The New Makers – UX Journal

Freeze-dried backpacking meals. A private finance app. A photograph sales space. A group dinner for refugees. The right espresso mug. An app to train youngsters about AI. An exhibit at the V&A Museum. All of these items have been made by researchers.

It’s by no means been simpler for researchers to flip their concepts into merchandise. Historically, we’ve been one step eliminated from supply. We’ve labored by way of influencing others. AI instruments are altering that. Maybe some are beginning to suppose, “This is our second.”

However not everybody sees it that method. Others are watching nervously, not sure what it means for them. And a rising quantity are being informed, by their employers, that this is the route they have to now take.

Researcher-makers aren’t new. Quietly and infrequently with out the label, researchers have been creating issues for years — merchandise, instruments, communities, and firms. Their experiences are the closest factor now we have to a map of the journey and of the challenges and tradeoffs that include it. This article learns from these individuals. And of their tales, one thing distinctive retains surfacing: a researcher’s method of creating, pushed by the traits, values, and practices that outline us.

Why now?

After I wrote Hopeful Futures for UX Research a 12 months in the past, many evolutionary paths nonetheless appeared doable. There was a way of potential in the air — of all the new “coulds” that AI instruments represented. Over the previous 12 months, for many individuals, that “may” has hardened: first into “ought to” and now, more and more, into “should.”

For many people, this new route isn’t one we totally selected — it displays the priorities of our employers. New logic drives the group of product groups, and analysis is being swept up in these modifications. The stress to turn into a maker is rising: AI-driven analysis tooling, prototypes, and even manufacturing code.

This article isn’t telling you what to do, and it isn’t making an attempt to promote you on turning into a maker. But it surely may assist you to navigate this second whereas staying true to your values and identification as a researcher. It asks the query, “What does it imply to be a researcher who makes issues?” — and learns from 21 individuals who have been there. 

The trail ahead isn’t straightforward, as these tales attest. Success is to reconcile the researcher’s method of creating with the endemic pressures of constructing merchandise: promoting, tradeoffs, the want to ship imperfect outputs, and managing money movement. It’s to declare a hyphenated researcher-maker identification. Most essentially of all, it’s to undertake a extra beneficiant, expansive definition of being a maker that acknowledges the creativity in our work that was there all alongside.

Neha’s story

Neha had at all times thought the energy construction was backwards. Working in a company innovation lab, she watched concepts get funded or killed by individuals additional from the buyer than she was. I mentioned, “Analysis must be in the C-suite.” After which I mentioned, “Why is a researcher not a CEO?” After which I used to be like, “Effectively, I’m a researcher. Why am I not CEO?”

The push got here when the job market collapsed. “The “you may at all times simply get a job” actuality simply utterly disintegrated underneath my ft.” So she based a private finance app, Incluya, constructed on anthropological ideas. Not as a result of the timing was good, however as a result of it was now or by no means.

Inside a 12 months, Neha had a crew of ten, a closed beta, and a product she believed in. She additionally had an issue. Her researcher instincts — the ones that made the product considerate — have been slowing every thing down. She was seeing each angle, weighing each choice. Neha arrived at an answer: selections must be time-boxed in addition to evidence-based. It ensured Incluya’s route was backed by analysis whereas additionally respecting the want for momentum.

Throughout the beta, Neha’s crew heard from a person who’d had a visceral, lifelong triggering relationship to cash. After a couple of weeks with the device, unprompted, this participant requested to share her story with the Incluya crew. She wished individuals to know the way a lot it had helped.

Neha mirrored, “This girl alone makes it value persevering with. If this device had this a lot affect, you type of can’t cease.”

However this type of motivation could be a double-edged sword. Understanding the distinction that her product may make to customers is additionally an additional burden that Neha now carries, making it more durable to step away.

A 12 months in the past, Neha put “founder” in air quotes. Now it’s only a reality. She nonetheless feels most herself at analysis conferences — it was like, “Oh, I’m again dwelling” — however founding has strengthened moderately than changed the researcher in her. She doesn’t need to burn out once more; she’s making an attempt to show {that a} startup will be nourishing moderately than depleting. She’s not positive but whether or not that’s doable. “Be brutally trustworthy with which elements of your analysis sensibilities you’re prepared to let go of. But in addition, don’t abandon them all. It’s not all or nothing.”

1. Analysis is who we are

“This is the particular person I’m. I don’t have a plan B: I’ll at all times be a researcher as a result of these are my qualities, my attributes.” — Shipra, Researcher-Founder-Artist

Our identification as researchers runs deep. It’s greater than what we do: it’s our method of being in the world, our values. It defines us; generally, it additionally holds us again.

The primary barrier in the journey to turning into a maker isn’t instruments and even expertise. These will be discovered, and we have already got most of what we’d like. The barrier is identification: our mannequin of who we are and which hyphens we permit ourselves. Our identification defines us, however it could additionally lock us right into a swim lane and internalize energy buildings that maintain us again.

