This issue is about

• What I have been working on lately

• Design Patterns - the newest UX knowledge sketch

• 10 + 1 design resources I loved the most in February

🛠️ My work

This is what I’ve been up to recently:

• My favorite conference is back! WebExpo is the best event for web professionals. Use my code SKETCHING26 to get 50 EUR off Conference tickets (May 27 & 28) and Bundles (Conference + Workshop).
  Here you can read about the top design talks.

• I hosted a vibe coding workshop at a Hungarian UI design bootcamp, and had a lecture about designing for AI. I also co-hosted a workshop about using AI in the design process. Exciting times! So many new tools, new workflows, new possibilities.

  E.g. this is how I presented my “sketch to Magic Patterns” workflow, AI is surprisingly great at translating your sketches to UI.

• I’ve been working on several personal projects, e.g. an interactive tool for learning the basics of frontend. Vibe coding is so great for building learning tools.

  

✏️ Design Patterns

“The only two things worth focusing on (or teaching in my case) right now are the fundamentals and the cutting edge.

Everything in between feels subject to change.” (Dan Saffer)

I couldn’t agree more with Dan, so the newest UX sketch is about a very foundational topic: design patterns.

As always, I’m going to publish a more detailed article, you’ll find it here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of February, 2026:

#1 A “principal product designer”-level presentation by Justin Edmund
”Back when I was interviewing, I would record myself to practice. Now, I’m uploading that take as a resource for others on what a “principal product designer”-level presentation looks like.”

#2 GoodCart
Explore the best-designed ecommerce websites

#3 Fullstackbuilder.ai
Learn to design, build, and ship products with AI. A brand new newsletter by

#4 Something big “might” be happening by
”As a designer, your value is often in the unexpected solution. The one that breaks the pattern to create brand distinction.

AI follows the pattern, but designers break it.”

#5 They Canceled Figma 4 Months Ago. Here’s What They Use Now by
There are many videos, articles about AI, I know. But if you just watch one video about AI this month, this should be it. Paper’s MCP is mindblowing. And I can’t agree more with Paper’s Founder and CEO, Stephen Haney: we as builders are going to use 3 tools: an agent (or multiple agents), a code review tool and a canvas.

#6 Optical Toys
Optical illusions & brain bending toys
[Btw. there are many other toys you should try out :) ]

#7 Aiverse
Real-world AI UX examples - founded by and Rahul Singh

#8 How Product Discovery changes with AI by
”I still start with pen and paper. That hasn’t changed. But the paper sketch isn’t what I put in front of people anymore. I sketch with code at various fidelities.

Here’s what I mean: a “low-fidelity” code sketch might be a simple HTML page with hardcoded data—enough to show the flow and get a reaction. A “high-fidelity” code sketch connects to real APIs and handles edge cases. The napkin sketch and paper prototypes are still how I think through problems, but code is how I communicate them.”

#9 No more boring drawings! by
”Which meaning is relevant to you right now?

And the answer to this question is what makes your drawing interesting. You just need to show it.”

#10 Notes from Make (Sneaky) Art by Jeff Zych
”I recently read the book Make (Sneaky) Art, which is full of tips and tricks to build your sketching habit. The author, Nishant Jain, calls himself a “sneaky artist” because he was embarassed of his drawings and didn’t want people to know he was sketching, but over time he built up a sketching habit and style and shared his techniques in this book.”

+1 Nate Parrott’s website
You should experience it yourself - consuming the content of this site is a gamification case study on its own.

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• What I have been working on

• Good defaults (an older UX Knowledge Piece Sketch)

• 10 + 2 design resources I loved the most in January

🛠️ My work

This is what I’ve been up to recently:

• I spoke about usability testing at UI Academy, a Hungarian design bootcamp - as pointed out, research (and learning about desirability) is becoming even more important

• I’ve been working on - among other personal projects - an interconnected database of my sketches, favorite design resources and clever design solutions I saved over the years, and I’m experimenting with a node-based approach that visualizes connections between these elements (everything is just a placeholder in my prototype):

  

✏️ Good Defaults

This month I had an unexpected amount of workload (next to my ongoing project of keeping two little humas alive :) ), so instead of a new sketch, here is one I still find very relevant (this conversation - and more specifically what Ryo Lu changed about Cursor’s UI - inspired me to reshare this sketch):

A default is a ready-made decision for your users. You preselect values, settings or preferences for the user. As a result, you can avoid decision fatigue and reduce cognitive load.

Next to these benefits, adding good defaults might result in a better user experience by

• reducing interaction cost, e.g. if the user already provided the data elsewhere, instead of asking for it again, you can just ask the user to validate the existing data — for instance: “use this address” or “modify”.

• preventing certain types of errors: in case of slips (when the goal is correct, but the actions taken by the user are inappropriate, e.g. mistyping), you can prevent errors by for example prepopulating form fields or offering premade answers (like “Can I call you later?”)

My sketch (in high-resolution) and article about Good defaults

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of January, 2026:

#1 Interface Craft by
An incredible knowledge base with the tastiest UI details ever. There is even a “Replay onboarding” option (for a good reason :) - truly one of my best onboarding experiences)

(Btw. Josh released this in February, so not last month, but it’s so good I just couldn’t wait to include it in my newsletter.)

#2 ’s conversation with
Jason Fried is one of my designer / product heroes, I just can’t get enough of his wisdom.

#3 A website to destroy all websites. by Henry Desroches
”[…] answer to the question of how the Internet can best serve humans:

it’s personal websites.

Hand-coded, syndicated, and above all personal websites are exemplary: They let users of the internet to be autonomous, experiment, have ownership, learn, share, find god, find love, find purpose. Bespoke, endlessly tweaked, eternally redesigned, built-in-public, surprising UI and delightful UX. The personal website is a staunch undying answer to everything the corporate and industrial web has taken from us.”

#4 A Living Manual for Better Interfaces by
”This wiki is a collection of articles, patterns, and best practices for designing and building user interfaces.” (Github)

#5 Detail.design by Rene Wang
Little Big Details was one of my favorite websites back in ~2015-2016. Sadly it got discountinued, but it’s great to see that there are some similar projects.

A related resource: Very Good Components by beehiiv - a curated collection of HTML UI components ready to drop into your next project."

#6 Designing beyond the happy path in design systems by Stéphanie Walter
”Pages take a long time to load. Errors happen. Sometimes there’s no content, or there’s too much. Users have specific preferences and settings, and they use different devices.”

My sketch and article about Edge cases

#7 Why So Many Info Tips Are Bad (and How to Make Them Better) by Kate Kaplan
”When thoughtfully implemented, info tips reduce confusion and increase user confidence. But they should always serve the user’s goals, not the designer's desire to declutter at all costs.”

My sketch and article about Contextual help

#8 Usability heuristics and competition in games by Oleksandr Shpak
If you are a long time subscriber, you know that I love board games and video games, so I really enjoy articles that are at the intersection of games and design.

#9 Stop Shooting Your Allies by
“Defending decisions” reveals an expectation of attack
When we position ourselves as defendants preparing for trial, we’re assuming adversarial intent before anyone even speaks. The signal sent: “I don’t trust you, and I don’t think you trust me.”

#10 Hacker News books
A map of the 1000 most mentioned books on Hacker News (can also be viewed as a list)

+1 Visualrambling.space
”A personal project by Damar, someone who loves to learn about different topics and rambling about them visually.”

+2 KODŌ-7 by Braz de Pina
A visual texture generation system

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

I hope you had the chance to reflect on your previous year and to plan for 2026 🚀

This issue is about

• An exciting upcoming workshop: Designing AI Products: UX Patterns for Uncertain Systems by Florian Boelter

• My newest article (it is about context & how AI “remembers”)

• Key Moments in UX Design (newest sketch)

• 10 + 1 design resources I loved the most in December

🛠️ Design better AI products — even if you’ve never worked on one before. A workshop by Florian Boelter

AI is making its way into more product experiences, but most designers haven’t been taught how to design for it. How do you build trust when outputs are probabilistic? What does “good UX” even mean when the system might be wrong? This workshop breaks it down.

Led by Florian Boelter, Staff Product Designer at Juro, we’ll go hands-on with real UX patterns and decision-making tools you can use when designing AI-powered features — from uncertainty and fallback states to human-in-the-loop workflows. We’ll work through a practical, hands-on exercise where we critique and redesign an AI product experience together. Whether you’re preparing for your first AI project or want to build a strong case study for your portfolio, this is where to start.

I attended one of Florian’s workshops before, and I had a blast! Here is my summary of it.

⏱️ 1,5 hours | 💵 $80 Standard / $45 Uxcel Pro | 🕔 28th January, 17:30 - 19:00 CET

💻 New article: How AI “remembers”, and what it means for you as a builder

In the article, I cover how context works, what influences GenAI apps’ performance, what tokens are, and how context grows with each prompt and response. As always, I used hand-drawn illustrations to make concepts more comprehensible, e.g. this one is about “turns” in an interaction with AI (read the article for more details):

✏️ Key Moments is UX Design

The difference between products that retain users and products that lose them often comes down to some key moments in the user journey. You shouldn’t leave these moments to chance, instead, map them out and design for them in a deliberate way.

My newest sketch highlights these moments: Aha Moment, Activation Moment, Moment of Truth, Magic Moment & more.

I’m going to publish a more detailed article, you’ll find it here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of December, 2025:

#1 Interviews about visual design by Anthony Hobday
While it is not a new resource, I didn’t know that one of my favorite designers, Anthony Hobday, interviewed so many designers, and they “only talked about visual design.”
E.g., here is a great piece of advice from the interview with Erik Kennedy:

”I’d recommend analyzing your gut reaction to any particular aspect of any design.

