All articles

Occasionally I publish articles on early-stage startups, UX strategy, practical design tips, talking to customers, management, and reducing complexity in software.

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Startups

A minimum viable brand (MVB) in under 30 minutes

How to get a 95% awesome logo for 1% of the effort and cost

Managing startup employees (without really managing)

A roles exercise to help you create happy, high performing teams

Four levels of founder sophistication

Attitudes of successful (and not so successful) product leaders

Tips for working with founders

Why I love working directly with founders, and lessons I've learned along the way

Design methods

The books I recommend to designers

What to read when you’re learning (or struggling with) design

What to do when you're stuck on a design

A big list of things to try when you’re out of ideas

The hardest-won lessons for junior designers

What talented designers struggle with when they join teams

Engineering concepts every designer should know

Required knowledge for anyone who designs software—regardless of your title

UI design for complete beginners: common mistakes and easy fixes

12 steps to help new designers make awesome apps

Design is mostly about emphasis

11 ways to make the important stuff STAND OUT and the rest disappear

Feedback 101

How designers give and receive productive critiques

Balancing obvious and fast in UX design

Is it more important for your features to be easy to learn, or fast to use?

Product strategy

How to run a simple usability test

The only way to know if a design is any good

Products vs tools

We call ourselves product designers... but what is a “product” exactly?

How to prioritize feature ideas for your product roadmap

10 ways to decide what features are important for users—and which are distractions

Good, bad, and horrible reasons to build a feature

Prioritizing a successful product roadmap

Startup strategy Mad Libs

How to distill your startup vision and strategy into something small and useful

Leadership & management

“You’re a natural, kid”: How to spot raw design talent

The four least-teachable traits of great designers

Know your bias before you build

Your job title makes you susceptible to bad product decisions

How to tell if a design is good

When “I know what I like” is not good enough

Managing startup employees (without really managing)

A roles exercise to help you create happy, high performing teams

Should I hire a full-time designer, an agency, or a contractor?

Four ways to hire designers, and the pros and cons of each

What design leaders actually do

14 hats you wear as a design leader, design manager, or design executive

Why your company still has bad design (and how to fix it)

Five tough truths for executives — and three steps they can take to make things better

Six stages of design teams

How design teams grow from scratch to support large startups and beyond

The Product Design Health Checklist

17 questions to measure the quality of any product design team

Other projects

I built a startup and filmed every minute on Youtube. Here’s what I learned.

It was hard, but working in public helped me keep momentum and ship.

Using design to make hard life choices

Step one: literally put your priorities in order

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