That Starbucks is a coffee shop powerhouse everybody knows. Living in California though, there are many options when searching for your daily caffeine dose. One of those options is Berkeley-based Peet’s Coffee, a west-coast-focused chain with over 200 stores, most of them in the Golden State. If there’s no comparison in terms of company size… Continue reading The coffeeshop mobile UX battle: Starbucks x Peet’s
Category: UX
Co-creating has drastically improved my designs
How co-design has drastically improved my work Users, engineers, product managers… I’m not the only one designing things around here I find defining a problem challenging. Ideally, at the start of a project all the metrics and objectives form a crystal clear statement. But working with high ambiguity in the platform space, I often start with a… Continue reading Co-creating has drastically improved my designs
I am a product designer that became an engineering manager overnight
Can “not having the answers” actually be your greatest asset? I was building the plane while it was flying. It wasn’t always pretty, but we didn’t crash. I was in over my head. Big time. Standing in front of Packback’s engineering team, I tried to look semi-composed while I explained that our Head of Engineering… Continue reading I am a product designer that became an engineering manager overnight
How to increase the UX maturity of Scrum teams
Investing in the UX skills of a Scrum Team delivers a huge return. Learn how. In this article you will learn: Why enabling Scrum Teams with UX Design capabilities is important. Why introducing UX capabilities to Scrum team is frequently hard. What is the job of an UX Leader in a product development organization. How to use… Continue reading How to increase the UX maturity of Scrum teams
The Barry Lyndon poster is a design classic, not designed by Saul Bass
The very mention of Barry Lyndon will either elicit a groan you get from an over stimulated teenager forced to trudge through economics class or silent reverence in a middle-aged man who bought the Criterion Collection edition, and delicately wipes it down every month. It is Kubrick’s overlooked masterpiece, sandwiched between the higher profile A… Continue reading The Barry Lyndon poster is a design classic, not designed by Saul Bass
The humanity of Blockchain, Wordle UX, web3 painpoints, free UI loaders
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. “In Agile, discovery is assumed. At a minimum, you need a rough spec and some goals to get started. But is the spec validated against business goals or user needs? Is this the best solution? If so, when does that discovery work happen? Not during Agile development.” Is Agile… Continue reading The humanity of Blockchain, Wordle UX, web3 painpoints, free UI loaders
11 steps to keep Figma clean
We all probably already know how it is to receive a project from someone else. Not everyone works the same way, it’s what makes our field so varied. We need to spend some time focusing on adapting. In this article, I will go over 11 steps that may help you and your teammates in organizing… Continue reading 11 steps to keep Figma clean
Whatsapp Communities — Much needed or a bad move?
Whatsapp Communities — Much needed or a bad move? A few days back WhatsApp announced that it is launching Communities, one of its most anticipated features in recent times very soon. But is this really a good move by Meta? Here’s a brief post around it. That’s how Zuckerberg started his 452-word-long Facebook post announcing the launch of the… Continue reading Whatsapp Communities — Much needed or a bad move?
Reframing streaks on Duolingo: 5 ideas for healthier language learning
The following article looks at healthy and flexible approaches to streaks in Duolingo and examines how users can still be consistent with language learning without having to worry about their streak number. Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash When I was living in Singapore last year, I used Duolingo to (try to!) learn Chinese.… Continue reading Reframing streaks on Duolingo: 5 ideas for healthier language learning
Wordle is a masterclass in product design simplicity
Some of the most fun I’ve had this year is playing Wordle with my friends and family. But I’m a product designer and a programmer, so as I played, I couldn’t help but notice some strange things about how it was constructed. I was right in the middle of making my own product School Morning Routine,… Continue reading Wordle is a masterclass in product design simplicity
Prototyping: you’re halfway there
The journey to great ideas passes through many steps in the design process. I recently gave a guest lecture on Prototyping in Scott Witthoft’s Furniture Experiments class at the University of Texas School of Design and Creative Technologies. I gathered together some of my past work to share stories of lessons I’ve learned (mostly the… Continue reading Prototyping: you’re halfway there
UX fundamentals for web3, investing in design, automated UI variations
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. “Crypto-natives have been living and breathing Web 3 for years. They populate an enormous echo chamber of people speaking a language that most tech people can’t even understand, to say nothing of the general public. The sense of wonder and empowerment that comes from knowing you are building the future… Continue reading UX fundamentals for web3, investing in design, automated UI variations
It’s 2022: PMs and designers should be talking about ambient computing
Source: Google Web3. Metaverse. Crypto. Elon Musk. You’ve probably heard all of these tech buzzwords already. Let’s add a new one to our repertoire: Ambient Computing. Ambient computing refers to “always-on” hardware and software technologies that allow users to consume digital content and services by interacting with their surroundings. We’re still at the beginning of… Continue reading It’s 2022: PMs and designers should be talking about ambient computing
Why blockchain and Web 3 user interfaces will suck for a while
How Web 2.0 grumpiness + Web 3.0 hubris are contributing to terrible user experiences on the cutting edge of tech. Statler and Waldorf definitely aren’t interested in Web 3. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF62EGPppFU My point in a nutshell: Web 3 people are generally not interested in lessons from the past, and experienced tech people don’t need Web 3… Continue reading Why blockchain and Web 3 user interfaces will suck for a while
How to Design better dashboards?
