Designing ethically may sound daunting at first, but Lennart Overkamp sets forth a template for engaging stakeholders around new priorities, exploring objectives that span from individual to global impacts, and finally measure their effects.
Topic: Process
Winning! Tools and techniques for fighting entropy. Working with clients and colleagues. Managing projects, people, budgets, and deadlines. Planning, facilitating, and finding balance. Keeping your creative spark. Giving your inner critic the boot. Banishing burnout. Setting agreements, expectations, goals, and game plans.
Design for Safety, An Excerpt
None of us want to build products that put our users’ safety at risk, but how do you reduce the risk that our products will be weaponized by abusers? In this excerpt from Design for Safety, Eva PenzeyMoog offers a clear strategy for building inclusive safety in our products.
Sustainable Web Design, An Excerpt
Climate change is a daunting problem to face, but in this excerpt from Sustainable Web Design, Tom Greenwood provides clear guidance on how we can track and moreover address the carbon footprint of our websites in order to lessen our impact on our planet.
Asynchronous Design Critique: Getting Feedback
Receiving feedback can be a stressful experience: will an open-ended question attract helpful guidance or harsh criticism? Erin “Folletto“ Casali has already taught us how to provide good feedback; now she shows how to have agency when receiving it. Follow her advice and you’ll be able to structure your feedback process to always generate an ego-friendly, focused, and above all actionably helpful review.
Asynchronous Design Critique: Giving Feedback
How do you know that you’re giving good feedback? Erin ‘Folletto’ Casali offers a tangible framework for delivering feedback through the lens of the design critique process in this first installment of a two-part series. While the examples are concrete and rooted firmly in the world of Design, the lessons are universally applicable: use them during performance reviews, code reviews, mentorship communications. The options are endless!
That’s Not My Burnout
Feeling connected and validated by experiences that mirror your own can help you understand how to conquer, or at least endure, times of struggle. But what if your struggle looks more like achievement? If you don’t see yourself reflected in accounts of burnout, it can be alienating and make you feel even more alone. If you reach the end destination of burnout by stepping on the gas instead of coasting to a stop, Donna Bungard will show you how to recognize that you’re low on fuel and give you a map of rest stops where you can refill your tank.
Keeping Your Design Mind New and Fresh
When we design for ourselves, we exclude anyone who is not like us. We know that, but breaking out of our experience bubbles is hard. In this excerpt from Volume 2 of RECOGNIZE, Regine Gilbert reminds us that successful, inclusive design comes from watching, observing, questioning, and exploring.
How to Get a Dysfunctional Team Back on Track
Everyone’s a good manager when their team is functioning perfectly. But what do you do when your team screws up? Liam Nugent tells how to face reality when work goes poorly, and shares practical steps to get your team back on track.
The Never-Ending Job of Selling Design Systems
You didn’t start your web career to be a politician or salesperson. But if you want to work on design systems, you have no choice. Ben Callahan shows you how to convince executives to fund the initial design system push and KEEP funding it.
Navigating the Awkward: A Framework for Design Conversations
We’ve all been there: a client or coworker shows you something they’ve worked on for hours or weeks, and your brain screams because their idea sucks. Author Ksenia Cheinman shows how the right conversational framework can help you navigate these all-too-frequent design interactions.
