Thoughts & Ideas
My Blog
A space where I share what I’m learning, thinking, and building.
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What I Learned Rewriting My Design Portfolio Four Times
Four portfolio rewrites taught me that the problem was never the layout. Here is what hiring managers are actually looking for.
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Why Most Onboarding Flows Fail (And How to Design One That Doesn’t)
Most onboarding flows are a tour of features nobody asked for. Here’s how to design one that actually sticks.
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Closing the Design-to-Dev Gap: What a Great Handoff Actually Looks Like
A Figma link is not a handoff. Here’s what actually makes the gap between design and development disappear.
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Accessibility Is Not a Nice-to-Have: A Designer’s Wake-Up Call
Accessibility isn’t a feature you add at the end. Here’s why designing for everyone from the start makes everything better for everyone.
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The Art of the Design Critique: How to Give Feedback That Actually Helps
Most design critiques devolve into personal opinions and vague suggestions. Here’s how to run one that makes the work genuinely better.
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What 5 Years of User Interviews Taught Me About Human Behavior
What people say they do and what they actually do are almost never the same thing. Here’s how I’ve learned to find the truth in user research.
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The Design System Trap: Why Most Teams Build Them Wrong
Design systems can be a team’s best friend or a beautiful waste of time. Here’s what I’ve learned about building one that actually gets used.
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Designing for Thumbs: What Mobile UX Actually Requires
Designing for mobile isn’t designing for small screens — it’s designing for thumbs, for attention spans, and for the moments in between everything else.
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Why I Still Start Every Project with a Paper Sketch
Before Figma, before Notion, before anything digital — there’s a blank notebook. Here’s why the humble paper sketch is still my most powerful design tool.
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Hello World!
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Alex Rivera 