Elijah Williams

Defining the "ROI of Design" is pointless because we don't define Design in terms of money. Point me to someone who says, "Our re-design saved the company $146,423", and I'll point you to someone who doesn't understand: * Multiple people (Designers, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Executives) contributed to the final product * Justifying the logic needed to show how Design = $$$ is incredibly hard * There are better ways to express the value of what Design does. Want to know a better way? Talk about behavior change. A far more effective way to showcase the value of design is to describe how a re-design helped Designers understand user pain points and resulted in "20% more users signing up for a paid subscription." Is it still related to money? Sure. But it's something that both IC Designers and Design Managers can quickly speak to. Want to learn more about becoming a more effective designer? Subscribe to my Substack for weekly articles, resources, and more: https://lnkd.in/eHsTKbm2

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2 years with Nectar! 🤘🔥 My favorite highlights: → Our team’s growth from 23 employees to 90 employees. Product alone grew from 6 of us to 21 strong now 🙌🏼, and we’re a sleek, efficient, resilient team under Brian Cressall and Nate Tingey. → Established Nectar’s Design System and built our component library, significantly improving speed, consistency, and quality of design and implementation. → Completed a massive UI design refresh for the existing product (bless the devs still building it 🫡 ). → Launched Nominations, the largest and most impactful new feature we’ve built at Nectar yet. → Completely scrapped a project, because it was the right thing to do. Grateful to work on a team that’s hyper-focused on our ultimate goals, and is sincerely willing to let sunk costs be irrelevant. → Ideated, designed, and launched our new product Internal Communications in 8 weeks with a small, mighty team 🤯 I’m still amazed we managed it. → $40M Series B funding in April 2024 with PeakSpan Capital. → Saw our efforts, motivation, and passion pay off when Nectar was recognized as the 2nd Fastest Growing Company in Utah County, 1st fastest growing software company in Utah, 8th fastest growing software company in the U.S., and 87th fastest growing company in the U.S. (across all industries). → 300% increase in revenue in Q3 2023 vs Q3 2024 (Q3 was also 50% above our revenue Q2 2024). → Saw every department at Nectar grow in excellence. I’m in awe of the caliber of Engineering, CS, Marketing, Sales, and what they accomplish. → Relished the challenge and variety of asks in the beginning as Nectar’s sole designer, including working on print design (looking at you, 28’ tradebooth) and animations for the first time. That animation announcing Nectar’s new logo a year ago? That was my first animation, and I’m still proud of myself for figuring it out enough to make that 😂. → Spent way too much on Holiday gas station runs (RIP old office). This is a long list, but for the record I cut it in half from what it was 😅. I’m grateful Nate reached out on LinkedIn right at the perfect time when I was looking to switch things up, and that we’ve made a great team ever since. Getting to work closely with our little product design team—Nate, Mason, Tyler, and Maya—and many, many others keeps me growing and keeps me motivated on the daily. Nectar’s mission and way of working resonated with me from the beginning. It’s rewarding to see our company continue to gain momentum and maturity, all while seeing how much room we still have to grow. Very, very grateful to be part of the journey. As we say, it’s still Day 1 at Nectar. 🚀

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We secured $770k in design salaries in our first month operating in the US 🎉 We placed exceptional: • Product Design Director in California • Two Senior Product Designers in Oregon and North Carolina • Senior Product Designer in London Some of these searches started before July, but last month was when all the offers were finally signed. I could not be more excited with the results! Shoutout to the most design-savvy and caring recruitment team at Hirey | Design Recruiters 🖤 Looking back all I can say is that: Last year was D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G. I believe many of you experienced the same. I was full of self-doubt and nagging thoughts: "Will what I do ever be needed again?" “Maybe it’s time to shut down and go back in-house?” “Am I just a good IC, but not a business owner?” Now, everyone says the market is picking up, and autumn should be fruitful in hiring. Fingers crossed! But we’re ready to face any challenges that come our way. To all small business owners who’ve made it through hard times without losing the team: I believe now we can do anything! #hiring #recruitment #entrepreneurship #motivation #community #design

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Someone has to say it! Tobias saying it makes it even more legit. Meet and work with a lot of young folks who are looking for mentors at workplace thinking they would be hand held at every step. While guides are there, one needs to walk the path and grind towards a path set by the mentor. Things don’t happen on their own. Blaming is another aspect of design folks where stakeholders are held responsible for what’s happening around them without introspecting why is it happening and what one can do to change that behaviour around by using design frameworks and improving the craft on a daily basis. So much of entitlement will never get us anywhere. #designlife

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I had a great time presenting on AI & Privacy, as well as our role with this issue as designers at the Brooklyn Product Design meetup the other night. This issue is evolving so quickly, I find new examples cropping up almost daily. Given that, I've updated my recent piece on the topic for UX Collective. Friend link follows! #ux #design #privacy #privacybydesign #AI #LLMs

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For anyone wanting to learn more about how we're working on AI as a design team here at Klaviyo, have a listen to this interview with Alexandra Holness

