I keep emailing this list to friends visiting Bergen, so here it is properly: the city the way I’d hand it to someone I know. I’ve wished I had it written down more than once. Bergen is small, wet, and ringed by seven mountains. It’s a walking city: you can cross the whole centre in an afternoon, so once you’re downtown, skip the taxi and use your feet. You’ll get rained on doing it, but locals…
2025 was a year of building and shipping. At Heder Bank, we went from a manual mortgage process to automated processing, savings accounts, and the beginnings of an online bank. Outside work, I sold my first side project, launched a car bingo app, and spent family time cycling through Denmark and racing obstacles with the kids. Here’s my look back at 2025: Work 2025 has been intense. After Robin…
There’s a right moment for everything, and sometimes good design is just about noticing those. Last night, I had been watching a show and about to turn off my TV when a notification popped up on my Apple TV: “Charge your remote now” What a perfectly timed message! It didn’t interrupt the show. It didn’t ask for attention when I was deep into what I was watching. It waited until I was done. Until…
There comes a moment in every person’s life when they realize that the modern world operates on a system of dependencies so complex that even the companies who built them haven’t the faintest idea how they work. For me, this moment arrived last week when I tried to do something as simple as giving Apple money. Specifically, I was trying to pay for my company’s developer subscription. The sort of…
I lifted my daughter from the bike in our garage, her small hands gripping my shoulders. The January chill stung our cheeks, and my Hövding airbag helmet sat forgotten around my neck. I gestured toward the house. “Race you to the door!” She grinned, before hopping onto her kick wheel. She propelled herself forward with the practiced confidence of a toddler who didn’t know fear. But halfway up the…
I never thought I’d advocate for creating something I hated. As a designer, my career has been built on crafting beautiful, intuitive experiences. But there I was, watching a potential customer struggle through a digital obstacle course that would make even the most patient user want to tear their hair out. This digital train wreck could become our greatest asset. The interface was clunky, the…
In 2024, life threw everything at me at once: welcoming our smiling third child, rebuilding strength after shoulder surgery, and taking the biggest leap of my career. After 14 years in consulting, I found myself helping build a bank from scratch, all while somehow managing to ship three passion projects in the margins of life. It was a year of pushing limits and finding new rhythms. Here’s is a…
What started as a few kettlebells in a spare bedroom evolved into me literally digging out a custom gym space from the side of my house with my bare hands. Over eight years, I’ve transformed from a commercial gym devotee to someone who built their dream training space from the ground up—quite literally. Whether you’re just starting with a yoga mat or ready to break ground on your dream space,…
This weekend I said goodbye to one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever known. My grandmother wasn’t just another elderly person watching the world change from the sidelines – she was actively sprinting alongside it, even at 92. While her friends were wary of smartphones, she was busy mastering Snapchat. She didn’t hesitate to try things out. Years before I even thought about it, she was…
What if you could have detailed conversations with Tim Ferriss, Derek Sivers, and other mentors whenever you wanted? Using AI, I’ve built a system that turns the classic ‘What would [person] do?’ thought experiment into dynamic, actionable conversations. Here’s how it works: A couple of months ago I was stuck on a technical problem with one of my side projects . I’d been tinkering with it for…
Here’s something they don’t tell you in all those productivity books: Your perfect routine is temporary. Always! For months, I had this beautiful system going - weekend mornings were my designated time slots for side projects . I was getting incredible amounts of work done in those quiet morning hours. Then our youngest decided that those precise hours were perfect for quality time. Just like…
There aren’t enough hours in the day! Between full-time work, family responsibilities, and even some downtime, it’s hard to imagine where you can fit in anything extra. But here’s a secret: You don’t need huge blocks of free time to make progress. Your biggest growth can happen in the smallest moments. Those little “pockets of time” throughout your day that are often wasted. Pockets of time I…
