Notes from intermission: content, directions
I’m writing this two days into intermission and I’m already questioning large parts of the business, which is precisely what one wants to happen. Most of the...
Intermission
Sometimes you simply write over 500,000 words on the practice of profitable, value-based design and then you look back and have no idea what to do with all...
Profitable qualitative research, customer archetypes, search query types
What is the role of value-based design now that we have reached the functional conclusion of quantitative research? We answer this at length in our new...
LAUNCH: The self-paced Value-Based Design Workshop
Today is our final major launch of the year. If you’ve been reading these for the past year, you know that we ran a successful value-based design workshop...
More on Value Retainer – and another big launch coming next week
Thanks for your interest in Value Retainer last week. We’ve answered a lot of fun questions about it, and watched a few people join us, which rules. One of...
LAUNCH: Value Retainer
I’m tremendously excited to launch Value Retainer today. Over the past few months, we’ve talked, on and off, about the trust that our clients put in us to...
Inventing the future, working with developers, what we share
What happens when your industry is done inventing the future, at least for now? That can be okay, right? Everybody has a tiny computer in their pockets that...
Building expertise & creating the future
I ran into my friend (and one-time collaborator!) Nick (no relation) the other week, and we sat and chatted about design. I talked a little bit about a...
How to run an experiment
I’m going to be writing a lot more about design’s role in leveraged power dynamics over the next few months. What questions do you have that you’d like me to...
Designers will measure
Remember back when there was this huge roiling debate about whether designers would code, and then all of the designers who refused to code got laid off and...
The elements of profitable research
In last week’s letter, we discussed the three pillars of value-based design: research, measurement, and experimentation. Over the next few letters, we’ll go...
How the three pillars of Value-Based Design might save our industry
Design is in crisis. Designers are being laid off en masse in a broader power grab amidst a major economic downturn. The former aforelinked shows over...
What was machine learning?
New developments in machine learning are quite funny to me, because they do not address the thinking, only the comp. They are comp generators. By their...
Notes on the practice
Thanks to everyone for their warm reception to our newly opened slot. I am mildly terrified about it! I am more-than-mildly dreading it! I am out of practice...
Opening a new consulting slot
A few of you have waited for this for a long time. I’m excited and more than a little nervous to announce that for the first time in two years, we’re opening...
The balance between tactics & spaceholding, experimentation reporting, “mixed methods”
I’m in the middle of a new project, and it’s been interesting balancing what to focus on. On the one hand, people want tools & techniques to improve their...
Design, execution, QA
These letters are always a reflection of where my head is at with respect to the business. Abundance comes & goes. Ideas evolve. A couple of years ago, I...
Profitable qualitative insight, post-taste, mentorship in UX
We’ve slightly reworked Draft’s home page. We’re also in the process of removing all quantitative information from our resource library, beyond our case...
“Too much” research, filter order, design density
Why do designers care so much about research? Because research is design. You cannot design without researching. If you do, you’re just drawing pictures....
Speaking design, discounting, onboarding
I’ve found a thing that is extremely, genuinely funny about psychospiritual impoverishment that is currently afflicting contemporary direct-to-consumer...
Workshop questions, systems, returning orders
When I put together the latest edition of our workshop, I asked participants what they were hoping to learn, and almost everybody said they wanted to learn...
Analytical alternatives, the sound of software, behavior design
One of the nice consequences of ecommerce’s current state is that I’m getting back into software a bit. As of this writing, I’ve kicked off with two studio...
Color, metric strategies, minimum sample size
Go read this essential post on No Best Practices now. I think it’s insightful, it taught me a lot, and I have thoughts. Ok, did you read it? Great. I love...
LAUNCH: Draft Teardown × Lianna Patch
Y’all, I’m so excited for today’s launch. I’ve been planning it for a little while with a dear friend of mine, and now it’s time for us to do a thing. You...
Resistance, care & feeding, buyable design
So, the links are pretty grim this week. Sometimes they’re useful, sometimes they’re grim, sometimes they’re both. This week you get grim. I’m almost sorry;...
Leveraged power, review design, fuller stack
Because design is a form of leveraged power, our highest priority should be to understand the existing structures of power, and then to claim that power for...
