WRITING

It’s time you learned how the the sausage is made

Effective immediately, all designers are going to be forced to write code. All of us. No exceptions. We were turned into unicorns as we slept last night.

Just kidding, but there is an essential lesson here. The more you know about the people, process, and tools involved in writing code, the better off you will be as a designer. They overlap. The same goes for all of the other disciplines it takes to deliver digital products.

The one design tool you absolutely can't live without

Unless you have been designing in a cave for the last 5 years, it’s impossible to avoid the explosion of tools fighting for our attention. Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD, InVision Studio, Framer X, Axure, Abstract, Zeplin, Miro…Ahhh…they’re evolving and overlapping. It’s even caused the creation of an entirely new DesOps role to help organizations figure out how to navigate their design ‘stack’.

The simple secret to developing resilient designers

Embracing failure is not a new concept, but knowing how to do it as a design leader is easier said than done. On one hand, you want to impart all of the wisdom you’ve learned the hard way onto your team so they can learn from your mistakes — before they make them. On the other hand, you want them to learn for themselves how to handle the adversity we face every day.

Product design misconceptions

While many companies are now starting to see the actual business value of design, there are still some overarching misconceptions keeping us down. These are the top 5 misconceptions I have encountered while consulting over the last year enlightened with the designers’ point of view.

UX Moments

Life is just a series of moments strung together. With our mobile devices in-hand and always connected, it’s changing how we behave and what we expect from the brands we trust. If we can identify these important moments and understand their context, we can leverage them to create a better UX. 

Design Thinking lessons taken straight from conversations with 93 rock bands

I have been listening to a unique and inspiring podcast called song exploder for a while now, and in doing so I noticed that designers and musicians have a lot in common. I wanted to share a few of the commonalities.

Randy Fisher 2024