I write on this blog weekly. Nobody edits me. Nobody tells me to “soften the tone” or “add more tactical takeaways.” I also pitch articles to other publications. They have editors. Standards. Opinions about what their audience wants. Sometimes they publish them. Sometimes they send polite rejection emails that say “not quite right for us”…
December 2025. Video call. Client (B2B workflow automation SaaS, 8-person team, Series A): “We just spent $210,000 with a design agency in New York. Six months. Nothing works. Can you look?” Share staging link. Load product. Immediately clear: this UI/UX design agency in New York had never designed a real SaaS product before. Dashboard looked…
The job posting said “Product Designer.” Responsibilities included: user research, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, design systems, stakeholder management, A/B testing strategy, and “owning the product vision.” Basically: eight jobs disguised as one title. I asked the recruiter what made this a product designer vs UX designer role. Long pause. Then: “Product designers are more strategic.”…
The UX writer opened the staging site. Clicked through the onboarding flow. First button said “Proceed to Next Step.” Second screen: “Click Here to Continue.” Error message when she left a field blank: “Input required. Please try again.” Empty state in the dashboard: “No data available at this time. Please check back later.” She counted…
I’ve been designing products for enterprise SaaS companies for eight years. Deutsche Telekom, IQVIA, D.E. Shaw Group. The kind of products where a bad UX decision costs millions and ruins someone’s quarterly bonus. Never mine, unfortunately. Technical debt is familiar territory: ship fast, promise “we’ll refactor later,” codebase gets messy, developers slow down. UX debt…
The UX strategist’s final deliverable was a 31-page PDF titled “Strategic UX Framework for Multi-Audience Dashboard Optimization.” Page 8 had a Venn diagram with three circles: “User Needs,” “Business Goals,” “Technical Constraints.” The recommendation in the executive summary: “Further research required to validate strategic direction.” Seven weeks. Fourteen thousand dollars. Three weeks into that engagement,…
Got a Slack message Tuesday afternoon. 2:47pm. “Quick question – can you design our new checkout flow by Friday? Just needs to look clean. We’re launching Monday.” I asked: “When did you start planning this launch?” “Three months ago. We’ve been building it since October. Just need design now.” Three months of planning. Eight weeks…
“Mark” (not a real name, but the story is) asked me to write this. Said I’d know the model – I’m from Ukraine. Here’s what happens: Agency sells you “a full-stack designer with 8 years experience in UI/UX design and development services.” You get a junior designer in Portland who’s never written code + an…
Discovery call last month. SaaS startup, 12 people, looking to hire a freelance ux designer. “We need someone 15-20 hours a week. Flexible schedule. Remote. Rate is $85/hour.” Sounds reasonable. I asked about the work. “We’re redesigning the onboarding flow. Should take 4-6 weeks. Then ongoing UX improvements as needed.” Still fine. Then came the…
Got a call two months ago. Enterprise software company, 650 employees, been around 12 years, profitable. “We need to improve the UX of our internal platform. Our teams keep complaining it’s hard to use. Can you help?” Sure. I’ve done enterprise UX work before. Asked the obvious question. Me: “Who makes product decisions for this…
Your Last Product Designer Quit Six Weeks Ago (You’re Not Telling Me Why) Got a call last week. Startup, Series A, looking to hire a product designer. “Our product designer had to leave suddenly. We need someone to pick up where they left off. Everything’s documented. Figma files are clean. Should be straightforward.” I asked:…
