Jason Culbertson

🚀 Big News: OpenDesignDocs.com gets a makeover! As we step into 2025, I’m thrilled to unveil the redesign of www.opendesigndocs.com — a platform built for the design community. 🎨✨ Imagine a space where designers of all levels can share knowledge, exchange ideas, and learn from each other. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, we all have something to give and something to gain. 🔥 What’s new: • A fresh, scalable site built to support this growing vision 🌟 What’s next: • Content from other leaders in the industry • Features that make sharing your expertise seamless • Profiles, analytics, audience ownership 👉 Let's build this together: If you’re interested in partnering to help build this space or have ideas on how we can make it even better, I’d love to hear from you. Here's to 2025!

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Patterns for implementing human-centric design thinking and UX to GenAI #GenAI #UX #AI

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The Non-Designer's Design Toolkit 👨‍💻 (or “just my observations”) I'm sure many of you have faced (and continue to face) the challenge of differing 🤦‍♂️ design visions between marketers and designers. 🚨 Spoiler alert: this is perfectly normal and will likely never change entirely. As the digital space continues to evolve, the visual component becomes increasingly 🚀 essential, playing a significant role and growing impact on network users. This makes it crucial for marketers to possess some design sensibilities and vice versa for designers to understand marketing goals. After all, the key task for both, in the context of business objectives, is to achieve the desired outcome from potential users 😎. But what if you're a marketer without a dedicated designer on your team❓ By understanding the task at hand and your target audience and equipping yourself with the right tools, you can effectively solve this problem. ⬇ Here's my go-to toolbox as a marketer for creating impactful "non-designer designs": ❇ Creative Idea Don't underestimate the importance of a clear concept! Great design starts with a well-defined idea, like legendary songs written on budget guitars. ❇ Canva This user-friendly platform offers a wealth of templates and features for crafting banners, social media posts, presentations, and more – all in a snap. ❇ Behance Get inspired by browsing stunning design projects from top creators. ❇ Unsplash & Pexels High-quality stock photos and images at your fingertips, perfect for adding visual punch to your designs. ❇ Flaticon Your one-stop shop for discovering and customizing icons to elevate your visuals. ❇ Figma The industry standard for design, Figma offers powerful yet intuitive tools (though some design knowledge might be helpful here). ❇ Color Hunt Feeling color-challenged? Color Hunt provides beautiful color palettes and combinations to take the guesswork out of design. There you have it 🔥 With these tools and a little creativity, you can conquer the "non-designer design" world 🙃. So, what are your favorite tools for creating impactful visuals without design knowledge? Share them in the comments below (if u want 😈 ) #design #marketing #toolkit #tools

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It's interesting to me that, while engineers are seeing a massive explosion in productivity from AI, product design has yet to see any real progress. Where are the tools from Figma/Adobe that 2-3x the output of a designer? Where is the AI-driven design system, etc.

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Had to share this thoughtful article about the conflicting feelings we have as designers with new AI tools.... made me consider the threat of too much standardization over innovation, or letting your own creative instincts atrophy. Check it out and lmk your thoughts

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So immensely proud of such an amazing group of people who've been working so hard on this big set of launches at Figma for #Config2024. ICYMI what we launched today, this blog post recap covers it well: https://lnkd.in/gX3KSWj3 I wanted to share a couple fun tweets from a few of the fantastic designers/leaders that worked on some of the things you may have seen in our keynote this morning. * This is not even close to an exhaustive list of those who worked on today's launches, but just a quick lil glimpse showcasing a few who happened to post about them today (also linkedin obscures the links for some reason, but they're all just fun behind the scenes tweets not shady sites I promise lol): Figma Slides - Keeyen Y.: https://lnkd.in/gmxBH3wq - Mihika Kapoor: https://lnkd.in/gr54Upnu - Natasha T. / Ryan Reid: https://lnkd.in/gd-v9gE3 Redesigned Figma (UI3) - Ryhan Hassan: https://lnkd.in/g868XAze (can't wait to watch the behind the scenes talk with him and Joel Miller and KC Oh as well as Wayne Sun's when they come online later) - Tim Van Damme: https://lnkd.in/gQyvqzYr - Nikolas Klein: https://lnkd.in/ge_kKyvD Figma AI - Jordan Singer: https://lnkd.in/gXmFeXTM - Oscar Dumlao: https://lnkd.in/gkACVY_c - Marco Cornacchia: https://lnkd.in/gMt3BvVY - Vincent van der Meulen: https://lnkd.in/gCrHvcVu - Jediah Katz: https://lnkd.in/gMxEu7i8 - Giorgio Caviglia: https://lnkd.in/gCNVQrKC And more: - Jenny Wen (pages design by rocky chen ✌️): https://lnkd.in/gd_6RHAv - Soundharya Muthukrishnan: https://lnkd.in/gsnibt-j - Daniel Destefanis: https://lnkd.in/gu6mYBe6 - Becca Ramos: https://lnkd.in/gqM7RGKQ We hope you enjoy these updates, and excited to meet more of the amazing community at Config for Day 2 tomorrow! I'm particularly excited for Marcin Wichary's talk tomorrow at 3:40 https://lnkd.in/gvJNNerg

