Jeffrey Zeldman
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My UX Superpower: Nothing Works!
Maybe I’m special. Or unlucky. But things that supposedly work intuitively for most users tend to fail spectacularly for me. After stints in academia, journalism, advertising, and music, I poured myself into web design in early 1995. I understood it in a way most designers didn’t, and rose faster than…
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Pete’s Presence
It was a spring that felt more like winter last week in New York; suddenly it feels like summer. After my air-conditioned bedroom, the living room and kitchen was like a walk-in oven. A weirdly yellow bulb lit the kitchen. The kids must have left it on when they went to bed. I made an […] The post Pete’s…
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The Courage to Stop
Brevity was always a discipline. Now it’s a statement. The post The Courage to Stop appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Jimmy Carter was right
What Carter did in his speech was something rare in the annals of democratic government: he confronted the people with the truth—about his own failings, about the reality of the world around them, and most importantly about themselves. Even as Americans grow, for the second time, disillusioned with a…
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Handwritten notes in the time of AI note takers
The best project management tool is still a pen, plus the discipline to notice what the machine cannot. Wisdom from Lucas Radke. The post Handwritten notes in the time of AI note takers appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Dine ’n em-dash
The best defense is to write humanly. The post Dine ’n em-dash appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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RSS creator on Bluesky & AT Proto
Bluesky can't abandon the developers who made a bet on AT Proto, so they should give the protocol to a standards body while catching up on UX.—Dave Winer The post RSS creator on Bluesky & AT Proto appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Too Many Notes
Lately, in work conversations, I find myself fighting a lifelong tendency to provide way more context than is absolutely required. If you ask me to okay your work, for example, I may respond with an essay on what delighted me about it. The teaching gene, plus the exuberance of writing and thinking clearly…
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A die-cut above
Cover art for the 1971 prog-rock LP “Fearless,” by British band Family features a distinctive, die-cut cover design depicting the five band members gradually morphing into a single entity combining features of them all. Tom Brigham, a high school student and friend of mine the year the LP was released…
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My brother, the rhythmic conceptualist
Remembrance of beats passed. The post My brother, the rhythmic conceptualist appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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What a year that was.
Know your web design history. The post What a year that was. appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Advice for job seekers
Pitching isn’t bragging. The post Advice for job seekers appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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American healthcare
Cooling my heels at the drugstore. The post American healthcare appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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The salad bar theory of UX professionalism
Less, but better? Not this week. The post The salad bar theory of UX professionalism appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Works in Progress
New tunes from an old maker. The post Works in Progress appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Claude Code for Designers
FIRST, the disclaimers: Some of my favorite writers—folks who are as anti-fascist and pro-democracy as they come—publish on Substack, but I read and recommend their work less and less frequently, because Substack has a Nazi problem. To wit: Awkward: Substack’s Nazi Problem Substack call themselves a…
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“A streamlined newspaper for a streamlined era”
Posted today for no particular reason. The post “A streamlined newspaper for a streamlined era” appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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Mark your calendar: Local News Day is 9 April
It’s no secret that newspapers across the country exist in a fragile ecosystem. Automattic has long supported journalism and local media with investments in publications and platforms like Longreads, The Atavist, and Newspack. We believe that local news still matters—and now more than ever. That’s why…
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We named them after the humans they were replacing.
“The word ‘computer’ only really slid over to mean ‘a machine’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, once we started building mechanical and then electronic devices to do that work instead [of people]. We did not name the machines after some abstract idea. We named them after the humans they were…
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Cold Storage
Good UX is what companies do when they have to. A company that has your stuff locked away doesn’t have to. The post Cold Storage appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.
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