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Daniel Gilman reposted thisDaniel Gilman reposted thisThis is one of the smartest bits of interaction design I've seen in years It's just a cupboard door... Behind the frosted glass you can see shadows moving Toy Story characters, playing about Open the door to catch them and they're frozen, lifeless, yet close it and the shadows start moving again The designers have taken the actual rule of Toy Story, that toys only move when nobody's looking, and made the rule the interaction itself No screen No start button Just a simple sign and all it says is 'take a peek inside without being seen' That's an invitation a challenge a dare So, you open the door because what else would you do? You test it Close the door, they move Open it, they stop Close it again Within seconds you've worked out how the system behaves and nothing needed any explanation This is exactly what grinds my gears about the way we talk about intuitive design 'Make it intuitive' is what people say when they can't describe the behaviour they want That ain't any kind of a brief! People experience something as intuitive when it behaves the way they already expect it to, from what they know or what they've learned elsewhere Nobody needs teaching that opening a door shows you what's inside Nobody needs teaching that shadows mean something is moving What's clever here is that the physical action, the user's expectation, the fictional rule and the system response all line up Four foundational design components that fit together, which is much more scarce than it should be... Stop asking how to make it intuitive Start finding out what users already expect to happen here, and whether the product can behave that way 🔥🔥🔥
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Daniel Gilman posted thisI was just responding to another designer’s post about design tools, and it made me think about how much energy we spend debating which platform is “winning.” Adobe is dead. Figma is dead. Canva is replacing everything. I think we’re focusing on the wrong thing. A tool is a tool. Illustrator can do things Figma simply cannot, especially when it comes to logo and identity work. Personally, I would never build out a full brand identity in Figma, and definitely not in Canva. That doesn’t mean those tools don’t have value. I’ve used Canva to create presentations for clients because it gives them an easy way to make updates themselves. It’s useful for that purpose. It just wouldn’t be my primary design tool. What matters more is knowing which tool is right for the work you’re trying to produce. We need to move beyond judging designers and design leaders by the software they use and focus instead on the thinking, craft, execution, and quality of the work. Great work doesn’t come from Figma, Adobe, Canva, or whatever tool comes next. It comes from the designer using it.
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Daniel Gilman posted thisI was talking with someone recently about what happens when UX research and Product don’t fully align. I don’t see it as UX versus Product. We’re both trying to make the best decision with the information available. The key is to come back to the evidence: What did users actually do? How consistent was the behavior? How significant is the issue? What business or technical constraints exist? Sometimes research changes the design. Sometimes business constraints win. Sometimes we need more evidence. My role as a UX designer is to make the tradeoff visible, so the team is making an intentional decision based on evidence, not assumption. #UXDesign #ProductDesign #UXResearch #ProductManagement
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Daniel Gilman reposted thisDaniel Gilman reposted thisYour clients aren’t low-budget. Your pitches are just missing one of these 2 things: 1️⃣ A solution to a problem they actually have. 2️⃣ A clear belief that the value they get is worth more than the price. That’s the entire formula.
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Daniel Gilman shared thisI'm attending The World of UX Monthly Meetup — August 2026. Join me on August 28.Daniel Gilman shared thisThe next World of UX Monthly Meetup will be held on Friday, August 28, 2026 at 12:15 p.m. Everyone is cordially invited to join us in connecting with UX professionals from all over the world for basic monthly, coffeehouse-style discussions. - Doors will open at 12 noon EST. - Pick a table to join a conversation once you enter the room. - You can move between tables during the event. - If a table is full, you may need to access a different table (until a spot opens). - Consider this a safe space to talk about ANYTHING you like regarding UX
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Daniel Gilman reposted thisDaniel Gilman reposted thisBoston publishes 200+ open datasets. 311 calls, crime reports, building permits, restaurant inspections, every public tree in the city. Almost nobody can actually use them. On Saturday, August 22, The Open Accelerator is handing that problem to a room full of builders. One day, one job: build a RAG system that lets a resident just ask — "why does my street always flood?", "is my favorite restaurant clean?", "where does my tax money actually go?" and get an answer grounded in real city data, with citations back to the source. Two tracks. Pick where you're strongest: 🔧 The Engine : RAG architecture and technical innovation. Hybrid search, agentic retrieval, graph RAG, eval pipelines. A terminal demo can absolutely win this one. 📱 The Experience : UI/UX and citizen usability. Conversational, multilingual, accessible, mobile-first. LangChain + ChromaDB is completely fine here; what's scored is whether a real Bostonian would open it twice. Both tracks score out of the same 16 points, so the numbers are directly comparable, the top two from each meet in a head-to-head final in front of the whole room. Each track crowns its own winner. No overall champion, no side prizes. 📍 The Open Accelerator, Fort Point, Boston 🗓️ Saturday, August 22 · 9:30 AM – 6:30 PM 💻 Bring a laptop, a team of 2–5, and a question you've always wanted the city to answer Boston already published the data. Come make it answer. ✔️Register ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gPspP2bY ✔️Full brief, rubric, datasets and prep list ➡️ https://lnkd.in/g5DUiaFF The Open Accelerator Stacey Webb Logan Currie Stefanie Chiras, Ph.D. Matt Puccini Aditi Saluja William Caban Mary Shakshober Julia Denham Lucas Yoon Lincoln Saha Anish Sinha Dharit Shah Rohan Devasthale Linda Alexander Mike Grandinetti #RAGtheCity #OpenData #BostonTech #RAG #OpenSource #AI #Hackathon #TheOpenAccelerator
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Daniel Gilman reposted thisDaniel Gilman reposted thisInstead of watching 1 hour of Netflix tonight, watch this ex-Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean’s lecture. It’s the clearest explanation I’ve seen of the full AI engineering stack - from building LLMs from scratch all the way to one human coordinating 100 agents. The best part is that it’s useful whether you’ve never touched a model or you’ve been shipping agent systems every day for the past year. Together with this guide, you will be able to Build an Agentic OS with Claude Fable 5 in a few hours 🤖: https://lnkd.in/dZsST5qR Bookmark it & watch the whole lecture this weekend (link: https://lnkd.in/dvPN8utM), because it might end up being the most valuable thing you learn all week.