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Really annoyed at Figma's price gouging here. There is no reason other than greed: https://lnkd.in/gfdrEiWH Oh, and I emailed them about it and this line from their reply was particularly poignant: "Additionally the minimum for enterprise is a $5k invoice minimum. 6 enterprise seats or made up with other products." To put that in context... our monthly Adobe bill (for 8 CC, 7 PS, 6 Acrobat licenses) is ~NZ$2k... Amazing how quickly enshittification sets in... #Figma #Design #SoftwareLicensing

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WANTED: Senior-Level UI/UX Designer for iOS (Full-Time or Part-Time, Remote) 🦸‍♂️ Ready to join the A-list? We’re on the lookout for a phenomenal Senior-Level UI/UX Designer to join our league of extraordinary creatives. If your UI designs can make the Mona Lisa look like child’s play, this is for you! Why you should care: 🥇 2022 App Store Award Winner — yup, that's us 🏆 2022 Apple Design Award Finalist — we’re almost celebrities 🌎 Over 4 million users — the most genuine community ❤️ 4.9 App Store rating — because excellence is our baseline 📲 Check out our blockbuster apps: Waterllama - https://lnkd.in/eF94Kxg Mindllama - https://lnkd.in/gnuSkpbC Pinkllama - https://lnkd.in/gBtdFdWR 🧑‍🚀 Your Mission, should you choose to accept: • Create breathtaking UI/UX designs that captivate • Design compelling marketing assets that make it irresistible • Deliver master files to developers like a guru • Evaluate implementations with the eye of an eagle 👑 Must-Haves: • Fluent in English, Ukrainian, or Russian language (communication is key) • Extensive experience in iOS app design — sorry, no beginners • Located in Europe or US time zones for seamless collaboration 👾 Passionate about pixel perfection? You might just be our dream match. 📫 Prove you've got the magic touch by sending your portfolio to [email protected] Make sure to: 1. Describe your epic journey in iOS app design 2. Flex the examples of iOS apps you’ve elevated 3. Link your Top 3 favorite iOS apps (we’re all fans here!) PS: If the thought of being ‘just another designer’ terrifies you, this might be the gig for you. We’re only looking for those who are ready to handle the spotlight with us and challenge their limits. Oh, and the last two cents: put “llamazing” into your email subject to let us know you’ve read through to the end. Talk soon!

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Applications are now open for Designer Fund Partnership, the best design support and investment offer of up to $1 million for Pre-seed to Series A startups! Apply by October 4th here: https://bit.ly/3WWNq74 Here are a few reasons why we’re opening up an application: We’re increasing access to funding - I’ve seen first hand that some of the best founders and outlier companies can come from unexpected places. Rather than just rely on in-network referrals that favor certain backgrounds, we want to give founders from anywhere a fair shot at getting funded. In addition, applications allow us to connect founders to more sources of capital from angels to VCs more efficiently. We’re increasing access to design resources - We can’t possibly help every company succeed with design alone. This year we invited 17+ angel investors with design backgrounds from companies like Figma, Notion, Stripe to co-invest alongside us. This means way more opportunities to get design support on your cap table. We’re also continuing to double down on our community of top designers and network of pre-vetted design freelancers and studios. We’re offering founder-friendly terms - The reality of today’s fundraising environment is that founders will often raise multiple times during the early phase of a company. That’s why we’re offering up to $1 million with flexible ownership terms for Pre-seed to Series A companies because one size doesn’t fit all. We can also invest alongside angels, accelerators, seed funds and VCs so you have the best possible people around the table. Interested in learning more? Join us Tuesday, September 10 at 1PM PDT for Designer Fund Partnership Office Hours - https://lu.ma/o2om8b59 We’ll discuss what we're looking for in founders, best practices for a great application, and our decision-making process and timeline.

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Funny story, horrible UX. Lately, Instagram kept recommending me Threads posts that were purposefully cut off mid-sentence. So I surrendered and installed Threads, only to find out that recommendations inside Threads suck, and I can't see the content that interested me and prompted me to install the app in the first place. So I uninstalled Threads... Then again, I saw some Threads posts on Instagram that were interesting, and I wanted to read them... but they were cut off on purpose. So I surrendered and installed Threads again! However, Instagram no longer shows me Threads recommendations, because duh, I already did the only thing they apparently wanted me to do as a user, - I installed Threads... And no one cares about the actual user experience beyond that point, which is an infuriating limbo of being stuck between relevant content you can't consume, and irrelevant content you don't want to consume. The funny thing is, - I'm sure somewhere in Meta someone's celebrating this as a success. They ticked the checkbox of "increasing the number of sign ups", maybe even reached a target metric, and so they might think that this mess is working great... I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Is there another example you've experienced when some target metric might be reached, but the user experience is absolute hell? #productdesign #userexperience #uxfails

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If you're a designer and new to AI, I highly recommend watching this video (only 20 mins long if you watch at 1.5x speed), which provides a great primer for the topic of AI in UX. I find the content very well organized and easy to follow. It touches on the concept of AI at a super high level, various use cases, important considerations when designing with AI, and how Booking.com leverages AI to enhance their user experience.

