…
I get Dr Catherine Ball’s point when she suggests we should celebrate scientists the way we celebrate sports. But in a way, I’m glad we don’t. As she writes, in sports, we often celebrate individualism, the idea that the winner takes it all, that only one person can be the best. But that’s a bit of a bullshit, isn’t it?
Some of my favourite UX design tools that I’m still using in 2025.
At first glance, the current wave of UX designer layoffs seems counterintuitive. Across industries, organisations are downsizing UX roles while retaining graphic designers and UI designers with lesser UX skills. To those of us in the field, this shift can feel both alarming and shortsighted. But is it really? I wrote an article on Medium where I explain my reasoning behind why I believe many of these UX design roles will be back in the future.
Click here to read the Medium article.
If Apple were Santa, I would write to him this wish-list letter with a few things I would love to see on the new iPhones tomorrow. I do understand that some of these features would be technically difficult to implement or penalised by lower profit margins for the company. However, I’m a product designer, so I focus more on usability and practicality of features rather than squeezing money out of every inch of the phone. So here is the list …
As I was browsing Amazon’s website Today, I came across this image that reminded me how powerful visual analogies are in design and marketing.
Everyone knows the size of an egg. By placing the product next to it, the brand instantly communicates scale without relying on abstract numbers.
It’s a reminder that comparisons and analogies can turn boring specifications into relatable experiences, making information clear, understandable, and even memorable.
The key takeaway: when explaining your product, don’t just measure it, compare it. Everyday objects can bridge the gap between technical detail and human understanding.
Every year Apple rolls out a new iPhone, and every year I squint at it like as if it was a spot-the-difference puzzle in the back of a newspaper. From a designer’s perspective, the changes are so subtle they could be mistaken for someone rearranging the living room furniture by moving a single cushion.
So based on our experience from the previous years I’m not expecting anything but minor changes to phone design, camera lens rearrangement, new funky-named colours, and of course, lot of raving about the new faster processors and some other incremental improvements at the expense of the price hike.
However, I decided to be kind this year. Instead of bashing Apple for the lack of innovation, I decided to mention some curious facts about iPhones, which I accumulated over the past 10 years. So here we go …
I saw this photograph today. It reminded me of my dad’s office where he used to take me when I was nowhere else to be put during school holidays and other disruptions to normalcy. I was about 8 to 9 years old and the place looked as magical to me as it was important to my dad. Therefore, it is not a surprise that I feel tinglings of nostalgia when I see photographs like the one below.
However, would any of those guys in the photo feel the same? Given the option to replace paper and ink with keyboard and mouse, what would they choose? A simple click on the undo button instead of redrawing the whole sketch?
Is AI to us what computers were to them?
Technology made our lives easier, no doubt. The rate of progress sped up, but there is a catch to it.
Last week on my way home from work I stopped at a suburban Vinnies and stumbled upon two books. One seemed to be the answer to the other, so I purchased both.
“Everything Is F*cked” by Mark Manson
“The Warren Buffett Way” by Robert G. Hagstrom
Reading these books was a bit like having Camus for the main course, then washing it down with a stock market manual — absurdist pragmatism served with a twist of nausea. A philosophical gut-punch followed by a financial pat on the back.
So what did I learn from these two books?
After years of reading Kindle books, I joined my local library and rediscovered the tactile experience of reading paper books.
What can I say! It’s a whole new (old) experience holding a physical book in my hands, flipping through sheets of paper, and being able to jump from section to section, or from the middle of the book to the beginning or end within seconds.
For me, the best thing about reading physical books is the ability to almost simultaneously compare information on pages that are far apart within the book; seeing my underlines, highlights, and notes from a bird’s-eye perspective. It is as if everything was at my fingertips all at once. Quite literally.
I believe that this is also the most critical part of reading books for educational, academic, or research purposes. I don’t think electronic books, despite all their other advantages, will ever replace this critical feature of reading paper books. At least not for me.
