Bridging the design-development gap as AI rises. There’s a frustrating gap in how development projects present themselves. What looks straightforward on GitHub — ‘just run this command!’ — quickly spirals into an odyssey of sudo permissions, package managers, and missing dependencies. As someone comfortable with design tools but less versed in development environments, I find myself mashing through terminal commands, hunting through Stack Overflow threads, and piecing together solutions without understanding the underlying context. What I’m missing isn’t the how, but the why. I get it: developers and engineers speak their language and rarely cater to non-developers. Robust beginner-friendly documentation isn’t what engineers want to be doing. Could these projects see greater adoption if they provided better context and more accessible instructions for newcomers or non-engineers? This includes guidance for people who’ve never worked with an API, or even know which directory they should be in to make package installs, let alone what packages are. The asymmetry between designer and developers is an interesting one. In my experience, designers build more of a bridge to developers because of wanting to communicate better with them. Designers start to code (sometimes as a forcing function) because they want to prototype and bring their designs to life quicker — no longer static and in turn opening their design and development possibilities. Developers might not return this in kind as they can build functional products without deep design knowledge or interfaces can be constructed using UI frameworks and libraries. Engineers are less pressured to become designers. They are paid more to specialize. Their bridge is to collaborate closely with design rather than to become a designer. Let’s talk about the new thing that is aiming to… supplant the above: AI. I can feed Claude or ChatGPT my entire codebase, give it files, have it sit inside my IDE, or even ask for code that does x, y, or z, and it’ll work with me to get these projects running. I’m comfortable with Claude, and it will give me cursory information on how and why. Of course, I don’t even know if the code is valid! And sometimes it’s not, but we work through it, and I come to a result that works. The knowledge transfer becomes even greater to non-existent. As I mentioned previously, vibecoding and generative codebases will likely increase as these LLMs serve solutions to ideas and concepts from the new generation of startups. Depth and understanding will be lost. When developers don’t understand the underlying principles of their code, debugging becomes a struggle; they can’t optimize for performance; and security flaws may abound. Technical debt will accrue in systems that become increasingly unknown and unpredictable. Broader innovation stutters because you’re stuck with what AI can give you. Homogeny ensues. For providers, the goal regarding LLM dependency, viewed from an investment perspective, is to mitigate or reduce cost and risk. In the end, entire software businesses are created around abstracting, simplifying, and making technology easier to use. What I lament is the focus on business opportunity, versus taking a more inclusive approach to bridging the gap between design and development or any other discipline with engineering. How do we get to better knowledge transfer? A tiered or tracked approach. One documentation track that exists for experts, and another that’s more verbose: context and explanation of the basics. Can open source projects and the like benefit from templates that encourage documenting the why along with the how? More collaboration is always good. I’ve benefitted hugely from working with engineering-centric product thinkers. I come at it from design with the knowledge of development, while my collaborators deal in code but find design a skillset to complement their coding skills. We meet in a middle ground that’s fruitful because we understand concepts. I am never shy about asking why something is done a certain way. And yes, AI. Can we use pattern recognition and matching to level up and progressively explain how and why things are built? There are many code-based helpers, but I’d love to look at how that a designer can utilize AI to pair program (something I do in trying to get to the why of it) — beyond working with an LLM. I’m imagining visual documentation or interactive tutorials that help guide you to various parts of a system. This knowledge gap has persisted for years, but AI is rapidly changing this landscape. While AI tools may bridge the divide between design and development by filling in missing context, I'm uncertain if this technological solution addresses the underlying communication problem — especially in an industry already stretched thin by time and resource constraints. This is an open dialogue for me at the moment, and I wanted to collect these thoughts at this time for later reflection. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email

Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind. The years I attended SXSW from 2007-2012 encompass some of those. In 2011, I shared a house with longtime partner-in-crime Scott Robbin, Jeff Skinner, and Sam Felder. We were off South Congress up at the top of the hill and tucked away close to Curra's Grill on Oltorf. We were in a neighborhood where all the streets were named after Robin Hood characters: Friar Tuck Lane, Little John Lane, Sherwood Lane, Long Bow Lane, and Nottingham Lane. Because we had this house, we ended up hosting two separate nights of hangs and invited a bunch of people we knew. I made a video of it using the Panasonic Lumix GF-1, the much-lauded camera that my friend Craig Mod made famous. The video isn't much — but watching it back now, some 14 years later, I'm so very glad I put it together. Many of these people are still friends to this day[1]. Perhaps, one of the most poignant memories I have is shown at the end of the video — when just us housemates went bowling during some downtime, and I put Spoon's “The Way We Get By” in the video because on the drive back from the bowling alley, that song came on the radio. I'd never heard it before, but Jeff, Sam, and Scott all sang along to it, belting out the lyrics, windows down, as we're cruising south on I-35. We lost Sam years later. Sam was a great guy, and he is missed by many. I'm very, very glad I made that video, and that I can look back on it. And remember everyone there, but especially recollect, see, and hear Sam in it. RIP Sam. SXSW brought many things, and in particular memories of some of the best people on the internet I got to know, and became friends with. Thank you, all. In order of appearance: Jeff Skinner, Scott Robbin, Dave Rupert, Nathan Peretic, Reagan Ray, Jay Fannelli, Luke Dorny, Trent Walton, Scott Boms, Sam Felder, Patrick DiMichele, Christopher Cashdollar, Kevin Hoffman, Jack Auses, Rob Weychert, Jonathan Bowden, Phil Coffman, Noah Stokes, Harold Emsheimer, Paul Armstrong, Wilson Miner, Andrew Huff. ↩︎ Visit this post on the web or Reply via email

The third culture difference. One of the hardest aspects of being a third culture kid and eventually adult is the difficulty in the journey of your identity. When you're young, the movement and culture- and context-switching are par for the course — it comes with the literal territory. As you get older, things happen: you transform into a chameleon and adaptation is one of your greatest assets. If you're me, you are seen as, sometimes advantageously, ethnically ambiguous. You somehow are part of the local fabric, depending on where you travel. And on the other hand, depending on where you reside over time, an assimilation or assimilations begin. It becomes part of your operating mode. As you get even older however, the mish-mash of identities and going with the flow start to untether any semblance of where you belong. Is it your birth country? Is it your citizenship? Is it the place you've lived the longest? Most are not like you. They may struggle with identity in completely valid and different ways. The third culture one is a big mash-up. I haven't completely met or known anyone quite like myself. Even a good friend who shared a similar path from college to the US, only overlaps with my experience to a point. My early years began elsewhere, which is a decisive difference. I have family, loved ones, and friends, but also my chosen or proximate family. They may not completely understand or ever understand, but I am thankful for their kinship, even if there's a part of me that will never feel completely whole. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email

A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the kitchen area. A hojicha latte is on my mind, and also a bite. My brain is at operational capacity, and I am in a flow state. The metabolic need feels high, and I need to keep my energy up. I make the latte, iced with almond milk. I devour an oat bar. It’s the time of year when projects are in full swing. The seasons also drive business. Today started with syncing on UK time, getting on a call with Simon and then Jeff joining. We reviewed work and made plans. I know what’s immediately ahead of me today, and I steel myself mentally. It’s funny how the pressure from a timeline and deadline can focus you. Because I am a shokunin, I have my design mise en place laid out both in the mind, and at the physical desk. The plan appears, as I percolated on it after the call. I am now executing it. Windows are open all over: a browser with a tab count I can't even see, a few design tools, two deck tools, communication tools, and note tools. I stop to consider that I'm working across multiple variants of the same core pieces of software but in different flavors and with different purposes or are inputs from others collaborating. The mise en place is multi-modal. I am traversing them, wielding a strange authority over them all. After all afternoon and as the evening beckons, I share the file, toggling on collaboration. A message goes out to all parties. Flow state will come for us all. This is just the beginning. Visit this post on the web or Reply via email