Building for Yourself vs Building for Users
Most of the features I have shipped across solo projects were ones I wanted, not ones anyone asked for. Building for yourself is a brilliant starting point. It is a terrible finishing line.
Gavin Elliott
Chief Design Officer at Scrumconnect
Latest posts
Most AI features are placed in the wrong part of the product
AI features often fail because of where they sit in the experience—not because the technology is weak. Placement, timing, and flow matter more than raw capability.
Claude Design isn’t really a design tool
Claude Design collapses thinking, design, and early building into one flow—not just faster UI. What that structural shift means for teams, and where people miss the point.
It's getting harder to break into tech, and I don't think we're talking about it enough
Junior routes are thinner, expectations stay high, and remote work made informal learning harder. Until we adapt how we develop people, the entry-level gap will stay—and building real things can be one path you control.
I don't think about impostor syndrome in the same way anymore
After an autism diagnosis, the old impostor story went quieter—not because work got easier, but because I understood myself differently. What I called insecurity often had other names.
Getting diagnosed as autistic as an adult
A late diagnosis did not change who I am, but it gave me a way to understand myself. Clarity at work, energy, communication—and working with how I think instead of against it.
What I got wrong about career progression
I thought progress meant more responsibility, bigger teams and broader scope. Stepping back taught me that sometimes progression is about moving closer to the work—not further away.
The noise, the shift and what still matters
AI, tooling and new ways of working create a lot of noise—and pressure to keep up. The fundamentals of the work have not changed; everything else is still settling.
Why better UX didn’t fix my product
Clean flows and polished interfaces are not enough when the problem is not painful enough, the value is unclear, or the positioning does not land. UX supports strong products; it cannot rescue weak ones.
Why I still care about this more than I probably should
After twenty years in design and product, what still matters is not the outputs or titles but the thinking behind the work—how decisions get made and whether we solve the right problem.
You cannot AI your way out of the wrong problem
AI tools can critique layouts, suggest improvements and generate variations. But none of that matters if you're solving the wrong problem in the first place.
The uncomfortable truth about design leadership
Design leadership is often spoken about in glowing terms. But the reality is messy, slow and often frustrating. Here's what the job actually looks like.
Why senior designers should build products, not just decks
Senior designers often spend more time on strategy decks than building real products. Here's why shipping something real changes everything—and how it sharpens your design judgement.
From Burnout to Building: A Conversation on Design, AI and Leading Authentically
A reflection on my journey in design and leadership, covering burnout, imposter syndrome, neurodivergence, and the exciting intersection of AI and design.
The problem with the “outcomes-first” obsession in UX hiring
Why outcomes-first UX hiring misses context: metrics without framing mislead, especially in public sector; value adaptive skills, collaboration, and complexity.
From Eleanor to Thought-to-Action
From a 2016 vision of “Eleanor” to a near future of thought-to-action—on disappearing interfaces, trust and building the skills for an anticipatory AI world.
Leading Authentically: Five Truths About Different Leadership (And Why It Works)
An honest reflection on discovering authentic leadership through neurodivergence, burnout recovery, and learning to lead by being genuinely yourself rather than performing a role.
From Building for Me to Building for Others
A reflection on the journey from personal prototypes to building CV Anywhere - a product that helps others manage, update, and share professional CVs as clean, responsive webpages.
Why I went from idea bundles to a full AI-powered product
How GPT Wrapper App Bundles evolved from a static resource into a dynamic SaaS platform that generates personalized, validated app ideas in real-time.
Why I Created GPT Wrapper App bundles and what is inside
Most people do not fail because they can not build. They fail because they do not know what to build. I built a database of GPT wrapper app ideas that do not suck.
When AI becomes the expectation and what to do about it
The shift from AI as an optional tool to a core part of how we work is already here. The question is not whether to embrace it, but how to meet this transformation.
Building Your Season Guide: Another step in learning by doing
How building Your Season Guide continued my journey of learning by doing, prototyping in code and making the gap between idea and execution smaller than ever.
Why I believe prototyping in code beats everything else
A code prototype changes everything. When you prototype in code, the thing you are testing is real. It works in the browser. It works on any device. It responds to real-world variables.
Building CleanReader: One Click to Better Reading
How I built a Chrome extension to strip away the noise and give you clean, readable articles in one click - using agentic coding to solve a personal problem.
Conversations That Matter: Reflections From Middlesbrough Front End
Reflections from the Middlesbrough Front End Conference on agentic coding, confidence building, and the journey from idea to execution for aspiring builders.
Augment, Not Replace. How AI Fits Into the Way We Work
The world is not binary. AI does not replace designers, developers or other roles, it supports them. It reduces friction and removes grunt work so you can focus on judgment, ideas and intent.
The Next Evolution of Good Design
Building on GDS foundations to create a more human, data-driven and AI-enhanced standard for modern user experience design.
Getting Into Agentic Coding: How I Went from Zero to Building and Launching
A personal journey from design leadership to building and launching projects using agentic coding tools like Cursor, exploring the shift from idea to execution.
How AI Changed the Way I Lead
A personal reflection on the transformative impact of AI on leadership style and decision-making in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
From Design Leadership to Vibe Coding: A Personal Shift
A reflection on how AI tools have transformed the journey from design leadership to independent creation, enabling a new era of "vibe coding".
Gav found the power up, it is vibe coding
Vibe coding is a new enabler, a new power up, a new unlock.
Experiences and Journeys
Understanding the importance of seamless user experiences and journeys.
Managing IC's who are a similar level to yourself
Guidelines for managing individual contributors at your level.
User-centred success measures
A guide to implementing user-centred success measures alongside traditional metrics.
The one that didn't get away
A story about persistence and success in recruitment.
Managers and Leaders
Exploring the differences between management and leadership, and the impact of ineffective managers and leaders
Measuring effectiveness
How to measure and improve team effectiveness in organisations.
The first days
Navigating the initial challenges of a new leadership position.
Change and grow
Reflecting on team growth and transitioning to new opportunities.
The Rebuild
Starting fresh and rebuilding design processes from the ground up.
Design Debt
How to identify and manage design debt in large organisations.
Let's start from the beginning
A guide to people-centred management and the importance of understanding your team.
Describing things
How we can improve the way we describe and communicate about services.
Professional progression
Understanding the journey from junior to director level roles in design.
Time
Managing time effectively as a design leader.
Good product development process
A guide to effective product development process in government digital services.
Impostor Syndrome
Understanding and dealing with impostor syndrome in the design industry.
Proactive instead of reactive product development
The benefits of taking a proactive approach to product development.
So, you want to get into Web Design?
A comprehensive guide to starting a career in web design, from industry insights to career paths.
How to ask for feedback that might be hard to hear
A guide to requesting and receiving constructive feedback effectively.