Everything, organized by how you read.
The Competitor Is Sleep
One of our design leaders referred to our adoption problem in a unique way: the competitor is sleep. Here's what changes when you design for customers whose attention is already spent.
Unbelievably Simple
Our north star moved from simple to unbelievably simple, and the design vision finally aligned with technical leadership. On adverbs with teeth.
Design the Wait
Crit on an AI conversion feature found the real design problem: a 5-minute wait. On progress, exits, completion sounds, and refining instead of restarting.
What Senior Sounds Like
A senior mobile candidate described breaking her design system on purpose and retiring her consumer instincts. Both answers map what senior actually sounds like.
The Tiger Team Tax
Standing up a fully dedicated team for a big partnership initiative meant pulling from squads already running lean.
The Narrative You Don't Have to Teach
A borrowed clinical narrative did more for our product story in one week than a quarter of feature announcements. On finding the story your users already believe.
They Can't Ask for What They Can't See
Trial feedback keeps finding users who never knew the feature existed. The fix we're testing: 30 to 90 narrated seconds of the product doing real work.
When the Assistant Becomes the Navigation
A designer asked the fair question about our AI assistant work: where's the revenue, and what comes after? A case for grading paradigm bets differently.
Lead with the Risk
Crit on a two-factor enrollment flow found 3 copy sins: a euphemistic link, a warning that opens with praise, and a screen that never names what it enrolls you in.
Start with the Smallest Room
We changed who's in the room for early AI discovery: the experience owner and the model expert, nobody else at first. A hackathon proved the pattern.
Philosophical Daylight
A hiring panel reached yes and then spent the hour naming the tension that came with it. Why the named flag is the most useful artifact a debrief produces.
Say No with a Name Attached
Coaching a lead whose superpower is saying yes to everything. The fix is a redirect: not just no, but here's who can run with it.
The Answer Got Designed in the Room
A crit on a photo upload feature ended with a live redesign built from a pattern the product already owned. How the room got there, and what it says about running crit well.
Ship It in One Room First
We decided to ship a new secondary navigation pattern in one part of the product over honest dissent about long-term inconsistency. The reasoning, the data, and how the dissent shaped the rollout.
Prioritization Isn't Real Until the Swap Is Named
A harsh comment in an executive review turned into a week of thinking about trade-offs, who names them, and why addition without subtraction reads as capacity.
20 Minutes and $5 per Frame
One of our design leaders handed an AI a Figma frame and asked for design critique. The results draw a precise map of where AI design review works today, and where it doesn't yet.
From Review It to Break It
A one-word change to how you run crit: ask the room to break a working prototype instead of reviewing flat screens. The mechanics, the precedent, and a starting point for your team.