A design-led company doesn't mean your landing page is pretty and slick, it means your product features are driven by your customer's needs and not just the imagination of your executives.
honestly I don’t know why funerals aren’t more like parties celebrating someone’s life.
if my funeral doesn’t have a photo booth that automatically photoshops a ghost version of me behind every photo I don’t want one
Most senior designers are expected to have a broad understanding with expertise in one area. We often call that a T-shaped skill set.
Those areas of expertise aren’t the same for everyone. Here are the most common areas I’ve seen senior designers become experts in:
🧵 Thread
With remote work having an increase in productivity and companies saving around $20k per employee by not relying on physical HQ spaces, what if companies re-invested those benefits into their employees with a 4 day work week?
Me 5 years ago: “I don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t value design”
Me today: “I don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t value research”
Understanding how engineers build things is a gigantic way to level up as a product designer.
If you understand at a high level how web, iOS, & Android layouts work it will help you anticipate problems, think through interactions more thoughtfully, and be a better teammate.
With all the good design systems vibes going around today with Figma's Schema conference, I'm thrilled to announce that I'm taking on a new role at Slack as the ✨ Director of Design Infrastructure✨
Slack Design's website and blog has a shiny *new* look (along with some fun Easter eggs 😉) and with it, some great open design roles that are now (drumroll please) remote friendly!
Follow along with what we've been up to and come work with us!
It sounds obvious, but easy to forget that having a vision vs. communicating a vision vs. bringing a vision to life are all different and unique skillsets.
Free idea: 4 day work weeks, some people work Monday, some people work Friday to help ensure coverage. Both days are no company meeting days, with all meetings happening Tues Weds Thurs.
I can nearly guarantee most companies would be more productive.
Incredibly excited for the roll out of Slack Huddles today. We've been using it for months now to have quick clarifying convos, replace meetings, and have better, more contextual 1:1s.
The team did an incredible job and we hope it helps you work a little better together ❤️
After 4 incredible years at
@Etsy
, I’m very excited to start managing the Design Systems team at
@Dropbox
today.
Annie, Lulu, and I will be living in the East Bay, so if you live in the Bay Area, let’s be friends!
wild how much of getting older in your career is realizing that a lot of people you used to look up to actually have a terrible reputation and are just really good at talking about themselves online 🥴
just got hit with my first surprise
@figma
billing where it added two editors to my bill and charged automatically when all I did was give them file permissions on one file.
wild to me how a company who does so much good for the community still hasn’t fixed this dark pattern
I wouldn't have the job or skills I have if people hadn't taken a chance on me, mentored me, and allowed me to fail gracefully.
If you're experienced at what you do, take the time to invest in people—specifically people who haven't had the same opportunities as you.
Designers looking for jobs: the next few months will likely be a terrific time to find a new role.
Any hiring freezes will likely end and churn will happen as people feel comfortable enough to leave.
Start prepping your resumes and portfolios!
A guy on an e-scooter passed me going uphill on my bike and yelled “guess you can’t beat technology!”
I then proceeded to pass him going downhill and folks, it was just really great.
Kyle rittenhouse openly murdered 2 people and is going to walk free, while folks had to beg the gov of oklahoma for months to prevent an innocent black man from being executed.
If you are still blind to the blatant systemic racism in our justice system, I don’t know what to say.
Howdy folks. I’ve made the difficult decision to resign from Retool.
It’s not easy, so I wrote some thoughts on how I’ve been recently thinking about my career as more of a “practice.”
Curious on what that means or want to work together? Let’s chat!
We're hiring for an interesting role for a Product Designer at Slack who is about 4~ years into their career.
We're looking for someone who really enjoys the *details of visual and interaction design.* Formal product design background not necessarily required. DMs are open!
hey you, yes you—
you don’t need to do anything that progresses your life or career forward today.
take a break. do nothing. smell the roses. lay in a hammock. go on a walk with no destination. watch the clouds. enjoy the earth. do you.
Putting this out here because 2021 is about ✨manifesting ✨ and I think more people need to see the opposite of hustle culture.
My current 5–10 year goal is to be able to work no more than 30 hours a week, 9 months out of the year.
Between therapy, exercise, and getting vaccinated ya boy is finally coming out of a year-long funk and wow, I truly forgot what it felt like to feel okay.
Been thinking about
@davidhoang
's recent talk mentioning "sr. designer purgatory," where designers get promoted from jr. to sr. quickly then don't get promoted after for many years.
I'm curious if anyone has seen a company solve this well.
