Words that would otherwise be coming out of my mouth

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  1. 10 Oct, 2017

    A Lifetime of Nerdery

    I love this post/talk by Chris. His upbringing mirrors mine quite a bit even if things are time-shifted a bit. The things that really resonated with me: Encouragement by people in your life Collaboration over competition Playing music having a […]

  2. 07 Oct, 2017

    Building a large-scale design system: How we created a design system for the U.S. government

    Absolutely fantastic insights from Maya Benari about building a design system meant to serve over 30,000 U.S federal websites. What an incredible feat!

  3. 07 Oct, 2017

    Tabbed Interfaces

    Fantastic deep dive into writing accessible tabs & accordions from Heydon Pickering. This is something I’ve always struggled with, so this detailed post certainly helps.

  4. 03 Oct, 2017

    What’s Next for Pattern Lab

    Pattern Lab is an open-source tool for building UI design systems. I’ve been using it to build production-ready frontend code for the last four and a half years, and I’m watched it grow from humble beginnings into powerful software that […]

  5. 14 Sep, 2017

    Is there any value in people who cannot write JavaScript?

    This is a great post from Mandy Michael, and touches on some of the things I talked about in my post about full-stack developers. What I am very concerned about is that many still don’t see value in being skilled […]

  6. 13 Sep, 2017

    Full-Stack Developers

    In my experience consulting with and workshopping with companies of all shapes and sizes, I always ask “who owns the frontend code here?” I help web teams create design systems and collaborate more effectively, so it’s important for me to […]

  7. 11 Sep, 2017

    FBPurity

    I wrote about Facebook’s aggressive tactics, and Steve Portigal responded with a recommendation for FBPurity. F.B. Purity is a browser extension / add-on that lets you clean up and customise Facebook. It filters out the junk you don’t want to […]

  8. 11 Sep, 2017

    Facebook, You Needy Sonofabitch

    Several months ago, I turned off notifications from Facebook on my phone. Last week, I went ahead and removed the Facebook app from my phone. Now, I genuinely enjoy Facebook. I use it for keeping up with with my family […]

  9. 05 Sep, 2017

    Documenting The Pittsburgh Potty: An Architectural Mystery In Our Basements

    I have a toilet in my basement. Not a bathroom, just a toilet sitting in my corner. Lots of other Pittsburghers have Pittsburgh potties as well. In the steel industry’s heyday, workers would come home filthy from the mills, wash […]

  10. 05 Sep, 2017

    Building a design system for HealthCare.gov

    This is a great post that lays out the nuts and bolts of the design system used to build Healthcare.gov. It details a lot of architecture and tooling, and I’m super happy to hear they took inspiration from my post […]

  11. 31 Aug, 2017

    A New bradfrost.com!

    So after a good many years (cobbler’s children and all that), bradfrost.com has finally gotten a facelift! This makes the 8th redesign of the site (although a few redesigns have been relatively minor). Here’s what I’m excited about with the […]

  12. 31 Aug, 2017

    A Cat Is Not An iPhone

    A brief note on opinion: If you look at a cat and say, “In my opinion that’s an iPhone” that’s not an opinion that’s just you being wrong. This is a great point. It seems like something this commonsensical doesn’t […]

  13. 30 Aug, 2017

    3 Ways to Stop Designing for Addiction

    There’s some really smart stuff in this post. Pamela recommends some actionable things we designers can do to better ensure our creations don’t harm people. Ultimately this comes down to actively thinking about this stuff, so seeing articles like this […]

  14. 25 Aug, 2017

    David Byrne A View from David Byrne Eliminating the Human

    Speaking of David Bryne, here’s an important read by him that discusses how technology is (perhaps deliberately, perhaps inadvertently) removing important human interactions. The consumer technology I am talking about doesn’t claim or acknowledge that eliminating the need to deal […]

  15. 25 Aug, 2017

    History of Music Books

    I just finished a few incredible books that cover the history of music from a few different perspectives. Theft: A History of Music The first is Theft: A History of Music (Amazon link) by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, which covers 2000 […]

  16. 21 Aug, 2017

    The end of walking

    Holy shit, what a depressing and truthful read. When my wife and I moved to Pittsburgh from New York City, we deliberately sought out a neighborhood where we could walk to get where we needed to go. The thought of […]

  17. 17 Aug, 2017

    Blank by Cotton Bureau

    This is so great. Our friends at Cotton Bureau are launching better fitting t-shirts for women and men. Support the Kickstarter!

  18. 17 Aug, 2017

    Things you could be doing instead of designing & building that card component for the umpteenth time

    Making that card pattern more accessible Making that card pattern more responsive Making that card pattern more performant Making that card pattern more agnostic so it can handle different content patterns Making that card pattern more resilient to extreme content […]

  19. 08 Aug, 2017

    Best of Daewon Song | 2017

    My cousin Jesse told me to check out Daewon Song, so I did. Tremendously entertaining and original.

  20. 08 Aug, 2017

    What is Technology Doing to Us?

    I re-listened to this podcast episode after seeing that Tristan’s Ted talk was just released. The podcast episode goes a whole lot deeper than the talk, and I think the subjects discussed are critical for any digital designer working in […]