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All based on research and personal experiences

  • Blog post

    Women In Product Dinner: for the love of food, people and Product

    At Smooth Sailing, we enjoy qualitative, yet informal networking. That’s why we love to organise ‘Women in Product’ dinners; small scale dinners where we welcome about 15’ish women that work in the Product scene. In the time span of a few courses, we share our experiences, future career ambitions, laughs and we broaden our network. Last Thursday we hosted the second edition, together with Amplitude.

  • You probably need a design system. Or do you?

    Design systems are a common topic if you work in product design. Creating such a system is often sold as the fix to all of your product’s design, scaling and consistency issues. But is it really the best solution for your product?

    By Dieter Peirs

  • Blog post

    Collaborative documentation: Feature passports

    Crafting digital products is an interdisciplinary process, which makes aligning visions and communicating between separate disciplines quite challenging. Feature passports help lower those barriers.

  • Design discussions can be messy

    Hypotheses: the design nursery

    As good designers, we all know that everything starts with understanding our users. But sometimes we are already having discussions with clients, drawing things and checking out competitors.

    By Hannes D’Hulster

  • The oak table

    I want you to imagine a large massive oak table that has been passed on to you by your grandparents. It is robust and serves its purpose well: supporting food and enabling social contact.

    By Hannes D’Hulster

  • Blog post

    How usability lets your users engage more

    Whether you are selling toys to new parents online through a webshop or providing your employees with a platform to manage customers’ financial data, your digital solution will sabotage your company if it is not user-friendly.

  • Hey Google, how do I design for Voice?

    Voice is popping up everywhere. It’s integrated in our phones, tablets, speakers, headphones and even our cars. Our designer Inti explains on how to get started with Voice Interface. It is the ideal step to start even without technical knowledge.

  • Blog post

    Let’s go Smooth Sailing ⛵

    By Hannes D’Hulster

    It has been 5 years already since I went my own way, head-first into design research. I was a bit scared, naturally, but I was also really eager to be my own boss.

  • Time for software design to grow up

    The value of software design is greater than having good looking interfaces and frictionless flows. Good design creates an impact on the long-term behaviour of people and therefore it impacts the world we live in.

    By Hannes D’Hulster

  • A designer’s guide to talking with users

    Even with good intentions, it is not easy to get the right user insights. Qualitative research is the basis of a solid digital product that people can relate to. This is why I wrote a blog post or two (in Dutch) about how important it is to involve users in your design research.

    By Hannes D’Hulster

  • Blog post

    Never ask a designer to build a bridge

    By Hannes D’Hulster

    Have you ever worked on a project where something looks off and it’s easy to adjust, but your designer says no? If the designer would just make this simple change, but still no!