Jots is a collection of bits from inspiring pieces.

For me and for Tony, this clip is extremely reassuring. If Miyazaki — the world’s greatest living animator — can admit defeat after trying his best, then it’s okay for everyone else. If he can let go, then so can we.

Jot 100 : Taylor Ramos, Tony Zhou in Postmortem: Every Frame a Painting, from Medium.
Jotted on the 19th of Dec 2017, at 10:50.

If you know you have a meeting in an hour, do you start your deepest, most complex problem solving work? I’d venture to guess most people don’t. I certainly don’t.

Jot 99 : Dan Kim in It’s time for recurring meetings to end, from Signal v. Noise.
Jotted on the 16th of Dec 2017, at 15:15.

Notice how these colors do not seem ‘natural’ per se, but are chosen to convey the taste of the product.

Jot 98 : Rune Madsen in Color schemes, from Programming Design Systems.
Jotted on the 30th of Nov 2017, at 19:10.

[…] Debt is acquired by building for the short-term. Design debt is made up of an overabundance of non-reusable and inconsistent styles and conventions, and the interest is the impossible task of maintaining them.

Jot 97 : Marco Suarez in Introducing design systems, from DesignBetter.Co.
Jotted on the 30th of Nov 2017, at 11:00.

I wish I had more comforting words for you, but all I can say is that most things worth doing are a struggle.

Jotted on the 9th of Nov 2017, at 10:35.

Fail fast. Iterate quickly. Prototype. Prototype. Prototype. And cut. Cut scope until it hurts.

Jotted on the 1st of Nov 2017, at 11:15.

Failure is a good thing if you plan for it. Failure can teach you lessons that no success will ever teach you […]

Jot 94 : Sarah Woodrow in 7 Truths About Indie Game Development, from Gamasutra.
Jotted on the 31st of Oct 2017, at 11:45.

If you’re describing what a function does and you have to use the word “and,” that function is probably too complex. What a function does should be simple enough to explain with only a descriptive function name and descriptive arguments.

Jot 93 : Brandon Gregory in Coding with Clarity, from A List Apart.
Jotted on the 27th of Oct 2017, at 12:20.

Tell everyone you’re working on this project to make sure that there isn’t anything you overlooked.

Jot 92 : Robin Rendle in 5 Tips for Starting a Front-End Refactor, from CSS-Tricks.
Jotted on the 20th of Oct 2017, at 12:40.

Values aren’t what’s printed on the wall or in the employee handbook, but the interactions that happen every day. The values stem from the top, are reinforced by each employee, and determine how the company works.

Jot 91 : Julie Zhuo in Signs It’s Time to Move On, from The Looking Glass.
Jotted on the 17th of Oct 2017, at 12:40.

Solutions based on this knowledge can help you to give users what they need, rather than what they say they want.

Jot 90 : Ruth Stalker-Firth in Inside Your Users’ Minds: The Cultural Probe, from A List Apart.
Jotted on the 10th of Oct 2017, at 17:05.

[…] software patents are actually preventing the adoption of new technology, rather than encouraging it.

Jot 89 : Simson L. Garfinkel, Mitchell Kapor, Richard M. Stallman in Why Patents Are Bad for Software, from Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1991.
Jotted on the 9th of Oct 2017, at 12:10.

Your job is not to stop your mentee from making any mistakes; it’s to stop them from making the same mistakes over and over.

Jot 88 : Brandon Gregory in Be a Mentor, from A List Apart.
Jotted on the 8th of Oct 2017, at 22:35.

[…] it’s confusing because I don’t think pictorially, I’ve done it grammatically […]

Jot 87 : Christopher Nolan in 18-Minute Analysis By Christopher Nolan On Story & Construction Of Memento, from YouTube, The Lord Louis Show.
Jotted on the 5th of Oct 2017, at 22:25.

A difficult client who demonstrates trust issues right from the beginning of the business relationship and shows an inability to compromise might be more trouble than they are worth.

Jotted on the 5th of Oct 2017, at 13:00.

Yes, I have regrets, but as soon as you start rewriting your past you realize how your failures and mistakes are what define you.

Jot 85 : Cory Taylor in Questions for Me About Dying, from The New Yorker.
Jotted on the 29th of Sep 2017, at 00:30.