For instance, if you notice a font feels very friendly, try to analyze why. What about it makes it feel friendly? Is it a quality you can identify in other fonts that feel friendly? Is it a quality noticeably absent in decidedly not-friendly fonts? […]

Or maybe you’ll find that most professional designs use much more whitespace than your own attempts. Or maybe you’ll notice that most divider lines in great designs are really very light, etc.”

Btw. if you want to learn more about such techniques, my How to train your designer eye & develop your design skills course teaches you exactly that (it is about how you can use design inspiration effectively, how to analyze UI designs and how to practice & experiment)

#2 Inspo.page by Kevin Kopp
The website inspo library, curated at the component level.
I added it to my article about design inspiration (it contains a huge list of my favorite inspiration sites).

#3 10 Usability AI Principles by Matt Soriano

#4 Prompt builder and Gen AI Guide by Proper Prompts by sf.co
Gen AI Guide and Prompt Builder are tools for creating better photographic imagery

Two more resources related to prompts I liked last month:

• design/prompts - Drop these prompts into any AI assistant and ship beautiful, consistent interfaces in minutes.

• Prompt to Design Interfaces: Why Vague Prompts Fail and How to Fix Them by Huei-Hsin Wang

#5 The Art of Vibe Design by Ivan Cernja
”So stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting to “learn enough.” Start describing what you want. The bridge is built. Walk across it.”

#6 Designing For Stress And Emergency by Vitaly Friedman
Practical guidelines on designing time-critical products that prevent errors and improve accuracy.

#7 Design is more than code by Karri Saarinen
”The bigger question to me is what happens to how we see designers contributing in the future, especially now with AI and these new tools.”

#8 The Architecture of Anxiety and Shame Part 1 and Part 2 by Todd Libby
”I wanted to go over four patterns, four of many patterns, that are used to play with people psychologically, that draw out the anxiety and fear, the guilt and shame, and how these patterns are used and what we can do to combat them.”

My sketch about Dark (Deceptive) Patterns

#9 The End of the Designer–Engineer Divide by Ryo Lu
YC’s Aaron Epstein on Design Review interviews Cursor’s Head of Design

#10 8bitcn/ui
A set of 8-bit styled components and a code distribution platform

+1 Stickertop.art by Jack Gangi
Discover a unique collection of laptops adorned with creative stickers from around the world

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• My recent learning experiences

• How AI remembers and what context is (newest sketch)

• 10 + 2 design resources I loved the most in November

🎄And if you celebrate it: I wish you a great Christmas time with your loved ones, I hope you’ll be able to slow down & recharge :)

💻 Learning experiences

💥 Attending the Design Patterns For AI Interfaces workshop
I attended Vitaly Friedman’s Design Patterns For AI Interfaces online workshop series (10 hours + 3 more office hours 🔥). I realized that learning about AI was so much better in a group of like-minded designers, and Vitaly’s vast knowledge also made it like an exciting trip with an engaging guide: he had a great example for everything we asked about. One of the closing thoughts of this 13+ hours long journey was that while we are living in the “AI hype era”, we shouldn’t forget that the real value of any technology is measured by the impact it brings to its users, and the same is true for AI features.

💥 Joining the Design Gym community & attending several sessions
The Design Gym by Josh Loh is a new design community with a mission that really resonates with me: “Help designers turn inspiration to action through creative play.” It is “an online training platform where designers build creative capital through structured reps, real-time challenges, and a community that pushes them forward”. I joined as a founding member, you can use my “friend link” to get a 1-month Free Trial (it is not an affiliate link, I can basically gift 1 month, and I just really believe in Josh’s vision).

Btw. you might know Josh from the Relume Design League, which is one of the most entertaining series about design in my opinion.

✏️ Context: how AI “remembers” (Part 1)

Context is AI’s “memory” during a conversation, and it is built from messages that are like individual cards in a strictly ordered card deck.

As always, I’m going to publish a more detailed article, too, you’ll find it here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of November, 2025:

#1 Elizabeth’s Declassified Guide to Product Design by
”There is an overwhelming amount of advice circulating the internet for aspiring product designers. It can be hard to know where to even start. […] I’ll do my best to guide you in the right direction at various points in your design journey.”
A great guide for anyone starting out in product design!

#2 The Duolingo Handbook
”At the center of this book are 5 principles. These aren’t aspirational—they’re lessons we’ve learned through experience.” You can download it from here.
I also recommend you to check out Duolingo’s tone of voice guidelines.

#3 by
Karla has been a huge inspiration, and I have just recently discovered that she runs a newsletter full of useful links to design resources and events.

#4 Strategy Link Bank by
A huge resource collection created by a brand and creative consultant.
Her other repositories include: Strategy Models, Philosophies, Strategy Craft Skills and Strategy Books: Summaries & Reading Lists

#5 George UX Conf 2025 talks
The George UX Conf is one of my favorite design events, 2 years ago I was one of their social media partners and attended the conf in person (my summary article).

Here are two talks from this year’s event I especially recommend you to check out: 1.) Designing Dynamic Customer Experiences Powered by Generative AI (Jarno M. Koponen, Zalando) and 2.) Conversational Interactions in Banking: Fad or Future? (Stefan Ecker, )

#6 Good Visual Design, Explained by Kelley Gordon
As I wrote in my article about my favorite UI design books, “I believe that UI design is 95% learnable. Maybe the last 5% is for the “talented” ones, but you won’t need that last 5% for most of the UI tasks or UI jobs.” This is why I appreciate resources that systematically break down how to approach visual design. (Some of my related sketches: Visual hierarchy; Whitespace)

#7 Board game UX: a study on visibility of system status by Michael Molen
As I mentioned in one of the previous issues, I’m a huge board game geek, so I love everything that’s in the intersection of board games and design. Michael made a series of these “boardgame + UX” articles, here are two more you should check out:
- Board game UX: a study on error prevention
- Board game UX: help and documentation

#8 Designing the first ever tabletop game console by
One more resource related to board games: a Dive Club episode with Kevin Twohy

#9 Efecto by
A free ASCII art & dithering effects tool by one of the most inspirational designers I know :)

#10 Game design is simple, actually by Raph Koster
An epic overview of game design in 12 lessons.

+1 Joe Pendlebury’s portfolio and sketches
I love how Joe showcases his case studies, and he included some really awesome sketches!

+2 BYTE
Zoomable visual archive of the BYTE Magazine

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• An epic new course you should check out

• AI Literacy for designers — Part 2 (newest sketch)

• 10 + 1 design resources I loved the most in October

💻 Epic new course by Vitaly Friedman

Design Patterns for AI Interfaces — In the sea of AI noise, Vitaly’s course serves as an invaluable filter: the course is full of clear, easy-to-understand explanations and real-life examples. I highly recommend this course to any designer wanting to learn about the current state of AI and how we can create more meaningful AI experiences. It is especially recommended for designers experiencing AI fatigue or FOMO: this course will cure both, since instead of trying to pay attention to everything AI-related that pops up in your feed, you’ll know exactly what to focus on (and what to ignore).

In Vitaly’s words: “For the last 2 years, I was trying to find ways to make AI experiences more meaningful and more useful. More accessible and more sustainable. Shape AI experiences that go way beyond a magical text box”

✏️ AI Literacy for designers — Part 2 (newest sketch)

Here are 8 more AI-related concepts explained in an easily understandable way!

And as always, I’m going to publish a more detailed article, too, you’ll find it here soon. (This is the first part of the AI Literacy series covering these: intent-based outcome specification, the non-deterministic nature, temperature, context window, generative AI, tokens, LLMs, training data)

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of October, 2025:

#1 Why he’s the most trusted man in design - This Is Taste Episode 1
Tommy Geoco created an exceptional documentary series (like Netflix’s Abstract), this is the first episode.

#2 newsletter by
A weekly publication by Fons Mans exploring the craft, process, and beauty behind exceptional visual design.

It is full of great advice and good takes, e.g. here is one from the latest issue: ”AI design tools make it easier than ever to generate something that looks good. That’s both a gift and a trap. Visual designers who thrive in this era will be the ones who use AI to accelerate taste, not replace it.”

#3 How to reverse AI brain rot by Tobias van Schneider
6 tips by Tobias, this is the one I liked the most: ”Preserve human rituals. Long conversations that seem to go nowhere. Handwritten notes, physical exercise or craftsmanship. Those things bind the mind to the body, so to speak. Effort manifesting as form is a wonderful way to “feel yourself.””

#4 Brand Guide Hub by 12Punkt
A list of brand guidelines and design systems with language, system, company link, business sector and operating region

A related resource: Design Systems Index by Ruben Ferreira Duarte

#5 AI interfaces and the role of good writing by
”Many of today’s AI products were built for early adopters. These products use the language — and acronyms — of engineering. And they presume a deep fluency with technology. As AI products move into the mainstream, the writing in the interfaces should evolve, too.”

#6 The illusion of alignment - How designers create true alignment with visual thinking by

I love, love, love this article. My favorite part: ”A designer with a marker and a napkin can create more alignment in 1 minute than weeks of documented strategy. Not because the strategy is bad, but because the drawing makes everyone’s different mental pictures visible. It forces the misalignment to the surface early, when it’s still easy to correct. It grounds us in what could be, to drive the question of what should be.”

#7 Design Audit Using ChatGPT 5 by Nick Babich
”And in this article, I will show another great use case — ChatGPT will audit our UI design and offer practical tips on how to make it better.”

#8 UI for AI Initial Concepts by Dan Saffer
”For the last two weeks, the UI for AI team has been working on generating concepts that solve the various issues with current AI systems.”

#9 A Directory of Designers, for Designers. by Joshua Galinato
I graduated as a lawyer in another life, so I can really relate to unconventional paths into design. I also love the book recommendations section.

#10 Why You’re Addicted to Lovable Before You Even Hit the Paywall by Peter Ramsey (Built for Mars)
A thought-provoking analysis by Peter Ramsey highlighting that to create better AI experiences, we should offer users meaningful ways to spend their waiting time.

