Posts Tagged ‘design’

I recently had the pleasure of doing a Q&A session with Molly Helmuth’s Design System Bootcamp cohort. The questions were great and varied, so I asked Molly if she’d be alright if I shared my answers with you all. Thankfully, […]

When design system users run into issues designing and developing with the system, they often have a hard time distinguishing between a bug, a missing feature, an intentional design deviation, a new pattern they need to create, or something else. […]

I’ve spent pretty much my entire career helping teams design software rather than pictures of software. Development is design. Frontend design. Front-of-front-end code. Front-end workshop environments. Death to the waterfall. The Hot Potato process. Designer/developer collaboration. Pattern Lab. I’ve shared […]

I came across this great post by my friend Cameron Moll on LinkedIn. He says: Telling designers they shouldn’t use high-fidelity designs early in the exploration process can be the equivalent of telling an artist they shouldn’t use paint and […]

If you feel like you’re struggling to keep up with the pace of technological change, you’re certainly not alone. We feel this pressure at an individual level, but also at an organizational level. How do digital organizations establish solid, stable […]

Ah yes, this old chestnut. It pops up as reliably as daffodils in early spring. My perspective has changed very little over the years. Telling web designers they don't need to worry about code is like telling architects they don't […]

If all the company’s plastic from 2021 were converted into plastic air pillows — the inflated pouches inserted in some Amazon packages to reduce shifting during transit — and laid side by side, Miller said it would circle the globe more […]

I love this initiative from Shamsi Brinn: No Handoff: close the gap between product and engineering. Imagine a project where teams work together at each stage, progressively improving the end result based on qualitative and quantitative data. Project handoff is […]

I love Dan’s Artificial Intelligence & Humanity as it mirrors a lot of my own thinking about how best to wield AI. If I embrace the role of AI as an accident generator, then I’d gladly give it all the […]

Mini Moog Factory is a really fun piece of web design. The aesthetic reminds me of Habbo Hotel from way back in the day.

Two innovations — Ethyl and Freon, conjured by one man presiding over a single laboratory during a span of roughly 10 years. Combined, the two products generated billions of dollars in revenue for the companies that manufactured them and provided […]

Shift Nudge is a new online course that teaches the intricate skills of designing visually beautiful interfaces, while balancing functionality and accessibility. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Matt on client work and he’s a very very very good […]

This post by Tom Johnson gives a fantastic overview of the limitations of static design tools and design/dev handoff tools. The author breaks down the various ways static design tools are detached from the reality of how things truly play […]

I’ve written about Cennydd’s amazing Future Ethics book, and this talk is a great intro to the contents of the book. Highly recommended viewing/reading.

I can’t recommend Future Ethics by Cennydd Bowels highly enough. I strongly encourage any person working on digital things to read this book. But I especially want a few million copies of this book to be crop-dusted over Silicon Valley. […]

we came up with a little thing we tell all our clients before they agree to work with us: “You may be hiring us, and that may be your name on the check, but we do not work for you. […]

MODALZ MODALZ MODALZ by Adrian Egger is fantastic in both its message and design.

Fantastic article by Snook about designer/developer relations. Everything that a designer draws in a Sketch or Photoshop file needs to be turned into code. Code needs to be developed, delivered to the user, and maintained by the team. That means […]

Nice case study about designing the Wall Street Journal’s homepage in HTML and CSS instead of first creating static comps. In two of my bigger projects at The Wall Street Journal, writing code has led to new ideas. Problems that […]

Fascinating read about how air conditioning shaped much of society. Source: An inversion of nature: how air conditioning created the modern city

The obvious place designers go when trying to calculate the bottom line is to ask the question, If I change the design, how much more income could we generate? But there’s another way design can help: reducing the costs. A much-overlooked portion of […]

Here’s Chris with a wonderful walkthrough of how his frontend developer brain looks at a design comp. It’s extremely insightful When confronted with a design comp, My brain tends to gravitate towards some of the non-obvious implementation solutions. In other […]

How to Take Criticism Ask yourself: Is this helpful or not helpful? Translate. Stay curious. Hang in there until you receive actionable feedback. Very good read about how to take criticism in your work.

I recently wrote a post about Facebook being a needy sonofabitch. They desperately try to get you there, and once they have you they do all they can to keep you there. It’s like a restaurant that bombards your doorstep […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Josh wrote about social buttons, and I agree. I always had a hunch that social buttons weren’t super effective, and when asked for my opinion, I’d say that I thought they’re crufty, probably don’t get interacted with all that much, and don’t […]

PSA: this series on Netflix is really good. Each episode highlights a designer in a particular field (illustration, architecture, set design, etc). The subject talks about their work, their process, and their journey, and the whole thing is incredibly well produced. I […]