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Mathew Wilson

@mathewwilson.me
153 followers 266 following 260 posts

UCD/UX focused designer and educator. Helping people rethink 'design' and their approach to it. Based in Stroud/London – mathewwilson.me – Using Bluesky mostly as a link feed

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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/04/2025
I’ve long loved this blog for this sort of thing 👌 usesthis.com
usesthis.com
Uses This / Interviews
A nerdy collection of interviews asking a random selection of people all about the tools and techniques they're using to get things done
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 25/03/2025
More interesting and lovely things. Plus a few angrier ones than usual. documenteering.com/2025/03/25/t...
documenteering.com
Things I found interesting 27 Feb – 25 Mar 2025
Follow ↗ The Outline newsletter from Design Week. There are too many newsletters I feel (though I understand why), but this one is brilliantly done by Design Week. A daily update of interesting sni…
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Reposted by Mathew Wilson
Matt Jones @moleitau.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
🚨 Attn: Bunting/Minutiae enthusiasts!!! Get a ticket to Interesting 2025, while ye may! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/interestin...
eventbrite.co.uk
Interesting 2025
Short talks about interesting things
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/03/2025
Lots of good snippets in this thread. All classic points, and worth reiterating to ensure that less experienced (and more sheltered) designers understand the duality of good UI design.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/03/2025
Nearly scrolled past a "UX is Dead" post on LinkedIn, trying not to take what looked like clickbait, but the second line – "UX is evolving" – caught my eye, as I thoroughly agree. Full thoughts here: documenteering.com/2025/03/12/t...
documenteering.com
The UX paradox: Why demand keeps growing
I nearly scrolled past this ‘UX is Dead’ post, trying not to take what looked like clickbait, but the idea that ‘UX is evolving’ is one that I thoroughly agree wit…
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 11/03/2025
I think you might also enjoy the Quiet Posters feed in that case.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 11/03/2025
Realised it's just two months to Interesting conference. Very much looking forward to it. Wonderfully inspiring yet deeply unassuming. If you're unsure what it is – but you're curious – then it's 100% for you. russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/202...
russelldavies.typepad.com
Interesting 2025 - what's it all about?
It's time to start thinking seriously about speakers for Interesting 2025. And this time, for a bunch of reasons, that means more than just asking people I know. And you lot. I need to start asking mo...
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 05/03/2025
A little rabbit hole, starting with Donella Meadows and systems thinking, ending at BLM and triggering board games. documenteering.com/2025/03/05/d...
documenteering.com
Donella Meadows on success to the successful loops
While awaiting the arrival of The Limits to Growth (a 2004, 30th year update version I found on World of Books ), I’ve been looking around the web for articles and snippets on Donella Meadows…
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 03/03/2025
A bit on businesses without websites. An increasingly common (and sad) state of affairs for the independent web. documenteering.com/2025/03/03/t...
documenteering.com
The state of websites? Too many redirects occurred
There’s an independent builders merchant near me that I try to use instead of the big national chains. I was wondering what they had in stock, so had a quick search for their website. Search term: …
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 03/03/2025
I’m with you, and more with the phrasing of ‘shit design’ (just thoughtlessly exclusionary) rather than hostile design (actively exclusionary) a la en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile... Although, technically, shit/thoughtless tends to be the norm… so maybe that is ‘normal design’ 🤷
en.m.wikipedia.org
Hostile architecture - Wikipedia
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 02/03/2025
@timharford.ft.com you might enjoy the latest from @philedwardsinc.bsky.social youtu.be/E7G_33sXJeI?...
youtu.be
The secret economics of Dungeons & Dragons
YouTube video by Phil Edwards
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 28/02/2025
I feel like I’m having some reverse Mandela effects. Things I can remember that are real but seemingly no one else remembers them.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 28/02/2025
Furthermore, was it just me and some friends that saw this movie that the song was in the soundtrack of? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peut-%C...
en.m.wikipedia.org
Peut-être - Wikipedia
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 28/02/2025
When the titles start in every episode of Severance it reminds me of this tune. I can’t find anyone else making the connection. Just me? youtu.be/hTVJF5ORuLQ?...
youtu.be
Screamin.J Hawkins - Maybe
YouTube video by Bamboor
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 26/02/2025
And "the story of a rodent’s unrelenting quest for happiness and fulfilment." Relatable. Brilliant work that I 'enjoyed' revisiting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZ...
youtube.com
Happiness
YouTube video by Steve Cutts
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 26/02/2025
Including a wonderful little geeky video about a detail of British history that would be so easy to ignore and never think of. youtu.be/0NHv6owsCvw?...
youtu.be
Why do UK supermarkets have clock towers?
