#Personal growth
Mindset shifts, self-improvement, and evolving through real life changes, eighteen posts spanning career pivots, parenting moments, and the kind of hard-won lessons that only really make proper sense looking back on them.
How to advance early on in your UX/UI design career
Relax, this isn't a "buy my course" article, I promise you. No funnel, no upsell waiting at the end, just what's genuinely worked for me across almost 20 years of working as a UX/UI designer. Just what I wish someone had told me earlier on.
Wolf of Wellington: Escaping death by a thousand clicks
Impulse purchases, a maxed-out credit card, and a questionable financial decision hanging in the balance. The near miss that taught me to think before I click, so I could step off "Enron's Ride of Broken Dreams" financial rollercoaster.
Fighting the system and breaking my phone addiction
Scrolling Facebook, I noticed something: mostly ads, barely a friend in sight. What followed was months fighting a phone addiction, iPods, dumb phones, screen time settings, before one small NFC device actually broke the habit for good.
Surf workout: Strength, endurance & weight training
How I built my own surf strength training routine from scratch after a shoulder injury, the actual workout, the gear that matters, and what changed once I stopped chasing goals and built systems. No shortcuts, just a proper, structured plan.
Surf workout: Flexibility, stretching & mobility training
Improve mobility and recovery with surf-specific stretches, a minimal home gym setup, and small daily habits, like surf skateboarding, that stick once motivation fades. Built around what actually works, not just theory.
Surf workout: Pre-surf stretching & warm-up routine
The system that gets me out the door on cold mornings, wetsuit on before I've even checked the cam, gear packed the night before, no room left to talk myself out of it. Plus the actual warm-up and stretch routine I run through every time.
Surf workout: Post-surf stretching, nutrition & recovery
The stretch routine, hydration timing and nutrition habits that make recovery actually happen, especially in winter when it's the last thing you want to do. Built around the same gluten and dairy-free rules as everything else here.
Surf workout: Pop-up & core strength training
Free 10 minute surf pop-up & core strength training workout, plus a full 32 exercise session, to fix crunching toes, a back foot landing too far back and a pop-up that took me well over a dozen steps. Built around a shoulder and knee injury.
From chaos to calm: infinite flow & feedback loops
How one direct piece of feedback from a content designer turned my tangled, chaotic Figma files into a genuine three-part system, chaos, calm and clarity, one I still rely on for every project. A shift that changed how every project since.
Claude Assist: Flip the narrative with reverse prompting
How reverse prompting, Claude asking the questions instead of me writing the brief, finally got my ideas out of my head and onto the screen without losing my own voice somewhere along the way. A method I'll genuinely keep using going.
Molly’s love of books & her fall from grace
When a library fine landed with my name on it instead of hers, my 15 year old had to find her own way out of an $80 mess, and back into everyone's good books, including her own, without help. No lecture, just what actually happened next.
One wrong booking ended up with five cards on the table
Everyone has values. Few people can actually name their own core values without stopping to think hard about it. Here's how one wrong online booking led me to finally find mine, and why I wish I'd done it sooner. A five minute exercise that.
How I’m wired: ENFJ, CliftonStrengths & pattern recognition
Personality tests are one of those things hiring managers love to ask about. Rather than hunting through old emails every time, here's how my ENFJ result, CliftonStrengths top 10, and neurodivergent thinking all point the same way.
Designers “should”… choose their own adventure
A pushback on the "designers should" genre of advice, this one included. Whether it's coding, degrees or portfolios, here are some honest alternatives to help you make up your own mind instead of following someone else's rulebook.
32 UX certifications: Interaction Design Foundation courses
After almost 20 years in UX/UI, I wanted some formal qualifications behind me. 32 courses in with the Interaction Design Foundation, covering everything from design thinking and research through to AI, accessibility and mobile UX.
Baked chicken recipe based on the KFC 11 herbs & spices
Four cheeseburgers and a Coke for five bucks fed a whole afternoon of bodyboarding as a teenager. This baked version of the KFC 11 herbs and spices recipe scratches the exact same itch, minus the deep fryer this time around.
Questions I ask when interviewing & applying for UX roles
The questions I actually ask when interviewing for a UX/UI design role, plus the frameworks, from the three lenses of innovation through to the double diamond, that shape how I work once hired. Questions that reveal more than a resume ever.
Surfing, friends & travel: What I’m thankful for in 2019
It's only when you pause and properly look back that you realise how many memories got packed into a single year. Reflecting on the moments that made 2019 unforgettable, surfing in Wales, six countries, a new album, and turning 40.
Looking for the ideal Wellington UX/UI Product Design role
"What's the problem you're trying to solve?" That's usually my first question when exploring a new opportunity, and honestly, the answer carries a lot of weight. Here's what my ideal Product Design UX/UI role would actually look like.