review PRs to set expectations for the quality I was pursuing for the project. This way, they had a good amount of hands-on experience abiding by the principles, and I was able to lead that by example. My team should expect the same level of quality from me that I expect of them.

The other benefit of this approach is that it allowed me to mentor the team on the fly. I could share resources and documentation supporting my work in the PRs, and the team could grow their own knowledge and understanding by requesting changes to my work. In other words, I managed to seamlessly introduce the team to new concepts.

My takeaway from this experience: Use every opportunity to share your knowledge with the team, even if it’s on the fly! And support the team’s learning journey by setting good examples that are aligned with well-defined expectations.

Acting As The Tiebreaker

As part of my own introduction to the role of lead developer, I picked up Alex MacCaw’s book The Manager’s Handbook, and it helped me overcome another interesting situation that came up during the project: acting as a tiebreaker when making decisions.

Early in the project, we had a meeting with the mobile team about our shared database architecture. Some team members proposed a somewhat radical approach to how to structure a very crucial part of our database. It didn’t sit well with me and other team members as it wasn’t documented or mentioned anywhere else and wasn’t the standard practice within the company. We would also have to commit to this approach, and it would have cost us a lot if we hit a roadblock and had to roll back our work. The only thing we had to go on was a basic small-scale proof of concept — far from what we needed to do the work — but the team members who came up with the idea were adamant about the proposal.

It was my call to make, and it was this specific advice from The Manager’s Handbook that came in handy at just the right time:

“Don’t let people pressure you into decisions you don’t believe in. They’ll hold you responsible for them later, and they’ll be right. Decisions are your responsibility.”

I decided to step back a bit and outline the possible risks and rewards of the proposed approach. It sounds so simple, but it allowed me to gain a better grasp on the debate and formulate my own conclusion that it wasn’t worth journeying into the unknown.

I made my final decision and explained my reasoning to the team at our next internal meeting. I made sure to give props to the team members who came up with the innovative idea because it’s important to maintain an inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels heard and free to explore new ideas.

Rejecting or postponing an idea shouldn’t be viewed as a negative outcome but as a part of the bigger picture of building a high-quality product, which was, of course, our primary goal.

Learn To Say “No” And Offer A Compromise

What I didn’t mention in that last story is that I offered the team members who came up with the innovative database structure a compromise by suggesting they present that idea to their team lead and explore its potential in a dedicated test project.

The same principle applies when communicating with clients and stakeholders. It’s common for clients to come up with ideas and suggestions in the middle of the project timeline, which comes with the territory of projects using an Agile methodology. However, you still want to avoid overcommitting and pushing the team to its limits, and especially prevent yourself from carrying the burden of all the extra work yourself.

I’ve learned that a lead developer acts as an advocate for the team. That means knowing when to say “no” to requests, particularly those that could make your team’s work noticeably difficult or stressful.

Saying “no” might seem cold or come across as a negative reaction because it effectively puts a lid on the discussion. However, you can always acknowledge the suggestion and offer a compromise that both parties can agree on.

Here are some real examples of how I was able to say “no” to an idea while offering a compromise:

• Decreasing the scope
  “We might not be able to do X, Y, and Z and finish them in time to meet our deadlines. That said, we only need X at this stage, and perhaps we can postpone Y and Z in the next phase.”
• Postponing
  “We can’t spare the time for X at this stage, but it’s a great suggestion, and we should make note of it even though we need to postpone it.”
• Switching priorities
  “If X is a high priority and should be done this sprint, can we postpone a lower priority task so that we’re able to dedicate enough time in this sprint to finish it in time?”

Rebecca Knight shares some great principles and practical examples that have resonated with me when it comes to saying “no”:

Do

• Evaluate whether you have the desire and the bandwidth to help with the request and ask if priorities can be shifted or trade-offs made.
• Show a willingness to pitch in by inquiring if there are small ways you can be helpful to the project.
• Practice saying no out loud. Eventually, it will become easier.

Don’t

• Use a harsh or hesitant tone, and don’t be overly polite either. Instead, strive for a steady and clear no.
• Hold back the real reason you’re saying no. To limit frustration, give reasons with good weight up front.
• Distort your message or act tentatively because you’re trying to keep your colleague happy. Be honest and make sure your no is understood.

Be Considerate And Communicate Clearly

This goes hand-in-hand with all the previous points I’ve made, and you might think it goes without saying. However, I want to highlight the importance of embedding empathy and considerate behavior in a team.

Building and maintaining mutual trust within a team is crucial. Whenever we had internal meetings to discuss the tasks for a current sprint, I made sure to go over each feature, clear any doubts and blockers, and confirm whether anyone had any concerns about their assigned tasks. Someone might have little to no experience with the service they’re integrating, and they might feel unsure whether they’re able to complete the task. Or they could have a scheduled doctor appointment during the sprint that threatens to delay their work and requires your assistance.

Team members should feel free to speak up and share their concerns, problems, and opinions without judgment and repercussions. This allows you to plan, adapt, and solve problems early on and ease any stress and frustration a team member might feel if their progress gets stalled.