Before diving into the core topic let’s first understand what User Experience is? User experience is the way a person feels when interacting with a particular product, system or service. It refers to all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services and its products. User experience design (UXD) is “the process of… Continue reading How to Design better dashboards?
Decolonizing typography: creating a font for Afrikan writing systems
The driving force behind my relentless mission to create digital fonts for Afrikan writing systems, one letter at a time. In this case study I’ll walk you through the process of designing a font for the Bassa Vah Alphabet. The name ‘Bassa’ and a Bassa proverb. Background Bassa language is spoken by about 600 000 Bassa… Continue reading Decolonizing typography: creating a font for Afrikan writing systems
Observe your habits to optimize your outcomes
Methods and products for more mindfulness, intention, and purpose in 2022 Francesco Stumpo 1 day ago·13 min read how are you keeping track of your habits today? hand sketch prototype i, march 2020. Right around 2 years ago, or 730 days to be more precise, things shifted during our daily routines. If we pay closer… Continue reading Observe your habits to optimize your outcomes
Visual forensics, impostor syndrome, UI color system, accessibility checklist
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. “User feedback is always a valuable source of information. But if product designers aren’t careful, user feedback can quickly become a to-do list of features organized by whoever yells the loudest and most often. This not only runs the risk of pulling a product team in dozens of different… Continue reading Visual forensics, impostor syndrome, UI color system, accessibility checklist
Critical Sankofa (transit) planning in the afrofuturist city
Transit planning in the Afrofuturist city is not a pipe dream. By examining Afrofurutist productions such as the series of comic books and blockbuster Marvel movie both named Black Panther, we can readily envision alternative approaches to transit planning. In the various images shown below, we see the “golden city” — Birnin Zana — a… Continue reading Critical Sankofa (transit) planning in the afrofuturist city
Design and development during turbulent times
Usually we are talking about design in a perfect environment: stable internet connection, various tools to use, enough time and safe placement, but what if we erase all of those conditions and put war in your country instead of them? In this article, I will tell you how to design during a crisis. Hello, my name… Continue reading Design and development during turbulent times
The meta-learning capabilities that will help you beat automation
For many reasons, Google is a dream workplace for future knowledge workers. The company provides a challenging and stimulating environment that attracts top talent. But Google, like many innovative companies, is no longer looking for purely technical skills. In their recruitment process, they are increasingly leaving room for improvised problem-solving exercises, which involve group thinking.… Continue reading The meta-learning capabilities that will help you beat automation
I neglected Duolingo for 20 days after signing up. Here’s every email they sent me.
About 3 weeks ago, I signed up to Duolingo intending to learn Swahili every day for about a month. Why? To learn something new, to make some progress with a language I’ve been casually interested in for some time, and to document to process from a UX perspective. What went wrong? Not to be dramatic,… Continue reading I neglected Duolingo for 20 days after signing up. Here’s every email they sent me.
The power of seeing only the questions in a piece of writing
I’ve been watching how writers use questions lately, and thought: Hmmm, it’d be cool to see only the questions in a piece of prose. I probably started down this line of thinking because last fall I created a little web tool that removes everything but the punctuation from a piece of writing. That tool wound… Continue reading The power of seeing only the questions in a piece of writing
Metaverse UX, designing with data, immature orgs, how to ask for gender
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. “I’m sure that you or someone else you know have worked somewhere in the past where you felt that UX people were out of place. After all, UX is an emerging discipline and a lot of organizations want to hire people from our field because no organization wants to… Continue reading Metaverse UX, designing with data, immature orgs, how to ask for gender