Notes on design work, written down so I stop forgetting them.https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/enhttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/last-week/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/last-week/On Monday I drew a screen I did not like. On Tuesday I showed it to Priya, who said it was fine, which I knew was a polite lie, so I did it again. On…Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/invoice-export-research/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/invoice-export-research/Fourteen interviews and a month of support tickets on why people leave our product to look at their invoices somewhere else.Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTresearchprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/what-i-changed-my-mind-about/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/what-i-changed-my-mind-about/Five opinions I held loudly two years ago and no longer hold.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/workshop-debrief/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/workshop-debrief/Notes I wrote on the train home from a two-day planning workshop, with what I would change.Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTfacilitationmeetingsprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/writing-for-the-support-team/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/writing-for-the-support-team/What I learned writing help-centre articles with Karim, mostly about where the first sentence should go.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTwritinghttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/reading-list-q2/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/reading-list-q2/Four things I read this quarter that changed something I did: a chapter on diary studies by Ayo Bello (I will run one in the autumn), the Nielsen Norman Group…Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTresearchhttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/css-for-notes/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/css-for-notes/Four lines of CSS I changed on my own notes page, and what each one did.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTtoolswritinghttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/calendar-audit/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/calendar-audit/A quarterly hour I spend deleting things from my calendar.Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTmeetingstoolshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/critique-without-adjectives/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/critique-without-adjectives/A rule for our Thursday critique that banned words like "clean" and "clunky", and what replaced them.Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTfacilitationhttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/handoff-doc/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/handoff-doc/What goes in the one-page document I hand to engineers when a design is ready.Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/the-second-kickoff/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/the-second-kickoff/Why every project that runs past Christmas gets a second kickoff meeting in March, and what we do in it.Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTmeetingsprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/a-year-of-research-notes/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/a-year-of-research-notes/What twelve months of writing up every research session in the same short format taught me.Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTresearchwritinghttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/thanks/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/thanks/After a project ends, I write a short thank-you to each person on it. Two sentences, and the second one names something specific they did, such as "the way…Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/status-updates/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/status-updates/How I write the weekly update so that the people who need it actually open it.Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTwritingprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/quiet-tools/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/quiet-tools/Why most of my daily tools are plain text, and the one command I run every evening.Fri, 30 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTtoolshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/three-questions-after-a-test/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/three-questions-after-a-test/What I ask myself in the ten minutes after a session ends, before I talk to anyone.Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTresearchhttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/naming-things/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/naming-things/A short rule for naming components and screens.Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTwritinghttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/facilitation-warmups/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/facilitation-warmups/Three-minute openers I use when I facilitate a workshop with people who have never met.Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTfacilitationmeetingshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/bookmarks/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/bookmarks/I deleted my bookmark folders in November and replaced them with one text file of forty links, each with a line saying why I kept it. I open the file maybe…Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTtoolshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/billing-rebuild-log/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/billing-rebuild-log/A week-by-week log of rebuilding the billing settings page, with the mistakes left in.Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMTprocesshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/interview-questions/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/interview-questions/The handful of questions that keep producing useful answers in user interviews.Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTresearchhttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/standing-meetings-cost/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/standing-meetings-cost/A back-of-envelope count of what four recurring meetings cost my team each month.Mon, 03 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTmeetingshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/pencils/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/pencils/I keep a cup of six pencils on my desk, all the same cheap soft kind, and I sharpen them on Friday afternoons so Monday starts with a point. The sketches I do…Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/meeting-template/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/meeting-template/A plain-text template I paste into every meeting note, and what each line is for.Tue, 19 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMTmeetingshttps://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/design-review-rules/https://monoline-free.ondelva.com/notes/design-review-rules/The six rules I hold myself to when I run a design review, and the reason behind each one.Tue, 06 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMTprocess