What tools do designers use? — Earlier this week, I made a series of extensive jokes on Twitter about ketchup as a design tool. Yes, ketchup as in the condiment. The original joke was a play off of a post where the author spoke about Webflow as the ultimate web design tool, or as they put…

Protect yourself and your company from buying an ineffective product that claims it makes websites accessible. — The Overlay It was the end of another long Thursday as my colleague, and I sat at her desk, staring at the screen. Monica and I were both Product Designers who had joined a company around the same time. …

Introduction At the start of 2021, I had the amazing opportunity to partner with AIGA DC to offer a virtual Ask Me Anything (AMA) event. We did this live via their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Slack group (which anyone can join)! With the permission of the AIGA DC programming directors, I…

“Stories are the slot machines of social media.” This week, I laid out an argument on Twitter about how I believe stories are the slot machines of social media. However, due to this thread’s spread, I feel it is necessary to expand on this statement to clarify some of the details. Why would I make such a sweeping…

How my food sensitivity led me to realize the risk of search suggestions. — For the past eight years of my life, I have had to deal with varying degrees of food sensitivities. It wasn’t until a year ago that I was diagnosed with celiac disease, an autoimmune disease where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. It was my…

Defining the line between dark patterns and winning experiences — Many designers are familiar with the tactics that companies use to create addicted users, but how often do we use these patterns ourselves? How are we evaluating the difference between a dark pattern and a winning experience? To understand these methods, we must assess experiences in-depth to see how we…

It was just another Thursday evening, in which I found myself checking my Twitter to relieve the pressures of the day. Usually, I see anywhere from 0–2 notifications, but that day, there was one that caught my eye in my inbox. …

As we enter another semester with the looming presence of COVID, many of us are preparing our classes to be online or as blended as possible. Last Spring, many of our schools and businesses moved online within days, but many of us weren’t prepared for that to happen. …

Recently, accessibility in tech has been a hot topic. We are currently at peak popularity for terms like “WCAG” and “A11Y” in search engines. Certainly, the rise of web accessibility lawsuits plays a part in this increased interest, but with COVID-19 we are faced with using more online tools now…