Only 17 months ago, our team wrote the first line of code for the Simple app. Today, clinicians manage over 125,000 patients with hypertension. What got us there? — The challenge It might surprise you that high blood pressure (hypertension) is one of the most common causes of death in the world. High blood pressure leads to heart disease and strokes, and it kills more people than all infectious diseases combined. In many countries, like the US or India, about 1-in-4…

When we occupy all of the leadership roles, we stifle diversity all the way down — Over the last couple of years, several of my friends have landed coveted leadership roles at a company that I’ll call BIG DESIGN STARTUP. First one guy that I know joined as a VP, then a close guy friend took another VP position, then another friend became a director. …

One of our partners, Dr Prabhdeep Kaur, had a meeting with a government official who wanted “powerful” clinical software, not a “simple” tool like Simple. Dr Kaur asked us for ammunition to make the case that well-designed, easy-to-use software is better for clinicians. — We asked the larger design community for suggestions. People came through with excellent suggestions and we thought it would be helpful to share them with you:

In July, the team behind Simple put out a call for contributions to the brand for this open source project. Simple is an app for healthcare workers to track patients with high blood pressure. The contributions from the community have been nothing short of stellar. Whoa! We are so happy…

I’ve been to many conferences over the last twenty years. Mostly the speakers droned on about their topics, which were easily forgotten. Thinking back, only a few big ideas really stuck with me. These are three ideas I’ve come back to over and over again in my career. There is a big difference between designed well and well-designed. Graphic design…

I am the director of design for Resolve to Save Lives, which is an initiative of the not-for-profit organization Vital Strategies. We are currently working on apps for doctors, nurses, and patients under the new moniker: Simple. Fourteen years ago, a group of us helped design the Firefox identity. We…

I asked a whole bunch of designers what books, which weren’t specifically about digital or graphic design, inspired them. And, wow I got a ton of great responses. Here are twelve of the most popular recommendations: 1. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs The classic book about city planning in a humane way. …

Twenty years ago, when I started my design career, I made a lot of fake stuff. I can still clearly remember when I designed my own CD covers for albums by famous bands, created a fake e-commerce site with my friends, recreated famous logos in Corel Draw, redesigned a popular…

Recently, Jared Spool caught my attention with an article about how Netflix’s performance engineers are actually designers. It’s a provocative idea, but it makes sense. His argument is that everyone in your organization (including performance engineers) designs the product, not just the people with “design” in their job titles.