I successfully talked a developer out of overriding a UX decision that was determined through research.

It took a while, though.

The DHS Trusted Tester ANDI applet failed to find a live region in its own test page used to demonstrate that very feature.

I'm pretty sure we have QA engineers who should have been prosecuting attorneys.

The fact that a UI design or interaction can cause actual physical pain is unfortunately lost the folks chasing the latest "wow factor". Relying on users to know how to adjust their accessibility settings in order to manage through a poor experience doesn't say much for user-centered design.

People are cranky today over things that don't need the crank.

Lord help me. I want to paint a very large canvas. But I don't have room for one in my house. I'm pretty sure my wife wouldn't be into it if I hung it up. It's just an image that needs a large canvas.

Someone please buy the painting that I haven't painted yet, so that I know I can paint it.

I'm all for giving back to the next generation, especially for a youngun' who has had some hard knocks.

But still - maybe ask.

There was that one time that my ex decided that she was going to give my old skateboard to one of the kids she mentored through AmeriCorps.

Maybe ask me first?

I still have the skateboard. Bury me with it.

I'm so tired of finding people that I enjoy working with and then, suddenly, they're no longer co-workers.

Whether it's restructuring, layoffs or they choose to move on, I always find it hard to move on. While sometimes the bad apples take themselves out, often the good ones are plucked too soon.

YouTube video by Metalocalypse: Dethklok | Music Metalocalypse: Dethklok | Go Forth and Die | Adult Swim

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKlf...

Me, enjoying updating an abandoned wiki page, hoping to preserve some history.

The admin, who noticed all of my edits and flagged the page for deletion.

Seriously - go fuck yourself.

How will I know when the change will happen? Will I just wake up one day and be so old that I'm afraid of everything different and spewing hate at everything that I choose to not even take the time to understand?

Will a bell ring, or something?

Going through the DHS Trusted Tester training documentation and finding grammatical errors is always fun.

The latest cat trend is for the cat to come into the office around 2pm, nose around, leave, and repeat. Sometimes there is meowing.

Dinner time is 3 hours away. There's crunchy food in the bowls.

It's one of those moments where I'd rather be doing absolutely anything else.

My favorite part of acting as a subject matter expert, and when I'm asked for help, I ask a clarifying question, and no one ever responds.

I absolutely cannot give you a correct answer unless you work with me here.

If your coding tutorial is just you writing code, then you're not teaching anyone anything.

I'm so tired of converting HEIC files to something usable.

If we're issuing laptops to remove employees, we should also issue quality microphones.

It's 2025, people.

Ozzy > Hulk

And yet, DJT still walks the Earth.

It's been a long time since I sat in on a meeting where the product lead had no idea how they wanted their tool to work and expected the designer to read their mind.

But I guess some things don't change.

There might be internal memos for dev and product devoted to "How to ignore the requests of the design department" or "Ways to ghost design managers when they ask you to respect everyone's capacity".

Spend the last two months working with a designer on accessibility issues.

Message this morning: Who would I talk to about accessibility defects? We were told there were some problems.

What is it that they think I do?

The DHS Trusted Tester knowledge check quiz just failed WCAG SC 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions.

Nice.

Leadership: NO MORE DEFECTS!

Also leadership: Move fast, break things! NOW NOW NOW!

Well that's weird. Someone I connected with on the FB seems to have downloaded a couple of my photos and uploaded them to their own album.

They weren't anything personal, and I kinda understand why, but also.... really?

Designers spit-balling a known bad pattern.

Me: This has been known to not work.

Them: We're just doing some design exercises. Not looking for feedback.

So... I should wait until you decide to hand this design off to dev to tell you that it would need to be redesigned? Got it.

"Please like and subscribe" ... how about "Please use a microphone and project your voice?"