Articles

What a year. This time last year a friend of ours passed away suddenly, leaving a wife and two young boys without a father. It put things into sharp perspective. I wrote a post to capture my feelings and—tempting all the fates—ended it by saying ‘Bring it on, 2020’. 🤦🏻‍♂️ 2020 has been nothing sho... Read it →

I find it second nature to question myself. Often I’ll reflect and analyse in an endless loop, eventually introducing doubt into my own decisions. If you’ve ever watched The Good Place, I often joke to my wife when I’m ‘pulling a Chidi’, the character who tangles himself into logic... Read it →

When I spoke at the recent MUX London’s ‘Festival of UX & Design’ in September, I knew things would be different thanks to Covid-19. I just don’t think I realised how awkward it would be to hear your own voice so many times. Love/hate I’d assume like many,... Read it →

I’m jumping back onto the weeknotes train. Incidentally I’m changing the name to ’digests’. This is to lessen my own anxiety over not posting every week and allows me to write when I can, and about what I want. These days finding the time to write is few and far ... Read it →

The peak end rule suggests we remember experiences based on how we felt both at its peak (good or bad) and at its end. In the context of reflecting on 2019, an otherwise OK year will always be remembered as one of sadness and death. Two deaths within 2 weeks of each ... Read it →

Agile and design. Like oil and water, the two don’t play well together. Yet as we create more complex digital products and services, they need to work to a common goal. How might we keep the delivery and process of one without sacrificing the time and space required by th... Read it →

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 sure if this is a good or a bad thing. Weekends should be for 'relaxing' but in reality weekends are ... Read it →

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 time to write these. Why so late you ask? Oh, you know, my wife was just busy running the London ... Read it →

Claps. It’s what I’ve been calling a new XC route on the South Downs, a short skip from my front door. It stands for climbing + laps, and it’s a 7.11km XC loop that includes a long b*stard of a climb, some flat bits, a short and sharp ... Read it →

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... Clearleft seems to be pretty flush with interest these days, and on this evidence the death of the agency seems ... Read it →

OK, I’m doing it. I’m jumping on the weeknotes train. Next stop: frequency anxiety! 🚂 Folks may notice that I’ve given my corner of a web a little upgrade. This wasn’t only to create a better representation of me, but also to allow me to more easily publish str... Read it →

Digital transformation. It sounds so grandiose, doesn’t it? Like some sort of beautiful metamorphosis: an ugly caterpillar of old tech🐛 magically becoming a beautiful butterfly🦋, resplendent in its new digital wings. If only it were that magical. The reality is that digital transformation is damned hard. Having worked with clients ... Read it →

I’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. It’s the first time in more than a decade that I’ve been fully ‘on the inside’ and it’s afforded me some real insight and empathy ... Read it →

The retrospective is — in my opinion — one 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 gems for learning lie. In most cases a retrospective helps the immediate team understand where things went well and what can... Read it →

Our industry’s penchant for showing semi-fictional, utopian case studies has always rankled me. No project goes smoothly. There’s always something that goes wrong, and it’s often those moments where we grow the most. The preamble Over a year and half ago I had the pleasure of meeting Bertra... Read it →