Coming Up Next

In this article, I discussed the details of WaterBear, a large project that provides a free platform for documentaries that aim to inform viewers about issues and inspire them to take action. I took on the project as a first-time lead developer at Q Agency and shared the challenges I faced throughout the project. In particular, I focused on what I learned about developing and fostering a productive and collaborative team environment and the specific approaches I took to set expectations, lead by example, and communicate with empathy and inclusiveness.

We discussed the strategy around defining objectives and the technical stack used to build the project. I will go over that in much greater detail in the concluding article of this two-part series.

Please check out WaterBear on the web, Android, and iOS, and share with us your favorite documentaries! I’d also love for you to check out this excellent post-launch interview with WaterBear CEO Sam Sutaria. He offers a bunch of additional insights on our work from the client’s perspective.

References

Many thanks to WaterBear and Q Agency for helping out with this article and making it possible. I really would not have done this without their support. I would also like to commend everyone who worked on the project for their outstanding work! You have taught me so much so far, and I am grateful for it.

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As CSS evolves rapidly with exciting new features, common layout tasks are made easier and easier. To prove it, in this short tutorial, we’ll cover two quick ways to create a sticky footer—a component that will sit at the page’s bottom no matter the page’s content height.

Check the first version of our page that uses Flexbox for the layout (full page demo):

Be sure to view the demos from a tall screen and pay attention to how the footer sticks to the bottom of the page. You can also try to insert more content by hitting the Add Content button.

The Page Markup

The page markup will be pretty typical: a wrapper element that will include the page header, the page content, and the page footer like this: 

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<div class="site-wrapper">

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  <header class="site-header">...</header>

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  <main class="site-main">...</main>

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  <footer class="site-footer">...</footer>

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</div>

Of course, the body element could also work as the page wrapper, but I always prefer to leave this element with basic styling.

Our footer will include some widgets. Although we won’t discuss anything about them here, it’s worth noting that in an upcoming tutorial, we’ll use this demo and learn two ways to make the footer widgets dynamic with WordPress. 

Using flexbox for a sticky footer requires the following actions: 

• We’ll make the page wrapper a flex container and give it a minimum height equal to the viewport height.
• We’ll stack the flex items vertically—from top to bottom.
• The main element will expand to cover the available space inside the flex container. To do it, we’ll give it flex-grow: 1. Remember that, by default, all flex items have flex-grow: 0.
• Optionally to vertically center the contents inside the main element, we’ll also set it as a flex container and give it align-items: center.

Here are the corresponding styles:

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.site-wrapper {

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  display: flex;

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  flex-direction: column;

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  min-height: 100vh;

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}

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.site-main {

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  display: flex;

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  align-items: center;

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  flex-grow: 1;

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}

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/*AUTO MARGINS - INSTEAD OF align-items: center*/

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.site-main > * {

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  margin-top: auto;

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  margin-bottom: auto;

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}

Using CSS Grid for a sticky footer requires the following actions: 

• We’ll make the page wrapper a grid container and give it a minimum height equal to the viewport height.
• We’ll define the grid rows and their size using grid-template-rows: auto 1fr auto. That means that the page header and footer will be as tall as their content, while the main element will have a height equal to 1fr, so it’ll grow to occupy the empty vertical space. 
• Optionally to vertically center the contents inside the main element, we’ll set it as a flex container and give it align-items: center.

Here are the corresponding styles:

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.site-wrapper {

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  display: grid;

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  grid-template-rows: auto 1fr auto;

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  min-height: 100vh;

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}

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.site-main {

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  display: flex;

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  align-items: center;

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}

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we examined two ways of building a sticky (fixed) footer. The power of modern CSS allows us to create things like this with minimal effort and without polluting the markup with unnecessary stuff. 

As discussed, in an upcoming tutorial we’ll build on this demo and learn two methods to make the footer widgets dynamic in WordPress. Stay tuned! 

As always, thanks a lot for reading!

Flexbox/CSS Grid Tutorials on Tuts+

Interested in more Flexbox and CSS Grid tutorials? Check out these resources below!

You have to feel for agencies who win a shiny new account only to find the client mired in some scandal or other. We’ve had VCCP winning Thames Water – and preparing an ad with Brian the other – only to find TW is running out of money and about the least popular company in the country for pumping sewage into rivers. Well and truly in the ordure you might say.

Now the Mission Group’s Krow has won the venerable old Post Office, finally being brought to book for its outrageous persecution of sub-postmasters, many of whom were wrongly sent prison (losing their livelihoods and, in some cases, their lives) when its Horizon software system wrongly flagged up “evidence” of fraud. The Government has, belatedly, offered them £600,000 each.

With more distressing revelations to come, Krow certainly has a job on its hands. It’s formed a bespoke agency, called Claok Lane, named after one of the original branches (as you do.) Krow takes over from Ogilvy.

The Post Office says: “We are looking to enhance our strategic, creative and production capabilities and have found that solution in Cloak Lane. We look forward to growing the brand further in partnership with them.”

Mission Group CEO James Clifton says: “Post Office plays an important part in all our lives – as individuals, in our communities, our businesses and the economy. We are honoured to be appointed by such a unique and emotive brand, and look forward to playing an important role in its future success.”

Emotive, you can say that again.