Monetizing at the Cost of the User Experience by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Companies don't like to consider how customers can be annoyed by monetization. Companies are always looking for ways to monetize their assets. Even attention is monetized these days. As we'll see in two examples, monetization can make or break the user experience. Monetizing Fail: Yahoo’s Decline (1990s-2010s) Yahoo used to be the tech darling of the internet, much like Google or OpenAI is today. The company had humble...
21 days ago • 2 min read
How to Build Comfort with Ambiguity By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, You're expected to lead even when you have no idea what the hell is going on. (I know, you’ve heard the next part a million times. Bear with me.) The world is moving faster than ever. Technologies shift overnight. Markets pivot on a dime. And somehow, you’re still just trying to get everyone to show up to the team meeting. We all know this, we’re surrounded by it. The speed, the volatility, the endless flood of decisions....
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
When Hype Comes Before User Insight by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Have you ever seen a hyped-up product that felt worthless? Today I want to tell you a tale of two companies and how they handled user demand. One took a hype-based approach, trying to create demand, while the other achieved real demand (and hype) through user insights. Hype-First Failure: Quibi (2020) On its surface, Quibi made perfect sense to investors in 2020. The idea was to create Hollywood-quality ten-minute movies and...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Not All “No’s” Are the Same Buy-in isn’t about pitching harder, it’s about listening better. By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, I hate the question “How do I get buy-in?” Not because it’s a bad question, but because it flattens something complex into a one-liner. It makes it sound like there’s a magic sentence you just haven’t found yet. Like all you need is the right slide deck, the right case study, or the right stakeholder charm to get a “yes.” But I hear it all the time from smart, motivated...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Are you stuck in reactive mode? by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Some designers spend their whole careers reacting to other people's moves. As a design manager, I remember being in this position. I had to brace myself every Monday morning for some radical change in company direction. We never knew what the new agenda would be, but we knew that it would throw our work into chaos. Sometimes, all it took was for the founder to read a single article to change the company agenda. When a competitor...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Why Your Portfolio Isn’t Working (and How to Fix It) By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Let’s talk about a harsh truth: Your UX portfolio might be the least important thing in your job search. Yep, I said it. You spent hours making sure it showcases your best work. You structured your case studies just right. You ensured your problem statements, research insights, and solutions flowed together. And yet… hiring managers are ghosting you like a bad Hinge date. Well, the problem isn’t your...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Chasing Competitors Instead of User Needs by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Have you ever had a CEO who was overly obsessed with beating the competition? I know I have. You may not have realized exactly how this can be toxic. So, I'd like to help you out with two case studies. Here is a tale of two companies and how they handled the competition. The first took a company-first approach while the second took a user-first approach. It goes like this... Company-First: The Rise & Fall of Google+ Google+...
4 months ago • 4 min read
Stop Being the ‘Nice’ Designer. Start Running the Room. By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Product design isn’t just about creating great experiences. It’s about getting sh*t done in a world where no one agrees on anything. You’ve been there. Stakeholder meetings where opinions fly, decisions stall, and somehow, you’re tasked with making it all make sense. What is Facilitative Leadership? Facilitative leadership is about leading without authority. It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Designing an AI-Powered Automation System by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, This week, I want to share something I use behind the scenes. I want to share something very nerdy that I've been working on 🤓 It's an automation system that I'm using to experiment with AI. If you've ever used a tool like Zapier, then you might like this sort of thing. I built it with Discord and Activepieces, and it's completely free. It looks like this: Here are some of the use cases: Work Automation - a productivity...
4 months ago • 1 min read
