Links | Frank Tisellano

March 2019

Technical Debt is like Tetris medium.com
An apt analogy deftly applied. If your stubborn CEO only reads one article on technical debt, make sure it's this one.

February 2019

A Dozen Things I’ve Learned from Jim Barksdale and “Barksdaleisms” 25iq.com
"The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing."

How white space killed an enterprise app (and why data density matters) uxdesign.cc
We discussed this at my previous company almost every day. Our users were experts, they wanted more information on the screen at once, and they were OK with a slight learning curve if it meant higher productivity long term.

Obvious Always Wins www.lukew.com
"It’s tempting to rely on menu controls in order to simplify mobile interface designs —especially on small screens. But hiding critical parts of an application behind these kinds of menus could negatively impact usage."

December 2018

Design in Enterprise Software Companies svpg.com
Product design communicates product positioning. Product design is fundamental to a product’s core value proposition. Product design enables new paths to market. Yes, yes, and yes.

Unconscious Incompetence neil.fraser.name
Interesting take on managing new folks on your team.

September 2018

All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders a16z.com
Product is distribution. Ultra valuable, easily consumable resource on sales mechanics, planning, and org structure. Wish I had this 5 years ago.

August 2018

Meet Our New Home Page: The New York Times www.nytimes.com
This is monumental. It's telling that "fixtures like Briefings, 'The Daily' podcast, [realtime] weather and stocks are available at the top of the page." If they weren't already, the Times is now firmly a digital-first paper.

The Disconnect thedisconnect.co
An offline-only digital magazine. Beautiful idea and remarkable execution.

Google and the Resurgence of Italian Design medium.com
I love my (many) Apple products, but Richardson’s spot on in describing their design as “ponderously serious.” Gorgeous objects, but ultra minimalist and restrained. Google’s doing great, humanist industrial design. Mi piace.

January 2018

Forest: Stay Focused, Be Present www.forestapp.cc
Beautiful concept for an app. "Whenever you want to focus, plant a tree. The tree will grow in the following time. The tree will be killed if you leave this app."

December 2017

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programmers : Computing’s fundamental Principle of No Learning www.sicpers.info
"There is a false dichotomy at work in modern app design: the drive is for apps to be so simple you can use them as soon as you’ve tapped the app icon, but this is taken to mean that there doesn’t need to be anything more to do in the app than what you can see when you have tapped the app icon." Yes, yes, yes.

Sets in Windows 10 www.youtube.com
Really interesting new UI technique from Microsoft. Tabs from multiple apps sharing the same window. This is a baby step — 'sets' should get you some additional benefit other than creating simple groupings.

September 2017

Does your solution solve the right problem? blog.intercom.com
Brilliant, from Intercom's phenomenal blog (I can't believe I haven't linked to it before). All working engineers, designers, and PMs would do well to take this advice to heart.

August 2017

Above the fold is a myth. abovethefold.fyi
It's not 1997 anymore.

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? www.theatlantic.com
Facebook, Snapchat, et al should have full-time Product and UX teams working on this problem.

July 2017

New Aesthetics of Goaltending: Myth of the Standup Goalie ingoalmag.com
Excellent analysis. Even if you know little about the game, read this for its rejection of the common wisdom. If you know and love hockey, be sure to read all three parts.

Self-Managing People Are Smart about Asking for Help spin.atomicobject.com
Yes yes yes. Ask, vent, brainstorm, but do it right.

June 2017

The death of the electric guitar www.washingtonpost.com
The guitar industry needs a Michael Jordan.

All Thumbs, Why Reach Navigation Should Replace the Navbar in iOS Design medium.com
Great, great analysis. I love the Music and Maps apps in iOS 10. Hoping this piece inspires more designers to take a bottom-first approach to large-screen mobile design.

What Makes a Good Product Manager? trackchanges.postlight.com
Speaks well to the demeanor and attitude that can help make a PM successful. The attributes Rich lists aren't necessary, but they're damn useful.

August 2016

Here’s What May Sound Like a Crazy Idea boxesandarrows.com
Interesting reflection on the role of CLI-like interfaces. UI discoverability is sometimes at odds with the goals of a high-skill, professional user.

The Product Designer Role svpg.com
UX is more than a coat of paint. See my tweets on the relationship between PM and UX for more.

The Myth of Self-Service Analytics www.perceptualedge.com
Stephen Few on self-serve BI platforms. Incisive.

Only 9% of America Chose Trump and Clinton as the Nominees www.nytimes.com
Beautiful, effective visualization from NYT that kindles your intuition and simplifies a pretty complex series of data. (Also one of the rare cases in which scroll-jacking works — in part because it's executed flawlessly.)

July 2016

Dark Patterns are designed to trick you (and they’re all over the Web) arstechnica.com
A good primer. Don't do this.

Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful medium.com
“As Munger says, '80 or 90 important models will carry about 90% of the freight in making you a worldly‑wise person.'”

June 2016

Book: Just Enough Research abookapart.com
Buying a copy of this for every executive and designer I work with from today on.

The Real Product Market Fit www.themacro.com
Great PMs (and founders) focus on the market and the problem, not on a particular solution.

Adobe Experience Design CC Preview www.adobe.com
Great to see more competition in UX tools, and great to see Adobe listening to customers.

Did Jeep's Recalled Gear Shifter Contribute To The Death Of Star Trek Actor Anton Yelchin? jalopnik.com
Bad UX kills. Users need feedback about the effects of their actions.

Sorry, Merriam-Webster, but Hot Dogs Are Not Sandwiches www.arrantpedantry.com
Something something building taxonomies. Something something classifying hot dogs is analogous to doing good design work.

Here's What Happened To All 53 of Marissa Mayer's Yahoo Acquisitions gizmodo.com
Great engineering and great products can't exist in a vacuum. If you can't sell 'em (whatever that means for your company), it doesn't matter.

39 studies about human perception in 30 minutes medium.com
Speaker notes from a talk given by Kennedy Elliott at OpenVis in April 2016. Kennedy works on the Washington Post's immensely talented Visual Journalism team.

Too Many Knobs neverworkintheory.org
"Too many knobs do come with a cost." A study.

On Icons ia.net
Cogent, reasoned commentary from iA on icons and text labels. iOS gets this 100% right in the tab bar. Even the Material Design team is beginning to see the light on this.