bedroom, portland, oregon

13:08 articles and nix

the saddest designer

https://chias.blog/2021/the-saddest-designer/

• creation: potential syonym to design; "after I am made, all I must do is make"
• it's natural for us to create tools - and digital tools are the tools of the future
• "for the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time" - brian eno
• making because what else is there to do? it's the best way forward and the best way to pursue progress. we use tools - and we need more!

ux moats

https://saradu.substack.com/p/ux-moats (I should write more!) We need new search engines! So much we can do with them.

1. start by being better than others and using current innovations!
2. deepen features to incraese user utility, learn user preferences, etc…
3. visual brand: distinct identity that make it difficult for the user to move to a different platform. (hate this morally, because users should have agency over the software they use every day, but it's certainly a good business decision)

just need to focus on one user persona at first and avoid bloat! designing for a specific level of technical expertise is valuable as well; think graphic design tools. some competency, learning, training is expected, but once established the user has much more power in the space - and they become more invested in the specific tool, losingability to switch without significant additional time investment.

scaling vertically - focusing on specific industry rather than trying to fit every use case ux depth: pull users in with increasingly hard to use features, so they learn those features and 'lose agency' when switching to a competitor. this is the titled 'ux moat'

capturing unique brand and building a personality around that develops cult followings, creates de-facto tools to use for those communities. branding works and it works well!

21:27 local first software, the 'thesis'

https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html