AI doesn't need you full-time
AI is making senior knowledge workers productive enough to serve multiple organisations fractionally, but the human cost is messier than the pitch.
Adnan Khan
This blog is me in a nutshell; my work, life and everything else in between.
Latest posts
Introducing the Open Hiring Harness
The Open Hiring Harness is a spec for portable professional identity. It was built for humans — but it turns out agents need it too.
Don't leave assumptions up to AI
AI can generate assumptions, but it can't judge which ones matter. Learn why designers must own the load-bearing beliefs that shape product success.
Introducing Human Standards: an open design library with an MCP server
An open design library with an MCP server that gives Claude real-time access to usability heuristics.
AI ate the design process. What's left is taste.
AI commoditised design execution. What remains valuable? The human judgment to know what's worth making. That's taste.
Hostile and effusive tones boost LLM creativity
A study on whether being polite to LLMs improves their output.
RUX: Fighting fake UX with real UX (and what it actually takes)
Real UX comes from enforcement mechanisms that make user research non-negotiable. Here's how organisations escape FaUX.
FaUX: The rise of fake UX (and how to know if you're practicing it)
Workshops that go nowhere. Research that's ignored. Designers with no influence. It's called FaUX — Fake UX — and it's costing more than you think.
Design for grammar, not layout
Interface design is shifting from crafting screens to defining the grammar from which infinite appropriate interfaces can emerge.
Why talking to your future self can craft your hero's journey
Engage in dialogue with your imagined future self to set goals, learn from regrets, and gain confidence for your hero's journey.
Reducing cognitive load for usability
Types of cognitive load, and solutions to reduce it, including chunking & progressive disclosure.
On design variations
A 7-step framework for systematically exploring design alternatives, escaping the trap of the "obvious" solution, and arriving at decisions you can genuinely defend.
Clarity over cleverness
Prefer clarity over cleverness. Clever makes things clean, seamless and tidy, but there is a cost involved. Keep cleverness for power users instead.
Users are fickle, their whys are not
Users change their mind. Don't take users literally. Try and get the why behind their comments and feedback.
Flexibility: Product vs Service Design — With a 2024 Addendum on AI
Where should flexibility live—product or service layer? Exploring the tradeoff, with a 2024 addendum on how AI changes the equation.