Your App Is Good And You Should Feel Good

William Van Hecke:

So much of a design role is in how much other people believe that you know what you’re talking about. You can’t quantify what makes someone a good designer. And this unquantifiability can cause tension. Passing is a sociology term for whether the way that you identify yourself matches with how other people see you.

Nobody Passes by Mattilda is a pretty intense compilation on the concept of passing, specifically focused on gender.

Here’s my dear friend Nikki talking about identity. “People don’t react to who you are, they react to who they perceive you to be.”

Incidentally, I really like this style of presenting a talk online, with slides beside notes. Van Hecke calls out Maciej Cegłowski’s The Internet With A Human Face, which uses the same style. I also like Jonathan Corum’s use of the style for his talks on information and data visualization, such as The Weight of Rain. I enjoy reading these much more than trying to flip through a deck, and I think I might even prefer it to a video of a talk.