After reading that, do you still want to include open source work in your project? Will it derail your purpose and goal?

Jot 84 : Phillip Ikuvbogie in Considering Open Source Licenses, from A List Apart.
Jotted on the 27th of Sep 2017, at 11:50.

What has changed in the last generation is that companies today view more and more of the labor it takes to produce their goods and services as akin to staplers: something to be procured at the time and place needed for the lowest price possible.

Jotted on the 21st of Sep 2017, at 12:10.

When an organization tries to maximize inputs, rather than outputs, the result is a whole series of bad judgments.

Jot 82 : Itamar Turner-Trauring in Join Our Startup, We’ll Cut Your Pay by 40%!, from Code Without Rules.
Jotted on the 19th of Sep 2017, at 12:10.

Exhaustion isn’t cured over a weekend (or even a long weekend). It requires a recalibration of priorities, tasks, life goals and even life purpose.

Jot 81 : Patrick Johnson in What Is Burnout?, from Patrick Johnson’s Site.
Jotted on the 13th of Sep 2017, at 00:55.

[…] it is important to distinguish between ‘state’ and ‘act.’ The state of something in UX is fundamentally static, like a design comp. The act of something in UX is fundamentally temporal, and motion based.

Jot 80 : Issara Willenskomer in Creating Usability with Motion: The UX in Motion Manifesto, from “Medium”.
Jotted on the 12th of Sep 2017, at 11:45.

[…] there are three levels of consistency: individual, collective, and institutional.

Jot 79 : Jens Oliver Meiert in How to Write Better Code: The 3 Levels of Code Consistency, from “CSS-Tricks”.
Jotted on the 8th of Sep 2017, at 12:15.

If a project calls for SVG and a designer has been tasked with creating illustrations and providing design assets for development, then the designer is no longer handing over a static file, but a snippet of code […].

Jot 78 : Geoff Graham in When Design Becomes Part of the Code Workflow, from “CSS-Tricks”.
Jotted on the 8th of Sep 2017, at 12:10.

Being a senior developer doesn’t mean you have to know everything, it means you can help find out anything.

Jot 77 : Chris Coyier in So You Want To Be a Senior Developer?, from “CSS-Tricks”.
Jotted on the 8th of Sep 2017, at 12:00.

Effective retrospectives require a commitment to maintain an open mind and open communication with your team, as well as a willingness to be vulnerable.

Jotted on the 6th of Sep 2017, at 12:00.

[…] we primarily use animation in three ways—to indicate a state change, to add an emphasis, or to reveal extra information

Jot 75 : Alla Kholmatova in Integrating Animation into a Design System, from “A List Apart”.
Jotted on the 22nd of Aug 2017, at 11:45.

A common pitfall is to define your goals in terms of your existing metrics—“well, our goal is to increase traffic to our site.” Yes, everyone wants to do that, but how will user-experience improvements help?

Jot 74 : Kerry Rodden in How to Choose the Right UX Metrics for Your Product, from “GV Library”.
Jotted on the 1st of Aug 2017, at 12:30.

Trust keeps a relationship going, but you need the knowledge of possible future repeat interactions before trust can evolve.

Jot 73 : Nick Case in The Evolution of Trust, from “The Evolution of Trust”.
Jotted on the 1st of Aug 2017, at 12:00.

When you’ve been set up to fail, your primary goal is to demonstrate that the inevitable failure was not your fault.

Jot 72 : Itamar Turner-Trauring in The Bad Reasons You’re Forced to Work Long Hours, from “Code Without Rules”.
Jotted on the 9th of Jul 2017, at 20:25.

Focusing on coding inflates the importance of finding the “right” method to solve a problem rather than the importance of understanding the problem.

Jot 71 : Basel Farag in Please Don’t Learn to Code, from “TechCrunch”.
Jotted on the 3rd of Jul 2017, at 18:10.

What advice does anyone have for me?

Jot 70 : Claire Lew in Unlock Honest Feedback with This One Word, from “Signal v. Noise”.
Jotted on the 16th of Jun 2017, at 12:30.

I tend to finish a presentation with some questions of my own. I ask whether they feel the project will achieve its desired goals, meet the needs of users and fulfil organisational objectives.

Jot 69 : Paul Boag in Convincing Clients: How To Get Sign Off When It Matters, from “Smashing Magazine”.
Jotted on the 14th of Jun 2017, at 11:50.