In a world where everyone demands your time, it seems strange to actively take on more projects. But for some of us, side projects aren’t just extra work - they’re invigorating. A professional playground I’m currently working on four side projects, which may sound like a burden. But they give me something no client work ever could. One of them, Pie Menu , even grew from research into a viral…
We love to talk about “thinking outside the box.” But what about thinking inside the bin? When Ford started cranking out the Model T, they were left with mountains of wood scraps. Rather than tossing them, someone had the bright idea to turn those leftover bits into Kingsford Charcoal — now a brand that owns 80% of the BBQ charcoal market. The idea taking byproducts and turning them into…
Today, I brought my oldest child to work. What I expected to be a routine day turned into an adventure, all thanks to her perspective. The clothes-drying room? A marvel of technology. Running between buildings in the rain? An exhilarating sprint together. Sparkling water on tap? Pure magic. Beeping ourselves into the office? A fun adventure! Everything we encountered was a source of joy and wonder…
I hadn’t heard from my developer in over three weeks. My budget was dwindling. And all I had to show for a year’s work was a TestFlight app that only my friends and I could use. Was this the end of my attempt to rethink app-navigation for macOS apps? This is the story of Pie Menu — how a designer with no app development experience ventured into creating a radial menu app for macOS. It’s a tale of…
Parenthood is the ultimate paradox. Nothing is more wonderful, nothing is more challenging. My third child is now 2 months old, and we’re drowning in sleepless nights and endless cries where we don’t know what to do. But I’ve found two perspective shifters that reveal the magic in the mayhem: 1. The 80-Year-Old You Close your eyes. You’re 80. Your joints creak and your kids are grown. Suddenly,…
A story about how 200 students turned down earning $250 an hour. Annually, we host a student recruitment seminar, attracting a diverse audience ranging from 100 to 300 attendees. While most focus on web development, we also welcome participants with design, economics, and business development backgrounds. Before the event, students can tackle an optional coding challenge. During the seminar, we…
A quick step-by-step setup guide on how to set up GitHub Codespaces for Jekyll and Next.js. Jump to the instructions for Jekyll Jump to the instructions for Next.js Why GitHub Codespaces? I wrote about why Codespaces is the future back in 2020. Four years later, I’m still convinced — and now I actually use it daily. I’ve used Jekyll for my blog since I started it in 2014. I loved the idea of the…
This is a look back on some of the highlights and lowlights of my 2023. I’ve written these yearly in private for 9 years, but as I reached the end of 2023, I decided to share what has happened during the year with whoever is interested, and because I know this will be fun to review in a decade. Consulting In previous years, I’ve written about what we’ve done at Stacc X ( 2021 , 2020 ). A lot has…
One fundamental principle often goes overlooked in a world obsessed with the latest trends, fads, and shiny new objects – the Lindy effect. The Lindy effect states that the future lifespan of something is proportional to its current lifespan. In simpler terms, the longer something has been around, the longer it will likely stick around. This principle can be a valuable guiding force when deciding…
Forget about PowerPoint. Here is how to use Figma for presentations instead. Things have changed This is an old blogpost written before the launch of Figma slides . Why use Figma for presentations? Figma offers several advantages over PowerPoint, making it a great choice for creating visually appealing and collaborative presentations: Improved Collaboration and Feedback: Figma allows multiple…
I was interviewed by UX-Norge as designer of the week . This is a translation of this interview to english: Name: Marius Hauken Age: 34 years Residence: Bergen, Norway Education: Master’s in Design from Bergen Academy of Art and Design Job: Designer at Stacc Years as a designer: 13 years Listening to now: Imagine Dragons Watching now: Dexter - New Blood Reading now: The Humans by Matt Haig How has…
Last year I had an idea for a side project (which is now launched) . I approached the subject methodically and realized I would get next to no traction on the idea unless I had an audience. I, therefore, started diving deeper into how to build an audience and grow on Twitter (as a side-project to the original side-project). I took a course, got to know many like-minded peers, and started getting…
One design tip you'll see everywhere once you know it: Light comes from above. 🙄 Kind of obvious, but this means that: Objects are lighter at the top Shadows fall below elements Elements closer to you are brighter This is why shadows spreading out evenly seem subtly wrong. This is why gradients that are darker on the top seem weird. This is why darker cards on lighter backgrounds are off. Just…
