Wouter de Bres
@WdeB
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Psychologist turned Product Designer. I help startups design simpler digital products. Previously founder @gibbonco , VP design @degreed .
Netherlands
Joined June 2009
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Last Seen Profiles
“Sorry designer, we had to scope down the project to fit in this sprint.”
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“I’m sorry, but we had to cut down the scope to make the deadline.”
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After living in this house for 8 years I finally have my perfect home office space.
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This is Max Bill designing his famous Junghans bauhaus style watch. Impressive how this man was an architect, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.
Who here owns a Junghans Max Bill and can I ask some questions?
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These two books made the biggest impact on my vision how to build a digital product and how to build a company.
If you haven’t read them yet and a bit low on cash, I will buy the books for the first five that DM me.
Thank you for writing
@jasonfried
&
@dhh
❤️!
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Yes. This old man bought himself a heated desk mat. THE best purchase of this winter. 🔥
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Calm, self funded, remote, 4 day workweek companies are the future.
Those companies will have the absolute biggest advantage in attracting top tier talent.
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Just like with gardening, all digital products should have a pruning season where you selectively remove branches to improve the structure, and direct new, healthy growth.
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This cosy beach house on a tiny Dutch island is our home & office for the coming two weeks.
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As a designer/engineer/pm you are only as good as the relationships you are able to build with the people around you.
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Being a non-native english speaker in an American company I risk every meeting saying weird shit without me realizing.
I can now tell you from experience you should never mix-up the words ‘circumvent’ and ‘circumcise’ in a meeting.
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After a glorious 6 year run, giving it my all to help grow Degreed to the unicorn it is today, I decided to move on to a new adventure. Going to miss my amazing team and this lovely office.
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When the colors of the sky match the colors on your new website. 😍
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Designers talk about doing user research like teenage boys about sex; everyone says they do it, but in reality they just please themselves.
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If you feel bad that your first design solution doesn’t work that well, just think about this early concept seatbelt design from the 60s.
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I used to believe the fast growing high profile grand idea startups with bazillions of funding shooting for the stars were so cool.
Nowadays I believe small profitable companies with calm and kind people solving clear problems are absolutely the sexiest.
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Trying to get the crossbar right or what ever you call that area that connects the bowls. Which one feels right to you?
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Whoah haha waking up to an insane amount of notifications 😳
I’m glad that 200K+ people have now watched me walk to the gym in the morning in beautiful Voorschoten, Netherlands. 😂🤣
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UX hierarchy:
/_\ => Enjoyable
/___\ => Easy to use
/_____\ => User can find it
/_______\ => It functions
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Starting the day with a thirty minute morning "commute" from my home to my home to get my creative brain activated.
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For f*ck sakes. Just heard my old Dutch design team at Degreed all got laid off.
Who is hiring? Send me a dm. It’s a group of truly amazing humans and designers. ❤️
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🎉 I did it! I finally launched my new website:
It was a lot of fun to design the whole thing straight in the browser and dust off my front-end skills again.
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I love coding my own web projects but I always struggled with setting up hosting and deploying sites, that’s why I’m building Codespace. If you have the same and are looking for a simple app that will do that for you, leave your email address at
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I’m trying to define a small set of personal work principles. This is what I have so far:
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Having some fun exploring apple pie logos for a product called SkyPie. Of these four, which one do you like best?
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Becoming successful in a product design role probably depends 90% on how good you are at communication.
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This month I’m working from Tuscany, Italy. The view from my office here does not disappoint.
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Pretty crazy big news: We raised $153 million, valuing Degreed at more than $1.4 billion. 🦄
Proud of the team building this rocket ship. 🚀
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Hierarchy of UX Needs:
🦄
/__\ —> Enjoyable
/____\ —> Easy to use
/______\ —> Understandable
/________\ —> Technically functioning
/__________\ —> Serves a purpose
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When you sit next to a user and see them interact with your product:
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Slowly I’m getting somewhere with the visual design. These are some of the UI components.
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This is the face of a slightly scared man. After ~6 years being employed, leading edtech design teams, I decided to move on and start 2023 as a freelance product designer. If you know any startups that could use some help simplifying their user experience, send me a dm.
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̶A̶I̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶j̶o̶b̶s̶!̶
̶D̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶d̶e̶!̶
̶B̶e̶ ̶M̶O̶A̶R̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶!̶ ̶
̶D̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶k̶!̶
̶1̶0̶ ̶A̶I̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶l̶s̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶h̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶h̶
🤷♂️
Anyone else just enjoying life?
