XenBuild

XenBuild is an entirely new way of visualizing digital products.

- It eliminates silos
- It enables remote work
- It lets you build better products

It does this by taking all of your product-related data, from site analytics to Jira tickets to Figma updates to bug reports and presenting them in a unified visual format.

If you want to learn more, visit blackmonolith.co/xenbuild

Founder

Black Monolith

I solve 𝘁𝘄𝗼 problems for companies:

✅ Designing complex B2B products with daunting requirements and novel behaviors that cannot be solved with off-the-shelf concepts.

✅ Planning and executing strategies to bring those ambitious products to deployment and beyond.


Since 2020, I have been working with a variety of organizations ranging from small startups to enterprise companies like CrowdStrike, to major universities, and even the UK government. I have a small team including a UXR, two local developers, and a LatAm software engineering team.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲𝘀:

• Usability and quant analysis
• Design and design management
• Product documentation and Figma management
• Building design processes that operate asynchronously from Scrum-based development processes

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲:

➤ Launching our own proprietary tool, XenBuild, for product architecture and visualization, in use by 3 companies

➤ Seven product launches and web/mobile redesigns with quantifiable gains in revenue and customer retention

➤ Building an all-new design team at a consultancy, increasing the company’s value, resulting in an acquisition in 2023

➤ An estimated 3000 annual man-hours of meetings eliminated at one organization

Founder / Principal Consulant

Videoshops

➤ Led UX and design work at the company, as well as product leadership while they searched for a permanent VP of Product.

➤ Identified the root cause of the bottleneck in the design-development pipeline, and got things moving again.

➤ Enabled a strategic pivot to a new business model, winning the company a second multimillion dollar investment round.

Interim product lead

Seattle Sport Sciences, Inc.

➤ Worked with the C-level to turn raw technology into a suite of sports-intelligence products.

➤ Led the design team to build an AI-based video analysis platform.

➤ Delivered a product that has sold to numerous European soccer franchises, notoriously tough customers.

Director of UX

Boeing

➤ Led a team of designers, developers, and PMs to build a data management system.

➤ Won millions in funding, beating out competing vendors to earn the development contract.

➤ Delivered a product so effective that it evolved from a niche utility into a company-wide platform.

Product Owner

Microsoft

➤ Spearheaded the new data visualization standards for Microsoft BI tools.

➤ Led the design and development of several data dashboards and reporting systems for various groups across Microsoft.

➤ Created usability research that solved many of PowerBI’s teething problems.

UX / BI / Data visualization consultant

GrapeCity, Inc.

➤ Designed one of the first drag-and-drop ad hoc reporting tools on the market that requires no technical understanding to make complex queries.

➤ Wrote and managed our product's blog and grew the reader base by 50%.

➤ Managed competition research, ensuring our product roadmap kept us competitive in the market.

UX Designer

IHS Contractors

➤ Designed and oversaw the development of the company's new website. Worked with subcontractors to improve SEO, quadrupling site traffic over the first year.

➤ Managed and wrote the site's content, contributing to improved search engine results and increased phone inquiries.

➤ Oversaw rebranding of the company including a new logo, colors, vehicle decals, uniforms, and more.

Digital Marketing Consultant

RIPL

➤ Designed UI mockups for new features and prototyped them in Flex.

➤ Made minor modifications to site code and created content for investor demonstrations to simulate greater functionality.

➤ Increased user retention by 45% through the application of user research to the product. The product was missing key functionality that users expected and it was through my intervention that the functionality was built.

➤ Worked together with the marketing team to coordinate product and marketing efforts.

University of California Press

➤ Researched hundreds of archival maps for use in a book on Ancient Roman architecture and archeology.

➤ Designed over 80 new maps and architectural diagrams.

➤ Restored and improved another 200 older illustrations.

Head Illustrator / Graphics Editor

The root of success lies in design. Design of hardware. Design of software. Design of interfaces. Design of process. Design of policy.

If you want to produce a successful digital product in the 2020s, you need to navigate challenges spanning a wide spectrum of disciplines including technology, business, psychology, culture, and philosophy. I am here to help you do just that.

With over 20 years of experience in technology starting during the first Dot-Com Boom, I have helped companies ranging from small startups to Fortune 50 giants launch new products, solving novel design problems, protecting the user experience throughout the development process, and delivering a high ROI for every dollar spent.

I combine a futurist, iconoclastic worldview, encyclopedic knowledge across a variety of subjects, and a classical craftsman-like approach to design in the tradition of my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors. I am committed to creating only products that serve a useful purpose in society and respect the primacy of man over machine. 

