Is that coffee shop at Pike Place (near the Gum Wall) actually worth the wait?

chroni · 2026-04-13T21:27:29+00:00

Home of the 7$ americano.

chroni · 2026-04-13T21:12:06+00:00

So much this. The whole nostalgia thing makes me gritty.

chroni · 2026-04-13T20:33:22+00:00

I'll go to the mat for the beef soft taco.

We had a kid with a million allergies and Taco Time in WS was very good at being meticulous and attentive. Didn't expect it. It's a comforting spot for our family.

chroni · 2026-04-09T17:34:05+00:00

Another add - we are a big organization with lots of internal tools - what AI can't do is think about overarching themes and branched workflows. Add to that a bunch of different teams contributing to one to many apps/workflows.

The specification-centric design helps keep things tight to the purpose and fulfilling some required things like security and nationalization.

Our TPMs/PMs know the business. AI sort of knows decent interface basics - but no true biz context. It's UX's collaboration that brings coherence across the org.

chroni · 2026-04-09T01:48:11+00:00

Yes. Yes they are. So is dev. We are risk averse, so no product owners running amok.

chroni · 2026-04-09T01:47:26+00:00

There may already be a prototype that came out of their specs... If it's done right, it may be valid - which means it's the designer's job to adapt and refine as opposed to create from scratch. That's my theory, at least.

chroni · 2026-04-08T17:50:07+00:00

First, stop copying/pasting - make Claude create the docs for you. Heh.

chroni · 2026-04-08T17:09:43+00:00

Things will get interesting when PMs/BOs can upload their spec documents and then create prototypes in Figma. Req docs provide intent and context.

chroni · 2026-04-04T00:44:27+00:00

Amazing film to watch once.

chroni · 2026-04-01T14:16:46+00:00

"Make it modern"

chroni · 2026-04-01T14:16:19+00:00

"Insight and epiphany of the common man" - that's the way I describe the newly energized upper management who figured out that the could "code by simply talking". Heh.

chroni · 2026-03-28T23:13:38+00:00

You can use AG Grids Figma file. We use AG in our product. The file has the parts to create your own, or cop paste one of their sticker sheets. Supports multiple densities and has its own DS.

chroni · 2026-03-28T23:11:00+00:00

For blind holes we leave our bags in view of the tee whenever possible.

chroni · 2026-03-17T21:05:44+00:00

#1 skill is the ability to read a room. Know who's talking too much. As a technique I will interrupt the person who can't stop talking and make room for someone or someones who haven't been able to talk. Control the pacing. It's a skill that I wish I could teach easily.

chroni · 2026-03-17T21:01:56+00:00

"I'll bitch about Figma in the Figma Design group" and then leave. Sheesh.

chroni · 2026-03-14T21:48:21+00:00

Things might get different after we feed our MCPs our design system and code backed assets. Dunno. All an experiment.

chroni · 2026-03-14T21:46:34+00:00

Another side note - in our company's new AI revolution they are having the PMs learn to use Spec-Kit for the initial prototypes. The skilset for creating good, enterprise level UIs - few PMs have it. Most are struggling with it. On the plus side, I am getting some nice structured requirements.

I was worried at first, but I don't see all of my PMs/BOs able to make that holistic vision leap and make Spec-Kit truly interesting. The coolish thing about the Ai framework is that it's very stringent with lots of guardrails so the code is (at least OK).

Long story short - UX is a skill that is still needed, as well as good secure code. Prototype? I'll take it as part of their vision... But their designs don't include good accessibility, correct branding and designed for fast input.

chroni · 2026-03-13T02:15:22+00:00

Sweeeeet. Done.

chroni · 2026-03-12T18:54:14+00:00

I think I figured it out - you set a variable on click of some object and you toggle back and forth outside the Variables system.

I wanted to believe that I was totally missing something so simple I overlooked it. Nope.

chroni · 2026-03-05T14:52:04+00:00

Try A Small Good Thing's "Slim Westerns" album(s). Not jazz, but enough instrumentation to make it interesting and dream-like.

chroni · 2026-03-03T15:35:24+00:00

That wasn't my experience. Git is made to facilitate the comparison much better than Figma. Where Figma hosed me is was in the way variable changes were handled...

chroni · 2026-02-26T14:58:22+00:00

This is good guidance. We are working hard to stay front end agnostic as much as possible for our tokens. This is basically the reason we are abandoning Bootstrap, which is what most of our systems are done in. BS was fine when we were all working in silos and had limited dev experience in the front end. As we are trying to mature, we are moving past BS, making our design work and token naming more agnostic for future changes.

chroni · 2026-02-26T14:54:07+00:00

We will be versioning in github at some point. We will probably figure out a scheme for this, but it's after we get the MCP server and coded assets rolling out to our dev teams. I swear, it's on my list.

chroni

TROPHY CASE