Your job title makes you susceptible to bad product decisions — “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” — Mark Twain In the fable of the blind men and the elephant, blind men touch different parts of an elephant and argue over what it really looks like…

A big list of things to try when you’re out of ideas — I love starting new projects. There’s something so thrilling and about an empty canvas. “This design is going to be amazing,” I always think before I start. Cut to two weeks later, and I’m banging my head against my desk. That’s how I used to feel at least. I…

What to read when you’re learning (or struggling with) design — Books are a surprisingly good way to learn about design. I say “surprisingly” because it’s easy to assume digital design is best learned with digital tools. But I always seem to learn the fundamentals best when reading paper books. These are the books I recommend to designers — to my…

The four *least*-teachable traits of great designers — How do you spot a great future designer? Look for people with skills that are hard to teach. In my product design classes, the hardest thing to teach has been this: The ability to quickly evaluate a design, generate slightly-better solutions, and stay fully engaged in this loop long enough…

Step one: literally put your priorities in order — The secrets to getting [what you want] are having done the homework to know you’re asking for the right thing, the confidence to ask for it, and the willingness to walk away when you can’t get it. — Mike Monteiro, Design is a Job I know what it’s like to…