Hello. I'm Rob.
I'm glad to meet you!
I'm a UX/UI and product design leader, here in Boston, focusing on climate change and AI.
In case you were wondering, here's what I'm reading. More on that in my LinkedIn profile.
Thoughts or questions? Feel free to send me a note!
Rob's Required Reading
Here's what I'm reading. Ledes unburied. More links.
Daybreak
2023 Design Tools Survey | UX Tools
AI Secrets for Faster & Smarter Journey Mapping (YouTube)
Oh, here’s a clever AI technique: take a multi-faceted concept like a user journey in product design. If you teach the AI a mini-language — where each aspect of a user journey is represented by a hashtag, e.g. #aspect1, #aspect2 — and then feed it some use cases, the AI can generate completed user journeys. Wow!
What’s cool is that you could use this hashtag technique with ANY sort of structured data, not just user journeys!
Hashtags can be part of a new AI interface language to help us go beyond simple sentence prompts (do this, do that) where instead: we teach the AI not just the What but the How for complex problems.
It’s like a cooking recipe where instead of just a simple list of ingredients, we’re also thinking about cooking steps, stages, tools, and timing. Versus just throwing everything into a pan on high heat.
A good reminder about what today’s AI is good at: connecting dots, adding color, considering overlooked or unconventional possibilities, and quickly cranking through the mechanical busy work of content assembly and iterating. All of which helps us to enrich discovery, fail fast, pivot intelligently, and avoid solution bias.
Testimonials
“If no one has told you already, I’ll tell you now. For the critiques, you have a distinctive way of delivering feedback. It really works. I thought, I need to use some of those techniques!”
– Design manager at Bank of America
"I noticed that whenever we are doing design critiques or feedback sessions, you always have clever inputs that actually shape the designs. I can't even count how many work streams were impacted by your ideas."
– IBM designer on client team
"I’ve really appreciated getting to observe how you delicately handle client design challenges and stakeholder expectations. Sitting in on your design critiques is a master class in giving actionable and constructive design feedback."
– IBM designer on client team
"Knowing that you have the [project] work not just under control, but are always thinking about next steps and fostering the relationship with the client is invaluable to me."
– IBM manager on a client project
“When faced with the shifting tides of project work, scope, and even naming, your positivity and perseverance makes you someone people are excited to work with. You’ve proven yourself over and over again.”
– IBM designer on client team
“Many times, the client has shared how this work stream was stalled for years and you were able to take it to a place were the Technology team has what they need to do their job — while achieving alignment through the historically siloed stakeholders. No small feat!"
– IBM manager on a client project
“You are well-knowledged in all the products and very well-versed in the user experience world. I was able to learn from your design thought processes. Due to your omnipresent attentiveness, the client team always relied on your feedback for our designs for products. This helped me to learn to digest my portion of designs through how you dissect design language.”
– IBM designer on client team
“Your can-do attitude towards everything makes you someone who is easy and enjoyable to collaborate with, resulting in stronger designs and outputs. You've distinguished yourself by always delivering the work, pushing the team with your feedback and really forming human connections.”
– IBM manager on a client project
“Hi Rob! You are such a pleasure to work with. I am certain we will cross paths again. It was wonderful working with you!”
- Product Manager at Bank of America
“Delivered through ambiguity: he was highly flexible throughout this work, always ready to pivot in the newly announced direction or explore new options. His openness, excitement and general positive attitude around the work helped keep momentum and I appreciated his unflagging exploration of each new turn. He certainly left a very positive mark on our IBM team and the client.”
– IBM manager on a client project
“Rob, thank you for leadership and commencing this important initiative for one of our flagship platforms.”
– Senior product executive at Dun & Bradstreet
“I started a slow clap after looking at your latest email. That looks great! This is why we look to you for your expertise.”
– Senior Product Manager at Dun & Bradstreet
“Great presentation this morning!!! You brought [a senior product manager] around 🙂 Not an easy feat.”
– Product Manager at Dun & Bradstreet
“I am sooo proud of you! I walked the sales SME through your work flow schema and we nailed it. HAPPY FRIDAY!!!”
– Product Manager at Dun & Bradstreet
“Great work Rob!! There’s a good amount of functionality here, but it’s neatly displayed and very intuitive to navigate.”
– Product Manager at Dun & Bradstreet
“I really like what's here. You've gone way beyond what I thought we would do.”
– Product Leader at Dun & Bradstreet
“Rob, These screens are looking very good now, like them a lot, and feel that we’ve moved things on a lot further that I expected, or hoped!”
– Senior Product Manager at Dun & Bradstreet
“Your mockups do all the magic.”
– Business Analyst at Dun & Bradstreet
“HUGE improvements! I think it looks really cool, and gives customers a lot more flexibility with building and customizing. Two thumbs way up from me!“
– Sales Enablement SME at Dun & Bradstreet
“Love these updates. I love how clear it is for customers to set up, and I love that they can have more than 3 profiles, that always seems to be a dissatisfier. Thank you for the wonderful updates!!
– Sales Enablement SME at Dun & Bradstreet
“At quick glance… This is amazing rob... I am still not sure about the transactional aspect of step 1.. instead of a bulk aspect because I have never seen that being done that way. Let me think about it and connect with the team on that.. Number 2 and 3, I think really works.”
– Product Leader at Dun & Bradstreet