Problem designer. Sick of rectangles.
Systems Thinking
+1
Nov 23, 2025
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7 min read
A usable product starts with the conceptual model, but designers have "optimized" that work out of the profession. It's time to bring it back.
Nov 15, 2025
Break out of the feature delivery mindset and attend to the architecture and maintenance of the product.
Problem Design
Nov 9, 2025
6 min read
Well-designed meetings are just as important to our work as well-designed artifacts.
LLMs
Nov 2, 2025
8 min read
Andy Jassy wants you to think that velocity can make up for lack of strategy. But "build, measure, learn" only works if you're willing to learn.
Oct 27, 2025
No amount of outputs will help maintain unbroken intent all the way through to delivery.
Teamwork and Leadership
Oct 19, 2025
If you want to do strategy, you must be willing to do process transformation first.
Oct 12, 2025
Action for the sake of action feels good, but the path of least resistance leads you to surrender your own agency.
User Agency
Oct 5, 2025
Big tech is divesting from user-centered design, and getting into hot water with the law.
Feedback Loops
Sep 27, 2025
Local throughput optimization always externalizes costs onto downstream colleagues.
+2
Sep 21, 2025
Cutting down on collaboration tricks you into thinking you're going faster, but it destroys the divergence effects that make the design process valuable.
Metrics and Data
+3
Sep 12, 2025
9 min read
The role of UX is not only to change the behaviors of users, but also to influence the behaviors of stakeholders. Adding AI tools to this process only undermines alignment.
Sep 7, 2025
Deliverable artifacts are only a small part of the social system that product development entails. Any "productivity" gained by ignoring that system is an illusion.
Aug 31, 2025
It's easy to get a seat at the table. Just agree to become part of the problem.
Aug 24, 2025
10 min read
Without thoughtful guard rails, asking people to clean up after machines doesn't make machines better — it makes people worse.
Aug 17, 2025
Shortcuts to establishing the legitimacy of design sabotage your ability to achieve anything meaningful.
Aug 10, 2025
User research makes the most difference when findings challenge closely-held assumptions. But the truth is often unpopular.
Aug 1, 2025
"Inevitability" means design decisions are no longer informed by user needs; now they are unilaterally imposed. The users are the ones being designed.
Jul 27, 2025
The golden age of UX is over. But the momentum that it brought is not yet extinguished, and a new generation of design leaders is seizing it.
Jul 20, 2025
By emphasizing design's role as a producer of visual outputs, our leaders have eroded the entire justification for UX as a practice.
Jul 12, 2025
Fear is choking out thoughtfulness in tech, and it can't be replaced with "more productivity" — because productivity is not what motivates corporate layoffs.
Jul 6, 2025
When outputs are valued above all else, hallucinations and slop aren't bugs — they're features.
Jun 28, 2025
LLMs are not the first tool to promise that they can free us from having to talk to people so we can "focus on the work." But talking to people IS the work.
Jun 20, 2025
Tech companies are only pretending to innovate, through copying futuristic aesthetics from science fiction without understanding their purpose.
Jun 13, 2025
11 min read
Industry leaders like Apple and Shopify are redefining design excellence from making products usable to solely luxury branding.
Jun 8, 2025
Tech orgs only function thanks to people who volunteer for thankless "glue work." This is the space where UX lives; for the field to get respect we need to make this work visible.
