AI for UI/UX, Tools to Improve Design Workflow, 70's Funk Beats, and Perfecting A Craft

It's been a few weeks... working on some neat things. Playing with a lot of AI tools more recently to help my web design and development processes. So much to learn it's like drinking out of a firehose.

As always I'm finding something that piques my interest and sends me down a rabbit hole. Here are 10 of these things:

1. A bit of an older article from 2023 but still relevant (since things are moving fast it feels like a long time ago) on the topic of using generative AI for UI/UX. Some good ideas on where to start and how to use it to map out the discovering and defining phases of a project.

2. While working I've been vibing to some chill 70's and 80's funk played by Hikko Mori. Love me some Marvin Gaye.

3. Many great nuggets in this short digestable article about things the most successful designers and developers have in common. A few that jumped out at me: always learning, not hoarding their knowledge, and expressing their creativity. These are the pieces that inspire me and keep me excited about the work I do.

4. I'm embarrassed to admit as a front end developer not hearing of Jeffery Zeldman before. He's a web design legend and has building websites since 1995. I've been enjoying his writing on his blog.

5. This video by Jesse Showalter on the topic of AI tools for designers. Quite a few options he comments on in the video. I have a few on my list I want to try starting with, the first one being Musho.ai which I've been hearing a lot about. The two I hands down will use the hell out of are Fontjoy (for font choices) and Colormind (color palette choices). Will report back on the other tools I've tried in their own post.

6. In my readings around UI/UX I ran across this article concerning home page design principles. The article critiques some leading name brand/company sites and points out where improvements could be made. My key takeaway was clarity of messaging and keeping things simple.

7. YouTube Studio rolling out disclosures feature for AI generated content. I suspect we'll be seeing much more of this in video platforms as AI generated content becomes more prominent.

8. I really enjoyed this Futur podcast episode with Chris Do and Jule Kim. A lot of pro tips on creating content with a focus around on-page SEO and putting in the effort to stand out from competitors as a creative.

9. Jack McDade's post about finding joy in our work and being patient with ourselves as we perfect our craft through daily practice resonated with me. Building something good takes time and requires patience.

10. More valuable insight from Chris Do around changing the mindset and kicking aside the limiting beliefs, when it comes down to pricing for expertise. When Chris talks about making $30.00 an hour in the early days and now getting paid $30,000 for a 45 minute talk, it's clear he's been there done that and achieved a good measure of success in this area. Hopefully you can find it as valuable as I did.

That's a wrap on this one. Writing these articles has pushed me to become more intentional about saving the links to the content I consume in my notes app so that I can re-share it for other folks to check out. It's also a good form of journaling, as I date each link I add to my notes app for later reference.