+1 A cartoonist’s review of AI art by The Oatmeal
”I use AI myself. I like using AI (although not AI art). AI is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good or for bad. Unfortunately, AI art seems to be headed toward the latter.”
What is your take on this topic? Let me know in the comments!

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• a sketchnote of my favorite Dive Club episode about AI Design Patterns with Vitaly Friedman and

• AI Literacy for designers - Part 1 (new sketch)

• 10 +1 design resources I loved the most in September

✏️ Beyond Chat: What’s Next for AI Design Patterns

Here is my sketchnote of my all time favorite episode of the Dive Club podcast: Beyond Chat: What’s Next for AI Design Patterns — Vitaly Friedman & Michael Riddering explore how might we help users specify intent better.

Read my summary of the episode.
If you liked this episode, you should consider attending Vitaly’s Design Patterns For AI Interfaces workshop (I have already registered! :) )

✏️ AI Literacy for designers — Part 1 (newest sketch)

Some of you asked for AI topics, so here is the first one, I hope you’ll enjoy it! And as always, I’m going to publish a more detailed article, too, you’ll find it here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of September, 2025:

#1 How to create a typographic hierarchy
”It tells them what to look at first, what to skim, and what to remember. Done right, it’s seamless. Done wrong, it can be extremely confusing.”

#2 How can AI UI capture intent? by
”Exploring contextual prompt patterns that capture user intent as it is typed”

#3 Taste Is Now Our Scarcest Asset by FIELD.IO
”Taste begins and ends with people. Machines can amplify output, but they cannot replace the human capacity to judge what resonates and what feels empty. The role of any system should be to support this judgment, never to erase it.”

A related article I liked: Taste vs. empathy by

#4 AI UX Patterns by Luke Bennis
”An exploration of the UX design patterns applicable to designing effective experiences for AI.”

#5 Loadmo.re by Kim Lê Boutin
”A selection of unconventional web references. It collects distinctive mobile experiences as a living archive for design inspiration.”

#6 When UX dad meets board games for kids by Ke Lyu
”…excellent children’s board games are essentially tangible user experience journeys.”

A related resource I love: Stephen P. Anderson: What Boardgames Can Teach Us About Designing Experiences (a talk from Amuse UX Conference 2017)

(Btw. I’m a huge board game geek, I have been collecting and playing games for decades, let me know in the comments if you are also passionate about board games :) ).

#7 UX scenarios + GenAI by
Using AI for ideation, UX scenarios, and the value of world-building in UX design

Video lecture: Using Generative AI to improve UX Scenarios

#8 Most viral website of 2025 - Behind-the-scenes with the designer — Dive Club episode by
”Cory Watilo absolutely broke social media with the release of the new Posthog website”

#9 Why Confetti Celebrations Backfire (and How to Make Them Work) by
”It’s intended to be a motivational slingshot, nudging users into another action. But it’s often timed poorly and feels like a cheap gimmick.”

A related sketch: Designing for emotional highs & lows

Btw. great new tools have been added to the Built for Mars universe:

• My Linkedin post about the Built for Mars AI Insights tool

• BFM’s new Figma plugin: Your UX Assistant

#10 everyday ux by Jess Eddy
Concise posts, actionable insights/tips, and ready-to-use resources for your everyday UX work.

+1 Ueno — one of the most inspiring design agencies — is back!

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• The new format for sharing my design knowledge

• The most influential thoughts about design — the new sketch

• 10 +1 design resources I loved the most in August

✏️ The new UX sketch format

Back in 2017, I started the UX Knowledge Base Sketches series. After the release of the 100th sketch, I changed the format to better fit Instagram’s carousel pattern (and I also liked how those 9 little sticky notes came together and formed a square-shaped design poster). I released the first one in 2020, and created 72 UX Knowledge Piece Sketches since then. These are the latest 9 put together:

Now I’ve decided that it’s time to change the format again. And after 8 years of using pen & paper to create these sketches, I’m going digital (iPad Air + Apple Pencil + Procreate). For now, I call it “.uxsketch” — like a file extension that indicates the file format :) Do you like this name? Let me know if you have an other idea!

✏️ The most influential thoughts about design — Part 1

These are some of the thoughts, ideas that fundamentally shaped how I approach design. I'm going to explain what each of these means to me in an article, you’ll find it here soon.

How do you like this new format? Please let me know in the comments if you have some feedback!

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of August, 2025:

#1 Checklist Design by
Checklist Design, a curated list of checklists ranging from website pages, to UI components, all the way to branding assets has just got an awesome new look.
It is available as a Figma Plugin, too.

#2 UXSnaps - Design breakdowns by Amish Gadhia
If you’ve been a long time follower, you know that I love knowledge bases that are about analyzing designs, e.g. Built for Mars, Growth.design or UserOnboard.
Btw. I’m also working on my own: a knowledge base that connects my 173+ UX sketches, the database of my favorite design links (600+) and my favorite design pieces I’ve saved over the years (1000+).
So I’m especially excited about this resource, it has great potential!

#3 Why designing terrible solutions makes you a better designer Jon Daiello
”“It’s not design if you only explored one option.” Let’s push it a bit further: it’s definitely not great design if all your options exist in the same narrow band of “acceptable.””

#4 BX Museum
An inspirational collection of brand artifacts, e.g. here are some of Netflix’s and Tupperware’s:

If you are interested in developing taste and how to get inspired by the offline and online experiences around you, check out the How to train your designer eye course:

#5 on the importance of taste – and how to acquire it
”A common theme heard amongst iconic, tasteful creatives is how often they look outside their own field for inspiration: the architect inspired by nature, the clothing designer inspired by anime, the illustrator inspired by medieval tapestries.”

#6 From “how might we” to “at what cost” by Ida Persson
”Moving fast and breaking things is no longer acceptable and as designers, we need to start considering both possibilities and the responsibilities we hold.”

Related resource: Design for Real Life book by Eric A. Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher (you can read it for free)

#7 Design inspiration

• Pricing pages by

• 404 pages also by Finnian

• Social proof examples

• UI Live (you can copy the assets directly to Figma)

• Marketing examples

My article and sketch about Collecting and using design inspiration —best practices and resources

#8 How AI Is Changing Search Behaviors by Kate Moran, Maria Rosala and Josh Brown
”While generative AI does offer enough value to change user behaviors, it has not replaced traditional search entirely. Traditional search and AI chats were often used in tandem to explore the same topic and were sometimes used to fact-check each other.”
A related article: How AI Succeeds (and Fails) to Help People Find Information by Kate Moran

My sketches about information foraging and how users look for information: part 1, part 2.

#9 The History of Themeable User Interfaces by
”Design tokens may be the latest incarnation, but software creators have been creating themeable user interfaces for quite a long time! As with all things, we can study history to learn from our past to inform our future.”

#10 Has efficiency killed beauty? A designer’s search for meaning by
What a nice and well-illustrated essay! A perfect read for your coffee breaks :)

”Many great works became great precisely because their creators broke the rules of their time.” […] “Why try to lock beauty in a cage? If something strikes us as beautiful — maybe we should just let it be and not destroy the magic by over-analysing it.”

My sketch about the Aesthetic-Usability Effect

+1 Colonoscopy and candy drops: on crafting a good peak-end experience by
”A gift that doesn’t match the perceived value ends up lowering the quality of the experience, instead of adding to it.”

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This is a “summer edition”, a double issue of the previous two months. We took some days off with my family (I’m a mom of 2, traveling with a 3-year old kid and a 8-month old baby is an interesting challenge — with some awesome moments :D )

This issue is about

• Getting inspired by some features of a model railway museum

• Testing visual design: the first-impression test (5-second test) — the new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch

• 15 design resources I loved the most in June & July

I hope you’ll find something valuable! 💎

🚂 Getting inspired by a museum

During our holiday, we visited some museums, too, for instance a model railway museum. The previous newsletter issue was about getting inspired by the real world around us, these are some of the things I noticed and documented:

• the model trains were controlled by a software called Railroad & Co. TrainController, it was great to see how all the routes and engines were displayed

• there was a nice accessibility feature: kids could stand on a platform to better see the models (bottom-left corner)

• they applied a “dark mode” :) Once per hour, visitors could experience the nighttime appearance of trains, buildings, and terrain

• there was an interactive model railway that visitors could control by using a knob — it was interesting to observe how intuitive it was for my 3-year old, the affordance (knob for turning) really worked (bottom-right corner)

Next time you visit a museum, try to observe some design solutions, document them, and I also encourage you to share your findings! (I talk about this activity in greater detail in the How to train your designer eye course.)

✏️ First-impression testing & how to optimize it

During a 5-second test, users are shown a design or content piece (e.g. a website or an app) for 5 seconds, then asked questions about what they remember or noticed. Goals include: evaluating first impressions, visual hierarchy, and whether key info or CTAs are immediately clear or not.

However, research suggests that this 5-second duration is not a “one-size-fits-all” solution, and it should be optimized based on the participant’s cognitive ablities and the design’s complexity.

Read my sketch & detailed article here soon (I’ll include many-many examples.)

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of June-July, 2025:

#1 Designing for the Eye by Niko Kitsakis
”This article highlights a special aspect of both visual design and architecture: Optical cor­rections” Another great article in this topic: Optical effects in user interfaces by Slava Shestopalov

#2 How to write surveys that actually work: lessons from Strava by
A great analysis of Strava’s survey — pointing out its “green flags” and its biggest flaw. (My sketch about surveys)

#3 AI is eating the Internet
”Even Google, realizing its core search business is at risk, has decided to commit seppuku rather than be usurped by outsiders. Google is now rolling out AI-generated answers in search results, essentially cannibalizing its own traffic.”

Related research: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results

#4 14 logic-driven UI design tips to improve any interface by
Adham is one of the best teachers when it comes to learning UI design (his book, Practical UI, is one of my favorites)

#5 Build your personal AI copilot by
“A guide to using AI as a long-term thinking partner (including prompts to get you started)”

#6 5 things I learned from 5 years at Vercel by Lee Robinson
I love these kind of summaries, these inspire me to write about the “chapters” of my own design career. Another one I really liked: Emily Not Found

#7 How to Convince People to Care and Invest in Accessibility by Stéphanie Walter
”This talk, article, is for anyone who’s ever said “we need to make this accessible,” and got ignored, brushed off, or told, “We’ll do that later.””

Another accessibility-related resource I discovered is Design Beyond Barriers, a great guide that explains many different aspects.

#8 Travel sketchnotes — Since this is a “summer edition”, here are some travel sketchnoting resources:

• Create memories by sketching by Chris Spalton

• Talking about Travel Sketchnotes on the Sketchplanations Podcast by Eva-Lotta Lamm (podcast episode)

• Sketchnoting Scotland: How visual notes made my travels more meaningful by

#9 Supporting “Power Users” Isn’t Enough: 3 Complex-App User Types by Kate Kaplan
”Complex-app users don’t always fit neatly into “novice” or “expert” labels. Designing for Legacy, Legend, and Learner users leads to more inclusive, effective systems.”

#10 Return to the Roots: Sketchnote by
Read about — and get inspired by — Mauro’s sketchnoting journey :)

#11 The secret of good metaphors by Louis Charron
”One of metaphors’ most powerful aspects is their ability to bring distant concepts within reach of our human scale.”
My related sketch: The Myth of Finding the Right Metaphor for your UI

#12 The UX butterfly effect by Martin Tomitsch
”The law of unintended consequences observes that every decision made can have both positive and negative outcomes that were not foreseen by the person making the decision.” This article is from the book, Designing Tomorrow.
Impact Ripple Canvas template

#13 One Million Screenshots
An unconventional way of getting some design inspiration :) Zoom into the web's top homepages

#14 Masterclass in Storytelling (for beginners) with Shaan Puri by
”We deconstruct everything from popular movies to business origin stories to viral Twitter threads.”

#15 I Spent 90 Days Rebuilding My Brain. Here's What I Learned. by
”There's a version of your mind you haven't visited in a while. A version that's slower, sharper, and far more capable than the fragmented one most of us live with. This is an invitation to meet that version again.”

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My courses on Udemy (€12.99 each)

• How to train your designer eye

• Sketching for UX Designers course

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course

My free (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design All access by Andrija Prelec

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

☕ You can also support me by buying a coffee on ko-fi.com.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know if you have any feedback!
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• Getting inspired by the world around us - some advice & the new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch

• 10+2 design resources I loved the most in May

I hope you’ll find something valuable! 💎

✏️ Draw inspiration from the world around you

As a designer, you should also get inspired by the world around you.

Observe for instance objects, how things work, architecture, places and wayfinding. Learn from bad designs. Study game design and instructional design, notice the different colors e.g. in nature, visit museums and so on.

, author of the book, the Elements of user experience said that experience design is a design of anything as long as it is about human experience as an outcome and human engagement as a goal. So it can be about designing a guest experience at a hotel, or designing a flyer, or learning experiences, customer support processes, organizing a conference and so on.

Using your designer eye should become your natural way of being. Something you don’t have to think about or you don’t have to turn on.

Here is a useful practice activity: look around and find an example for a good and for a bad design, try to list out your whys, and you can also add some redesign ideas.

A useful framework for this analysis: the 3 Levels of Design by Don Norman.

• There is the visceral level: it is about how something looks, the first impression, your immediate response.

• The second level is the behavioral, it is about usability and effectiveness, so the functions and performance.

• Finally, the third level is the reflective level: how is this product part of your self-image or your identity? Are there any memories or good stories attached to it?

If you’d like to learn more about how to get inspired, check out the How to train your designer eye course.

Read my sketch & detailed article here soon (I’ll include many-many examples.) And btw. this is the first hybrid / mixed media sketch - I thought that a sketch about getting inspired by the real world around you should contain images of these things, not just sketches. Let me know if you have any feedback! :)

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of May, 2025:

#1 That guide to UI design by Mariya Lambrianov
”This is that guide you’ve been looking for—a curated collection of resources and exercises I've gathered to help you start your UI Design journey.”
This is an epic resource collection for any designers wanting to work on their UI or visual design skills!

#2 How to write error messages that actually help users rather than frustrate them by Amy Hupe
”When we handle errors with care, clarity and empathy, we not only help users move forward, we show that we value their time, their goals and their experience.” My sketch about error messages

#3 The Evolution of AI Products by Luke Wroblewski

#4 Version control: How a UX writer weighs one word against another by Henry Freedland
“We needed to remember that it wasn’t enough just to get someone to click; we also were responsible for making sure they knew the implications of what was happening. So, for the final experience, we added icon states at the top of a file, accompanied by more explanatory language, connecting the technical situation to the overarching goals of the experience itself.”

#5 Prompt Suggestions by Kate Moran and Tim Neusesser
”Prompt suggestions are typically used in generative-AI (genAI) systems that accept open-text prompts from users. When people first begin using an AI system, they’re often faced with the “blank page” problem and must think about how they could use the product.”

#6 Website headlines
Home of the internet's finest website headlines.

#7 The cognitive cost of convenience by Michael F. Buckley
”But the goal shouldn’t be to eliminate all cognitive effort — only unnecessary friction. Thoughtful UX doesn’t just make things easier — it makes experiences more enriching and empowering over time.”
My sketch about deliberate friction.

#8 The great manipulation by
This article is from February, but I discovered it last month, and I read it multiple times since then. One of the best pieces I’ve encountered in a long time. The story of Edward Bernays is fascinating. The “Torches of Freedom'“ slogen is genius. And I love the main message of the article: “Design is just a tool, like a sword. It's clearly very effective at what it does, but it's all about who's using it and why. The truth is, design will always be about influence and manipulation. Our only choice is what kind of influence we want to have, and whose interests we choose to serve.”

#9 I've done over 10,000 prompts - 44-min tutorial on how to generate UI by Meng To
You should also check out his Tips for Prompting

#10 Making software by
”A reference manual for people who design and build software.” Here you can preview some things that’ll be included in the book.

+1 Every day sketches by Sebastian
”Every day sketches, brainfarts and ideas flying around in my backpack and apartment. I hope they can inspire or help someone out there.”

+2 Winamp Skin Museum

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Supercharge Design’s All Access course bundle (60+ hours)

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• ✏️ My new sketch: Landing page best practices

• 💎 10+1 design resources I loved the most in April

• ▶️ My favorite Config talks

✏️ Landing page best practices

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about “Landing page best practices - the rest of the page”. Here are the 3 previous sketch in this series: Hero section part 1, part 2, Footer design

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

While this is not a new discovery of mine, I highly recommend you to check out this newsletter: Open Doors by Florian Boelter (you can subscribe for free). “Here to make the design industry welcoming and accessible for everyone stepping into it.”

These are my favorite discoveries of April, 2025:

#1 Great resources about onboarding (3)

• Writing the onboarding experience by - “But sometimes an interface needs a little instruction. Enter: the product onboarding. A popular design approach that helps a product introduce itself.”

• User education by - “Let them discover and organically educate each other about advanced features. If you do decide to educate your users, try to do so in a highly targeted and non-blocking way.”

• I studied the UX/UI of over 200 onboarding flows - here’s everything I learned by - “What separates a winning onboarding flow from a failed one? And how can we design them better?”

#2 How I use generative AI in branding by Charlota Kolar Blunarova
“AI expedites the execution phase. That means I can explore more ideas, faster. I can dedicate more time to the initial strategic phase with my clients—clarifying what their brand is about, why it exists, and what message we aim to convey. It also unlocks more time for refinement.”

#3 The creative power of constraints by Arun Venkatesan
“Successful creative people don’t merely comply with externally imposed constraints, but transform them through reframing. They adopt constraints as personal challenges rather than external impositions.”

Related article: When constraints sparked creativity by Ian Batterbee

#4 Devouring Details - upcoming interaction design course by Rauno Freiberg
“Interaction design is fascinating. In response to input, millions of pixels on the screen animate 120 frames per second—all with deliberate authoring to pull off an elaborate magic trick to convince you that the interface is alive. But what are the invisible details that pull this off?” Free behind the scenes chapter

#5 When faces go virally wrong by
“A face is more than identity. It’s power, emotion, legacy. In the hands of artists, it inspires. In the hands of algorithms, it replicates. We must choose: will we design tools that honor human creativity — or harvest it silently? The next era of portraiture is being shaped right now.”

#6 Comic Sans and the art of imperfection by
”Comic Sans is intentionally designed with generous letter spacing and irregular shapes that make each character stand out. The result? It’s highly legible, even at small sizes and on low-resolution screens—exactly the kind we used in the ’90s.”

Related article: Introducing Kermit: A typeface for kids by Rob McKaughan

#7 The story of the Orange by
“One of my earliest mentors shared a story with me that has stayed with me ever since: As a Creative Director, he had a ritual. Every time he delivered a major pitch to a client he wore his special “orange shirt.” That shirt, he said, made him feel like the most creative, confident and joyful version of himself. It became his secret ingredient, a symbol of his best self.”

#8 The case against conversational interfaces by Julian Lehr
“Natural language is great for data transfer that requires high fidelity (or as a data storage mechanism for async communication), but whenever possible we switch to other modes of communication that are faster and more effortless. Speed and convenience always wins.
My favorite example of truly effortless communication is a memory I have of my grandparents. At the breakfast table, my grandmother never had to ask for the butter – my grandfather always seemed to pass it to her automatically, because after 50+ years of marriage he just sensed that she was about to ask for it. It was like they were communicating telepathically.

