Introducing Intake for Obsidian
I have been quietly building a lightweight blogging system. Not a platform, not a CMS. My goal was to make publishing to this site feel like taking a note. Obsidian is the writing environment, the…
Dave Klein
UX designer, photographer, and writer.
Latest posts
Copy is for users, not stakeholders
I recently opened the Google Home app to check a camera feed. Before I could, it wanted to tell me about Google One:…
The icon reset
This started as a quick documentation chore. I wanted every icon on this site collected in a Figma file, so I finally had one place to see the whole set. Then I started counting…
Currently Reading Widget
My homepage has a new "Currently reading" widget including the cover of the book I'm reading, the title and author beside it, and a thin red progress bar hanging under the cover. The bar is updated…
Introducing DKBezeler
Every framed iPhone capture on this site takes the same path: I drop a screenshot or a screen recording into a folder and it comes out baked into a device bezel. I never open an image editor. I never…
Introducing DKProductCard
My favorite trick on this site is invisible. When I write a gear page, I don't write product cards. I paste an Amazon link on its own line, and at build time a remark plugin turns it into a card with…
Introducing DKMediaViewer
Of everything I have built for this site, the photos page is the part I fussed over most. Click a photo and it flies into place. Tap an arrow key and the next one glides in. I spent an unreasonable…
Introducing Gear
I love testing products, tinkering with my home office setup, and, of course, making coffee. Until now my answers lived in scattered DMs and old tweets, so I built a proper home for them: Gear. Two…
Introducing design details
This site is built on small decisions: how a heading breaks its lines, what red means, why exits never bounce, and more. I collected all of them on a new page called design details…
Color E Ink Displays
Get Ready for the Color E Ink Monitor That Finally Runs at 60fps - Yanko Design…
Friends and Family Day at Apple Park
On June 27, 2026 I was fortunate to attend Apple's first friends and family day in years thanks to a good friend who works at the company. Considering my not too subtle passion for Apple, one can…
iLife innovation
Apple Creator Studio gets smarter, faster, and more connected - Apple…
On designing finger-friendly interactions: An interactive essay by Marcin Wichary
Show your hands honor for the strange power they bring you – Aresluna…
Lettera
Introducing Lettera: A Native Markdown Editor for Mac, Now in Beta…
Nintendo's Legal Battles
“Don’t entangle emulators in infringement events that are visible from space.” – Unsung…
Building P3 - Won't Fix — A Designer's Guide to Shipping a Real Web App
P3 – Won't Fix is a public gallery of software bugs that I assume product managers closed as “won't fix.” It's the kind of thing that makes you laugh, groan, and feel seen all at once. Anyone can…
Building QuickTake
When I was 7 years old my parents purchased a Mac LC. I was instantly hooked. Not just hooked on computers in general though. I was hooked on the Mac. I had played with a DOS machine at a friend's…
Reflections on Vibe Coding a macOS App
While exchanging messages with a friend I wrote some thoughts on the experience of building QuickTake:…
Distracting, Disorienting, Disruptive
I read this paragraph last night and it made me think of Apple's approach to refining the design of macOS over the past few years…
Part of the Process
I began reading a design book written in 1995 (31 years ago!) and this quote still rings true:…
Use Claude to Generate a Design System in Figma
We're in the duct-tape era of AI…
Wall Street Journal Tech Things Appearance
Last week I noticed the following text at the end of Joanna Stern's Tech Things newsletter:…
Upgrading to a Ubiquiti Network
I upgraded from an Asus mesh networking setup to a Ubiquiti setup with access points wired directly to a router via ethernet. As a result the network's speed, latency, and reliability dramatically…
Jony Ive on Desert Island Discs
Lauren Laverne asks Jony Ive about some of his creative decisions when designing the original iMac on the Desert Island Discs podcast:…
How to Use an Apple QuickTake in 2025
As a collector of Apple products people often ask me, “Do they work?“ To be completely honest I do not track which work and which require repairs. For example, I have not tested my 20th Anniversary…
How to Make a Photography Book
At work there was a discussion about making money from photography. I chimed in to say I recently designed and printed a book, and a few coworkers encouraged me to make a presentation to explain how…
A Tiny Celebration by Craig Mod
Craig Mod makes a twilight bike ride come to life in his Ridgeline newsletter. I highly recommend you subscribe…
3D Printing Happiness
Last year I acquired an Apple Adjustable Keyboard) for my collection. I do not recall ever seeing this keyboard in person, and I thought it would be both fun and pleasant to type on. Unfortunately it…
Ode to a Box
I've been following the team at CW&T since 2011 when they launched the Pen Type-A on Kickstarter. My design team gathered around to watch the campaign video and were immediately impressed by the…
Streetline—My First Book!
