Writing
- November 19, 2024On Tools
Don't introduce complications to your team unless they're actually tools.
- October 29, 2024The Anatomist's Fallacy
When dealing with complex systems, think about effects, not intentions
- October 7, 2024Build a Laboratory
A different lens for understanding the MVP
- August 31, 2024AI in 2024: Eat the fruit, leave the rind
How I think about AI in 2024 (Part 3 of 3)
- August 26, 2024AI in 2024: Making a Case
How I think about AI in 2024 (Part 2 of 3)
- August 16, 2024AI in 2024: What Good is Bullshit?
How I think about AI in 2024 (Part 1 of 3)
- September 4, 2023Build a Product, Not a Chatbot
on the business and design of generative AI
- August 20, 2023Don't Fire Your Illustrator
Understanding (and Art Directing) AI image generators
- June 4, 2023Garden Path Content
Noticing a change in incentives
- October 30, 2022On the UI of Selecting Options
Another short note about the details of a common bit of UI
- October 29, 2022On Inputting Numbers
A short note about the details of a common bit of UI
- March 20, 2022Unreal Work
Even the boring parts are still parts
- July 23, 2021Motivation and storytelling
Some invented vocabulary that applies to both characters and teams
- July 23, 2021Contributing in absentia
How to be productive long after you've left a project
- April 7, 2021Maestro Syndrome
Impostor syndrome and its evil twin
- March 8, 2021Lateral Joins in Rails
Making Activerecord do what it does not yet know it wants to do: Lateral Joins
- March 3, 2021More of a Talker
On Talking and Doing
- July 20, 2020Lab Notebooks
What wet-lab chemistry can teach software engineers
- July 16, 2020On Trouser Pockets
UX, ID, and Fast Fashion
- July 6, 2020On Seeming Simple
How to think about simplicity when designing complex things, and vice-versa
- July 5, 2020Not Worrying Much About Crates
A follow-up to "Worrying about the NPM ecosystem"
- June 29, 2020Worrying about the NPM ecosystem
There are too many packages and too many dependencies, too deeply nested. Can we measure the problem? And what do we do about it?
- June 27, 2020New, Longer-lasting Formula
What that you have done will last?
- June 22, 2020Burn-in and the Standup
Has your daily standup become empty and rote?
- June 12, 2020The Marketing-Driven MVP
Another tool for determining the right scope
- June 4, 2020Opening Questions
What I ask a client to determine if a project is suitable
- May 27, 2020User interviews sell internal tools
A mercenary reason to do user interviews even if you plan to ignore them
- May 26, 2020Agile and the Big Questions
Agile doesn't free you from asking; it makes you ask more often
- May 19, 2020Group components by affordance
A small tip for improving your componentized design system
- May 16, 2020Content children by interface, not class
Also, how I handle form labels in componentized frontends
- October 16, 2019Three Smooth Stones
Ideas that never grew into essays
- September 29, 2019Responsibabble
Responsible design and responsibility
- October 15, 2018The Web and The Point of Regard
Determining where the user's attention lies
- August 20, 2018Software is an Omelette
Mise en place as an approach to software
- August 13, 2018NASA’s Power of Ten, for javascript
...and dynamic languages, generally
- August 2, 2018Crazy Bananas
How to design something wild
- April 24, 2018Undemanding, but Present
Exploring the limits of on-screen perception
- March 22, 2018Unjustifiable
Beautiful text-justification for the web.
- October 3, 2015Interaction Words
Thoughts on vocabulary from INST-INT 2015
- November 28, 2014Moral Laws of Bodies
How to act around people with physical bodies
- April 15, 2014Code Questions
a rambling explanation of how I critique my own code
- February 4, 2014Black Ice
A poem written on public transit
- October 5, 2013Sestina
an over-constained poem about families
- September 29, 2013The Alphabet Alphabetized
The ABC's should be the ARH's
- June 3, 2013Alzhiemer’s and habits
On being yourself when your self is gone
- May 1, 2013Non-hiring Practices
Please say no with words, not silences
- January 1, 2013On Good and Green
how morality is like a color
- December 25, 2012Christmas Wishes
Made in 2013, with the aim that they might come true.
- November 22, 2011The Church of Interruption
A conversation with a Wizard
- August 25, 2011The Burlington Cartoon
the most beautiful drawing in the world
- February 9, 2011The Role of Art
What is the role of artists in contemporary society?
- October 3, 2010Rehearsal
Training for the abyss
- June 22, 2010Morality Play III
on the subject of rules and laws
- June 3, 2010Pillows
a short story
- April 11, 2010Phyrric Defeat