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I talk to senior designers and design leaders every day and there is one thing that became evident to me: In the current market there is no clarity about the career paths and what would be the right step for them. Choosing your future role requires a clear understanding of your aspirations, motivations, and chances for success. For this reason, Dilara Cumhur Neutze, Kate Syuma, and I will be hosting a session to discuss the nonlinear design careers and how these two incredibly successful design leaders have found their path. Join us for this discussion on November 26th. We will cover: - Embracing Non-Traditional Design Careers - Creating Space for Reflection and Vision - Choosing What's Right for You: IC vs. Manager - The Power of Execution in Achieving Success Sign up and share your questions in the comments! We will cover some of them in the session!

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Not sure how I missed this podcast with Lenny Rachitsky but this episode with Katie Dill is amazing. There's a reason it has 47k views on YouTube. Just furthering my claim that the very best of Lenny's podcasts are not about product development or traditional product management. His best episodes are about design and business. "The use of the word beauty in books that have been digitized by Google has decreased,  like pretty dramatically. And it's aligned with this idea of, "Well,  functionality is king. Functionality is what matters." As if people think about  functionality and beauty as like two opposite things. No, they're not two  opposite things. Functionality is important. And actually beauty enhances functionality  because it does make things easier to use, more approachable, more comp elling to use.  And the other piece of it that is not talked about in business as often is just  the importance of how people feel. Things that are more beautiful, increase trust. You see that  we've put painstaking detail into this, and we care about the details of how something works,  and that gives you assurance that we care about other details that you can't see too." —Katie All I have to say is YES.

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Org design and how designers fit within cross functional teams has been at the top of my mind recently. Peter Merholz and John Cutler have an idea that in the future empowered design and engineering leads take on the majority of produce responsibilities. PMs focus on product strategy and in lieu of running daily rituals for 2 pizza sized squads. I’ve actually lived a version of this reality and can say it’s possible — with caveats. 1. The product-thinking mindset and skill set is needed for design and engineering leads. 2. A mature design practice with solid design ops is must. 3. Clear alignment and connection with business stakeholders. 4. An empowered insights practice based on UX research, driven by evidence, generates novel growth opportunities while enhancing current user journeys and experiences. 5. Great relationships across product, design, engineering, business. The truth is skill sets and preferences vary so widely that this model simply can’t work for every company or even every team. A full stack PM/UXDev sounds great on paper but rarely plays out well in reality. However, well supported leads could totally pull it off if well supported by practice area ops squads and empowered PMs.

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🤹‍♂️ “I had no idea you could do that” As we attempt to scale and white-label our design systems, we've run into providing some options that leave our team a bit stumped and scratching our heads. After doing some research, I’m appreciating all the efficiency gains you can pull off with just a few Figma tricks and tutorials. → Small components are easy, but as components get more complex or resemble layouts, tracking all the possible nested variations is impossible. → Sometimes components have optional elements that show and hide depending on the needs of a specific client or context. → “You get a logo, you get a logo, everyone gets a logo“ Everyone has their own branding, which means toggling between multiple logos and lockups. With some digging, we found resources to help with all of these use cases: 🖼 Building flexible components with "slots" by Luis Ouriach is a super useful walkthrough for experimenting with the concept of slots in Figma. “Slots” allow you to create a placeholder component inside a more complex “container” component allowing you to build more flexible and context-specific layouts. https://lnkd.in/gp2JEFFU 🙈 An Introduction to Boolean Variables in Figma by UI Collective offers a simple overview of how to apply use the hidden gem of variables options. Boolean variables allow you to show and hide elements not just in prototypes but in component variants. This was useful when we wanted to toggle elements within components for various themes. https://lnkd.in/gWt8QRit 🎭 Modes: Changing a Branded Header by Nate Greenwall was exactly the solution I was looking for when I needed to offer multiple logo options from a centralized library. The playground file maps out how you can pull this off with string variables and modes. https://lnkd.in/gJhcemcm 💎 I hope some of the resources that we've leveraged at Exygy can be helpful for you and your teams working in Figma. → Leverage slots for nesting smaller components within larger container layouts. → Utilize boolean variables to show and hide elements across variants. → Experiment with using string variables to switch elements like logos for different brands. #figma #ui #design #DesignSystems #variables

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Another interesting opportunity for designers this week. OpenStudio is looking for Designers in Residence to help develop collaborative software for designers! Check out the Just ID Jobs site for more details. Who's hiring in ID this week? OpenStudio Lifetime Brands Rivian Prepara LUNO® And many more. Check them all out on the site! P.S. I use the front page of Just ID Jobs to promote the work of students and young designers. This week's featured image is by Anurag Kurapati Want to submit an image? Send a 1920x1080 image that is <1MB and a link to your website to [email protected] - 🖥️ Just ID Jobs aggregates industrial design jobs from around the web and organizes them in one, easy-to-search place. 🛠️ No UI. No interior design. No engineering. Just ID. 🔔 See new ID jobs daily and sign up for email alerts on justidjobs [dot] com

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Design without reason is like building without a foundation. In my latest newsletter explain what design rationale is.

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