Thinking out loud
about the craft

A client wrote that he only used the app to check his balance, because it didn't feel safe enough to move money. That one sentence changed the priority of an entire project, and the app's store rating went from 3.5 to 4.7. A conversation about what synthetic users give you, what they have no way of giving you, and the test I use to decide where they belong.

August 07, 2026 · 9 min read

A beautiful interface makes users like your product more. It also makes them give you a high ease-of-use score on a test where they just struggled through the task right in front of you. The aesthetic-usability effect is the most polite trap in user research.

July 10, 2026 · 5 min read

I'm paying off the promise from my last post: emotional design. Don Norman's three levels explain why we decide we like a product long before we understand it.

July 09, 2026 · 4 min read

UX and UI aren't the same role. Practical differences, where job posts blur the lines, and why both disciplines work together in product design.

December 24, 2019 · 3 min read