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ronbronson.com
critical service design, speculative civics & the mechanics of public trust. ia/ux. ex head of design at 18F. pesäpallo enthusiast. incoming asst. prof. of practice at umich. skeeball pro. hs 🎾 coach. ronbronson.design / co-host of @futureperfectbook.club
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Posts 23 Comments 27

Gonna go smack a tennis ball around outside off screen.

submitted 13 hours ago • 0 comments

this, hands down, has been my number one most consistent fight with developers. users will find amazingly creative ways to both use and abuse your tools (most of the time, with absolutely no ill intent), so you must proactively account for that. that is our job.

submitted 15 hours ago • 1 comment

There is no accountability, only spectacle.

submitted 20 hours ago • 0 comments

removing all friction between someone having a thought and that someone being able to instantly broadcast said thought on platforms that reward outrage and speculation— that was a mistake.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

i did end up designing a skeeball rating metric but it operates more like UTR in tennis instead of operating it like a scoreboard with rankings mostly because 1) I don't feel like maintaining that right now, but 2) you can use it to generate and maintain your own skeeball handicap, basically

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

User feedback you say? happy to help.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

Teddy Ruxpin didn't die for this.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Yes, the revolution is here. No, it is not televised. It’s currently available as a limited-access newsletter and a lightly branded Discord server.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Seems gauche to me that in the same week they announce magical funding for the non-existent baseball team with a mystery ownership group in a bad location but that the legislature drags their feet on this slam dunk project.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"This is me! This has always been me! I'm part of history!" is a heartwarming realization. You're out there. Yes you! And you and you! And me! There is a visual language you speak and which speaks to you. Find it. Be it. Goes for a lot of the rest of life too... but that's a whole other thing.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

I don't often get suckered into buying fragrances for the bottles, but wines are often a different story. Nothing like a wacky name & story to draw me in.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Why do some have a shit time with LLMs for programming while others love it? To succeed, the latter group tacitly creates tons of scaffolding and gain weird new skills. While it works, this posts explains how doing all that is an incidental consequence of bad interaction design in coding AI agents.

submitted 14 days ago • 5 comments

momentum is oxygen. every day we waste waiting for the moonshot that'll fix *everything* is a future deferred. while we wait to invent new forms, we'll look past the progress we could make today. too caught up in the marginalia. a pity.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Sometimes when it feels like there is nothing redeeming in the world or the news feels overwhelming, I make it a point to email coworkers or people in other departments to let them know how much I value them. Trying to spread a little positivity helps it not seem so crushing.

submitted 4 days ago • 13 comments

The stadium debate isn’t really “stadium vs all the stuff we need.” It’s “do nothing vs do something flawed but catalytic.” If we get a version of Denver’s LoDo out of this, it’ll be one of the few ambitious urban investments Portland’s made in decades. i hate the location they've chosen, too.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

Timely piece from @paddyharrington.bsky.social newsletter about what it means to be a "designer" or whatever magazine.frontier.is/im-a-designer/

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The mass extinction event for outlets willing and able to pay skilled writers to do criticism has led to a generation of people unaware of what good criticism looks like and how to take it.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

In a world of hyperscale grifts without any undo buttons, the idea of amplifying "dark patterns" (and why I stopped tweeting about consequence design) feels inadequate. Tricky UIs are just the beachhead to a tidal wave of awfulness we don’t yet know how to reckon with, but need to.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

It's so maddening to see Florida, Tampa Bay & Vegas winning all the Stanley Cups.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

The world is a wild place but the Beach House - Teen Dream vinyl never disappoints. #nowplaying #musicsky #music youtu.be/kq1Tq0cQqP8

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

When an AI agent tries to kill you, who goes to jail? defector.com/when-an-ai-a...

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? The biggest influence on how a system behaves is often its team’s last reorg, not its purpose or mission.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments