Published in UX Collective·PinnedAnd now… the good newsIt’s been a tough year. — [From a talk delivered at UX New Zealand] A few months ago, my teenage son told me that their class was recently exploring climate change, and it caused anxiety to spike amongst him and his friends. One of his classmates actually stopped coming to school for a few days because…User Experience15 min readUser Experience15 min read
Jan 22The Example the MongoDB Documentation Leaves OutIf you’re reading through the Mongo docs called How to Integrate MongoDB Into Your Next.js App, there’s a moment where they challenge you to work out the next bit on your own. Here’s the code you want to write: import clientPromise from "../../../lib/mongodb"; import { ObjectId } from "mongodb"; export default async…Mongo2 min readMongo2 min read
Jan 15Steve Jobs Once Wrote to Congratulate the Windows Phone TeamI was a designer on Windows Phone, and one day we heard that Steve Jobs had sent a note to one of our executives. The email made two quick points: Your team did a great job with the design of Windows Phone. It’s still a v1, so there’s lots to…Stevejobs1 min readStevejobs1 min readSteve Jobs Once Wrote to Congratulate the Windows Phone TeamI was a designer on Windows Phone, and one day we heard that Steve Jobs had sent a note to one of our executives. The email made two quick points:Your team did a great job with the design of Windows Phone.It’s still a v1, so there’s lots to…----
Dec 26, 2022The Church of Plain TextEvery single one of my tech friends has come to the same conclusion, some quicker than others: if you write, you need to save your content in a way that can’t be locked into a proprietary format. So we spend time doing everything in Markdown, committing each file to version…Plain Text2 min readPlain Text2 min read
Nov 14, 2022The Republicans Are StuckPolitics2 min readPolitics2 min readThe Republicans Are Stuck----
Nov 8, 2022Some Perspective About the 2022 US MidtermsWritten before election day — One year ago, I wrote “How the Next Few Years Look” where I predicted these things happening: Republicans will win the governer’s race in VA. Biden won’t get the bills he wants, but maybe smaller versions will. Roe is dead. Democrats will be washed out in 2022. Harris will remain…Politics3 min readPolitics3 min read
Published in Replay·Jun 3, 2022How We Improved Our Focus ModeIterations are where the great stuff happens — Replay.io makes a time-traveling debugger, which is as helpful and awesome as it sounds. A few months ago I wrote up the background thinking for a feature we call “Focus Mode” that lets you, well, focus on a certain point in a recording. …Java Script3 min readJava Script3 min read
Published in Replay·Mar 3, 2022How We Designed Our Focus ModeA peek into the design of our latest feature — Replay records software so you can play it back later, which means you spend a lot of time navigating video through a timeline. But as we’ve learned from YouTube, it can be hard finding one key moment in a long video. For example, here’s David Byrne dancing with a lamp…Design7 min readDesign7 min read
Published in Let’s Write Five Books!·Nov 28, 2021Done!Five Books in 2021 Journal, Issue #19 — I just ordered my fifth and final book for the year, meaning I’m done! A quick FAQ about the project and what’s next. Q: How’s it feel? A: Great! Q: Where can I learn more and buy copies? A: That’s a whole other project. These copies are for my own bookshelf…Writing2 min readWriting2 min read
Nov 20, 2021I Don’t Want to Use Twitter or Medium in the New YearAt least, not in the same way — I like Twitter and Medium a lot. I like writing and discovering on both platforms. I don’t hate them, and I’m not leaving them angrily. It’s just that they’re both designed as public stages meant for short-term consumption. And both parts of that equation don’t really line up with my…Twitter2 min readTwitter2 min read