*That* is the type of relationship I want to have with my computer!”

#9 The People’s Graphic Design Archive
A crowd-sourced virtual archive of inclusive graphic design history.

#10 Perplexity brand guidelines
“Altogether, we always want our brand to feel powerfully consistent, but also deeply diverse and always growing. So use this guide as inspiration, and keep making cool, weird stuff.”

+1 SuprOrdinary Youtube channel by Devin Mathews
“As a kid, I dreamt of the amazing creative things I would make that would set the world a blaze. 30 years and 2 kids later, my creative impact feels more like lukewarm bath water rather than the fiery blaze I hoped for. I asked myself: is this it? Have I already made my best stuff? Deep down, I knew my most creative ideas were still in me, and if I kept waiting for the right opportunity, they might never see the light of day. So instead of dreaming of the extraordinary "somedays," I decided I was going to start with the ordinary everyday.”

Here is an interview with Devin, about the series, e.g. I love this advice: “If I could give anyone who feels this way some advice it would be: start from where you are at, with what you have, and leave regret for the indecisive.”

▶️My favorite Config 2025 talks

• Beyond agents: AI as a creative partner with Joel Lewenstein

• Building digital products as a company of one with Christine Vallaure de la Paz

• Building in public with Figma: designers should be creators with Nolan Perkins

• Reimagining the NFL app with Lauren Manning & Arjun Kalyanpur

• Crafting quality that endures with Karri Saarinen, Co-founder & CEO, Linear

• Writing is designing with Andy Welfle

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue is about

• how to win a free WebExpo ticket

• my new sketch: Reciprocity in UX design

• 10+1 design resources I loved the most in March

I hope you’ll find something valuable! 💎

🎉Win a free ticket for WebExpo

My favorite design conference, WebExpo, is coming very soon, and the organizers offered me a free ticket to give away to my subscribers & followers.

The event has truly awesome vibes, each time I attended it in-person (2018, 2019 and 2023), I felt that I belong to a tribe of like-minded professionals working on digital products & services. Here are some pics from the last time I participated, I met many designer friends:

⭐ How the raffle works:

• To participate, subscribe to the WebExpo newsletter, and send me a screenshot as proof to this email: startheredesigner@gmail.com (if you are already a subscriber, send me a screenshot of that)

• Check the date and location (May 28-30, Prague, Czechia), and only participate in the contest if you'd surely attend the event!

• The contest is open until this Sunday (6th of April) 23:59 CEST

• The winner will be randomly selected on the 7th of April, Monday

(Some conditions: the ticket is for the conference days, not for the individual premium workshops. The ticket is not transferable, not refundable. The cost of transportation and accommodation is not included.)

Watch back talks from previous years, some of my favorites:

• Design Patterns for AI Interfaces by

• Microcopy: Your users will fall in love by

• Surgical UX: Information design for visualisation systems in surgery by Tim Caynes

My articles and sketchnotes of the WebExpo events I attended in the past:

• Live sketchnoting pro tips for designers - Illustrated by my WebExpo 2023

• 15 conference tactics for designers - Illustrated by my WebExpo ‘19

• Sketchnoting for UX designers: WebExpo Conference captured by sketchnotes

✏️ Reciprocity in UX design

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about reciprocity, in essence, it is about giving value first, then asking something “in return”. The sketch discovers how this principle can be applied in UX design:

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of March, 2025:

#1 The Product Design Resources Library by
”After more than two decades working as a product designer, I’ve collected hundreds of amazing design tools, books, and websites.”

I’m so honored to be included in Adham’s resources library, he added the UX Knowledge Base Sketch publication and my StartHereDesigner resource library, too! 😊

#2 Fixing Frustrating Design Patterns For 2025 by
”In this workshop, we’ll take a closer look at some frustrating design patterns and explore effective alternatives — to improve UX and accessibility, but also help businesses save on costs and increase revenue.”
Workshop slides
Google doc with all the links

#3 Airbnb UI analysis by
”Here’s why it’s one of the cleanest, most user-friendly apps in the world (and what you can learn from it)”

#4 I Like Interfaces - design inspiration collected by Fey Vercuiel
”Researching UI in Games, Cinema and anything else thats interesting”

#5 High Agency In 30 Minutes by George Mack
”I believe high agency might be the most important idea of the 21st century. When I first learned of high agency, it felt like a secret that had been hidden from me.”

#6 The Product Design Process by
”I was recently invited back to Ivey Business School to talk about the Product Design Process. […] Today, I'll walk you through the core of product design, where AI fits in, and how we make design decisions that actually improve lives.”

#7 Document As You Go! Write a UX Design Diary by Lodestar Design
”For projects that last for more than half a year and involve multiple design team members, having a design diary ready is like having a user manual that other designers can digest at their own pace.”

#8 Photo gradient - a nice tool by Daniel Destefanis
Upload a photo, and turn it into a nice gradient that you can modify and download:

#9 AI is reshaping UI — have you noticed the biggest change yet? by Tia Sydorenko
“With the new AI systems, the user no longer tells the computer what to do. Rather, the user tells the computer what outcome they want”.

Btw. I heard about this new UI Paradigm from Ioana Teleanu during the 10X Designers Conference, this is how she illustrated it:

#10 Visual design tutorials by Dmitry Kurash
Dimitry has recently posted some awesome visual design tutorials, learn how to do these magical things in Figma: holo effect, lightning bolt, refraction effect, gradient

+1 Everyone can draw by at TEDxMitte
”Can two circles and a line tell a story? Artist and cartoonist Chaz Hutton explores how drawing serves as a universal language, bridging gaps between people and cultures.”

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This issue has 3 main parts:

• recommending one of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had:
  the Next-Level Web Design Course by Benten Woodring

• my new sketch: Hero section best practices - Part 2 (here is the first part)

• 10+1 great resources I discovered in February

Enjoy, and please let me know if you have any feedback!

✏️ Next-Level Web Design Course

The review I left on Maven pretty much sums up my experience:

“Even with over 10 years of experience in the design field, this course provided so much value and exceeded my expectations. If you are into long theoretical lessons, this course is not for you. However, if you want to have direct access to one of the best web designers of our time, and want to put theory into practice right away, this course is a great choice for you. Next to getting feedback on all assignments, we also got access to Benten's real life project deliverables. And the cherry on the top of this delicious course-cake was the cohort-based experience, we had great discussions, and it was nice to see others grow.”

Benten offered a discount code for my community: SKETCHUX for $100 off

Next cohort start date: 10th of March, enroll here

✏️ Hero section best practices (Part 2)

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is the next part of the Hero section best practice series:

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon (As always, I included many real life examples, too).

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of February, 2025:

#1 Web Interactions Gallery

A similar resource: DoingCoolStuff is a collection of brand, motion and digital product studios curated by Jamie Samman and various other peeps.

One more related inspiration site I discovered recently: App motion

#2 How To Test And Measure Content In UX by
“we can use a few simple techniques to assess how users understand and perceive content.”

My related sketch: How to Test Your UX Copy — UX Knowledge Piece Sketch #19

#3 Early - Handpicked early-stage products
I discovered this site thanks to Filip Gres, creator of the gist of.
My the gist of page

#4 Collection of nice interactions by Nitish Khagwal

#5 Designing for clarity: How we restructured Intercom’s information architecture by Pranava Tandra
”Simplifying isn’t about cutting corners; it’s about bringing order to complexity. To do that, we had to ask a fundamental question: How do we create a structure that feels intuitive without sacrificing depth?”

#6 Public Domain Image Archive
You need an illustration for your article or teaching material? You don’t have to use an AI-generated image! “As our name suggests, the focus is on works now fallen into the public domain, that vast commons of out-of-copyright material that everyone is free to enjoy, share, and build upon without restriction.”

#7 A Sneak Peek of the New DanMall.com
Behind-the-scenes thoughts on how Dan Mall’s created his new website.

#8 Deceptive Patterns Educator Deck by Harry Brignull
Over 200 slides with visual examples from every chapter of this book: Deceptive patterns – exposing the tricks tech companies use to control you
My related sketch: Dark Patterns (as Harry states, it is better to use the term deceptive pattern since it is a “more inclusive terminology (avoiding using the word “dark” as a pejorative).”
You should also check out his Hall of shame.

#9 A Designer’s Guide to Documenting Accessibility & User Interactions by Stéphanie Walter
”This is the text version of a talk, where I explain why, what and how designers can document different aspects of accessibility and user interactions requirements, to build better more inclusive products from the start.”

#10 Crypto Design Club
A database of best-in-class handpicked crypto designs.

+1 The Challenge of a Consistent Sketching Practice by Eva-Lotta Lamm
”One of the biggest hurdles in improving your sketching skills isn’t talent or fancy materials—it’s simply showing up regularly.”

I also created a sketching challenge, get my free (pay-what-you-want) ebook:
The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge - Build a habit around sketching (5 minutes a day), establish a UX visual library of 300 hand-drawn icons

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

You know those “January was a though year…” memes. Did you feel the same way? Have you started a new project you are proud of? Have you found any great resources? Please share it in the comments!

✏️ Upcoming event: Webexpo conference

You probably already know that my favorite design event is Webexpo.

Design talk highlights: Future of design in a nutshell
Date: May 28-30.
Location: Prague, Czechia

As a community partner, I got two promo codes for you:

• SKETCHING25 is for a 20% discount on the conference ticket

• VIP10SKETCHINGFORUX is for a 10% discount on these workshops (please don’t share this code, this is exclusively for my subscribers):

  • Designing for complex UIs in 2025

  • Accessibility for designers – from mockups to documentation

✏️ Hero section best practices (Part 1)

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about the most important part of a landing page: the hero section (Part 1 - stay tuned for the next part!)

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon (As always, I included many real life examples, too).