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The 4 Stages of AI Image Generation: An Experience Map #GenAI #UX #productDesign https://buff.ly/3VKxjKs

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For anyone wanting to learn more about how we're working on AI as a design team here at Klaviyo, have a listen to this interview with Alexandra Holness

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Not sure how I missed this podcast with Lenny Rachitsky but this episode with Katie Dill is amazing. There's a reason it has 47k views on YouTube. Just furthering my claim that the very best of Lenny's podcasts are not about product development or traditional product management. His best episodes are about design and business. "The use of the word beauty in books that have been digitized by Google has decreased,  like pretty dramatically. And it's aligned with this idea of, "Well,  functionality is king. Functionality is what matters." As if people think about  functionality and beauty as like two opposite things. No, they're not two  opposite things. Functionality is important. And actually beauty enhances functionality  because it does make things easier to use, more approachable, more comp elling to use.  And the other piece of it that is not talked about in business as often is just  the importance of how people feel. Things that are more beautiful, increase trust. You see that  we've put painstaking detail into this, and we care about the details of how something works,  and that gives you assurance that we care about other details that you can't see too." —Katie All I have to say is YES.

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Really annoyed at Figma's price gouging here. There is no reason other than greed: https://lnkd.in/gfdrEiWH Oh, and I emailed them about it and this line from their reply was particularly poignant: "Additionally the minimum for enterprise is a $5k invoice minimum. 6 enterprise seats or made up with other products." To put that in context... our monthly Adobe bill (for 8 CC, 7 PS, 6 Acrobat licenses) is ~NZ$2k... Amazing how quickly enshittification sets in... #Figma #Design #SoftwareLicensing

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Do you want consistency between designers and front-end developers? Use of design tokens. When everyone uses the same terms, it simplifies things for both teams. Here's Google's introduction to design tokens and how you can implement them: https://lnkd.in/gpWMwqVz

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🎨 Color is hard. As our team leverages variables to apply themes across a design system, things break. Maintaining accessible color contrast across multiple components with various states is a beast of task. - Brand colors can vary from light to dark affecting foreground contrast. - State changes across various components require independent contrast checks for foreground text. - Yellow. (Do I need to say more? Whether its a brand or system color, yellow and orange demand special attention) 🌈 Color for brand designers working with product teams by Katie Cooper I dig everything Katie Cooper writes about color for design systems. The approach outlined offers a great perspective on how to evaluate brand color viability. It includes considerations for secondary colors and color ramps as you develop proper contrast ratios. https://lnkd.in/gna4CGCV 💛 The dark yellow problem by Lodestar Design via UX Collective I know a lot of folks have touched on this, but I like how succinctly this writeup spells out the problems when designing with yellow while trying to maintain some form or brand consistency. Mustard anyone? https://lnkd.in/gsA4FZgQ 👏 Color in design systems by Nathan Curtis A classic write up on color in design systems and considerations for theming. Big takeaways for our team included limiting how themes cascade through various components like links and buttons, as well as ensuring any “changes” to brand colors to meet the needs of the UI get approval first. If you haven’t read everything by Nathan on Medium on design systems you’re missing out! https://lnkd.in/gYXVCY2e ✨ So grateful for all the resources out there and hope some of this can be useful to your team. From our research, the team has established a few best practices: - Start by auditing color contrast options across all brand colors through color ramps and component states - Ensure a consistent lightness ramp across all steps of each color in the palette to help with predictable contrast - Pay special attention to your yellows to balance brand consistency with accessibility - Limit how brand colors cascade into critical elements such as forms, buttons and links to ensure usability - Continue to use plugins and manual review to check color contrast ratios across the system, components and patterns as you go #ui #design #designsystems #color #branding #theming #accessibility

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I really enjoyed this conversation with Alex Smith from Fuego UX on value of designers learning to code, team collaboration, culture, and thoughts for new designers entering the market in the age of AI. Plus, it's short and sweet - just under 12 mins! If anything peeks your interest that you'd like to hear more on, let me know as I may be able to go deeper in future talks or blog posts :)

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In my latest podcast interview, Greg Petroff shares insights about the state of design and the opportunities open to designers in these dynamic times. Check it out! https://lnkd.in/gTXpQgjn #UxDesign #Ux #Design #Leadership

