Words that would otherwise be coming out of my mouth

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  1. 14 May, 2017

    Design Better Data Tables

    This is a fantastic roundup of data display patterns. In my own work creating design systems with huge organizations, we’ve found providing data tables with plenty of options to be critical to the system’s success. Some of these patterns are […]

  2. 26 Apr, 2017

    Dan Mall on Freelancing

    Here’s a great video of my friend and frequent collaborator Dan Mall sharing a ton of knowledge about what it means to be a freelancer.

  3. 25 Apr, 2017

    Designing for Edge Cases

    This is fun. I’m a big fan of designing for dynamic content, which is why template and page stages of the atomic design methodology are two separate things. It’s critical to address best case scenarios, worst case scenarios, and everything in between. That’s […]

  4. 24 Apr, 2017

    Back to the Cave

    I love it when Frank transcribes his talks into posts. This is a great one because he talks about creativity, drive, community, and more. There’s a lot here, so do yourself a favor and check it out. if I go […]

  5. 21 Apr, 2017

    DesignByTheHive

    I chatted with Inez Hernandez on the DesignByTheHive podcast about all sorts of things.

  6. 19 Apr, 2017

    Template Technology Agnosticism

    I absolutely love Jonathan Snook‘s thoughts here. He discusses how the Mustache templating engine actually gets quite close to tech-agnostic HTML, and that’s a good thing for systems that need to go to a bunch of places. This legibility becomes important for other […]

  7. 13 Apr, 2017

    Managing Technology-Agnostic Design Systems

    Users don’t care that one UI is built by Team A and another is built by Team B. Users don’t care if for one project the team followed a scrum process, while another project followed a kanban process. Users don’t care […]

  8. 11 Apr, 2017

    Josh Clark on The Full Stack Design System

    Josh wrote up some thoughts about the fantastic, previously-shared Full Stack Design System article, which includes a bit where he goes to bat for atomic design. From the original article: Atomic Design will tell you to take some of your […]

  9. 08 Apr, 2017

    A History of Patterns in User Experience Design

    Erin Malone, who helped create Yahoo!’s pattern library, gives a fantastic timeline of modular UI design. I especially love her emphasis on people sharing what they know, which is how ideas evolve and take root: It’s important to not forget […]

  10. 08 Apr, 2017

    The bored designer’s reading list

    Cennydd put together a great reading list for designers. I’m currently reading Donella Meadows’s fantastic Thinking in Systems: A Primer, but a lot of these other books probably should be on my radar. After all, Cennydd is intimidatingly smart.

  11. 06 Apr, 2017

    The Book Report: Atomic Design

    Here’s a very kind book review of Atomic Design from Josh Tuck. I remember talking to him about Bob’s Burgers, so I’m glad that made it into the review 🙂

  12. 06 Apr, 2017

    The Web Looks Like Shit

    The folks from The Outline reached out to me to get my thoughts on crufty websites. Of course I have opinions. I saw some people commenting on the irony of a site with a really out-there design critiquing other websites. […]

  13. 06 Apr, 2017

    The full stack design system

    Emmet Connolly underscores the point that simply having a UI pattern library isn’t enough to create successful work across products at an organization. To return to our Lego analogy, simply having a limited pattern library of bricks to choose from doesn’t […]

  14. 06 Apr, 2017

    Design Systems: Pilots & Scorecards

    My friend and frequent collaborator Dan Mall wrote up a fantastic post about a crucial part of creating design systems: pilot projects. PILOTS ARE ONE OF the best ways to put your design system through its paces, especially before the design […]

  15. 03 Apr, 2017

    Questioning Container Queries

    I think what Paul Robert Lloyd is saying here is interesting, but I’m not sure it adds up to “we don’t need container queries.” His example shows what layouts are possible with grid and flexbox, all of which I think is awesome. […]

  16. 03 Apr, 2017

    The Most Exciting Design Systems Are Boring

    I’ve had the extreme privilege of working with Josh and Dan on many pattern-based websites and design systems. In addition to getting into the weeds with our clients to help design and build the design systems themselves, a big part of our work often […]

  17. 31 Mar, 2017

    Climate Change List

    The wonderful folks down the road from me at Bearded created a gorgeous-looking website that succinctly explains many things you can do as an individual to combat climate change. It’s well designed and has just the right amount of information […]

  18. 29 Mar, 2017

    Style Guide Audience

    In his talk Designing Inspired Style Guides, Andy Clarke discusses the importance of creating digital style guides that go beyond being humble containers for UI assets and instead operate as beautiful vehicles that evoke the essence of the brand. When it comes to the current look of many UI […]

  19. 27 Mar, 2017

    Writing on the web

    I’m in the process of redoing this site with the intention of ramping up what I share and how often I share things. Jeremy is of course a huge inspiration for me, so his post is serving as a fire under […]

  20. 23 Mar, 2017

    Modern JavaScript for Ancient Web Developers

    Gina Trapani wrote a fantastic post about diving into the modern JavaScript world after not paying attention to JavaScript for a long time. While I’m not as skilled as her when it comes to backend development, my background is more in […]