During my tenure at Stack Overflow, one of my team’s major goals was to increase job applications submitted through our product. We knew that search was the primary path through which people found and applied to jobs, yet we hadn’t invested in improvements in years. …

A question and answer site for students and enthusiasts of the Japanese language. — During my tenure at Stack Overflow, I was tasked with designing an identity and visual design for Japanese Language Stack Exchange, a question and answer site for students and enthusiasts of the Japanese language. Research and concept development When developing early concepts, I drew inspiration from user feedback, Japanese art and writing, and Japanese…

You’ve asked your manager for feedback. They tell you that you’re doing great and that everyone loves working with you. Then performance evaluation season rolls around, and your review contains some surprising feedback: one of your team members thinks you’re difficult to work with, and another believes the caliber of…

Users who are knowledgeable and excited about your product offer unique challenges. They deeply understand the ins and outs of your product and are overflowing with ideas about how to make it better. They’re smart, articulate, and persuasive. They want your time and attention, and they expect to guide the…

You’re stumped on a coding problem. You’ve tried everything: scoured the internet, pinged your colleagues for help, and troubleshot for hours. Finally, you decide to ask your question on Stack Overflow — surely someone in this community of 50 million programmers can help you, right? …

If you work on a product that’s ever benefited from research — whether that’s talking directly to users, analyzing experiment data, or any number of other research methods — you know how indispensable these inputs are for making the right decisions. But how do you decide which methods to use…

You’ve been asked to design a new feature. You’re not sure that this feature will work without broader changes to the product. However, no one has asked you to design a new feature and a sweeping overhaul of the product. …

If you’re a product designer, you probably lead design projects every day, even if “lead” isn’t in your job title. Whether that’s by gathering user insights to identify the next thing your team could work on, designing solutions to user pain points, or running design reviews, the opportunities to lead…

This blog post was originally published to the Stack Overflow blog. It refers to “Channels”, a product which is now called “Teams.” This post is part of a series on how we’re making Channels, the thinking behind the product, and insight into the process. …