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It’s Thursday! Let’s talk about DESIGN DISCOVERY and how to make it PRACTICAL. Discovery is an essential part of the design process. In discovery, designers build a shared understanding of the problem and the design direction, establishing a foundation for all future design decisions. What does that foundation look like? In PRACTICAL DESIGN DISCOVERY, I describe three kinds of things to put into this foundation: → Principles: Enablers that help you make decisions → Concepts: Ideas that establish a big picture or north star → Models: Representations of the user experience When you draw a conclusion from user research, that’s a principle. When you say “our product is like a concierge for kids activities,” that’s a concept. And when you sketch out a flow chart or wireframe an important screen, that’s a model. Each of these contributes to the foundation that informs further design decisions. You’re not just creating these for yourself. The other people on your team – product managers and business stakeholders and developers – need to contribute to this foundation. These things – principles, concepts, and models – are the way you draw others into the discovery process. Sometimes managers tell designers to cut principles and concepts out of their process. I get it: Models are accessible because they are tangible representations of the final product. Even a flow chart is easier to react to than an unmoored design principle or a big idea. In discovery, however, you can’t model every aspect of a product. The point of discovery is to set the direction. Models provide enough of a view into the final product to get buy-in on that direction. But they’re not the whole picture. Principles provide guidelines for making decisions that the models do not cover. They establish constraints on the design process. Concepts align everyone around the product’s purpose or essence. They paint a picture of what the world looks like with the product in it. Both are helpful for decision-making. You don’t need to break the bank creating principles or concepts, or even models. Use a text file to capture statements as they jump out during the design process, like “never show a data visualization without context or explanation [a principle]” or “this is a mash-up between a to-do list and a calendar [a concept]”. Use models to illustrate principles and concepts. When folks provide feedback on the models, ask them about the concepts and the principles. “You said you were worried about the fields on this screen, but it aligns with our principle of ‘only ask for information when needed.’ Are there circumstances when the principle doesn’t apply?” Every part of the foundation – principles, concepts, and models – is a hook for a conversation with the entire team about the direction of your product. Looking for more ways to refine your discovery practice? Grab a copy of PRACTICAL DESIGN DISCOVERY! https://lnkd.in/dtar-e2

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Great writeup on the value design can bring to product organisations irrespective of technoöogical shifts such as AI.

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2 years with Nectar! 🤘🔥 My favorite highlights: → Our team’s growth from 23 employees to 90 employees. Product alone grew from 6 of us to 21 strong now 🙌🏼, and we’re a sleek, efficient, resilient team under Brian Cressall and Nate Tingey. → Established Nectar’s Design System and built our component library, significantly improving speed, consistency, and quality of design and implementation. → Completed a massive UI design refresh for the existing product (bless the devs still building it 🫡 ). → Launched Nominations, the largest and most impactful new feature we’ve built at Nectar yet. → Completely scrapped a project, because it was the right thing to do. Grateful to work on a team that’s hyper-focused on our ultimate goals, and is sincerely willing to let sunk costs be irrelevant. → Ideated, designed, and launched our new product Internal Communications in 8 weeks with a small, mighty team 🤯 I’m still amazed we managed it. → $40M Series B funding in April 2024 with PeakSpan Capital. → Saw our efforts, motivation, and passion pay off when Nectar was recognized as the 2nd Fastest Growing Company in Utah County, 1st fastest growing software company in Utah, 8th fastest growing software company in the U.S., and 87th fastest growing company in the U.S. (across all industries). → 300% increase in revenue in Q3 2023 vs Q3 2024 (Q3 was also 50% above our revenue Q2 2024). → Saw every department at Nectar grow in excellence. I’m in awe of the caliber of Engineering, CS, Marketing, Sales, and what they accomplish. → Relished the challenge and variety of asks in the beginning as Nectar’s sole designer, including working on print design (looking at you, 28’ tradebooth) and animations for the first time. That animation announcing Nectar’s new logo a year ago? That was my first animation, and I’m still proud of myself for figuring it out enough to make that 😂. → Spent way too much on Holiday gas station runs (RIP old office). This is a long list, but for the record I cut it in half from what it was 😅. I’m grateful Nate reached out on LinkedIn right at the perfect time when I was looking to switch things up, and that we’ve made a great team ever since. Getting to work closely with our little product design team—Nate, Mason, Tyler, and Maya—and many, many others keeps me growing and keeps me motivated on the daily. Nectar’s mission and way of working resonated with me from the beginning. It’s rewarding to see our company continue to gain momentum and maturity, all while seeing how much room we still have to grow. Very, very grateful to be part of the journey. As we say, it’s still Day 1 at Nectar. 🚀

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Most designers are trained to present work to our peers, but as your career matures, your audience expands to include many other departments who don’t speak “design”. This article resonated with me and offers some sage advice about the use of storytelling and a “business lens” to craft more compelling presentations. #ProductDesign #Storytelling #UserResearch #BusinessObjectives

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I don't know when or how it happened, but Config has become one of the major yearly conferences in our industry. Given how much Figma plays a role in the practice, it's common for design system teams to watch with anticipation/excitement/dread for what's coming. In our latest episode, Davy Fung and I discuss the reveals from Config and what that may mean for folks in the design systems practice moving forward. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gRMBzfbJ #designsystems #figma #congfig #podcast

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