I can help you with every step in the product life-cycle including:

• Requirements gathering
• Business case
• Concept design
• Design management
• UX/UI/Visual integration
• Usability test design and analytics
• User and design advocacy
• Integration of product with branding and marketing 
• Roadmap and futureproofing


Ask me about my specialty services that you won't find elsewhere:

• Data visualization design
• Design from minimal information (ideal for extremely early-stage work)
• Seamless design transitioning (AKA "boiling the frog")
• Usability audits
• Futurist education
• Documentation and design system development
• Product lexicon development (internal communication design)

In 1988, this was considered the future of car interiors. Look at those big, juicy buttons. We should have had this rather than the namby pamby touch screens we are stuck with now.

Jason Clauss

🟥🟨🟩🟦 Product Strategy Expert + Principal UX Designer + CRO Designer + Journey Manager + Business Designer | B2B + SaaS + Enterprise | AI augmented

"There I Ruined It" has just demonstrated the scam that is the modern music industry. The outrage around AI-generated music seems to center around the idea that pure art is being replaced by machine-made crap devoid of any artistic merit. But what pure art are these people talking about? Anything from the mainstream music industry is garbage that deserves to be disrupted by AI. I would go on to say that a well-made AI song is superior to the algorithmic garbage coming from the industry today.

Case in point is modern "country" music which is not the country music of days gone by. I remember when it was a cultural trope that country songs were sad and made you cry. Now the only kind of crying they evoke is for the future of mankind. Modern country is pure brainrot, and the song which I have linked below proves it. I'll take AI over this day day.

Every AI bro after the nVidia announcement.

If you have been following the UX job market for a while, then you are aware that so-called "unicorns" have been squatting jobs that should have gone to more qualified UX people. These unicorns claim that they can do UX and graphics equally well, and to a small-minded cost-cutting execuchud, that sounds pretty appealing. But we've always known they were a scam. Now they are outing themselves as such.

Read more in my latest article. You know where to find it (down below).

I find this post amusing for a number of reasons.

First off is the self-own of claiming that the primary goal of visual design is to "make things pretty". Imagine a UI-oriented visual designer who openly admits that their primary goal is making stuff pretty as opposed to making it usable. Rather than attempting to position visual UI design as a serious discipline that is fundamental to usability, they are openly focusing on the subjective aspects of it. I'm not even a visual designer, and I can muster a more cogent defense of the craft, by demonstrating how visual design execution can make a major difference in usability. But instead, this person focuses on the branding and marketing aspects of design. Fine if you want to be in marketing, but it's not way to be taken seriously by product people.

Of course, the fact that we have a surfeit of non-serious artists trying to masquerade as UX designers should be evident in the fact that flat design is dogmatically mandated in all tech products despite being a usability nightmare.

Secondly, the claim that "UX extremists" (LOL) are trying to "undermine the importance of UI and visual design" is laughable. The very fact that pure UX people admit they cannot do visual design is an open admission that we respect the depth of the visual design discipline. It's a deep and complex skill set, and we cede that territory to those who specialize in it.

BUT we do not receive the same respect in return. The person who posted this is a case in point. They are clearly a "creative" and "brand" oriented person, but they shamelessly tack on "experience designer" to their title, and on their website, they claim "UX research" as well. Someone would only do this if they believed that UX was a bonus skill to be tacked on to their core profession. To say that we are undermining visual design while treating our profession as a subset or accessory to their own is a level of self-unawareness I cannot fathom.

Moreover, the case study I checked out is such a facile lampoon of a UX case study that I can't help but wonder if it was intentional satire. The actual design of the product is amateurish and typical of cargo-cult UX design.

Even the fact that the term "UI" has been appropriated into a synonym for graphic design is itself a mark of disrespect. The kind of low or mid fidelity design that UXers do is, in fact, UI design, but they want to take that from us too.

But, lastly, the most amusing part of all of this is that the tables truly have turned. Three years ago, we were mainly seeing UX people posting grievances about the state of the industry, while the "UI/UX" types blithely ignored them. Then in 2024, they began to respond to the UX grievance posts, clearly starting to feel seen and not in a good way. But in the last year or so, I've started to see them make their own defensively-worded posts, clearly starting to see the writing on the wall. The tide is turning, and I'm here for it.

Experience Designer ✦ Creative Strategist ✦ Product & Brand

You know what bothers me? UX extremists trying to undermine the importance of UI and visual design craft in general.

"The goal of design is not to make things look pretty."

yeah, WRONG

One of THE goals of design is indeed to make things look pretty. Visual design does not only improve usability and functional UX, it plays a direct role in how credible and trustworthy a product appears to users. Aesthetics shape first impressions in milliseconds. A product that looks good evokes positive emotions, encourages exploration, reduces bounce, and increases adoption.

If your product is ugly, users won't trust it and won't use it UNLESS you have a monopoly or your name is eBay.

Beauty does not only support UX, it is a whole experience in itself.

"Problems with visual design can turn users off so quickly that they never discover all the smart choices you made with navigation or interaction design." - Jesse James Garrett


#UXMyths #UglyDesigns #ProductDesign #UXUI

It doesn't matter if you're a UX designer or a visual designer, there is no useful Figma skills you learn beyond three months, and even that is pushing it.

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