July Dump
Something I've been mulling over lately: Design goes where it's already valued
“The uncomfortable idea is that design tends to move toward places where it's already valued, not where it's most needed. It's easier to refine a checkout flow than to redesign a system where the value of design isn't even recognized yet...So we end up improving convenience at scale, while clarity in critical moments remains under-designed.”
sources: Reddit thread, Substack essay
Skillchains, with Kyle Chalmers
Kyle Chalmers of KC AI Labs presented at Workuity's AI center. He automates AI workflows for businesses and walked us through skillchains: the output of one skill becomes the input of the next. It's a way to automate big multi-step jobs.
Things that stuck about writing skills:
- Sometimes you need to provide a definition of done to a skill: “a skill is done when you complete this” you can also say “you are a skill within this process”
- Don't try to write the skill upfront. Work with the agent to get the thing done correctly first, then tell it to turn that into a skill.
- When you notice yourself repeating something, that's the signal to make it a skill.
Kyle was nice enough to meet with me a few days later when I had some questions about skills. Check his work out — kclabs.ai.
Resources from his presentation:
- Excalidraw flowchart — Cole Medin
- Skill chain — Kyle Chalmers
Rethinking case studies
Loving Dive Club's interviews lately. This piece from Ridd is an older article, but it's shifted how I'm thinking about writing my own.