Last year, a SaaS company paid me to fix their onboarding. Churn was 23% monthly. Brutal. First call, the CS lead opened their dashboard. Gorgeous interface. Real-time health scores. Customer journey maps. Risk alerts. Engagement tracking across seven touchpoints. “We have complete visibility.” I asked if they knew why customers were leaving. She pulled up…
For three years, my LinkedIn headline said “UX Consultant.” It sounded professional. Legitimate. Like I knew what I was doing. It also meant absolutely nothing. “UX Consultant” is the professional equivalent of “I do stuff.” It’s a job title that could mean everything, so it means nothing. Like saying you work in “business” or specialize…
Let me show you something. This is a Mad Libs for people who can’t articulate their value proposition: The LinkedIn Spiritual Pitch Generator™ Hi [NAME], Your [VAGUE QUALITY] stands out – you carry the signature of a [FLATTERING ROLE] who’s already mastered [THEIR FIELD]. I partner with [ASPIRATIONAL IDENTITY] who are no longer motivated by…
Five years ago, I hired a UX designer with exceptional soft skills. Articulate in meetings. Diplomatic with stakeholders. Created beautiful presentation decks. Responded to Slack within minutes with encouragement and emoji. Three months later, the project failed because they’d agreed to every terrible idea anyone suggested. Seventeen stakeholder requests. Fourteen contradictory features. Zero pushback. The…
Last month, a SaaS founder asked me to review their onboarding. “We implemented every best practice,” they said. “But activation is terrible.” I opened their app. Welcome screen with value props. Account setup wizard with progress bar. Interactive product tour with twelve hotspots. Empty state illustrations with cheerful CTAs. Contextual tooltips on every button. Profile…
Your perfect onboarding just got killed by someone who never saw it. I watched a $50K ARR deal die in a conference room last year because of a question our SaaS onboarding never answered. The product worked. The user loved it. She’d completed our beautifully designed onboarding in 8 minutes, explored features, and was ready…
The project was fine. Good product. Clear brief. Reasonable timeline. They paid on time. Nobody yelled at me. I delivered everything they asked for, and they were happy with it. And I was fucking miserable. Four stakeholders. That’s all it took. But here’s what nobody tells you: this is why your product looks like everyone…
Part 2 of the series on social media marketing for designers who’d rather be doing literally anything else. In Part 1, I told you that authenticity beats polish. That algorithms finally reward genuine content over growth-hacking bullshit. That your design instincts about quality were right all along. All of that is true. Here’s the part…
When $50/hour ends up costing more than $150/hour — the math nobody wants you to see. Last quarter, a SaaS company contacted me. They’d been using UI design outsourcing for 18 months to “save costs.” They wanted to know why their design quality had tanked, their development cycles had doubled, and their designers kept quitting.…
Here’s what actually works when you use AI for UX research — and what’s just expensive procrastination. I resisted using AI for UX research for longer than I probably should have. Not because I’m anti-AI or think it’s going to steal jobs. But because most “AI research tools” seemed designed to help you skip the…
