The story about how I got here — It’s been over a year since I moved to Berlin. In November of 2019, my partner and I arrived in Tegel airport after 21 hours of travel. As we awkwardly tried to corral our six suitcases to the taxi stand, we were told off by an old German that we…

A two-hour exercise to begin prototyping your life — If writing New Year’s resolutions feels futile during the pandemic, you are not alone. With the rollercoaster of 2020 behind us, it can feel strange to set goals for the next 12 months, when you can’t even predict what will happen next month. …

Two years ago, I transitioned from design to product management (PM). After 10 years as a designer, from interning to managing a team, I felt unexcited by the management path ahead of me. I missed the deep product work I used to do as an individual contributor. …

Guidelines for lean, customer-centric startups — When I joined Informed K12 as their first and sole product manager, my first directive was: Build relationships with customers. Up to that point, my CEO Sarah had the best product intuition. She understood our users better than anyone else. It helped that before starting the company, she was a…

Who works on what, and why? — Note: This this an article I wrote a year ago while working at Opower, but didn’t get a chance to publish. One of the responsibilities of a design manager is to decide what projects your designers work on. …

“71% of millennials report that meaningful work is among the three most important factors defining career success, while 30% believe it is the most critical factor.” * If the most important thing is doing meaningful work, how does one go about finding that? That’s one question I’ve spent an inordinate…

Written by David Royer and Suelyn Yu Have you ever left a design critique feeling defeated and less excited about your work? Or frustrated because you didn’t get the type of feedback you were looking for? Learn how to run more effective design critiques that: Provide useful feedback to improve…

A checklist for UX designers, recruiters, and hiring managers — A lot of people have written helpful articles on how make a great UX portfolio. Like this, this, and this. It’s good to read sage advice from designers, but I think the most important thing to remember is this: You have less than 2 minutes to make your impression. Most…

Artist Statement There was something mesmerizing about the Water in Lake Malawi and sitting in our little rocky boat, I got sucked into it. I wanted to capture the Water, and to keep at the top of my pile of memories. I had my iPhone and I knew this wouldn’t be…