David Luhr

@luhr
13 Followers
9 Following
47 Posts
Design engineer working on accessible design and code at Buffer. Creator of youtube.com/@buildux
Websitehttps://luhr.co
YouTubehttps://youtube.com/@buildux
David LuhrMar 10

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: https://buffer.com/insights/state-of-social-media-engagement-2026

David LuhrMar 6

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

This is more or less my sequence anyway, but it's produced much better results from agents.

David LuhrFeb 26
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.
Show threadDavid LuhrFeb 19
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. It's like walking 10 miles in a direction before we've asked "where do we want to go?"
David LuhrFeb 19

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.

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.

David LuhrFeb 18

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: https://buffer.com/resources/how-we-designed-and-built-the-new-buffer-homepage-hero/

And here's a companion video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yDTV2BrxyM

How We Designed and Built the Buffer.com Homepage Hero

In this article, Senior Design Engineer David Luhr, breaks down the details behind the new homepage hero on Buffer.com.

Buffer: All-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses
David LuhrDec 9

Today I needed to scale an element I couldn't directly style.

First I reached for `transform: scale(0.5)`. But, this doesn't affect layout, which left 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.

David LuhrNov 20

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: https://buffer.com/journey/a6615dc0-cc2d-4d80-905b-0b53d7b2dce6?ashby_jid=a6615dc0-cc2d-4d80-905b-0b53d7b2dce6

David LuhrOct 29

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.

Shot out to the product team for making dark mode available in Buffer!

Show threadDavid LuhrOct 28

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.

(3/3)