There is a gigantic gap of mentorship in this upcoming generation of designers. I’ve seen many “senior” designers who are constantly worried about new tools, trends, and growing their own career and not looking at the growth of junior designers in the industry.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when designers or engineers blame bad user experiences on the design system.
A design system does not solve user problems, it's a *tool* to solve user problems. If the way you're implementing the system is a bad user experience, that's on you bud.
Good design starts with layers of truth that build upon each other.
Often I’m pondering: what question do I need to ask today in order to answer the next question tomorrow?
I remember going to design conferences when I was younger and feeling inspired but intimidated.
It’s easy to look at what everyone is doing and think: “I need to do more. I need to be more.”
As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized the most wonderful thing you can be is yourself.
Excited to grow the Design Systems team at
@Dropbox
and looking for a Sr Product Designer in SF to help take our systems to the next level.
Must be:
- Visually & technically minded
- Skilled at finding & creating patterns
- Organized, thoughtful, & collaborative
DMs are open :)
[CW: Suicide]
I tried to commit suicide in high school. Thankfully I failed. Things weren’t easy, but eventually I found so many people that would make my life better than I could imagine.
People love you, even if you don’t know them yet. ❤️
#WorldSuicidePreventionDay
Super excited about the release of Clips today! We've been using it internally and it makes it so easy to share design walkthroughs and explain ideas. The team did a stellar job on making it feel seamless and accessible and we hope you love it.
Stepped into the mechanical keyboard world this week based on
@joeyabanks
’ recommendation.
Decided to customize it a bit with GT Flexa Mono from
@grillitype
.
No matter the size of your company, designers should interact with real customer impressions (ux research, surveys, feedback, etc) at *least* 2 times per month.
Nothing inspires and clears the air more than getting out of your own bubble and talking to your customers.
Listen, I’m extremely lucky and actually love my job, but on the weeks that I have 3 days to rest, the work I do is much much better and my life overall feels much more full and balanced.
Becoming a software designer can feel daunting and confusing when you’re starting out, so I wrote this (somewhat lengthy!) post for
@slack_design
on some core pillars for digital product design. Take a look and feel free to share :)
A reminder to design job-seekers: “can design good” is only around 25% of what makes you hire-able.
Being able to show that you can listen, grow, and and support your team is critical to ensure your good designs can actually make it to production and benefit customers.
It's really easy as a leader to become so disconnected from your employees that you forget that performance is nearly always tied to motivation and clarity.
👋 We're looking for an experienced product designer to come lead our design system at Slack.
It's staff-level IC role, with no management responsibilities needed, focused solely on building & growing the system—tons of potential and support.
Apply here:
@tiffani
It's really heartbreaking how my generation in particular has really latched on to thinking of cities as something to consume and takeover instead of something to build and contribute to.
I was excited about figma slides, but really don't love how disconnected it is from the design editor. porting over an existing presentation I was working on was a massive pain.
I understand why they made it "separate" but really wish figjam, design, and slides blended better.
Can we talk about how a group of armed, white nationalist men currently marching in Portland was founded by the co-founder of Vice and named after a deep cut Disney song
3 of my fav things about Claude rn:
1) if you're a designer who leans even slightly technical, it makes you feel like you have superpowers
2) it's so fast, justifiable, and fun to make lil one-off apps to make your life slightly better
3) that combo is very inspiring 🤓😇
🙏
@AnthropicAI
&
@Cursor_ai
was feeling pretty dull in the past year but i'm awake now... figma > app, "pixel perfect"
welp. i have a bunch of ideas let's do this
I could not be more excited about a new feature in called Artifacts. It’s completely changed the way I’ve collaborated with Claude and we can’t wait to see what it helps you do.
Huge huge props to
@mkwng
for bringing this feature to life.
We're also launching a preview of Artifacts on .
You can ask Claude to generate docs, code, mermaid diagrams, vector graphics, or even simple games.
Artifacts appear next to your chat, letting you see, iterate, and build on your creations in real-time.
sadly the design engineering space appears largely male dominated (or at least that’s who is most vocal).
who are some talented non-male design engineers doing cool things?
let’s amplify their work!
Looking for a part-time Sr. Product Design contractor to help with our Design System, Slack Kit!
- 6 month contract
- 2-3 days a week
- Can weave Figma components together with effortless ease
- Likes to have fun at work :)
Interested? Send a DM with portfolio!
@skuwamoto
@figmadesign
The ol' classic "it depends" however, some of my favorite splits at its most simple have been where:
- PM owns the problem and business goals.
- PD owns the solution and user goals.
Reminder for those interviewing:
In the state of CA, employers must provide you a pay scale for the role (usually after your first interview) and are forbidden from asking your salary history.
Get paid, y'all.