My thoughts about design

Sharing the love for what I do and how to do it!

Content design for behavior change

Getting people to do something, while also telling them how to do it.

Taking content design center stage in a crisis

Using crisis communication principles with stakeholders in SF’s pandemic response.

Making content user-centered at San Francisco Digital Services

What it’s like working on content in-house in a local government agency.

How clear content can make living in San Francisco possible

How restructuring and rewriting content to a middle school reading level increased applications to a San Francisco affordable housing program by 34%.

On The Dark Knight, IA Summit, and designing communities we want

In which I have a lot of feelings over The Dark Knight (released 10 years ago), UX, IA Summit, and ultimately, optimism in designing the communities we want.

How to make an impact as a designer

So one thing has recently gotten my goat design-wise, and it’s not the usual handwringing about portfolios or coding or even “what do we call ourselves?” (Although those are entertaining too, in their own right.) I’m talking about something more inherent about design, in how newbies are approaching the design field. I especially see it… Read More »

Tips for a new design grad

Recent design grad, I can’t assure you that I know what I’m doing. I’m only a few years off of a career change into design myself, from a completely unrelated field. I still remember how I felt when I was totally green. But hey, I’m still here and actually being given more responsibilities the longer… Read More »

GovTech: The Job You Never Thought You’d Love

Why government is an awesome place to work for a technologist, and what you need to get there.

How I did user research on hitRECord, from user-generated content

Let’s be honest here. “User research” seems like this giant mysterious thing that you can only have if your company has a dedicated UX department with trained UX researchers, and the financial resources to pay users generously for their time in talking with you. If you don’t have that, might as well throw up your hands… Read More »

When things work, until they don’t

So I quit my job a little more than a month ago. I did cancer research, and I decided to go into user experience design. A number of people, when I told them, kind of scoffed at the idea and probably thought that I had to turn in my hippie idealist card. Design? Isn’t that… Read More »