Principles
These principles are meant to guide my team’s work and culture. They combine purpose, creativity, and rigor while keeping the process enjoyable and impactful.
1. No pain-points, just vibes*
“If you’re bored by your own work, you’re doing something wrong.”
— FGT Design Team
The problems we work on are hard enough. Be on the lookout for internal strife. When work feels like a struggle, that’s a sign to pause, rewind and fast-forward. Take a beat, assemble as a team to reflect on why the vibes are off, and make a plan to move forward together.
The more you enjoy your work, the more others will enjoy working with you, and the better our results will be.
* Credit Ken Hill for coining the phrase “No pain-points, just vibes”, in a team ceremony. The phrase really took a life of it's own and served as our team motto at Front Gate Tickets.
2. Identify the Resonant Frequency
Each project has some purpose behind it that strikes a chord with the user, the business and the team building it. Know the why behind each project. Tap into design’s inherent coolness to align teams around a shared vision by owning the design story in product presentations.
3. Quantify the Impact
“Speak with data... Trying to solve a problem without hard data is akin to resorting to hunches and feelings – not a very scientific or objective approach."
— Masaaki Imai
Back up the story with data. Measure outcomes of individual, team, and project goals. Use data to document, prove, and evolve impact.
4. Problem First
“The problem is always derived from the subject; the solution is always hidden somewhere in the problem.”
— Paul Rand
Keep a problem-first mindset. Use techniques like the 5 Whys to uncover root causes. Try “un-ideas” to spark creativity by imagining the worst solutions or opposite problems. Problems and solutions are two sides of the same coin.
5. Aim for non-linear results.
“Know the game you're in... Play the game as a sequence of options.”
— Kobe Bryant
How can you solve multiple problems with one elegant solution? How can your work help you and the team level up as a whole? See work as an opportunity, not just for the problem at hand, but also how it may align with your own goals. Look for solutions that expand possibilities for users, instead of binary results.
6. A prototype is worth a 1000 meetings
Prototype before you spec. So much time is wasted in traditional spec-driven development talking and guessing about solutions we don’t fully understand, when you could just build a prototype and find out.
Leverage prototypes to gain a deeper understanding of the problem space before writing specs. Prototypes are questions, not answers. Design prototypes to uncover why something works, not just what works.
Don’t be afraid of throw-away code. Start small, scrappy, and refine as you go.
7. Simplify, then add lightness
“Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.”
— Colin Chapman
UX works the same way: reduce cognitive load, minimize clutter, build on existing models, and offload tasks when possible.
