Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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The WordPress design system exists and needs nurturing
It’s hard to miss something small if you walk past it or don’t look. The shoot of green in the ice thick grass as the first melt of the season occurs, perhaps, the drop of water might have fallen on the desert where the rain hasn’t fallen for so long. Even maybe for that needle,…
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A new path to explore
This year has been an incredible ride for me. It looks like it’s not done with the adventure because I am pleased to announce that I have joined XWP as a Senior Product Designer. The heart and passion of those within XWP is hard for me to put into words; I am so thrilled to…
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The implications of set forced play spaces in work
I was listening to the Post Status podcast this week where Cory Miller and David Bisset discussed creating time for play within work. I write this not thinking they were advocating for what I disagree with, but the podcast inspired me to share my perspective. Creating space for play absolutely resonates; we learn through play…
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Seek the sketching state
Sketching state is where everyone in product creation is collaborating enough and sharing enough that sketches work. All too often, spending lengthy time coming up with a complete prototype can be far too time-consuming. Passing pixel precision backwards and forth limits the flow and stops that spark of creativity. However, it’s not a state that…
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Opening your project for contributions
So you want to open source your project for others to contribute? That’s great, but where do you start? With a few things to consider, you can start on the right path from the start with contributions and avoid some of the common first step problems. This guide is a minimal viable opener if you…
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Designers grow in open source
When design is mentioned in open source, it’s often as a scarce resource, one yearned for or maybe hasn’t had an easy time. I think this might be problematic and needs changing. Designers can use open source projects as a growth opportunity and learn in a space that is accessible. I would go as far…
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Technical words matter
Words matter; we put labels on things, we put labels on each other. Those labels lead to judgements. The ways we judge what capability someone has or hasn’t in something technical only tend to lead to harm, I’ve found. It’s a way to limit before you even know someone, and that’s one way to block…
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Strike while the fear is low
Today I happened to be taking a tea break and saw a post in Slack by Cory Miller sharing a challenge he’s embarking on of 30 days clicking publish. I paused; I found myself wanting to click away, but for some reason, I wasn’t able to, and I found myself in this editor writing this…
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Look before you work
I had a Labrador that was fearless about jumping into the water. No matter what body of water it was, she would launch herself into it, seemingly without checking the depth or anything in a blissful trust of the water. Of course, we’d all love to have that total trust as we start a project…
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My talk writing process
Over the years, the way I write talks has varied. It’s morphed and iterated to a place where there is a particular flow I go through every talk. I wanted to share this as often I feel the creating of talk is an unknown thing, so here is how I do just that. Note storming…