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As a:
User
I want to:
drown in the sheer amount of features and options,
so that:
the maker of the software can feel like they added a lot of value to the product.
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Go read these books. Really. Do it. It will make you a better designer.
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Product design and parenting is not that different. You sometimes get negative feedback and you try to figure out the problem behind it. And sometimes you just ignore it, because whatever they might want, might not be the best for them.
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Your job is making the product more "of course". So don't be afraid of boring obvious design solutions.
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Freelance update:
I landed my first dream client! 🥳
✅ Good & kind humans
✅ Small & focussed team
✅ Clear problem(s) to solve
✅ Long(er) term commitment
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~4yrs years ago I started sketching ideas for a tool to make it easier to build, publish and host simple static websites. Purely as a fun side project to solve a problem I experience myself.
Today I could publish a website for the very first time with 🎉
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As product designer, you have to get comfortable with the fact that everyone has an opinion about your work.
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Scientifically accurate graph of user happiness and the amount of features in a product.
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I had so much fun playing around and learning more about creating these kind of script logos. But man, this is so freakin' hard to get right!
Which one feels right to you?
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I started to learn a new skill: hand lettering.
It’s soooo hard! But fun! Here is one of my first attempts:
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UX and UI design has always been my comfort zone. But, last year I wanted to challenge myself and I started learning logo and brand design. Not often I feel pride with anything I design, but I’m quite happy where I landed with the American Eagle logo.
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Please stop the ridiculous hustle culture. Already years ago psychologist Wayne Oates found that hustlers don’t outperform nonhustlers; the only noticeable impact of their hustling is higher job stress, greater work-life conflict, and deteriorating health.
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Working for a "cool company", a high salary and a fancy title is cool and all, but nothing will make you enjoy your work more than working with people you really like on a personal level.
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Someone gave me the advice that during these crazy COVID19 times I have to make sure I take care of my own mental health.
I took that advice to heart today and got myself a new German psychologist. Her name is BMW RnineT Scrambler and I can highly recommend her.
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Freelance update: Today I started working for my first client! 🎉
It’s a small startup with wonderful people, solving hard problems in the HR tech space. So great to get know everyone and learn about this new product & company.
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To end the week with something fun I played around with a new color palette and made some minimalist poster designs of the Degreed office locations.
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My new fun design challenge: trying to design a moose logo. Slowly getting somewhere.
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I’m pretty sure I reached the point where every designer in my team is a much better designer than me, and that feels amazing.
My role in the team nowadays is just playing the awkward dad who is super proud of his design kids.
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I wrote a new blog post:
The 10 Commandments of Digital Product Design
http://t.co/kGln8rmrGJ
http://t.co/VbIl50MXs0
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Maybe you supposed to announce only things like landing fancy new jobs, large funding rounds, amazing product launches, or acquisitions.
But… my announcement is that I woke up with my 5yr old daughter whispering in my ear “Dad, you are the best and sweetest dad in the world.”
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Here are some great reads to learn more about psychology&design (thread):
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Yay! My birthday present arrived:
Apple Studio Display ✨
Compare to my old Thunderbolt display this is an amazing upgrade. So sharp! And those colors! 🤩
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At some point I will start my own product company again. I don't know yet what kind of product, but I envision it to be:
🎯 Solving one small problem super well
👯 A stay-small slow-growth company
💸 Preferably bootstrapped
🗓️ A four day work week
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Getting married and taking a month off from work. I got this feeling July is going to be good month.
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Some of the design books that helped me to become the designer I am today. What are some of your favorite design books?
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Freelance update: a first invoice is PAID!
📣 16 December I announced going freelance
💬 22 potential clients reached out
☎️ 47 exploration calls
😍 2 clients turned out dream clients
👨🏻💻 26 January started working with first client
💸 7 March first invoice paid
81 days.
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I took a two week break and explored La Douce France for a bit with my girls. It was exactly what my brain needed.
“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.”
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🎉 I’m joining
@ericgsharp
and
@davidblake
in their new adventure as Chief Product Officer. We will learn more from books over our lifetime than from any other source, so I’m excited to help build a product to inspire learning through great literature.
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Just a friendly reminder that not everything NEEDS to be AI.
Don’t AI summarize that book. Read it. Slowly. Enjoy it.
Don’t let AI solve your problem. Think. Research. Learn.
Don’t let AI generate that email. Take time to write, build human connection.
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“Sorry, we had to scope down the project to fit in this sprint.”
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