Use fewer words. Reducing your message by 50% can DOUBLE its effectiveness without losing the meaning: It is much easier to read the text (and way more efficient for the reader) if you avoid writing words that only serve as extra filler words in the text — 29 words It is easier and more efficient for the end-user to read a text where you avoid writing unnecessary filler words in your text — 23…
This untold career strategy will make you stand out from the crowd. Here’s how to make yourself indispensable: If you want success, you have two strategies: Become the best in the world at one specific thing Become the top 25% at two (or more) things The first path is very hard. The second one is doable with some effort. By combining skills you get more unique — and valuable! Some skills are…
I just wrote my 100th newsletter. 100 weeks. 100 mistakes. 7 things I wish I knew before I started: 1. Deadlines are crucial Without a weekly deadline, I wouldn’t have published anything. It keeps me accountable, and people nag me if I don’t post on time. Lesson: Set deadlines to make things urgent 2. Consistency is key A weekly cadence creates a habit of writing and sharing. By checking off the…
How I use multiple devices to boost my productivity and focus: We often use the same device for work as we use to relax. What if you thought of your devices as a single-purpose environment for different activities? Computer → Work Tablet → Refine Phone → Relax This way, you can use your devices to switch contexts. The fresher your eyes, the easier it is to refine and edit. A few examples: Writing…
Daily we design and code things for our clients, but we’re not often as good at sharing what we’ve done during the year. Then it’s nice to take a step back and look at all the projects we’ve delivered and worked on during the year. This is a blogpost from Stacc X. One of seven teams within the Stacc ecosystem. See what all our products and services . Projects Working within banking and finance,…
1 horse has about 15 horsepowers. Source The world is spinning faster than it used to. Source In Poland, they use clams to check if the water is clean. Source Tomatoes was unknown to Italy before the 1600s. Source Lego is the largest tire manufacturer in the world. Source George HW Bush went parachute jumping at ages 72, 75, 80, 85, and 90. Source An American TV viewer who watches Netflix instead…
The lines between design and code are becoming more and more blurred. You can choose to ignore it or start embracing that code will make you a better designer. Patterns One day I suddenly became a better designer. I had worked with CSS for multiple years, but a workshop with Harry Roberts in the cold city of Zurich changed my relationship to design and code forever. We got a task to review a…
Three years ago, we sold our car and bought two e-bikes as a replacement. Purchasing a cargo bike is by far one of the best choices we've made over the last few years. Why? The idea of getting rid of our car came when we had to pay for changing rusty brake pads. We were not using our car enough. The car was a Volvo V40 we bought to commute between Bergen and Førde because of work, but when we…
Why invest in design? Design can at times be very abstract and hard to quantify. Here is five hard numbers, three stories, and one framework to back it up: Five hard numbers The ROI for investing in design is 301% Source Design makes you launch your product twice as fast! Source Design reduces your development time with 33% Source Design-centric companies outperform S&P by 211% over 10 years…
I always found it a bit embarrassing having the yearly performance talk with my previous employer. Most of the conversation involved talking about the goals in the prior year and how I missed them. Then we set new goals that I didn’t care about and would miss the following year. Strangely enough, my employer and clients were pleased with my results. So much that they one year just said: “whatever…
Summer means reading time - at least for me. If you need some tips, here are some books I have devoured and was pretty sad to finish. The list is leaning towards science fiction, but don't let that come in the way if you're not a sci-fi fan. Some of my recommended books Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission — and if he fails, humanity…
Here is a little tip for everyone with children using iPads or iPhones to watch videos or play games. We all know how they suddenly can turn up the volume, switch apps or suddenly sit longer than they promised. I have a simple tips for you: it’s called Guided Access and is built into iOS. To enable it go to settings > accessibility > guided access and turn it on. Then you need to go to…
