Journal

Our thoughts on user-centred design, product strategy, and building with AI.

8 October 2026Alastair Lee
Almost right
AI gives us an approximation of quality. Sometimes we need the real thing.
28 September 2026Alastair Lee
The map is worth less
AI is making what insiders know cheaper, and the questions they can't ask more valuable.
9 November 2023Stuart Church
Designing culture
If the quality of the user experience is underpinned by the culture of the organisation, what can a designer do to change it?
14 September 2023Alastair Lee
Angels in the detail
How can we tell when a design detail is core to the user experience, or something we can safely ignore?
18 August 2023Alastair Lee
Collaboration is a team effort
What does good collaboration on product and service design look like?
21 July 2023Alastair Lee
Design process hacks
The perfect user-centred design process is rarely on offer. Five principles for making the best of the one you get.
28 November 2022Alastair Lee
User-centred. Not user-led.
The term 'user-led' implies that the product team is led by what users say they want. In this post Alastair explains why that's dangerous, and why 'user-centred' is a better term.
13 July 2022Liz Roberts, Product Manager at GripAble
Learning to think like a designer
How does user-centred design differ from more traditional consulting methods? In this post Liz Roberts, Product Manager at digital health start-up GripAble, shares her perspective.
11 June 2021Alastair Lee
The stars that guide the sailboat
The Sailboat exercise is a neat way for teams to think about the factors that affect their success. But we’ve found that the standard canvas is missing a place for capturing what the team needs to focus on now. So we’ve introduced stars!
4 June 2021Alastair Lee
Service design is a bowl of water outside a pub
Designing services that work at scale can be complicated. But let’s not forget, at its core, service design is simply about offering the right support to your service user, as and when they need it. It can be as simple as putting a dog bowl of water outside a pub.
2 June 2021Alastair Lee
What we mean by 'better'
It's easy to say that 'together we can do better'. But what do we mean by 'better'? And how does that influence our decisions about what to work on?
7 May 2021Alastair Lee
Designing for reflection
The pandemic and climate change are shaking up our economies and challenging our priorities. Now is the time for designers to provide a genuine alternative to plastic consumerism.
4 March 2021Alastair Lee
Product discovery Miro templates
We've designed some Miro templates for use in recent workshops. Maybe you'll find them useful too.
2 July 2020Alastair Lee
People over process
We talk a lot about process when describing what we do. But I believe the choice of the people, i.e. the team working on a project, is the single most important factor affecting success. In this post I explain why.
21 April 2020Alastair Lee
From me, to we
When I went freelance in 2013 I wanted to help clients build better products and services with user-centred and agile methods. That hasn't changed, but now it's not just me. Now I'm bringing together teams of experts to make a bigger impact. And that's exciting.