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the kubie.co blog

I have blogged intermittently since the mid 90s. Thankfully, much of the early teenage angst is lost to time. This collects my writings from this site, an earlier personal website, and some newsletter projects over the years, in mostly chronological order. I also publish new writing here. I publish somewhat more formal writing about content strategy and design careers at Content Career Accelerator.

Musical Scrapbook: 2022

Here’s what I want to say: Good fucking riddance you shitty fucking year. And I did say it, I’ve thought it and written it. Fuck you you bullshit arbitrary unit of time! Like this: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tiina Menzel (@therese_nothing) Because it was bad, right? It seems like everyone’s … continue

Musical Scrapbook: 2021

Sometimes when I share writing from old newsletters or other publications, I make the date in the WordPress CMS match the original publication date, so as to appropriately place it chronologically if someone goes on a deep-dive into my stuff. I could have done that for this…made the date January 1, 2021 or something. But … continue

Good interfaces are not, in fact, like jokes

Some of the most insidious design advice ends up sticking around because it sounds true. Or clever. Or both. I suppose this is true of all bad advice. One particular piece of true-sounding, clever-sounding, and ultimately dangerously-reductive advice that irks me is the trope that compares good interface design to a good joke. You might have seen it in this form: A user interface … continue

Ask Scott: Tools for content migration planning?

I’ve lost track of where this question came from. Based on my writing workflows and where I found this long-neglected draft, I’m ~80% sure this is an expanded and clarified version of an answer I gave extemporaneously during an event Q&A. Regardless, while content audits and migrations are not my unique area of expertise, I’ve … continue

“Sick days”

This essay originally appeared as Issue 102 of the UX Writing Events newsletter on September 26, 2022. I’ve written and deleted at least three drafts of this issue. Draft being a generous way to describe them. Ranty rabbitholes, meandering messes. I started writing about how feedback on your writing from stakeholders shouldn’t be taken as literal instructions, … continue

Learn thinky things

Folks seem to like my latest bit of advice for aspiring designers: Learn Thinky Things. I coined this advice (with an unconscious assist from Marc Maron, I suspect) as part of an off-the-cuff remark during UX Content Office Hours. Someone asked whether content designers need to learn Figma, a popular tool for front-end design. I shared my response as a … continue

On Kimi, microwork, unions, and tech jobs

This was originally shared as Issue 099 of the UX Writing Events newsletter on September 5, 2022. It’s Labor Day in the United States today, where I live. I never thought much about what Labor Day meant, growing up. You’d get the occasional news item about the origin of the weekend, or recounting the story … continue

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