Where do you go to sell a t-shirt? Shopify. Where do you go to sell a pdf? Gumroad. Where do you go to sell code? GitHub? The problem I love open source as much as any developer. The web (not to mention our society) wouldn’t be where it is today without it. The people who created Linux, Git, WebKit, Tensorflow, and many, many more deserve all the recognition in the world. All the key parts of…
You are exhausted! Of course you are exhausted! You have been running for close to 10 hours in the freezing rain. 32 fu***ng kilometers without as much as a trail! A conch woke you up in the middle of the night to tell you to start running. Finally, you reach the yellow finishing gate signaling that you now ...have four more rounds to go. This is the reality for the 40 persons that run one of the…
If you've user-tested a product, you know the hassle of taking notes and comparing them across the different users and what they did. Often we've ended up with huge, messy google docs or sheet files. You get an overview if you read everything, but it is hard to see patterns of people failing and organize quotes quickly. The solution Five years ago we came across this article from Jessica Crabb,…
2020 was a strange year for all. We had projects lined up, but suddenly everything was canceled because of Covid-19. Luckily many of us found a new normal, and we’re proud of all we’ve managed to do despite this weird situation in the world. This is a blogpost from Stacc X. One of five companies within the Stacc ecosystem: Stacc X — consultants with domain expertise in Fintech. Both for hire…
GitHub codespaces makes an instant dev environment available wherever you want. This is why codespaces is the future of development: Faster setup No more endless debugging to get started on a new (existing) project or environment. True remote anywhere You don’t longer need a computer — just the availability of a browser. OS won’t matter anymore Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Chrome Os ++.…
A quick little tip if you are using Styled Components in React and want to iterate over a color-array. Usually you don’t know how many elements you will iterate over, but you want to be sure that your color array starts over again if you have specified fewer colors than elements. Here is an example: Let’s say we have this array of 5 different colors: const colorArray = [ " #24BC9D " , " #FFAB00 "…
We went to Lisbon for a week this summer with our two year old. Here are a few tips if you’re travelling to Lisbon with a toddler. A couple of the tips works rather well without a child as well. 1. Bring a good stroller. The streets here wreck havock on your stroller. It’s bumpy and the curbs are small. Especially in the old town. We had our Ergobaby 360 with us to carry her, but we also needed a…
In the autumn of 2018, the CEO of Sparebanken Vest, announced that they would launch a new national, mobile-only bank, later known as Bulder Bank . This started a snowball of events that would involve hundreds of people. But how to get this snowball to run in the direction you want? Here are 13 concrete tips I believe played an essential part in making this a successful launch: Decisions . From…
Originally published on Medium Written together with Eivind Kjellevold This is an article about co-creation. It is co-written with my friend and colleague Marius Hauken . My name is Eivind and we both work at Stacc as user experience designers in the fintech space. The inspiration for this post came from a project we are working on together. The tool we’re using at the moment — Figma — is an…
We’ve all been there: You’re paying a bill. Typing in what feels like hundreds of numbers. Checking to see if the numbers are correct. Checking. Again and again. Vipps, the Norwegian mobile payment application, fixes this problem elegantly. You either type in the mobile-number or the name to the reciever, and you get to see their profile-image. This way you never need to double check if the number…
I’ve previously written about how to easily create a pdf from images in terminal , but when you need to merge multiple pdfs to one it’s another ballgame 1 . Usually I’ve resorted to Adobe Acrobat (Hello trial and paywall) or Preview. But preview is rather cumbersome. Luckily it seems like there is an easy terminal-based automator-script for this already included in OSX. Here is a quick guide to…
I have sweared to a RSS-reader for following blogs and interesting webpages for over a decade now. I love that I once a week can sit down with a cup of coffee and read all the blogs/websites I follow without switching context and webpages all the time. What is a RSS reader? From whatisrss.com RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by…
Now and then I find myself in the situation where I need to create a pdf from some images. I often resort to Preview, but it can be quite cumbersome at times. There is however an easier and faster option, but it requires that you use the Terminal. Images to pdf step by step First you need Homebrew, which is basically the app store for Terminal. If you don’t have it installed open you can follow…