You haven’t really learned how to use a toolkit, until you are able to mix and match capabilities based on the outcome you want.

The point of a first draft is to:
- Align the team around the direction and scope
- Flush out the implicit/unsaid expectations
- Break out of 'white page syndrome'

High fidelity doesn't help with these goals. Often, it only distracts, and so these things are never established.

Product leaders love to brag about their roadmaps, but it probably tells you the least about the team. I want to see last year's roadmap VS what was actually delivered.

Scenario: a team does 1 week of research to validate a decision, and ends up disproving their initial set of assumptions.

In output-based org culture, that team is now a week behind.

In outcome-based org culture, that team is now a week ahead.

One critical skill for a senior practitioner: learning how to ask for contribution without framing it as a request for guidance.

'I am giving you an opportunity to inform my decision'
vs
'I need you to make a decision for me'

Remember, the original Domesday book, from 1086, can still be read. The digital version made in 1986 was almost unreadable 20 years later.

Apps with GUIs are an inappropriate solution for most problems.

If your design practice revolves around making interfaces for apps, you've constrained your solution space to a fraction of its breadth before ever seeing the problem.

The interface is not the product.

People get fooled by AI because at a glance, one output looks like another. The thing that determines whether the output is actually good or not - a robust process - is invisible to non-practitioners, and they don't notice its absence.

A common response to 'NPS is a useless metric' is 'what metric would you replace it with?'

That question itself is wrong. There is no magic number that will replace a product strategy. You will only get useful signal if you first identify what numbers matter for *your product*.

So rarely do I see user flows show what the user needs to move from one stage to the next. It's not just what button they click - what information do they need to know what button to click? Do they need external knowledge, direction, or approval? Do they need time? All missing.

As a designer you must take every pain to learn your users' mental model, so you can intentionally make decisions about
-when to adapt the design to user expectations
-when to take extra pains to educate the user on deviations

If you're not doing this, then what are you doing