Change management, where to focus, imagined futures
I read something recently about a person who headed design in a very large organization. In their practice, design worked across business units and discrete...
Framework caching, size filters, familiarity
One of the nice things about having a book out is that you can promote it as much as you want. Writing & publishing a book is the climb to the top of the...
Discernment, researching filters & sorts, pinball interfaces
In advance of another major launch, I wanted to talk a little bit about the role of discernment in our work. It’s important to negotiate new work from a...
Value-Based Design Workshop: Don’t miss out
It’s happening soon: our first-ever public workshop is in two days. We’re going to close registration shortly, so now is your last time to join us. In the...
Value-Based Design Workshop: Last call
Our first-ever public workshop is next week, and time is running out for you to join us. I made a couple of minor changes to the outline, based on initial...
Payment for services, core agitators, color spaces
I can’t believe that I felt motivated to write this in 2024, especially after the kind of year we had, but here we are. Draft is a business. (I know, right?)...
Store design, boundaries, store design
I’m grateful for everyone’s interest in our Value-Based Design Workshop that’s happening in a few weeks. Today, I’d like to talk a little about why I think...
LAUNCH: An all-day workshop on the practice of value-based design
In 20 years of working in design, I’ve never seen the sort of existential handwringing that pervades our industry right now. Unfortunately, feeling sorry for...
Owning your value, buying design, leveraged power
The first round of Store Design has mostly been delivered domestically. My favorite quote so far: Holy shit this is a gorgeous book. I had high expectations...
Technological collapse, custom forms, notifications
Store Design continues to be available. Tell literally everyone. I was chatting with a client recently about how the new analytics software is bad, and how...
Store Design is out now
This is our 400th letter. Our first one went out to 18 people, 7 of which remain. Regardless of whether you’ve been here for 1 week or all 400, we’re...
Alignment, Store Design, alignment
If you preordered Store Design, we’ll be reaching out to confirm your shipping address shortly. Copies should start shipping out this week. Don’t sleep! This...
Form validation, screeners, badge design
Printing of Store Design is now finished. Next up, the printer ships all the books to me, and then we ship to preorders, friends & family, and then everybody...
Human work, Store Design update, interface quality
Welcome back, everybody. Deep rest was useful for us; we’re fired up and ready to start a great new year. We’ve got so much cool stuff in the hopper that we...
Year-ahead planning, tools, semantics
This is our final letter of the year before we go on break for the holidays. Thanks again for your support, now & always. Store Design’s proofs have been...
Winter design, process & structure, care
What store design activities make the most sense to run over the winter? A few come to mind: Card sorting. Remember all of that drum-beating that I’ve been...
Design documentation, collection page heat maps, filter priority
Quiet week. This week, for paid members We held our monthly office hours, where we debated what sides to serve and nothing else. Our weekly paid lesson is...
Self-care, generalizable principles, order confirmation
Store Design has been sent to the printer. Still on track for a January delivery. Rest is necessary, of course. In what specific ways have you rested this...
Durable thinking, nav reworks, normative context
Draft will be closed this coming Friday in honor of my dog’s birthday. In this moment, I invite you to reply with the specific ways in which you will be...
Type sizes, building slower, a major American holiday of some note
Final edits on Store Design have come back. Now I get to final-final edit it and send it off to the printer. Still on track for arrival in the next few...
Toxic masculinity, full-bleed image galleries, PDP design
This article on the feminization of design and attendant restructuring of “web design” into “front-end development” is an absolutely essential read. If...
Vocabulary inflation, holiday sales, mobile-first design
In the department of “things that should happen but won’t,” we have Jakob Nielsen talking about ‘vocabulary inflation’ with respect to design. “UX” is...
Customer education, stakeholder strategy, text editing on mobile
Edits have wrapped up on Store Design. Now we move into final typeset, preflight, and then printing. This week, for paid members Our weekly lesson talks...
Single page checkout, SMS compliance, ethical research
Our editors have kicked off our final editing pass on Store Design, and our work should be off to the printer within the next six weeks. Gosh, isn’t that...