Posts

A collection of articles, posts and thoughts since I began writing on the web.




Weeknotes #5,6,7

A triple whammy of backed-up weeknotes. Sundays are generally far too busy to be able to decompress, wind down and write a comprehensive recap of the past 7 days. I'm not ... Read it →


Weeknotes #4

So tardy with this week. Better late than never I suppose. I also think I have a relatively good reason, getting home late on Sunday night meant there was no ... Read it →


Weeknotes #3

Claps. Itā€™s what Iā€™ve been calling a new XC route on the South Downs, a short skip from my front door. It stands for climbing + laps, and itā€™s a 7.... Read it →


Weeknotes #2

What a week. Often accompanied by Rich, each day this week was spent travelling to a new, prospective or current client across London or Sussex. A good problem to have... ... Read it →


Weeknotes #1

OK, Iā€™m doing it. Iā€™m jumping on the weeknotes train. Next stop: frequency anxiety! šŸš‚ Folks may notice that Iā€™ve given my corner of a web a little upgrade. ... Read it →


6 Tips for a Successful Digital Transformation

Digital transformation. It sounds so grandiose, doesnā€™t it? Like some sort of beautiful metamorphosis: an ugly caterpillar of old techšŸ› magically becoming a beautiful butterflyšŸ¦‹, resplendent in its new digital ... Read it →


Do you speak businglish? Or designese?

Iā€™ve just finished a long stint working within a large, risk-averse organisation. Being product-side for a change has been an incredibly eye-opening experience. Itā€™s the first time in more... Read it →


Conducting project retros as customer journey maps

The retrospective isā€Šā€”ā€Šin my opinionā€Šā€”ā€Šone of the most important activities in any project. Routine post-sprint retros are a great indicator of project health, but end-of-project wash-ups are where the real gem... Read it →



Learning from failure in the design industry

Our industryā€™s penchant for showing semi-fictional, utopian case studies has always rankled me. No project goes smoothly. Thereā€™s always something that goes wrong, and itā€™s often those moment... Read it →


Crafting your origin story

My first salary job out of university was working as an Accounts Receivable manager. I somehow managed to get companies across Canada to pay their overdue invoices for my employer: ... Read it →



Leaving Clearleft

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. The same has to be said for leaving an agency that felt more like family than a job ... Read it →


Happy Places

Back in 2013 I visited NYC to attend the wonderful Brooklyn Beta conference. It was Autumn. There was a slight nip in the air, the leaves were turning, and the weather ... Read it →



Is the T-shape evolving?

Are designers evolving from just UX designers or just visual designers into multi-disciplinary generalists? There seems to be higher-quality design all-rounders coming back into vogue. Jack-of-all-trades When I was a ... Read it →


Visual inventories for agile design

As a visual designer working on agile projects, Iā€™ve said before how itā€™s easy to lose sight of the larger visual language in agile sprints. When youā€™re tackli... Read it →


When loading fast means learning fast

A few years ago when Mark wrote his article on performance budgets, we were working together on a redesign for a luxury travel holiday website. The use of large images ... Read it →


Is marketing being reborn as CX?

A decade or more ago, digital marketing was more of a blunt instrument. It was like the first stone axe - crude, but it got the job done. I started ... Read it →


Strava made me do it

A look into my use of Strava and how it's positively affected my behaviour over time. My name is Jon, and I'm a Strava user. I never thought I could ... Read it →


When agile's not creative

When designing a site, app or digital product, all of the elements on screen need to work together. They need to sing together, harmonise with one another and form something ... Read it →


Doing the SDW 100

Climbing 13,000 feet and riding 100 miles on a mountain bike... in a day. The South Downs Way is a long distance footpath and bridleway running along the South Downs in southern ... Read it →



Strava meets MarioKart

This article was originally posted on the Clearleft blog. Most Hack Farm projects start as someone's itch that needs scratching. Last year's TinyPlanner was Boxman's need for a backwards to-do ... Read it →



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