Writer Ann Friedman once wrote a newsletter about sharing inside information. It wasn’t a call for illegal activity, but rather for supporting those looking from the outside and wanting in.  

"Are we hoarding resources?" she challenged. 

This question resonated in a moment when I happened to be helping a friend get a foot in the UX door. My own career wouldn't exist without the many drinks, meals, and chats shared with mentors and peers. The open-source exchange of information accumulated in my notepads, bookmarks, and email were just sitting in the cloud somewhere.

Resources and tools are made to be used. Ideas can only thrive when they’re shared. So here are some of my favorites.

This page will forever be a work in progress.

Send me recommendations ↱  

Visual Vocabulary

By Jesse James Garrett

Garrett supposedly was the first to standardize notation for interaction design, and I've found it to be a trusty tool for more complex logic systems. It maintains clarity for engineers and product managers alike. It's my current favorite, and I swiped it from Google Designer Simon Pan.

website

Designing Confirmation

By Andrew Coyle

On a project regarding user settings and permissions, I had to think diligently about copy for confirming user intent. Coyle's short resource here was a fantastic guideline and helped me make some solid justifications.

Medium

Hyper Island Toolbox

A great reference and resource kit for team building exercises or idea generation. You don't need to follow anything 100%, as it's great to mix-and-match or alter to your team needs.

WEBSITE

Above the fold is a myth

by Rob Lafratta

A good collection of reading and research for that inevitable meeting when someone mentions designing “above the fold” in a simplistic manner. If content below the fold isn’t doing well, it’s might be because the content needs improvement or there are serious visual roadblocks.

abovethefold.fyi

Title Case Converter

A nice little tool I always like to keep handy when writing headlines and can't always remember which words to capitalize. You can style any line of text into AP, Chicago, MLA, New York Times, and more.

Website

Where Are The Boss Ladies?

Founded by @mara.lecocq

Where Are The Boss Ladies is not simply a crowd-sourced list of ad agencies with women in charge. It are also a resource for people to find female mentorship and advice for dealing with work situations. 

Website | Instagram | Twitter

Levels.fyi

If you’ve ever been frustrated by figuring out what a competitive salary is for your tech-minded job, I recommend using Levels.fyi as a baseline source to understand salary bands and total comp (TC) in major Silicon Valley companies. Glassdoor and LinkedIn skew low, which Daniel Burka (ex-GV Design Partner) explains in this article.

WEBSITE