Four things I check before shipping

I rarely finish a project feeling confident. What I usually feel is a vague sense that I've missed something. This checklist turned that feeling into specific questions, and I run it before anything goes live.

1. Can I use it without a mouse?

Tab through every control and check that focus is visible at each step. Focus styles get removed because they look messy, and then nobody can tell where they are. I've shipped that mistake more than once.

2. Does it hold at 360px?

Narrow screens expose what desktop hides. Tables, long unbroken strings, and fixed-width elements I forgot about all cause horizontal scrolling. Most of my layout bugs show up here first.

3. What does it look like before the images arrive?

On a slow connection, the page is what people see while waiting. If the answer is an empty box with no hint of what goes there, I add a proper placeholder with the right dimensions. That single change stops the layout from jumping when the image loads.

4. What happens when there's nothing to show?

Empty lists, empty carts, searches with no results. These screens get the least attention, and they're often the first thing a new user sees. A short message with a clear next step beats a blank page every time.

The checklist is not complete. It catches the mistakes I make most often, before someone else has to find them.

I'd rather run this list twice a week than remember a longer one I never use.