Audrey, you’re missing a really important step. I think you need to just listen to them.

Jotted on the 7th of Jun 2017, at 17:20.

Uber is far from alone among technology giants in using machine learning systems to attempt to profile its users at a granular level to find the activity and users that stick out as abnormal.

Jotted on the 6th of Jun 2017, at 14:20.

If you use a group chat tool, there’s only one way to find out if the unread number is relevant: You have to click through and read everything just to figure out if there was anything worth reading. That’s the very definition of wasting time.

Jot 66 : Jason Fried in What’s That Mystery in Your Inbox Costing You?, from “Signal v. Noise”.
Jotted on the 6th of Jun 2017, at 14:05.

You want insights, not numbers. You want truth, not graphs.

Jot 65 : Claire Lew in Quit Measuring Employee Engagement, from “Signal v. Noise”.
Jotted on the 6th of Jun 2017, at 11:45.

[…] and the ball went for being like a stupid tennis ball to a motherfucking comet or something.

Jot 64 : Martin Jonasson, Petri Purho in Juice It or Lose It, from YouTube.
Jotted on the 28th of May 2017, at 19:35.

Understanding what you can afford to build—how much runway you have and how long you really want to work on a single project—is crucial to making it to the finish line.

Jot 62 : Erin Hoffman-John in 7 Secrets of Blockbuster Video Games, from O'Reilly.
Jotted on the 27th of May 2017, at 17:05.

[…] First, data is just information and alone does not represent objective reality. Next, whatever data you have is never, ever complete, and finally, getting more data does not necessarily mean more clarity.

Jotted on the 27th of May 2017, at 01:50.

Create harmony in your environment by sticking to a coherent shape language. You can then create focal points by using dissonance, which is the breaking up of the environment’s shape language.

Jot 60 : Bobby Ross in The Visual Guide for Multiplayer Level Design, from Bobby Ross’s Site.
Jotted on the 23rd of May 2017, at 17:00.

Actually, sometimes a cancelled project is something you should be proud of. Regardless of the talent of the team, if you can’t reach a compelling first playable, it’s time to kill the project and move on.

Jot 63 : Mark Cerny, Michael John in Myth vs Method, p. 35, Game Developer, Jun 2002 Issue.
Jotted on the 23rd of May 2017, at 14:00.

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming your players will find gathering collectibles as interesting as you find placing them. While alternating the pace of your action is good, having your player travel for long stretches, no matter how much beautiful art she looks at, is just boring.

Jot 59 : Scott Rogers in Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design. 2nd Edition., p. 115, John Wiley and Sons, 2014.
Jotted on the 23rd of May 2017, at 14:00.

Underlying your need to micromanage is a fear of failure. By magnifying the risk of failure, your employees engage in “learned helplessness” where they start believing that the only way they can perform is if you micromanage them.

Jot 58 : Muriel Maignan Wilkins in Signs That You’re a Micromanager, from Harward Business Review.
Jotted on the 22nd of May 2017, at 12:00.

You can’t leave home to rebuild that feeling again somewhere else. You dilute that feeling. It’s what Voldemort did with his soul: he split it up into parts, and it could never be whole again.

Jot 57 : Chiara Lino in About leaving., from Medium.
Jotted on the 3rd of May 2017, at 00:05.

The form — in its many manifestations — provides a gateway for user submission.

Jot 56 : Andrew Coyle in Form Design for Complex Applications, from Medium.
Jotted on the 4th of Apr 2017, at 16:10.

[…] and what we’re left with for the most part is a polished UI that can’t quite stand toe-to-toe with the world it’s framing.

Jotted on the 2nd of Apr 2017, at 16:50.

Start early. […] Talk preparation will expand to fill all available time. […] It will take a lot of time to do your talk, way more than you think.

Jot 54 : Zach Holman in The Talk on Talks, from BACON: things developers love.
Jotted on the 2nd of Apr 2017, at 15:20.

One method that I use for characterizing the relative size of development tasks is a variation of the tee-shirt sizing method. Each task is given a relative size corresponding to five tee-shirt sizes […] XS: Half day or less S: Half day to one day M: Two to three days L: One week XL: One to two weeks.

Jotted on the 27th of Mar 2017, at 12:30.