HeyJaredUX Survival-list
Helping you become a more strategic designer — one post at a time — with honest insight, actionable advice, and guidance you can actually use.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 8
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- Sep 30, 2026
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- Jul 5, 2026
Latest issues
How to defend any design decision to people who aren't designers (opens the original)
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Hey, Miranda here 👋Most designers can make the work good. Far fewer can make the room agree it’s good.That gap is where careers stall. It’s the difference between the designer whose work ships and the one whose work gets picked apart by people who don’t speak design. And, for some reason….. it’s the one thing design school never taught any of us.I’ve spent years learning to close it, first the hard way in my own reviews, then coaching designers from senior to lead. Now I’ve built it into somethi
How to answer “why this and not that” without sounding defensive (opens the original)
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Hey, Miranda here 👋“Why this and not that?”Four words, and you can feel yourself tense up. Suddenly you’re explaining, a bit too fast, a bit too much, defending a decision like it’s under attack.You heard “why this and not that” as “they don’t believe me.” Or “they don’t think I know what I’m doing.”If that’s you, you’re in good company. But… that question isn’t someone doubting you. It’s someone doing their job.Once you can
Exactly what I'd do to make Lead this year (opens the original)
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Hey, Miranda here 👋If you dropped me back into a senior role tomorrow, no title, no team, just trying to prove I was ready to lead, I know exactly what I'd do (again).I still remember the stretch right before I made the jump from senior to my first lead role. I wasn’t waiting around to be told I was ready or even what to do to "look ready”.The designers who actually get handed a team are the ones already operating like they have one, well before the org chart catches up. Proof point: Leadership
Using AI to fill the gaps your PM won’t (opens the original)
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Hey, Miranda here 👋I post a lot about tying your design work to business impact. And every time I do, my inbox gets the same reply from at least one designer:“That’s great, but my company doesn’t share the numbers with me.”“We don’t even track the metrics.”So this one’s for you. Everyone wanting to do real work inside a company that stonewalls you from the very thing that would give you a chance to show your work is as valuable as it is.You know the drill.. you get handed a
The obsession with taste is setting designers back (opens the original)
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Hey, Miranda here 👋There’s a word all over my feed right now, and it’s being sold to you as the thing that saves your career from AI.Taste.The pitch is everywhere: AI can churn out “good enough” in seconds, so the one thing you’ve got that it doesn’t is taste. Your eye. Your instinct for what’s good. Build your taste and you’ll be fine.But that is absolute BULL, and anyone selling it, a lot of them “design leaders” who should know better, are setting designers up to fail.Because
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