Vanessa Fox

So cool to hear this story on NPR this morning. Our partner, Prism Labs, Inc., provides developers with the tools to integrate precise body scanning capabilities into their apps. Their technology goes beyond traditional BMI measurements, offering a more comprehensive view of health by analyzing muscle and fat composition. If you are a developer and are considering adding body scanning to your fitness app, please don't hesitate to reach out, and I can connect you! #HealthTech #Innovation #BodyScanning #PrismLabs #Wellness #HealthInsights

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Interesting read for those of us in the web dev space. There are lots of exciting things happening with AI, but not all of them hit the mark just yet: "Right now, AI tools, especially in the context of UX design, are a solution in search of a problem. There are many problems and points of friction that cause UX designers to be inefficient and unproductive in their work, but working to develop solutions to those problems wouldn’t necessarily lead you to AI."

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Have you ever thought about how compliance laws are a lot like design systems? I recently spoke with Joe Toscano, founder of DataGrade, and he made a fascinating comparison. Joe explained how Brad Frost's atomic design methodology took an engineering approach to design: → Creating standardized elements → Templatizing them → Scaling them across a system This led to the rise of human interface guidelines (HIGs) from tech giants like Google, Apple, and IBM. But here's where it gets really interesting: Joe argued that privacy laws and regulations are like the ultimate HIG for product design. Just like how HIGs provide rules and constraints for design systems... Compliance laws set guardrails for what we can and can't do with user data. If we design something that isn't compliant, it doesn't matter how sleek the UI is. Legal requirements become the top-level framework we have to design within. That's what got Joe into studying laws - to understand this new "design system" for building products. So next time you're cursing a lengthy legal doc or trying to make sense of GDPR... Remember, it's all just part of the atomic design of compliance. — Do you agree with the analogy of compliance laws as the ultimate design system? Why or why not? Hear more of Joe's unique perspectives on the intersection of product, privacy, and law on the latest episode of The Minimum Viable Podcast.

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Devkit is essentially a collection of patterns and best-practices that better use modern browser capabilities. We're establishing the open-source spec for what is Liquid theme component. The Theme Blocks Dev Preview just makes things even better!

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Work at a natural pace. In Cal Newport's new book "Slow Productivity" he walks through 3 components to accomplishment without burnout. 1. Do fewer things 2. Work at a natural pace  3. Obsess over quality Working at a natural pace is an area I'm focused on as I transition to whatever is next in my career. Most of my career's natural pace was driven by anxiety, coffee, HIIT workouts and more caffeine - which I'm pretty sure isn't what he means. In my late 40's though, that just doesn't work anymore. Nor do I want it to. It's a tricky philosophy though because if you're in the startup world I don't know how you build something meaningful and work at a natural pace. I've never seen it happen. It appears this is a philosophy that needs to be applied to a specific time and place vs. everyone, everywhere. Anway, I don't have the answers, I'm just exploring different questions. What I do know is working at a natural place seems to be more appropriate for where I am today. 

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Parker just posted Rippling's new fundraising memo. It's the manifesto for compound startups and one of our initial inspirations for building Atlas. Here's a nugget that I really liked that summarizes how we feel about the competitive advantage of all-in-one startups over vertical startups (in customer support especially): "When we build corporate cards, we're not innovating on the way we issue corporate cards (through Stripe issuing or Marqeta) or the way we scan and extract metadata from receipts (which is mostly a vendor relationship for us today). We're going to win on the capabilities we have that are common to all Rippling products—the integration with the rest of Rippling and with employee data, the platform capabilities, and the common UX described above." Here's the full doc: https://lnkd.in/gYH59HVZ

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Like many the folks at Knapsack, I was pretty excited to see what Figma was going to announce today regarding design systems connectivity. There is a lot to be stoked about with typography, component metadata, etc. and a lot of great moments (I'm not just talking about the elevator music that was🔥) However, I keep wondering how much engineers (and their managers) are going to be willing to commit to including and maintaining extra code in their repository to be able to them see it presented back to them in Figma. It is an odd cycle. Take a design of a component from Figma, build some code, add specific code to allow you to connect it back to Figma... all to see the thing you built in Figma? This feels like swimming upstream? (obligatory salmon pic attached) Wouldn't it make more sense to just gather data from Figma and put it in the place developers already work? Would love to understand what you all make of this, especially dev voices.

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Take it from me, there’s no better way to learn excellent and practical ways to overhaul your experimentation efficacy! Erin makes critical thinking fun and highly accessible in this workshop, June 11:

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A bit of a rant about design systems and docs and how they're often like those really annoying recipe websites. So often, when I look at DS teams that are building out their design system, well-intentioned folks want to make something that looks like one of those obscure sites you get to when you search for "miso glazed sable fish" (I made that tonight. Kind of proud of it.) It is mildly interesting to know the history of fish as a staple in Japan. I appreciate learning new cooking methods. But by the time I've read the first 500 words I'm starting to wonder why the author is talking to me about how their grandma made artisanal soy sauce and why they enjoy pictures of cherry blossoms in the spring. I frantically search for the "jump to recipe" button, but it is nowhere to be found. I'm doomed to scroll the equivalent of a multi-year Instagram history (complete with ads) to find what I'm looking for -- ingredients and cooking instructions. Too many design systems fall into the trap of "document all the things", especially when they're first building and trying so hard to show the value. There is an eagerness to point at a system and say "SEE! There is a lot of stuff in there!" as a proxy for value. This has two unintended consequences. First, like the recipe example, DS consumers are not as invested in your docs as maintainers are. The probably skip a lot of them after they visit a few times. What they want is to know how to solve a problem in the product they're trying building, and they want to solve it as fast as possible. Get to the point. Be sure you know why your audience is there. Everyone likely knows what a button is, so focus on what they need to know to be able to use it. Second, docs create their own special hell of tech / design debt that can erode trust in your system. Images fall out of date. Text needs to be revised. The more you write (and the more complex your DS is) the more there is to maintain, and the more a design system costs (and the less time your teams spend effectively building products with it). This is a big part of why Knapsack focuses on embedding components in docs that automatically update based on changes in design or code. It is a lot less to maintain, and you never have to worry about a new designer or engineer getting something wrong because the docs were out of date. The best systems I've seen contain enough docs to quickly get people aligned, on track, and informed about the things they need to know to ship. I'm not saying all docs are bad. I'm a big fan of purpose, principals, accessibility guides, etc. But don't make everyone read your life history when they have a hungry family and just need to cook some fish. I'm working on a "basic anatomy" of DS docs to serve as a general guide. I'm curious, what do you all feel is essential for the consumers of your design system to get work done?

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The new program I run with Neal Polachek that tracks the impact of AI on Local SaaS (https://lnkd.in/gjPTwAJw) is doing an agency survey. It's almost complete but we need a few more responses to get over the finish line. If you work at an agency, I'd love for you to take the survey (it's about 6 - 8 minutes). If you provide your contact information at the end of the survey, we'll deliver an executive summary of the findings. It will offer benchmarking as well as providing insight into how your peers are using AI tools and their impact. Here are a few representative questions: 👉 Which marketing services see the highest client demand? 👉 Which of the following channels/tactics perform best for clients? 👉 Has the performance of any of these channels/tactics measurably declined vs. two years ago? 👉 How has AI changed your approach to content creation and management? 👉 Do your clients ever express concern or reservations about your use of AI? 👉 What’s your biggest concern about the impact of AI on the agency? 👉 How might AI impact your future costs/cost structure? Here's the survey link (also in the comments below): https://lnkd.in/gMHrRkki

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When we build marketing sites on Craft CMS, we're seeking to provide content design flexibility that won't let you break the visual brand. We want these sites to strike a balance between squarespace's design-and-create-any-page-layout-you-want approach (which can be overwhelming for content authors and lead to poor design layout decisions hurting the UX and sharpness of the visual brand) and an overly hard-coded, strict template approach often found in many other CMSes (which can lead to being bottlenecked by needing a developer to make a new thing possible). Watch us build this site and see how we strike the balance. https://lnkd.in/d48dQWN6

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The future of web design may be a return to simplicity. Imagine websites prioritizing readability over flashy features. No gradients, dark mode, or animations. Just clean, focused content. A great example is joshbreyes.com by @userisjoshua.

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Crisp conversation around emerging UX patterns in AI applications: * AI native >> AI slapped on a legacy product * Help the customer with the "blank page" problem * Iteration - help the customer iterate and get all the way to 95%, not just at a raw 30% * Integrations - connect with systems related to JTBD's before & after * Treat Human and AI content at par (not sure about this one though) https://lnkd.in/g_JxgKkM

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While the Chrome UX report (CrUX) can provide a high-level view of Interaction to Next Paint, it's no substitute for having your own RUM data that you can group and filter by dimensions such as the different page and device types. Andy Davies has created an excellent and detailed guide to debugging and optimizing INP. Whether you're just getting started with INP or you're already deep in the weeds, this is a must-read. https://lnkd.in/gqnhyHC7 #webperf #webperformance #corewebvitals #ux #sitespeed #pagespeed

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Innovation for doers: Focus on Impact, Not Jargon Your customers don't care if your innovation is labeled as disruptive, adjacent, or incremental. They won't ask which "Horizon" it fits into or whether it aligns with the latest innovation framework. It's time to cut through the noise. What matters most is the tangible impact your innovations have on their lives and businesses. They care about solutions that solve real problems, enhance their experiences, and drive meaningful change. So, let's shift our focus from terminology to transformation. Instead of getting bogged down by jargon, concentrate on delivering results that truly matter. 🔍 Stop overanalyzing. 💡 Start making a difference. Your next breakthrough could be just around the corner—if you let go of the labels and embrace the possibilities. #Innovation #CorporateInnovation #BusinessTransformation #InnovationStrategy #ImpactfulChange #venturebuilding #CVC #openinnovation #accelerators

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Want to learn more about the role of the business user in low-code. Watch this fun episode of Low down on Low-code!

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