Field Notes
Field Notes
Essays, reflections, and working notes from research, strategy, accessibility, and design practice.
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Designing at the World-Minute: Lessons from Stefan Zweig for UX Decisions
Some moments decide everything. Drawing on Stefan Zweig’s Decisive Moments in History, this piece reframes high-stakes “world-minutes” for UX, with six vivid tests to design the moments that matter most.
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The Shape of Letters: From Calligraphic Hand to Pixel Grid
From the sweep of a calligrapher’s brush to the precision of a pixel grid, letterforms carry the traces of their tools, cultures, and makers. This essay explores how global traditions, shifting materials, and human agency have shaped — and continue to shape — the evolving language of typography.
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The Interview They Thought They Saw
Fictional UX research case inspired by Frost–Nixon, revealing how listening can be staged—and four practical steps researchers can take to keep it honest.
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A Week of Searching
An observational fiction about how we look, what we notice, and what we might misread
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Silence in usability moderated tests, inspired by John Cage
I recently watched a video of a pianist performing John Cage’s 4’33”. It is quite an inspiring performance, especially when we consider the pianist’s use of silence and how this also has relevance for usability moderated tests. In the video, we see the pianist first sit at the piano, then, he places a score on
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Can Susan Sontag inspire inclusivity and UX storytelling?
The problem rarely announces itself as cultural. It appears as a misunderstanding that no one can quite locate. The interface is clear. The copy is translated. The flow passes usability checks. And yet, users hesitate, disengage, or behave in ways the team did not anticipate. In post-mortems, the explanation is often vague. “Different markets behave