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of January, 2025:

#1 Stylescapes
I have never heard of stylescapes before attending Benten Woodring’s Next Level Web Design course. It is used to establish and communicate the overall look, feel and aesthetic direction of a brand or design project before creating starting the actual design phase.
It is basically an “evolved” moodboard that contains custom assets, visuals, too.

• Stylescapes - What Is It & How To Create One by Flux Academy

• How To Design Brand Identity Stylescapes by The Futur

#2 Murphy’s law of design: If anything can go wrong, it will
”Murphy’s Law is actually an extremely useful engineering principle. […] It means that, given enough time, things will break, mechanisms will weaken, bugs will surface. […] If we know that failure is inevitable, we need to engineer out as many failure modes as we can think of.”
This reminded me of these:

• adding risk stories to journey maps or user story maps,

• the concepts included in the Design for real life book,

• thinking about edge cases, possible errors next to designing the happy flow

• creating antipersonas (anticipating misuse cases)

#3 Hero section inspiration site by Solt Wagner

#4 Figma Plugins by Benten Woodring, Chandler Roth, Evan Place, and Curtis Renkiewicz
”We wanted an easier way to discover the best Figma plugins and decided to build a site to collect and curate the best plugins around for our fellow designers.”

#5 Estonia brand
”We have mapped the main strengths of Estonia and created a way to express them through writing, designs, presentations, and videos.”
You can take a look at the Figma files, too!

#6 UI Checklist by MDS
”The top 101 things to consider when designing visually beautiful interfaces. Use this to self-critique any of your designs whether it's homework from this course or your own projects.”
And this checklist reminded me of two other similar resources, both have been around for a while, but maybe you haven’t heard about them:

• Checklist.design

• 50 Things You [Probably] Forgot To Design by Jon Moore

#7 Discover the Email Journeys of your favorite brands by Andy King
”We signup, trigger, collect and analyze thousands of email designs,
content ideas and journeys from your favorite brands.”

#8 Yo! Podcast? by Rob Hope
”The Yo! Podcast spotlights incredible designers, developers, makers and entrepreneurs building their own future”, e.g. Pablo Stanley, Rogie King, Oliur, Ridd and Steve Schoger

#9 Comprehensive Accessibility Checklist for Web Projects by Caitlin de Rooij
”Master complex web accessibility: Our checklist covers ARIA, dynamic content, and interactive elements. Level up your inclusive design skills.”

#10 The Pigeonhole Principle by Chris Butler
“[…] how to structure information when you can’t predict how it will grow or change.” […] “Perhaps the future of digital organization lies not in better boxes, but in breaking free of them altogether — in designing spaces that flex and grow with our ideas rather than trying to contain them.“

+1 Sketchbook Drawing Ideas by Matt Cram
”Drawing in your sketchbook is a wonderful way to develop your skills, explore creativity, and document your experiences.”

+2 A fantastic designer to follow: Sam Peitz
Twitter (X), Linkedin

One of his recent concepts:
”I always feel bad about tossing cards into a drawer, so I created this concept to quickly digitize the cards and letters I want to keep with me.”

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

I hope you had a productive start of this year! Luckily I found time to discover new design resources and create a sketch for you (even though currently my main job is to keep my newborn baby alive 😂)

✏️ What I have been up to this month

1) Attending the Next-Level Web Design course
If you have been a long time subscriber, you know that I’m a course hoarder, and I’m always happy to learn new tricks: I’m attending Benten Woodring’s Next-Level Web Design course on Maven, and it has been a blast:

• There are assignments in every topic (e.g. typography, color and layout) so that students can apply the theory right away - and the best part is that Benten gives everyone detailed feedback on all the submissions

• We have direct access to one of the greatest web designers out there, and we could “peak behind the curtain”, too: Benten explained and showed us his web design process - this behind the scenes look alone makes this an outstanding course

• The cohort-based experience is a big plus

The next cohort launches on the 10th of March, get notified of it here.

2) How to train your designer eye workbook
Benten’s course pushed me to start working on the landing page of my How to train your designer eye workbook (which is in progress, too).

3) Design inspiration - sharing my favorite finds
I have been working on a new side project: I’ve collected many-many design inspiration pieces throughout the years, and I want to share my favorite ones with you in an organized way (like the UX Bites by Built for Mars). I’m still not sure what would be the best format, I’ll keep you posted :)

✏️ Footer design best practices

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about an often overlooked aspect of web design: how to create a truly impactful footer. A generic footer is a missed opportunity, you should end on a high note!

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon (I included many real life examples, too). And btw. if you are searching for footer-specific inspiration, check out the www.footer.design website by Benten Woodring, Matt Cram, Devin Fountain and Fons Mans.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of December, 2024:

#1 14 UI Patterns for generative AI by Des Traynor
Originally posted on Twitter

#2 The software stuntman - Content, UX, gamification, oh my! (Ft. Peter Ramsey of Built for Mars)
Check out Peter Ramsey’s fascinating story and how he is building the best UX library.

Related article: This is how design professionals use Built for Mars
Latest case study on Built for Mars: How Product Psychology Could Stop Uber Drivers From Stealing

#3 Over-complicated? Over-simplified? The UX Efficient Frontier by Morgane Peng
”Unlike large consumer base products — that offer the simplest experience to the largest number — products for Experts or Employees have to be tailored to their specific professional usages.”

#4 Pablo Sánchez’s 7 rules for designing the unexpected
”Instead of striving for objectivity—which can compromise your vision and potential—design something that inspires you.”

#5 Improving User Experience with Diary Studies by Stéphanie Walter
”Because of the diversity of tasks users carried out with the tool on a daily basis, it was impossible to cover everything during the 1h 1to1 testing sessions. We needed a self-reporting method to collect data on real usage over a period of time.”

My sketch about diary studies

#6 Designer Lynx
Designer Lynx is a resource hub for all things figma and product design.

#7 Design Against the Machine by Boris Müller
”Instead of banning AI tools, I made them a requirement for a speculative design class”

#8 An interactive guide to color & contrast by Nate Baldwin
A comprehensive guide for exploring and learning about the theory, science, and perception of color and contrast - alongside with many UI design tips.

#9 The next era of design is intent-driven
”[…] interfaces don’t have to be static structures users must learn. Instead, they can be fluid, contextual experiences that adapt to user intent.”

#10 How I used AI to design brand-aligned illustrations by Moty Weiss
”Learning to break down style requirements and refine prompts can elevate design skills and expand possibilities in brand illustration”

#11 Stop wireframing (but still start low-fidelity)
”By abstracting low fidelity away from wireframing, I have become 10x more productive as a designer.”

+1 Drawing people for visual notes by Ink Factory
”While drawing characters can be complicated, there are easy ways to simplify them so you can draw them quickly and easily for visual note-taking.”

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

The past several weeks have felt like a roller coaster ride with lot of ups and downs: we welcomed a new family member, our second little one :) So this is why I skipped one issue of the newsletter, I hope you’ll find something useful in this double issue!

✏️ My work

I created two new posts in the “How to train your designer eye” series:

• Collecting design inspiration - Part 1 (collecting user flows)

• Collecting design inspiration - Part 2 (what you should collect)

If you are interested in these topics, check out my course (€12.99).

✏️ Selective attention & content blindness

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about what we actually see on a user interface (content blindness, banner blindness, change blindness and inattentional blindness), and how our attention works.

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon (I included many real life examples, too).

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of October-November, 2024:

#1 Choice is not the enemy by Ivan Sipilov
”Serious decisions are not meant to be simple: In certain contexts — like real estate or financial decisions, medical choices, or complex tools — users want to engage more deeply.”
My sketch about Deliberate Friction in UX

#2 7 mental models for designing AI products by
Ridd and his awesome guests discuss different mental models for designing AI products:
”AI as
- an organism we grew
- the middle of a field
- a chef in a kitchen
- a new child
- a new material
- the meat of our design deliverable
- electricity”

#3 Mobile App UX Trends: The Current State of Mobile App UX (10 Common Pitfalls & Best Practices) by Sonia Sousa / Baymard Institute
”In this article, we’ll analyze this dataset to provide you with the current state of Mobile App UX, outlining 10 common mobile app UX pitfalls and corresponding e-commerce best practices applicable to most mobile e-commerce apps.”
Check out the Baymard Institute’s recently launched Youtube channel, too.

#4 Designing Beyond The Happy Path by Stéphanie Walter (free webinar)
”Mockups often present an idealized version of a product, with perfect text sizes, flawless content, and a seamless user journey. However, in real-world scenarios, designs can break down due to technical limitations, diverse user needs, and unpredictable content.”

My sketch about edge cases in UX design

#5 21 UX strategies to maximize user engagement without exploitation by Taras Bakusevych
”Discover the most effective behavioral design frameworks, learn how to drive daily active user growth and retention, and gain practical insights for developing sustainable, ethical strategies that keep your products engaging without becoming exploitative.”

#6 Accelerators Maximize Efficiency in User Interfaces by Rachel Krause and Aurora Harley
”Alternate methods for accomplishing frequent actions in user interfaces support expert users by speeding up their interactions, without hindering novice users.”

#7 Improving Site Usability: Design Tactics for Cognitive Disabilities by Caitlin de Rooij
”This article will explore the fundamentals of designing websites with cognitive disabilities in mind. We’ll cover practical strategies to enhance usability, reduce cognitive load, and create more accessible digital experiences.”

#8 Made in Figma: The National Park Service goes from paper to pixels by Jenny Xie
An epic case study about designing an app for 431 diverse national parks and monuments.

#9 Designing For Gen Z: Expectations And UX Guidelines by
”There are many myths revolving around Gen Z and how they use tech. Time to take a look at actual behavior patterns that go beyond heavy use of social media.”

