Writing
Notes on the craft and practice of product design.
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What I wish someone had told me at the start of my career
Nobody hands you a manual. But a few of these lessons would have saved me some time.
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How to run a design critique that actually improves the work
4 rules. 4 roles. 1 format for presenting. That’s all it takes to run a critique that actually improves the work.
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How I use journey maps without making them useless
Most journey maps fail the same way: they're built to document, not to decide.
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What actually gets you promoted to senior designer
Pixel-level craft gets you in the door. Judgment, ownership, and communication get you to the next level.
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Why principal designers need to think like product managers
The best PMs I've worked with think like designers. The best principal designers I know think like PMs
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How to decide between design patterns and novel solutions
Knowing when to use a familiar pattern and when to build something new isn't instinct. It's a decision that requires research, context, and a few honest questions.
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What LEGO taught me about modular design systems
The best design system I’ve ever seen wasn’t built in Figma. It's been shipping consistent, connected, interoperable components for over 60 years.
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How to build a design system that scales across cultures
The first time I shipped a product in 7 languages, I thought we were prepared. We had a solid design system. Clean components. Good documentation. Then German happened. Followed closely by French and Spanish. Strings were truncating across the UI in ways we hadn't caught in QA.
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Why accessibility testing with real users changed how I design
Usability testing with disabled users broke every assumption I had. Not in a dramatic way. In the quiet, embarrassing way where you watch someone struggle with something you were proud of and realize you built it for yourself. I had done the checklists. Color contrast, touch targets, focus order. The design-side audit came back clean. I genuinely thought we were in good shape.
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My actual process for designing a complex navigation system
Many navigation redesigns start with a sitemap and end with arguments about labels. Here’s what I do instead.
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