A UI Kit Is Not a Design System
In 2026 the line between a “UI kit” and a “design system” is pretty firm. A Figma component library, even a strong one, is a UI kit. It is not a design system.
Transferable Isn't the Same as Compatible
I've spoken at length before about the differences between different fields of design or product roles. Some folks may say, "So what, I can learn what I don't know?" And I would agree with you. If you recognize the differences, I am confident many
I never said the word
Last night, I was two drinks in when he said it. "DEI? I hate DEI. Diversity, equity, inclusion?! It's a scam!" He said this like he was reciting something memorized by heart and taught to react with. Probably because he was. Somebody sold him that line,
Let the training wheels come off
You want to help. You think you're teaching, modelling, holding the bar to a particular quality, and protecting your team from mistakes. You mean well, want to help your people, and see your team and mission succeed. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of that. In
Who and what are you?
I've been chatting with a lot of folks across industries lately who are afraid of losing their jobs or have already lost them. Meanwhile, I've also had interesting chats with folks new to their industry, with zero training, who are using tools like AI to fill
How do you ensure your research recommendations lead to real projects with impact?
I was recently asked exactly that by someone, and I thought I would share my answer broadly because I think it's a great question and one I've seen junior product and research folks struggle with. The truth is, there are several ways to ensure your research
Small isn't lean and large isn't bureaucratic.
"Lean" and "small" are different things, yet most people use the words interchangeably. If you aren't familiar with it, "Lean," as a framework and philosophy for business, was invented at Toyota, a company with hundreds of thousands of employees. It's
Why a product leader wrote an SEO book
I am a product leader. My first book is about Answer Engine Optimization, the practitioner's name for getting your content cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews, to name a few. On paper, that might sound like I'm doing a weird pivot.
AI coding tools are becoming inescapable. That’s why we need to use them better.
I use Claude Code for hours every day. Over the past two weeks I’ve run 176 sessions, made 265 commits, and hit an 88% achievement rate across tasks. A strange thing to admit when I’d still consider myself anti-AI in many respects. You see, I started to
We Need Better Guardrails On AI, Yesterday
"We'll use AI responsibly." Have you heard a statement like this from leadership or a colleague? Maybe you haven't even experienced those hollow words and were dismissed or ignored when trying to raise this topic. Worse, maybe you work for an AI company and
Good Design Is Iterative
Good design is iterative. Yes, I made a blanket statement, and yes, I am standing by it. What do I mean? Iterative design builds better products through repeated cycles of prototyping, testing, and refining based on feedback. The success of a design is also contextual, based on the current end-
5 Down, 17 to Go: My March Product Madness
I'm challenging myself to ship 22 MVPs this March—one every weekday—fueled by my love for TTRPGs, design systems, and rapid prototyping. While I do allow myself to work on some of them for multiple days, at least two a week I am trying to start and