I designed and produced a book of my street photography and added a Store page to this website. I'm kvelling that people are already placing orders. Buy a copy for yourself! It's only $24 including…
People-First AI
Albert Shum writing about AI on LinkedIn:…
Take the Task Offline
Elizabeth Laraki writing about designing Gmail in its earliest days:…
The Art of Noise Exhibit
I recently visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see the Art of Noise exhibit and was stunned. I felt nostalgic browsing the audio products I recall seeing and enjoying years ago, and…
AI-Powered Thoughts
One thing that I believe is missing from all of the AI discourse, product launches, and funding announcements is how AI can help augment the small, mundane tasks users perform many times per day on…
On the Design of Dot
In November of last year, a mysterious startup called new.computer (great name similar to another startup founded by Apple employees named Software Applications Incorporated) posted a video of an…
Home View Is Back
By 2011 the design team at iControl Networks had already devised a way to visually summarize a house's security system, cameras, thermostats, locks, and lights into a single, simple, and quite lovely…
Explorations in Imagemaking
For the first assignment in Coursera's Fundamentals of Graphic Design course I focused on the iPod (of course) and named it “David Klein's iPod Collection.” It includes photographing and recreating…
Natural Language Computing
Antonello Crimi, Jess Leitch, and Jason Severs write about natural language acting as the next generation of user experience:…
1 Million Daily Active Users
When Sheena Lee and I set out to redesign the Salesforce Mobile App in 2018, we aimed to design and build a consumer-grade enterprise app. We tackled the information architecture, color scheme,…
Shift Happens
I first discovered Marcin Wichary from his Medium posts. As a Medium employee he wrote extensively about a subject I so rarely encounter: details. His style is to go very deep on a subject and make…
Poster Design
In 1982 when Apple was developing the original Macintosh, Steve Jobs had each team member's signature engraved on the tool that molded the computer's plastic case.[^fn1] This ensured that every Mac…
Photographic Imperfection
Arun Venkatesan, writing about camera gear on his blog, helps me reflect on my own camera journey:…
Apple and Artificial Intelligence
WWDC 2024 is approaching, and we all assume Apple will share how AI will impact their hardware and software. Expectations are incredibly high. I thought it would be a fun exercise to think through a…
Apple Watch Faces
For years I have felt a tension across iOS, macOS, and watchOS between simple, subtle interfaces and vibrant, complex interfaces. We have beautiful, high pixel density screens surrounding us all day…
AppleDesign Book
I decided to expand my Apple Collection (“Museum” and “Collection” are interchangeable at this point) to include books in addition to desktops, laptop, peripherals, displays, etc. I found a copy of…
Deer Valley
Earlier this month Remy and I traveled to Park City for the annual Binswanger Cousins event. The tradition started with her grandparents twelve years ago (and coincidentally one of the trips is where…
40th Anniversary of the Macintosh
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh's launch. I recommend watching a few minutes of Steve Jobs introducing the Mac at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA on YouTube. While watching…
Stash
I adore Minimalissimo and recently saw that they added a new Stream page to the website. Introducing the Stream:…
Infinite Compute
During a flashback episode of Mythic Quest, C.W. Longbottom walks by an electronics store that has Pong running in the window. His friend sees a video game; Longbottom sees the future. He instantly…
Why Instagram Failed to Become TikTok
In 2022 the Instagram team announced they were “testing a new, immersive viewing experience in the main Home feed.” As a self-proclaimed mobile app design connoisseur, this piqued my interest…