YouTube video by Chris Spargo
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 26/02/2025
Things I found interesting / 5-26 Feb 2025 documenteering.com/2025/02/26/t...
documenteering.com
Things I found interesting / 5-26 Feb 2025
Follow A new section for my interesting collections. Coming after feeling particularly grateful for people that share things I wouldn’t have otherwise found. It’s a delightful experience that remin…
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 25/02/2025
A post that started small but that I struggled to stop. Got there in the end. documenteering.com/2025/02/25/t...
documenteering.com
The difficulty of understanding when ‘easy’ things are difficult
This began as a short post, that got longer, and added to, and added to some more, before becoming a seemingly messy collection of disparate opinions. There’s a thread running through it thou…
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 25/02/2025
Nothing to add other than sharing this great cover that your post made me thing of :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWU-...
youtube.com
Jeffrey Lewis - Do They Owe Us a Living
YouTube video by David Apmartlet
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 14/02/2025
@iainbroome.com Saw this one and thought of the struggle to explain what content designers do, and why content first thinking can kinda be useful at times. A good example/explainer to share with doubters. Clever old @designthinking.lol designthinkingcomic.substack.com/p/lorem-ipsu...
designthinkingcomic.substack.com
Lorem Ipsum
DT! for today
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
Could be interesting to map out the path a project took, alongside imagined possibilities with different events or decisions being made. Kick-off goes well, or terribly. Client team changes completely, or remains consistent. Key stakeholder leaves, or more join in. A D&G like project retro exercise!
A multicoloured elaborate journey map illustrating the narrative options from a choose your own adventure book, showing multiple options, routes, forks, and end points. Some dotted lines jump forward, some end points end very quickly.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
Searching for a particular flowchart meme just now stumbled on this instead. Cool to see these adventure books mapped like this. I always imagined authors would effectively write them this way. Hit me also how navigating big projects always feels like a CYOA www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cyo...
atlasobscura.com
These Maps Reveal the Hidden Structures of 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Books
If you decide to see more, click on this story.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
On first read… this seems really sensible. It would make a good “Should I use AI” decisions making flowchart, with almost every flow ending up at ‘No’! Which is likely a good thing. A bit like xkcd.com/2267/
xkcd.com
Blockchain
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
“A unique blend of evolutionary psychology and strategic leadership insights.” Found via @ewebber.bsky.social so instantly took the recommendation and downloaded it. Oh my days, vvv good. It’s correlating with so many experiences, thoughts and beliefs! All in a 'good confirmation bias' way, I think
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
A salient reminder of what UCD people should aim for. But, even more importantly I think, it's a brilliantly concise phrasing to remind us of what we're trying to sell to clients, and how boring and skeptical they must feel about it!
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
I keep coming back to the idea of 'boring magic'. It's known well in some circles, but I think it's worth more than being an in-joke that we nod in humorous agreement to. visitmy.website/2020/01/08/b...
visitmy.website
Boring magic
Thoughts on digital government, its inherent politics, and humility in design.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
I found the entire UX of this so impressive last year that I couldn't resist a rather over excited write up 😅 documenteering.com/2024/04/11/o...
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 12/02/2025
Any news on those opinions? Would be interested in your take on the Blueprint
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 11/02/2025
Which very much relates @dandoescontent.bsky.social to this, which I found via your Like (Thanks) bsky.app/profile/dean... "mostly persuasion rather than making stuff." Also great is Tom's response, "You're challenging and shifting an organisation's fundamental belief system."
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 11/02/2025
Also, on the topic of first words, my twins both said 'MORE!' which isn't a noun, although to be fair, the object they were after was more food!
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 11/02/2025
"There is so much potential, but it involves big changes in ways of working and thinking"... That's a perfect way to describe the act of selling and doing design! Our job is as much about finding and designing methods to change cultures and ways of thinking, as it is about IA, UX, SD, etc.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 07/02/2025
A bit more on Thriva, my journey with cholesterol management, and some rather off piste digressions about UCD design exercises and roundabouts. A very Friday piece of procrastination. documenteering.com/2025/02/07/t...
documenteering.com
Thriva unboxing. A packaging mechanism that never gets old
I’ve used thriva.co since 2017 and their testing box still delights me every time! Such a fun mechanism. The instructions could easily fit inside a regular box… so it’s fairly poi…
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 07/02/2025
I've used thriva.com since 2017 and their testing box still delights me every time! Such a fun mechanism. The instructions could easily fit inside a regular box... so it's fairly pointless if you think about it practically... but in this case, sod practicality, we need more delight.
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Reposted by Mathew Wilson
Large Heydon Collider @heydonworks.com · 06/02/2025
📼 Why Is Everything Binary? My latest on briefs.video. briefs.video/videos/why-i...
briefs.video
Why is everything binary?
