Halftank Fuel - Product Inspiration

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” ― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax If you work in digital products or in UX, it can be easy to forget that this is a relatively new profession. This means that it is still being defined. Unfortunately this also means that there is no agreement in what roles in this profession mean. It also means that authority is also often undefined. I entered this profession in part because of its promise to help people, which...

As a creative person who has worked on engineering teams for years, I got used to being perceived as “flaky”. You probably know that “creative” is not a synonym for “flaky”. The truth is that creative people are the most determined and organized people that I have encountered. Creative people - whether or not they make a living from their creativity - have to be both determined and organized in order to exist in the world. While creativity can be highly valued in our society, often creators...

If you have ever tried to learn how to draw digitally, it can be a frustrating experience. It does not matter if you already know how to draw on paper or not. For instance, a mouse and a pencil are two very different tools. Drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a hockey puck. Touchpads are a little better as a drawing tool, but they are very small. For a long time, I have been trying to master how to draw on a computer. It has been a mind bending experience. This is because I have been...

We’ve all been there: being stuck in a boring presentation with seemingly endless slides. I have long had a goal to never do a boring presentation. It has served me well over many years as I have been continuously finessing my presentation skills after each audience. I have successfully used Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule for presentations: No more than 10 slides No more than 20 minutes to present Nothing smaller than 30 point type As most of the presentations I do are as either a workshop...

I am a creature of habits, and one small habit has been helping me for years. For years, I have done one digital drawing in Adobe Illustrator every day. I started my practice soon after I started teaching Adobe software at a local university. I started doing this to not only get better, but also to contribute to a regular practice to lead to mastery of something. But surprise: the closer you get to 10,000 hours of doing something, the more you realize that there is so much more to learn! Over...

Just about every product professional I have personally worked with had some kind of creative interest outside of work. I know many musicians, painters, actors, and dancers in the product space. It makes sense that if you spend your day solving problems, that you would spend your free time solving creative problems. Right now, for me it has taken the form of a messy office that I am trying to organize. I draw illustrations in my spare time, and over time this has meant piles of art supplies...

I recently listened to a great talk from Talia Cotton, a designer and a coder who recently started her own company, Cotton design. I’ve been actively hunting inspirational sources as a balm for current events. As a designer who also specializes in different disciplines, I can relate to a lot of what Ms. Cotton talks about. She is a designer but also codes, and her firm leans into very interesting coding aspects of design. What really stood out to me is what she said about AI. She said that AI...