#10 The Escape Machine, a custom BMW R100R made by HOVS & ONEYEDEER
”This project pushed me into new creative territory, combining mechanical engineering with sculptural design.”
”This wasn't just about aesthetics. Every design choice served to enhance the riding experience, with the machinery receding into shadow beneath the rider's perspective.”
Tobias van Schneider’s inspirational physical product design.

+1 How I do diary comics. And why. by Andrew Tan
Discovered thanks to (if you are interested in sketching and visual thinking, you should subscribe to his newsletter)

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My free (pay-what-you-want) ebooks

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Learn UI Design by Erik Kennedy

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

• How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs by (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

Let me tell you a personal update: you might have noticed that I haven’t been around that much on social media recently. In some days, I’m going to give birth to my second child, I couldn’t be more excited! So this newsletter issue is going to be the last one for a while (hopefully I’ll be able to return to content creation and curation in some months 😊).

✏️ 3 news / events you should know about

• released his new course, How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (I added it to My favorite UX & UI design courses article, too). Vitaly was kind enough to offer a coupon code for the sketching for UX newsletter subscribers: use the code IMPACT to get 20% off!

  

• The George UX Conference 2024 is going to happen in some days (5th of November), it’s one of my favorite design events, you can read about my last year’s experience (and check out my sketchnotes) here. While the in-person tickets are sold out, you can get a free remote ticket and follow the conf online!

• is going to release his Making UX Decisions course very soon. His book, Making Design Decisions is one of my favorite design books. (I wrote about it in this article). Btw, Tommy has also published a free mini course called Information Alchemy that you can grab here.

+1 WebExpo 2025 Call for Papers: Do you want to talk at WebExpo next year? The submission deadline for applications is the 31st of October, here are the details.

✏️ The Framing Effect in UX Design

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about the framing effect: the way you formulate a problem affects your users’ decisions and behavior.

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon (I included many real life examples, too).

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of September, 2024:

#1 Fountn by
It’s not a new discovery, but Ozan’s curated design resource database has got a new & improved home recently, e.g. now you can add favorites (bookmarks) to your profile. (Btw. you should also ready about Ozan’s journey.)

#2 ABtest.design
Curated collection of A/B test results from best-in-class apps by Mobbin

#3 How I design a website for a client (full behind-the-scenes) by
”This is a sneak peek of my process for designing a new website in Figma”

#4 The Complexity Paradox of ChatGPT, AI and UX by
”[…]there's a clue that ChatGPT isn't as intuitive as a traditional search engine. It's that companies are hiring for a skill known as "prompt engineering".”

#5 How to think for yourself by
”We all have to carve out a space for our creative selves to run wild, in whatever form that means for us.” If this one made you think, you should also read Creative exploration by Brad Frost.

#6 Christine Vallaure, Oliver Schöndorfer and Pablo Stanley at Smashing Meets Performance at Smashing Meets Live Design Challenge
Design Challenge hosted by Vitaly Friedman

#7 NN/g’s Free UX Templates and Guides by Anna Kaley
Curated set of free NN/g templates and guides

#8 Simplicity - On removing complexity to add meaning. by
”From aesthetic simplicity (how it looks), to logical simplicity (how it works), all the way to technical simplicity (how it performs)—those layers are intrinsically connected and work together to create a simple experience for users.”

#9 Mariana Castilho - How this designer learned code and became a design engineer (Dive Club Episode 73)
Design engineering 101 - “One of the keys to her growth has been investing in her skills as an engineer. So a big part of this interview is learning what it takes to transition from designer to builder.”

#10 The Big Difference Between Digital Product And Web Design by Paul Boag
”Designing for digital products requires a different mindset than traditional websites. It’s all about continuous adaptation, refining, and iterating as user behavior and needs evolve.”

+1 The Shape of AI
”The rise of AI has caused a paradigm shift in how people interact with technology. Our interfaces may evolve, but the foundations of great design are more relevant than ever. This is the UX of AI.” Watch back her Hatch Conference 2024 talk here.

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

  

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

• NEW: How to Measure UX and Design Impact - A Practical Guide To UX Metrics & Design KPIs. (use the code IMPACT to get 20% off)

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

I hope you had a nice & productive last month. Please feel free to send me your favorite design resources, I’m always on the lookout for new gems!

✏️ My work

Here are some things I’ve been working on (or have completed) lately:

• I published an article about my favorite UX research books.
  Check out my previous articles about my favorite design books: UI design books, UX workbooks

  

• I gave a guest lecture about Sketching in the Design Process at the University of Waterloo Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business - thanks for inviting me
  You can watch the recoding on Linkedin or on Youtube.

• I participated in Fons Mans's project, playlist.design: playlists made by designers, for designers. I hope you'll enjoy my playlist called "Gradient", it's a mix of synthwave & metal songs - perfect for deep design work 😊

  

• I have become an affiliate partner of my favorite comprehensive UI design course, the course that helped me understand back in 2017 that UI design is not about being talented or using magical fairy dust. If you want to establish a great foundation, look no further, take Erik Kennedy’s Learn UI design course.

✏️ Designing for complexity

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch is about a useful analogy I apply for understanding complex concepts or systems. How would you explain what a train is to an alien? 🚂

Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of August, 2024:

#1 Neurodesign: the science behind unforgettable experiences
This is the 4th part of the Neurodesign series by Jo Ash Sakula
”To be a brilliant designer is to learn how to craft products that resonate so deeply that they occupy a special space in the mind.”

#2 Shape Up - Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters by Ryan Singer
This book is not new, but it was a new discovery, you can read it here for free, (there is a PDF version, too.)
”We built Basecamp to execute the techniques in this book. It puts all our project communication, task management, and documentation in one place where designers and programmers work seamlessly together.”

#3 How to Craft Onboarding Surveys Users Love: 5 Do’s and Don’ts
A great case study by the growth.design team

#4 Simple recall testing for B2B UX by Olesia Vdovenko
I have never heard about this method before, recall sketching is something I’ll surely try out in my next project.
”B2B is less focused on user retention and attracting new users through a good user experience. Instead, the emphasis is on how much money the service can save. Therefore, the critical aspects are not the initial experience or impressions but rather learnability and efficiency.”

#5 Desigeist by
One of my favorite designers, Pablo Stanley has started a design inspiration newsletter & page, opening his emails has been like opening little presents.

#6 40 Thoughts At 40 by Brad Frost
Not necessarily design related, but Brad’s post truly made me think. I’ll make sure to write my own list of 40 thoughts when I “level up” :)
”Those ideas you have in your head are worth exploring. Look for opportunities to explore and realize your potential. You’ll be surprised at how attainable things are, and I don’t think you’ll regret exploring.”

#7 Practical Design - Why Good Design Matters in Everyday Items
In my How to train your designer eye course, I talk about getting inspired by the world around us. I show how the clever package design of Oatly makes drinking my morning coffee an even more memorable experience. This article by Niko Kitsakis explores a similar topic: how to place the expiration date of herbs in a user friendly way.

#8 Dev Encyclopedia
This resource should be included in all design bootcamps: in order to communicate with your developers effectively, you need to establish a shared understanding. I have a course on this topic: Be a better designer by understanding development aspects, and I also have a UX Knowledge Base Sketch about designer-developer collaboration.

#9 To be a designer is to be a facilitator by
Facilitation is one of my favorite parts of my job. Reaching a shared understanding and collaborative problem solving is one of the best human experiences. In this essay, Marielle answers the question “what does it mean to “be a facilitator”?” […] ”A facilitator is someone or something that supports others to accessibly understand, mediate, collaborate, and/or create.”

#10 Mapping the landscape of gen-AI product user experience
As Patrick Neeman wrote in his recent article, we should embrace AI:“While UX may be perceived to be dying, I believe the field is entering a golden age, especially in the age of AI. This is an opportunity.”
This map of the gen-AI landscape by Matt Webb will surely help you understand some basic concepts.

+1 Deck of Brilliance
Idea generation tools for creative professionals by Juggi Ramakrishnan and Todd McCracken

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team - Now the course is complete! 🎉

  

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

This is a double issue (you can call it a summer edition🌞). I took some days off with my family, we spent some time next to lake Balaton - I hope you also had the chance to have some rest!

✏️ My work

Here are some things I’ve been working on (or have completed) lately:

• I’m going to publish an article about my favorite UX research books. In the meantime, you can revisit my previous articles about my favorite design books: UI design books, UX workbooks

• I facilitated an online 4-hour long ideation workshop at xLabs’s UX Project course

  

• I gave a lecture on conducting usability tests and other research methods (e.g. card sorting and tree testing) at UI Academy

✏️ How to design better notifications

My new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch - check out my sketch & detailed article here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of June-July, 2024:

#1 Tips for Designing FinTech Products by Ceara Crawshaw
”We need to find that sweet spot where we're showing enough data to be useful but not so much data that the interface becomes inscrutable. We need enough checks in place to prevent people from making mistakes, but we also need enough fluidity to the flow so that finance pros can get stuff done in a fast-paced environment.”

#2 Copying is the way design works by
”Copying helped me develop as a designer without needing to go to design school.”
I talk about the importance of copywork in my How to train your designer eye course.

#3 "Research Theater" Defined with a Checklist by
”Research theater refers to situations where organizations claim to be conducting research but […] the appearance of research is prioritized over the substance.”

#4 When and why to create a Product Glossary for your team by Lisa Vorobeva
”This article describes the process of creating and developing a robust glossary for tech companies, with the ultimate goal of maintaining content consistency across all communication channels.”

#5 AI anxiety and how to design for it: Resources and best practices by Tetiana Sydorenko
”Understanding the roots of AI anxiety and implementing user-centered design solutions can mitigate these concerns […].”

#6 The political and societal power of video games by Yannick Allendorf
”I will explore how video games can be used to critique societal norms, highlight injustices and encourage critical thinking about the world around us.”

#7 Concept - On finding the essence of your thinking. by the UX Collective team
”Conceptual models help users (and stakeholders) understand how a system works.”

#8 How To Improve Your Microcopy: UX Writing Tips For Non-UX Writers by Irina Silyanova
”In this article, you’ll find simple, practical tips and a checklist to help you create a clear and concise microcopy, ensuring a seamless user experience.”

#9 Is it good design, or does it just look good? by James Harrison
”The world of good design should be aesthetically beautiful, if it can be. Users want that. Where things fall apart is when designers take aesthetics too far.”

Related sketches:

• Aesthetic-Usability Effect —What does the research say?

• The 3 Levels of Design by Don Norman

#10 Sentient Design: AI and the Next Chapter of UX by Josh Clark
”Sentient Design is the already-here future of intelligent interfaces: experiences that feel almost self-aware in their response to user needs.” (Josh’s talk at Friends of Figma Miami if you prefer the video format)

+1 You can watch back Figma Config’s recordings here. Some of my favorite talks:

• How we redesigned Figma (I love this behind-the-scenes talk featuring many-many experiments)

  

• Unlocking opportunities: building your brand with side projects by MDS

• Pitching accessible design like a pro by (81% of websites have contrast issues, what a huge number!)

• Finding inspiration in nature: the science of creature design by Simon Green

• In defense of an old pixel by

• From paper to pixels: why great ideas start on a napkin by

  

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team - now being updated with a new chapter on using colors!

  

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself.

Other deals

Mobbin 2.0 is here with many new exciting features like flows, advanced search and an all-new library! Join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

✏️ My work

Webexpo 2024 Conference
As you might already know, I’m a community partner of Webexpo. Sadly I couldn’t attend the conference in-person this year, but thankfully almost all the talk recordings are available. I’m going to share some of my sketchnotes soon, until then, here are 3 talks you shouldn’t miss:

• Design Patterns for AI Interfaces by

• Signal to noise in the age of misinformation by Nick Fine (source validity is such an important topic, I have been working on an article about my “favorite” design myths for a long time, e.g. one of my favorite examples is how Miller’s law is often misinterpreted and misused)

• Don’t worry - the design system takes care of accessibility! by Geri Reid

✏️ Contextual help - my new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch

My newest sketch is about offering just-in-time help to your users. Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of May, 2024:

#1 What telephones can tell you about good design by Kelly Smith
”Every time you pick up your mobile phone to make a call you’re presented with the layout below. But has it ever occurred to you to wonder why the numbers are arranged like this? Or why the calculator on your phone is arranged in the opposite direction?”

#2 Designing Search UX in 2024 with - 3-hour long free webinar
As Vitaly said, we have been doing this design/UX thing for 25 years, we should be able to design a proper search box at this point. :)
You can even download all the slides!

#3 Low fidelity design is higher up the value chain by Pavel Samsonov
”But the biggest value of design is not delivering a thing faster. It’s delivering the right thing faster. Designers who don’t see value in working lo-fi are focused on the area they are allowed to contribute to: visual fidelity. But lo-fi design is a tool for conceptual definition.”

#4 UI Density - What UI density means and how to design for it
This great piece by Matthew Ström describes the different types of density, and how to design for these.

#5 Hiding complexity to create effortless onboarding
Peter Ramsey’s newest case study really makes you think about the potential trade-offs of making something effortless for the users. ”There are two things I believe to be true about Slack: The individual key flows feel effortless and simple. The cumulative experience feels noisy and distracting.”

#6 5 times “smart” copy swung into graveyard humor by Rita Kind-Envy
Content design (and UX writing) is a topic really close to my heart. Rita collects cases of “UX copy gone wrong” (a related book I highly recommend: Eric Meyer & Sara Wachter-Boettcher: Design for Real Life).

#7 What no one tells you about personalization by
”Imagine walking into a store where every shelf is filled with items that seem chosen just for you. The lighting adjusts to your preference, the music is your favorite playlist, and the store clerk greets you by name, already anticipating your needs. It seems like a dream of perfect personalization. But at what cost? In exchange for this tailored experience, you grant a full, X-ray view of your life.”

#8 The Creative Cold Start Problem by
”I want to explore a few ideas for unblocking creative cold starts. Let’s explore a handful of simple reframes for getting over that first hurdle and on your way to making something great.”

#9 Why do users prefer certain design? Insights from the landscape theory by
”It’s worth considering how exploration can positively impact user experience. While we have mostly focused on the understanding side, our users may need an adventure of discovery.”

#10 Tools and tactics for modern user research - Deep Dives podcast by
Ridd and Noam discuss really interesting points about doing research, e.g. how to share the results of your research like a master storyteller. “It’s not a list of bullet points. It’s not a quick Slack message with an insight. It’s a story.”

+1 I find Christopher Butler’s Visual Journal really inspiring! Check it out here.

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself. If you join via my link, you’ll support my work!

Other deals

• Being part of the 10x Designers Community has been one of the best experiences in my professional life as a designer. Join me on this learning journey, let’s grow together! (Sale: $99 instead of $129 for 3 months)

• As you know, I find collecting and analyzing design inspiration a very important skill, and I became an advocate of Mobbin, join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

• Pip Decks: sets of oversized, beautifully designed cards that’ll help you become a better design professional in many areas, like storytelling and workshop facilitation.

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course

✏️ My work

How to train your designer eye post series
I started a new post series on LinkedIn that covers topics from my newest Udemy course, How to train your designer eye & develop your design skills. These are the topics I’ve covered so far:

• How to consistently improve your design skills? My framework

• Why you should learn common design patterns - a starting point

• As a designer, you should get inspired by the world around you

✏️ Lines & shapes in UI design - my new UX Knowledge Piece Sketch

My newest sketch is about using two of the most fundamental design elements: lines and shapes. Some might think that these are more significant in graphic design, however, they play an important role in web design or digital product design, too. Check out my sketch & detailed article here soon.

✏️ Favorite resources

Here are my favorite discoveries of April, 2024:

#1 Figma 101 course by MDS
Learn the basics of Figma in one hour for free with 12 fast-paced videos by Matt D. Smith.

#2 How the meaning of colour varies per culture by Bas Wallet
In this article, Bas explains seven examples that show how colours are interpreted differently across cultures.
”But if you want to serve the global market, or a market outside of your own bubble, you really need to understand the people you want to reach.”

#3 Dragan Babic’s blog
Next to checking out his great portfolio (e.g. how he explains what he does), I highly recommend you to read Dragan’s blog, e.g. start with this post: Every design decision is an assumption

#4 Get better design feedback with vignette sketches by
I didn’t discover this article last month, to be more precise, I rediscovered it, and it is still awesome and relevant. Ben describes how to get better design feedback by showing the user’s context using vignette sketches.

#5 I took David Hamill’s UX challenge (how did I do?) by Adam Silver
In this little case study, Adam Silver shows us how he solved David Hamill’s design challenge: “redesign the iPhone screen for accepting or declining a call while you’re already on one.”

#6 Creating a Standout Design Portfolio: The Ultimate Guide by Erik D. Kennedy
I always appreciate Erik Kennedy’s detailed, well-structured article series. In this recent one, he writes about the topic of designing a portfolio that stands out from the crowd and gets you hired.

#7 4 questions I ask myself when designing - a newsletter issue by (Design Lobster)
In this issue, Ben explains us 4 questions he consistently asks during a design process:

• Are we answering the right question?

• What’s the simplest version of this?

• What’s the most magical version of this?

• What would get somebody to talk about this?

#8 Today’s Design
A space where designers can showcase their work, engage in conversations about design, and connect with their peers.

#9 100 Figma Design Tips by Nitish Khagwal
The title is very self-explanatory, Nitish provides us with 100 handy Figma tips in a nice presentation format.

#10 Duelity - design duels
An interesting new concept: “create a duel, design your work, winner gets selected by the crowd”. Let’s see how it’ll evolve, I believe it has a lot of potential. (Currently it is in beta test and invite only).

✨ Favorite AI-related resources

• AI Goodies newsletter by Ioana Teleanu

• The GenAI Compass: a UX framework to design generative AI experiences

• AI interaction patterns

• Creatie - a tool you should check out

✏️ Favorite posts [LinkedIn & X]

• How Google Photos has been a game changer for my hazy memory by Emily Anderson

• It's exactly 17 years since I became a designer. 4 areas I would focus on more if I started again by Dan Winer

• Great design often doesn't happen from the first try by

• How to add cartoons to sketchnotes by Rob Dimeo

• If I had to pick 5 things to practice in my first year in Product Design, they would be the following by

🔥 Deals & recommended products

My Udemy courses

• Newest course: How to train your designer eye - €12.99

• Sketching for UX Designers course - €12.99

• Be a better designer by understanding development aspects course - €12.99

My (pay-what-you-want) books

• Sketching for UX Designers Workbook 1.0

• The 100-Day Long UX Visual Library Building Challenge

Other deals

• Being part of the 10x Designers Community has been one of the best experiences in my professional life as a designer. Join me on this learning journey, let’s grow together! (Sale: $99 instead of $129 for 3 months)

• As you know, I find collecting and analyzing design inspiration a very important skill, and I became an advocate of Mobbin, join with my link to support me with a couple of dollars, I’d really appreciate it!

• Pip Decks: sets of oversized, beautifully designed cards that’ll help you become a better design professional in many areas, like storytelling and workshop facilitation.

Recommended design courses

• Master Gorgeous UI Design Course by Pablo Stanley & his team

• Figma Academy by (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get $100 off)

• Into UX Design (UX research & concept validation) by Anfisa Bogomolova (use the code SKETCHINGFORUX to get 10% off)

• The Ultimate UI Design Mastery Bundle is an epic starting point if you want to become a UI designer. I attended their Advanced Figma course, so I experienced their teaching style myself. Again, if you join via my link, you’ll support my work!

Thanks for reading my newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it! 💙
Krisztina

Get the Train your designer eye course