Working in tech and design requires constantly keeping up with the latest techniques, tools, technologies, and industry news. Here are a few of the things our team found useful over the last week.

Design

Brand illustration 101: visualizing the narrative

toptal.com
A great read with actionable items on how to create a brand illustration system.
Anne

Choosing the right level of fidelity for your wireframes

blinkux.com
It can be tricky choosing the appropriate level of fidelity for your wireframes. This little article breaks down the process quite nicely.
Anne

How well discovery phases are performed in UX projects

nngroup.com
Nielsen Norman’s survey are always interesting insights into how other UX professionals are carrying out their work. This one is particularly interesting due to discovery being such a foundational element that impacts everything that comes after.
Mark

Tech

Microsoft: we were wrong about open source

theverge.com
It’s amazing to see Microsoft’s change over the last few years from corporate monster to open source poster child. I’ve been incredibly impressed by their ability to make massive contributions to the open source world (some of which we use) while growing their business even further. It’s nice to see them being willing to admit their mistakes in public like this.
Mark

Plexamp v3: the road to React Native bliss

blog.expo.io
A nice writeup by the Plex team on the tech they employed in their latest suite of apps. Spoiler alert – they use React Native Web! 👌
Mark

The difference between system specs and feature specs

codewithjason.com
This is a handy little article for anyone who’s heard of system specs, but isn’t quite sure where or if they differ from feature specs.
Ian