Words that would otherwise be coming out of my mouth

I recently spoke at An Event Apart in San Diego where I presented on the whys, whats and how’s of style guides. Here are the slides: And here are some resources I reference in the talk:   Style Guide Types […]

Really cool to see A List Apart hosting a conversation all about style guides, featuring some fantastic people! Looking forward to this.

Great long read from Nicole Fenton about designing effective interface copy.

Adam Onishi talks about the dangers of using words like “obviously” (and “just”) when we’re communicating with others. When we try to teach people whether in a tutorial, a conference talk, or even some over the phone training, we need to […]

This is a tiny content strategy framework focused on goals, messages, and branding. This is not a checklist. Use what you need and scrap the rest. Rewrite it or add to it. These topics should help you get to the […]

Little known fact: I’m a huge fan of pinball. This is a fascinating story about how pinball was considered illegal for a long time, even at the height of its popularity. This topic is also covered in the excellent pinball documentary […]

I recently had the opportunity to be the opening keynote at Generate Conf in New York City. I got a chance to talk about dealing with uncertainty of the future. Here is the video of the talk: And here’s the transcript: Thank you. How’s […]

Stephanie Walter created some beautiful illustrations based on my post about responsive design strategies. I absolutely love the pooling water around the mobile screen in the retrofitting example, and love the layered shades of blue in the mobile-first example.

Love these images of my neighborhood in Pittsburgh that demonstrate how much (and in some cases how little) it’s changed over the years. via Jason Head

Really handy tips from Luke about multi-device trends and designing for a whole slew of screens.

This post by Jeremy really resonated with me. Definitely worth your time to read it in its entirety.

We print out page designs, hand them some scissors, and get them to cut up the pages into their smallest components. Mix them all up so you can’t even tell which components came from which pages. I really like this […]

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about modular design and development, it’s cool to see the Polymer project evolve with this nice catalog of components. There’s even a little chemistry metaphor going on, which of course makes […]

What is the Web for? Is it a platform for robust applications? Or should the Web admit defeat and settle on being a web of documents? These are the wrong questions. The question is not “what is the Web is for”, but […]

Ben Brignell’s sketch notes from my atomic design talk at #uxlondon.  

As part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, the folks at Fresh Tilled Soil asked me for my thoughts on accessibility. So here they are: And in the spirit of accessibility, here’s a transcript of the video: Yeah, accessibility matters a […]

Make every thing fight for its life. Fight for its right to exist. Stop adding shit. Start killing shit. Victory is subtraction. Rip it all out. Be ruthless. Demand better. Reorder. Stop blindly adopting tools. Stop breaking the Web. Be […]

Here’s Jaime Caballero with some fantastic advice on how to improve your experience’s performance.

The trick is knowing when bashing your head against a wall repeatedly will lead to a breakthrough instead of you lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

I’m thrilled to be speaking at the Web Conference at Penn State alongside so many other great speakers (including apparently Tim Gunn of Project Runway fame. Life achievement unlocked?). Registration closes in just a few days, so I’d look into […]