A video from Webbed Briefs
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 06/02/2025
Dammit! I wasn’t checking the hyperlinks 😅
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 06/02/2025
I give up, I can't get it, please help @peterkwells.com !
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 04/02/2025
Do Audiobooks Count As Reading? @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social says a wonderfully convincing yes! And I couldn't agree more. My excited thoughts on it: documenteering.com/2025/02/04/d... Or just watch John's indirectly dyslexic affirming video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=80SC...
youtube.com
Do Audiobooks Count As Reading?
YouTube video by vlogbrothers
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 04/02/2025
"Human beings love to predict the future, but we’re quite terrible at it. So how about punishing all those bad predictions?" – Some design related thoughts from revisiting (the very old) Folly of Predictions episode of Freakonomics. documenteering.com/2025/02/04/h...
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 04/02/2025
Things I found interesting / 11 Jan – 4 Feb 2025. Gaps are getting longer between these as I struggle to document all that I find interesting. The curse of curiosity? Or just dopamine addiction 🤷‍♂️ documenteering.com/2025/02/04/t...
documenteering.com
Things I found interesting / 11 Jan – 4 Feb 2025
Read Devastated by the sudden loss and passing of our dear friend Vicky. She was a kind, thoughtful and all round amazing person. So much integrity and sincerity. Unbelievably sad news that the awe…
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 04/02/2025
OK, feeling embarrassed now, but I'm leaving this up rather than deleting... The #:~:text= embedded URL highlight page text trick works on any page. Looks to have been possible since around 2020, perhaps? developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...
developer.mozilla.org
Text fragments - URIs | MDN
Text fragments allow linking directly to a specific portion of text in a web document, without requiring the author to annotate it with an ID, using particular syntax in the URL fragment. Supporting b...
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 04/02/2025
Thanks to @pixlz.com for reminding me of the doorway effect AND showing me that it's possible to create wikipedia links that highlighted specific page text! Just add #:~:text= followed by a direct paste of the copied page content you want to highlight. bsky.app/profile/pixl...
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 04/02/2025
I wonder if a similar phenomenon occurs when a project team passes through their final deck presentation. “People tend to forget items of recent significance immediately after crossing a boundary, and often forget what they were thinking about or planning on doing.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorway...
en.wikipedia.org
Doorway effect - Wikipedia
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 01/02/2025
100% echoing @iainbroome.com’s hearty recommendation of this. Predominantly a content design lens on trauma and dyscalculia, but the conversation creates a brilliantly layered argument for more active empathy in all areas of design. Not just Content/Service/UCD accessiblenumbers.com/trauma-infor...
accessiblenumbers.com
Trauma informed design
This episode includes themes some of you might find uncomfortable such as death and bereavement, cancer treatment and trauma. We also discuss a government...
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 01/02/2025
“Every person deserves an environment where their unique needs and strengths are accommodated...” A great explainer for leaders/HR teams. Empathetically, I wonder if there’s a form of neurodiversity in people that struggle to see the benefit of advice like this? ndconnection.co.uk/blog/recruit...
ndconnection.co.uk
9 lessons learned from working in a non-Neurodivergent-affirming environment — Neurodiverse Connection
Reflecting on their recent experience, NdC Development Lead Kay Louise Aldred shares some key lessons she learned from navigating a non-Neurodivergent-affirming workplace environment.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 30/01/2025
One of the most thoughtful, and so in turn, one of the best blogging platforms I've ever seen. Last day and a half to catch this offer. Still more than worth it if you miss it though. Do it. Start that blog / website you keep putting off. It doesn't get easier or safer or nicer than this.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 30/01/2025
Likely because you’ve done a brilliant job of it! And not only with how well it’s written. The signup process is also impressively well done. Great UI and content design throughout. I’m yet to test the Unsubscribe screens to see if you’ve perfected that process also though! I’ll resubscribe after 😅
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 30/01/2025
Did anyone *actually* do them?
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 30/01/2025
Maybe the Paperclip Maximizer Theory is happening, but with Nvidia GPUs. An AI, programmed with the objective of producing as many as possible, has manipulated billionaires and destabilised the world in order to create a craze for more processing power. I bet it's annoyed with DeepSeek if so.
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 29/01/2025
A twist on Conway’s law. Duckworth's law... Change consultants mirror the culture of their clients, even when hired to change that culture?
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Mathew Wilson @mathewwilson.me · 14/01/2025
I wrote this a few days before hearing about Vicky’s death. My admiration and love of her work remains. She was clearly a widely loved and respecting individual. See more of her influence here: bsky.app/profile/priy...
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