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Daniel De Laney

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More interruptions, not fewer Have you ever gotten to the end of a long work day and realized you’re no closer to your goals? I...
1st Dec 2025
1

More interruptions, not fewer

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

1st Dec 2025
Have you ever gotten to the end of a long work day and realized you’re no closer to your goals? I have. The problem, counterintuitively, was lack of interruption. Sure, I was doing a lot of stuff. But I never paused to ask whether I was doing the right stuff. Or whether my...
I made my screen blurry to get more done Have you ever gotten to the end of a long work day and realized you’re no closer to your goals? I...
19th Nov 2025
1

I made my screen blurry to get more done

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

19th Nov 2025
Have you ever gotten to the end of a long work day and realized you’re no closer to your goals? I have. The problem, counterintuitively, was lack of interruption. I never paused to ask whether I was doing the right thing. Or whether my approach was working. Or if I was spending...
Free software scares normal people I’m the person my friends and family come to for computer-related help. (Maybe you, gentle reader,...
30th Oct 2025
1

Free software scares normal people

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

30th Oct 2025
I’m the person my friends and family come to for computer-related help. (Maybe you, gentle reader, can relate.) This experience has taught me which computing tasks are frustrating for normal people. Normal people often struggle with converting video. They will need to watch,...
Objectivity is superstition An objective, external world is a non-falsifiable assumption. The prevailing theory is that our...
17th Mar 2025
24

Objectivity is superstition

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

17th Mar 2025
An objective, external world is a non-falsifiable assumption. The prevailing theory is that our subjective experiences correspond to an external reality. However, they may simply be subjective through and through. That which we claim to be evidence of external reality is actually...
Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools Code forces humans to be precise. That’s good—computers need precision. But it also forces humans to...
3rd Feb 2025
21

Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

3rd Feb 2025
Code forces humans to be precise. That’s good—computers need precision. But it also forces humans to think like machines. For decades we tried to fix this by making programming more human-friendly. Higher-level languages. Visual interfaces. Each step helped, but we were still...
Data Center Monitoring “I like to use sketches to validate ideas quickly, without a lot of investment in the wrong...
25th Jul 2019
20

Data Center Monitoring

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

25th Jul 2019
“I like to use sketches to validate ideas quickly, without a lot of investment in the wrong direction.” The Challenge The computing power that runs the world is hidden away in data centers that few people get to see. While many data centers are lights-out operations most of the...
Artificial Intelligence In 2018 I worked with argodesign on an artificial intelligence client project, and Fast Company...
4th Jun 2019
21

Artificial Intelligence

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

4th Jun 2019
In 2018 I worked with argodesign on an artificial intelligence client project, and Fast Company published an article on our work: This Is The World’s First Graphical AI Interface. For confidentiality reasons I can’t publicly go into more detail on the project than to link to that...
Secure File Transfer During my time at frog, I lead a team of designers to transform a secure file transfer app owned by...
20th Apr 2018
15

Secure File Transfer

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

20th Apr 2018
During my time at frog, I lead a team of designers to transform a secure file transfer app owned by IBM. In addition to leading the team in Austin I helped manage designers working out of frog’s new studio in India, reviewing their work and setting priorities. frog itself has a...
Atomic Design in 1998 When you hear “atomic design,” you probably think of Brad Frost. Interestingly, he was not the first...
8th Feb 2018
14

Atomic Design in 1998

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

8th Feb 2018
When you hear “atomic design,” you probably think of Brad Frost. Interestingly, he was not the first person to develop that method of delivering design as components, or even the terminology. Brad published his atomic design article in 2013. While digging through the archives at...
Resource Management “We had to display a lot of information at once and help them make sense of it. There are many ways...
15th Jun 2017
14

Resource Management

from Daniel De Laney [alt+shift+b] in technology

15th Jun 2017
“We had to display a lot of information at once and help them make sense of it. There are many ways to do that wrong and only a few ways to do it right.” The Challenge The client came to us with a problem: They had paid for a custom tool that didn’t do what they needed. They had...
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