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Daniel Gilman posted thisI’ve spent much of my career thinking about how people experience design. Lately, I’ve been thinking more about how design moves. Motion. Animation. Video. Sound. Storytelling. A great experience isn’t always a screen someone clicks through. Sometimes it’s 15 seconds of animation that explains an idea instantly. A moment of motion that creates emotion. Or a story that makes someone stop scrolling and actually pay attention. That intersection between design, technology and storytelling is where I’m spending more of my creative energy. And I’m excited to start sharing more of that work here. Because sometimes the best way to communicate an idea isn’t to design another screen. It’s to bring the idea to life.
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Daniel Gilman posted thisThe longer I work in product design, the more I realize that some of the most important UX work never makes it into the portfolio. It’s the conversation that prevents a team from building the wrong thing. The question that uncovers a problem nobody had considered. The decision to simplify instead of adding another feature. The design system choice that saves developers hours of unnecessary work. The ability to walk into a complicated business problem, understand what matters, and create clarity for both the user and the organization. Great UX isn’t just what appears on the screen. It’s the thinking that got you there. After 25+ years in design, that’s still the part of the work I love most.
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Daniel Gilman reacted on thisDaniel Gilman reacted on thisOne week at MIT, and I’m feeling incredibly grateful for the warm welcome from colleagues, the curiosity and energy of students, and a culture that values both meaningful work and the importance of life beyond work. I am also thankful to my support system who has been cheering me on. Sometimes you need to take a moment, take a deep breath, and reflect about your journey. I am fortunate I am to be part of this community. #MIT #Gratitude #Community #philanthropy
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Daniel Gilman reacted on thisDaniel Gilman reacted on thisSometimes you really need to think about things that aren't work in order to get yourself back. Tonight, I did just that. Made a beautiful meal with ground beef, zucchini, romano beans, tomatoes, eggplant, corn and hungarian wax peppers. All the ingredients except the beef, beans and corn were grown in my garden. Welcome to why we work, friends. So we can have a good life outside of it.
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Daniel Gilman reacted on thisWhen you work for an organization dedicated to eradicating the fear and burden of cancer, witnessing firsthand the lives touched by this vision fills you with an overwhelming sense of awe that words alone cannot convey. Congratulations, Dr. Wolpin, the Wolpin-Nowak Lab (https://lnkd.in/eyfwvmf5), and Dana-Farber Cancer InstituteDaniel Gilman reacted on thisThe FDA has approved daraxonrasib for adult patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer. The approval is based primarily on results from the Dana-Farber-led RASolute 302 trial showing daraxonrasib nearly doubled median overall survival versus chemotherapy. Learn more about this approval and the impact on pancreatic cancer patients: https://bit.ly/46npj6F
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Michael Askew
Michael Askew
UX Evangelist, Entrepreneur, Cognitive Designer, and Aspiring Writer.<br><br>I am humbled and fortunate to have had opportunities in my career that have challenged me, forcing me to always be sharpening the blade. I’ve learned so much while working with top talent, and crafting experiences used by billions. It feels great, however there is so much more to do. Everyday I see standards ignored, or experiences that can be sooo much better.<br><br>To the user, the experience IS the product.
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Akshan Ish
I’ve sat on both sides of the senior IC design interview table — first as a hiring manager for six years, and more recently as a candidate. Here are some hard-earned lessons from that experience, along with a few examples from the presentation that helped me land my most recent role. Let me know if any of these lessons resonate, and I'm also curious what's worked well for you in a Staff+ presentation.
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Dane O'Leary 🍀
There are 3x more IC roles than design management roles (via Linkedin Jobs). And yet… many companies still frame management as the one path ahead. 🧠 What designers actually want: → 69% prefer staying IC (via Artiom Dashinsky) → Staff Designers earn $186K–$350K, Principals $241K–$499K—same or more than many managers (via Levels.fyi). There are plenty of high-impact IC paths that scale influence, but 3 I’d like to highlight include: ➀ The Classic Ladder: Senior → Staff → Principal → Distinguished. It’s leadership sans the direct reports. ➁ Design Systems Track: Build tools other designers rely on. Example: Diana Mounter grew GitHub’s Primer from scratch to scale—through systems, not promotions. ➂ Research Pivot: Shifting from designing solutions to informing them. The real blocker is company structure. What enables IC careers: ☑ Staff/Principal roles with parity pay ☑ ICs with real strategy input ☑ Documented advancement frameworks ☑ No pressure to manage “just to grow” What kills them: ☒ “We’re working on it” ☒ All senior roles = managers ☒ Pay ceilings for ICs ☒ Invisible ladders, no role models ICs don’t want to “stay put.” They want to go deep—and be rewarded for it. 🤔 Have you navigated this path—or hit a ceiling? I’m curious to hear other takes… #uxcareers #designleadership #uxdesign #individualcontributor #productdesign ⸻ 👋🏼 Hi, I’m Dane—your source for UX and career tips. ❤️ Was this helpful? A 👍🏼 would be thuper kewl. 🔄 Share to help others (or for easy access later). ➕ Follow for more like this in your feed every day.
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