Level-up your critiques in 3 questions By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, You know the critique that starts with “quick feedback” and ends 45 minutes later with five conflicting opinions and no next step? Or the one where a senior voice speaks first and the room quietly aligns, even when the data points elsewhere. Here’s a simple pattern, adapted from Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), that pulls critiques out of taste debates and into clearer decisions. What VTS is (in 60 seconds) VTS is a...
23 days ago • 4 min read
The Summer Edition(and a Free Masterclass) by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, I'm taking some time off for summer, and I hope you are, too. When I'm off, I end up watching a lot of YouTube, so... A Free Masterclass on YouTube If you've ever wondered about design strategy, this masterclass has you covered. It's called "What is Design Strategy?" The toolbox of the design strategist is incredibly powerful, but it's not well documented. See what it looks like when the designer's sphere of influence...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
A Workshop Agenda No One Wants By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Last week, I posted a fake workshop agenda on LinkedIn. The kind we’ve all been in that drains your will to collaborate. I shared it as a joke. It reached 100,000+ people • 800+ likes • 100+ comments • 20+ reposts But the comments weren’t just laughs. They were…grief. People didn’t just say “ha ha, I’ve seen this.” They said: “Oh no. I’ve run this.” The real takeaway? We’re not bad at facilitation, we have to break the status quo. We...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
5 Signals That Hint at the Future of AI Interactions by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, The AI landscape is changing fast, and the way we interact with AI is changing even faster. Who knows what the UX of AI will be in 2035? Right now, most of us talk to AI through clunky, chat-based interfaces. But new hardware hints at something more human and ambient. Today, I want to share 5 signals: surprising examples from today that suggest where the future might end up, and a method used by future foresight...
2 months ago • 2 min read
When Your Strategy Slides Hit Silence By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, I’ve shared strategy before, and watched it stall. Not because it was wrong. But because the room didn’t know what to do with it. I wasn’t looking for feedback. I wasn’t asking for approval. I was hoping they’d pick it up and run with it. Instead? Confusion. Silence. They didn’t see what I saw. Not because they didn’t care. But because I’d built the strategy, not the on-ramp they needed to step into it. It’s something I’ve...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Let's Talk about Liquid Glass by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Goodbye, paper-like design. Hello, moving blobs of liquid glass! Play button blunder from Apple Apple's new paradigm in aesthetics is both cool and potentially awful at the same time. "Rather than trying to simply re-create a material from the physical world, Liquid Glass is a new digital meta-material that dynamically bends and shapes light." -Apple Just when you thought skeuomorphism was dead, it rears its realistic head again. I...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Assumption Olympics: Why I Always Win Gold in Overreacting By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, I once pitched a new workshop format to a team of collaborators. One person nodded slowly and said, “Hmm… okay.” That was it. I smiled. Externally, totally composed. Internally? I sprinted up a mental staircase of conclusions: They don’t like it. They’re being polite. They think I’m not strategic. This was a bad idea. I’ve blown this opportunity. Maybe I’m not cut out for this work. I didn’t realize I was...
4 months ago • 3 min read
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...
4 months 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....
5 months ago • 4 min read
