Influences
I'm always pursuing new information that can help me improve the quality of my work, or enable me to be more efficient. So I'm constantly on the look out for people involved in the wide variety of areas I touch in my day to day. I'm lucky to have found a wealth of wisdom in the people on the list below, from small things to big things, aesthetics, to research and strategy. I am the professional I am today in large part thanks to these people, and the things they chose to share with the wider world.
I believe one of the main reasons I was so drawn to these people, to their ideas, was due to there being a shared set of values between them and I. Regardless of the specific roles these people had, the companies they worked for. They carried themselves in their work, percieved others and the world around them in a particular way that resonates with me.
They value honesty over dark patterns, studying behaviour over assumptions, usefulness over flashy, true leadership through trust and support over micromanagement and suspicion. Ultimately they value humans over money. They may all be in business, but they're not there to make money at any cost.
"I'm going to define bullshit in a couple of different ways, superfluous, unnecessary, cluttered, clunky, needlessly complex, intentionally deceptive or insincere..."
Brad Frost, Web Designer
All of that separates them from the many, and that is why I look to them for product guidance, and wisdom.
These are a few of my favorite people.
HEAD OF PRODUCT STRATEGY AT BASECAMP
Ryan Singer
Product Design & Strategy
Ryan Singer's insightful tweets and articles on product have not only been useful and interesting, but his thoughts have changed the way I work day to day. From new ways to conceptually frame problems and solutions, to new deliverables for common design situations that I'd been shoehorning unsuitable things into for my whole career. I'm looking at you, wireframes...
FORMER HEAD OF USER EXPERIENCE AT WEWORK
Tomer Sharon
User research & research operations
Former co-worker and user researcher Monica Regalado, introduced me to Tomer Sharon's contributions to the area of research operations, during our time together in a rather anti-research environment. I found his idea for a research repository to house nuggets of insights, attached with primary evidence, fascinating. The more I explored his thoughts on research, the more I could see how I could implement all of it in my own approach to research, as a designer with no formal research background. His tips alone have changed how I approach research.
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