Designer, Advisor, Executive UX • Leadership • Inspiration @ ThoughtSpot, ex-Apple, Pinterest & Yahoo! • Find me on Threads @baxley
Silicon Valley, CA
Joined April 2019
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Bob Baxley retweeted
The moral obligation of great design: A call to arms by @ThisIsBobBaxley
Bob has designed products used by billions of people over his 35-year career at @Apple, @Pinterest, @Yahoo, and @ThoughtSpot. During his eight years at Apple, he led design for the online store and the App Store, and witnessed the iPhone’s transformative launch while working under Steve Jobs. Bob champions the obligation designers have to reduce frustration in people’s daily lives.
"I don't think many people working in the industry understand the scale of what they're doing.
Software, both for the audience and for the creators, is an anonymous medium. The products we're building are just these crazy, faceless things created by a bunch of people, you know, who knows where. We never see anybody on the other side of the glass.
It's very hard to really understand that we're creating something in Figma on their computer that's going to be interacted with by billions of people, thousands and thousands of times.
People don't want to try to figure out how to navigate our login screens or go through our onboarding process. They just wanna get home and spend time with their families and pet their dogs and have a nice dinner."
Bob also has some other spicy takes:
🔸 Why design should report to engineering, not product
🔸 The “Beatles principle”—why the best products come from teams of 4 to 6, not 40 to 60
🔸 Why you need design tenets, not principles (with real examples)
🔸 Why you should delay sketching and prototyping as long as possible
🔸 Why software is fundamentally a medium, like film or music
🔸 Much more
Listen now 👇
• YouTube: youtu.be/X-83gvgVaWc
• Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/67Q…
• Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
🏆 This entire episode is brought to you by @Stripe—helping companies of all sizes grow revenue:
Bob Baxley retweeted
Thanks so much for the opportunity to share some ideas and stories with all of you. Really looking forward to the event and hope everyone who listens in takes away a few things of value…not the least of which will be more than a few laughs. 😆
@ThisIsBobBaxley, former Design Leader @ Apple, @Pinterest, and @Yahoo, is the first guest in Pixelmatters first live (and public) Designmatters!
👋 Join us in this 1-hour live session with Bob. Instead of snacks, we will have Q&A... xitter.gq/i/broadcasts/1dRKZljbR…
Bob Baxley retweeted
To have an infinite game mindset when those around you have a finite mindset is an enormous advantage – though one that will leave you feeling isolated, alone, and misunderstood.
Bob Baxley retweeted
Final words, prepared for a speech JFK did not survive to deliver, planned for an Austin Democratic dinner sixty years ago tonight (cancelled because of the assassination):
"Neither the fanatics nor the faint-hearted are needed....Our duty is not merely the preservation of political power but the preservation of peace and freedom."
Bob Baxley retweeted
Looking forward to sharing a number of our learnings from @thoughtspot at #DesignOpsLA next week. I’ll be talking about our design strategy, UX tenets, career ladder, competency map, block frame diagrams, and more. Hope to see some of you there. buff.ly/3MxwX59
Bob Baxley retweeted
The only thing that truly matters in all this is the relationships. Your work will fade into irrelevance but the memories you make and the bonds you forge will remain until the end of your days.
Bob Baxley retweeted
Seeing each other in real-life is a useful reminder that there are actual human beings – three-dimensional and complex creatures – on the other side of all these video calls and online interactions.
Bob Baxley retweeted
Time is a human abstraction. And like all such abstractions you are best served by seeing it for what it is while also acknowledging both its modern importance and essential falseness.
Bob Baxley retweeted
It’s okay to dial back for a bit, perhaps forever. If you can be smarter, more thoughtful, and more intentional about where you spend your limited time and invest your constrained energy, you'll be shocked at how much you can accomplish.
Bob Baxley retweeted
At some point your kids grow up – t which point you have to update your parenting approach and expectations, fully internalizing the fact that they're responsible for their own choices and for the consequences that follow. And don’t forget, that was always the plan all along.
Bob Baxley retweeted
Our happiness is directly correlated to the time we spend moving through the nature. A hike in the woods, a walk on the beach, a ride along the backroads — they will invariably lift your spirits and sooth your soul.
Bob Baxley retweeted
Be thoughtful and realistic about your commitments, obligations, and projects. Better to take on too little and the have the time to do them well then to be overwhelmed and struggling to complete any.
Bob Baxley retweeted
The world keep spinning no matter what. It’s important to stay aware of what’s happening as a way of being prepared for opportunities and conflicts but there’s no point in wasting energy being anxious about things you can’t control.
Bob Baxley retweeted
You can’t control others — what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking, how they’re reacting, the ways in which they fill their time, or the choices they make in populating their lives. You can suggest, inspire, and model — but you can’t control.
Bob Baxley retweeted
It’s 104º outside and we don't have air-conditioning. Upstairs i’'s north of 95º in the bedrooms but the basement is reasonable. Honestly, 78º hasn't felt this cool since Sean Connery.
Bob Baxley retweeted
The messaging needs to be clear, consistent and true. “Congress can override what the Supreme Court did and pass a law to legalize abortion. To do that, we need to elect 2 more Democratic Senators and to hold the House. Pres Biden will sign a law codifying Roe if that happens.”
Bob Baxley retweeted
The thing about originalism is that it wasn’t a thing for like 200 years. It was popularized in the 70s and 80s to criminalize abortion, let people have guns, and generally push right wing politics. Which kind of shows how full of shit it is.
Bob Baxley retweeted
Forced birth in a country with:
—No universal healthcare
—No universal childcare
—No paid family & medical leave
—One of the highest rates of maternal mortality among rich nations
This isn't about "life." It's about control.
