Tech Culture

The Future of Design: How AI is Shifting Designers from Makers to Curators

When we think about designers, two main characteristics often come to mind: craft skills and taste. Craft skills are the technical abilities that allow designers to manipulate tools—whether physical, like pen and paper in the early days, or digital design software like Photoshop and Figma today—to create their desired output. Taste, on the other hand, is the ability to perceive and refine quality in design, guiding the look and feel of an output toward something that feels refined and cohesive.

Tech Culture

The Real Reason Why Executives Don’t Want you Involved

We’ve all been there. You get hired for your expertise in a specific domain, and yet for some reason the powers at be seem to ignore your input, make a bunch of random decisions you think are at best ill-informed or at worst just plain wrong, and then hand it to you for implementation. If only they’d have consulted you sooner and you might have been able to avoid this mess.

Tech Culture

Why I'm Still on the Fence About Crypto

As somebody who has been lucky enough to not only experience a number of online trends—early Web adoption, The Web Standards Movement, the emergence of UX Design, Web 2.0, the Mobile Web—but to benefit from them, I can see why folks are excited about the rise of Crypto.

Design Leadership

Why I Chose to Spend 6-Months at a VC Fund

If you know me, then you'll know that I'm all about increasing the impact design can have on the world. For the past 20 years I’ve focused on using design to solve meaningful problems, remove frustrations, and make people's lives that tiny bit better.

Tech Culture

Ghosting Candidates, Marathon Interviews and Zero Feedback: The Modern Recruitment Experience

The digital sector is a talent led industry, and as much as I dislike the idea of the 10X developer, the difference a great hire can make to your business is huge. So I’m always amazed when I hear about the shady, sloppy or downright atrocious recruitment practices we inflict on prospective candidates.

Design Practice

Reoccurring billing, and forgetfulness as a dark pattern

Five years ago my company was pitching for a newspaper project, so I decided to sign up for a bunch of newspaper subscriptions, including the Times. I was really impressed with the thought and consideration that had gone into both their Web offering and iPad app, so used it constantly for about a month. Once the pitch had finished, I stopped using the service, and my attention drifted elsewhere.