#73 - A couple weeks in Italy

Writing of the week

Well, I'm here 💜

It's been a couple of weeks that I honestly won't forget, and I feel obliged to be a bit of a pain in the ass about it.

I'm proud because I've never done a trip like this before, we've always been more about seeing local places, but it was time to take the plunge and make the most of it.

I needed this holiday with my partner as much as I needed to eat, as I hadn't taken it for months and the workload was high, so of course, the stress was real; but what is worth it when you go far away and you don't take your laptop with you? The first thing I did when I started my holidays was to uninstall the email application and Teams, as I didn't want any kind of stimulus that would make me think about work - holidays are for a reason, aren't they?

We started a few days in Naples and took the opportunity to see the San Severo chapel, Santa Chiara, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius among others, and obviously eat fried pizza, what a top meal.

We then spent a couple of days on the Amalfi coast, playing at being rich (pd: don't do it). The coast is beautiful and although the artistic level is not on par with other towns or cities, the nature, the coast or the mountains make spending two days here radically lower your anxiety and stress levels.

And finally, we spent almost a week in Rome, seeing some real splendours (plot twist: churches). The Pantheon, Piazza Spagna, Trevi Fountain, monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the Colosseum, St. John Lateran, the Vatican, the Borghese Gallery .... it's been really crazy!

Don't worry, from next week I'll resume the articles more focused on design theory, if you think of something you'd like to talk about, reply directly to the newsletter email ;)

And now I leave you with 3 weeks of resources and articles that I had pending. It's been hard to curate such a huge amount of resources, but I leave you with the 20 digital products and 20 articles that I've seen the most top of the last weeks, enjoy!

A giant hug to all of you who read the newsletter 💛

Products

Leanbe

Prioritize what to build next, based on real user needs. Comprehensively analyze feedback and requests, generate your data-driven roadmap, and easily share exciting news with users.

Height

Manage projects across product and support. Real-time tasks, chat, and powerful customization to get everyone on the same page.

Feedback Lane

Collect & manage website feedback in Notion. Add a feedback widget to your website that's connected to Notion.

Dropbox Capture Beta

Try Dropbox Capture and broadcast your message with screenshots, GIFs or simple videos recorded directly on your screen. In this way, you can clearly convey what you want to say without having to program anything.

Scribe

Share how-to in seconds. Automatically generate step-by-step guides for any task.

Product Superstories

Working at Amazon, Microsoft, Booking, Razorpay and more. Most asked questions, answered by experts.

Weje

An online whiteboard for work and life. From ordinary online sticky notes to manifold Kanbans - Weje assists as you tackle all kinds of projects.

Tango

Automatically create beautiful step-by-step guides with screenshots, in seconds.

Access Guide

Welcome to Access Guide, a friendly introduction to accessibility! Browse the cards below to learn more about the guidelines.

Mechanic

Mechanic is an open source framework that makes it easy to create custom, web-based design tools that export design assets right in your browser.

Tactiq

Lead the conversation, we'll take care of the notes. With Tactiq's real-time transcription of Google Meet you'll never miss a word

Doodle Ipsum

The lorem ipsum of illustrations. Just customize your doodles, grab the code, and use them on your web prototypes, landing pages, or no-code tools.

AI Smart Copy

Write Copy in Minutes, Not Days Say goodbye to your copywriting woes and hello to Smart Copy, the only AI writing tool that can create, remix, and expand content in a snap.

On Fire Illustrations

Look at this! It’s On Fire. Spice up your design using acid colors and defiant episodes

Appfollow

Your timely response to the needs of the mobile market. One place to monitor app performance, star ratings, user reviews, and organic growth.

Stark Mac Beta

Making your software accessible for everyone starts here. Stark streamlines accessibility compliance saving teams time, money, and effort through end-to-end collaboration.

All Hands Mockup Generator | MetaLab x Nappy for Figma

Diversify your product mockups with the All Hands Mockups. This plugin allows you to drop your designs into one of several hands in two easy steps.

Basic Pattern Repository

just SVG - for your delight!

Microcopy

Short texts for your website. Headlines, slogans, accounts & errors text messages.

Interface Index

Interface elements from the best. B2B, SaaS and desktop apps and services. 303 UI examples for your inspiration or to speed up your research.

Articles & Ideas

Progressive disclosure: A framework to approach clarity in a complex task

A technique to improve comprehensibility by reducing information density. Tridip Thrizu

A comprehensive list of human-computer interactions

A review of the opportunities with humans, computers, and software. Chris R. Becker

Line length revisited: following the research

I was motivated to write this article having discovered the studies undertaken by Adam Parker as part of his PhD at Bournemouth University, UK, supervised by Tim Slattery and Julie Kirkby. Mary Dyson

Decision Making at Netflix

This introduction is the first in a multi-part series on how Netflix uses A/B tests to make decisions that continuously improve our products, so we can deliver more joy and satisfaction to our members. Netflix Tech Blog

What is an A/B Test?

This is the second post in a multi-part series on how Netflix uses A/B tests to inform decisions and continuously innovate on our products. Netflix Tech Blog

The Art of the Strategic Product Roadmap

Strategy, visualized. Crafted by design, engineered to keep customers close. Joe Van Os

Use BRICE, Not RICE Scoring for Product Prioritization

One of a product managers main responsibilities is the prioritization of features/functionality to ensure successful product outcomes. There are several frameworks for doing this such as ICE and RICE, but in my opinion they all fall short Kasey Kaplan

UX Mapping Methods: Study Guide

Unsure how to get started using UX mapping methods? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn how to visualize UX insights and ideas into mapped visualizations. Kate Kaplan

Beyond delight; the memorable experience framework

Enabling product teams to create deeply engaging experiences. Audree Lapierre

Deep work in practice

Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate. Adam Amran

So, you’re managing a design team

A guide for a first-time design manager, from a first-time design manager Alex Mandel

How to create a compelling design portfolio companies will notice

The following twenty million paragraphs is a brain dump of everything I know about creating a compelling product design portfolio website. I’ll answer the most common questions I get, give you helpful tips, and share my painful learnings. Aaron James

Be kind to future designers with annotations

Or: How to best use your time if your project isn’t being funded Kai Wong

“What do we call this thing?”

A tactical playbook for user-centered product naming decisions Erin Gannon

Layout in ancient writing: UX inspiration from history

Studying for any job includes studying the history of that job. I think that the history of UX starts not from the creation of the phrase User Experience and not with ergonomics, but with actual experience that people had in the past with different tools and devices. Olesya Vdovenko

5 practices that will help you become a senior designer

I was still a junior designer when some of my classmates moved on to more senior roles. So I started to think about what had made the difference. Lisha Dai

UX-Maturity Stage 2: Limited

Inconsistently and erratically, some people in these organizations are trying to advance UX work, but don’t often achieve good results. Kate Moran

Patterns vs. components in design systems

One of the biggest challenges you’ll face when creating a design system is striking an appropriate balance between overly prescriptive guidelines and allowing too much customization. Parker Malenke

What’s the right font size in web design?

If you want your text to be read, set it at a sufficient size! But what is a good font size, and how can you apply it in your web design? This article and video has answerers for you with some practical examples focused on body text in responsive web design. Pimp my type

DTC UX: On-Site Search and Improving ROI for Product Finding

Through years of UX research on traditional retail sites (including mass merchants like Amazon or Target, we’ve observed how on-site search is an incredibly popular and valuable resource for finding relevant products. Kathryn Totz

Remote Jobs

All remote jobs links have been removed, as the positions were fulfilled.