Giving your self permission

Breaking out of these limits we set for ourselves will be laborious. When researchers informed me their origin tales as makers, they granted themselves permission and claimed it in 4 methods:

• Play. Facet tasks like 3D printing gear for a espresso competitors, low-stakes issues like sorting Magic: The Gathering playing cards, approachable media like ceramics or portray — these decrease the permission bar. 
• Proximity. Making instruments to optimise one’s analysis processes, or prototypes for product groups.
• Disaster. Layoffs, burnout, bereavement — these engender a way that “now’s the time” or “there’s nothing to lose.”
• Prior identification. For many who have adopted a zigzag profession path into analysis by way of design, gross sales, entrepreneurship, journalism, and so on, multi-hyphenated, adaptable identities are already extra snug to put on.

In the background are enabling elements: threat tolerance, a secure monetary scenario, supportive administration, and totally different sorts of privilege.

Evolving your skilled identification

Herminia Ibarra’s Provisional Selves (1999) describes a cycle {of professional} identification transition:

1. See relatable position fashions.
2. Check out different identities.
3. Fast suggestions cycles, self-reflection.
4. Undertake a brand new, hyphenated identification.

Throughout these tales, I noticed Ibarra’s cycle taking part in out time and again. And but many researchers battle to make this transition, as a result of it’s framed merely by way of expertise and instruments. These are crucial however not enough — we should additionally allow ourselves that hyphenated identification.

The issue: the buzz about making — particularly vibe coding — is deafening, however real-life, relatable position fashions are few and much between. Once we have a look at LinkedIn, it simply makes us really feel dangerous. It’s laborious to be playful underneath scrutiny from our employer. It’s laborious to make errors and be taught after we’re anticipated to do greater than ever, quicker than ever. Examples of researchers like us, making issues in a method that’s nonetheless true to ourselves — warts and all — are uncommon. That’s what the tales on this article are for.

Jen’s story

For UXPA 2024, Jen employed a photograph sales space. The idea was sensible: a transportable sales space arrives in a parcel, you set it up, use it at your occasion, after which ship it again. However the expertise was a letdown: the unboxing was a multitude, the stand wobbled, and the iPad shook if you pressed it.

Jen wasn’t in search of a enterprise, however she couldn’t unsee the downside. Inside months, she’d purchased fifteen iPads, began R&D on gear, and employed builders to construct an app from scratch. She didn’t have an organization but; she simply had an concept of what the expertise ought to really feel like.

A 12 months on, with a rising community of hosts throughout the nation, Jen discovered herself standing at the again of her personal occasions, watching individuals use the sales space. As a researcher, it was pure for her to strategy a stranger for suggestions: “That’s my picture sales space. Can I ask you one query — what would make it higher?”

The enterprise mannequin itself got here from the similar intuition. She’d assumed individuals would need to arrange their very own cubicles. And but some most popular to have a bunch there who would deal with it for them. So the mannequin modified. She iterated, listened, and adjusted — the similar loop we run in our day jobs, however this time utilized to one thing that belonged to her.

Jen carries totally different enterprise playing cards relying on the place she is. She doesn’t (but) say “founder and CEO.” She says, “I began a enterprise.”

However the entrepreneurial identification isn’t new. She grew up in her dad and mom’ showroom, actually in a playpen between the rest room shows. She bought Publish-it notes to buddies in grade faculty. Analysis got here later, when she fell in love with rigor and understanding individuals. The 2 threads ran aspect by aspect for many years, however now they’ve converged.

Jen’s identification shift is latest: in the previous couple of months, the enterprise began producing its personal momentum. She set three tiers of firm objectives, together with what she calls the “holy s*** objectives.” When she checked out them, she realized they weren’t that loopy anymore. “I knew I used to be researcher,” she says. “However that’s very totally different from inventing your individual factor.”

2. The researcher’s method of creating

Jen’s and Neha’s tales are two examples. Throughout the conversations I had, I used to be struck by the number of various things individuals have been working on, on the methods they described themselves, and on how they’d permitted themselves to get began.

The medium issues

We have a tendency to have fun sure sorts of creating over others: high quality artwork is value greater than knitting, for instance. Creating software program is valued above schooling or social work. If group constructing is making, then researcher-makers have been plentiful all alongside.

In that mild, there have at all times been media by which researchers do establish as makers: concepts, phrases, and social buildings. It displays what we worth, what pursuits us, and what we’re drawn to creating. If we would like to see researchers as makers, then we should always acknowledge that every one making is legit, no matter the medium.

A researcher-shaped mannequin of creating

Researchers who make apps, companies, or bodily merchandise don’t cease being researchers. Reasonably, they bring about a specific set of sensibilities to the course of: moral, deliberative, iterative, pushed by empathy and curiosity. They have a tendency to be pushed by a need to assist others moderately than to scale and get wealthy. Their processes, priorities, and outputs mirror that.

Lots of our expertise are transferable. The flexibility to establish and outline an issue, to type hypotheses, to work iteratively, and to collect and react to suggestions. Empathy, curiosity, consolation with ambiguity, analytical rigor, creativity — these are benefits that we carry with us.

Turning into a maker additionally surfaces expertise we don’t usually need to interact with. For example, gross sales generally have a shabby status, however it’s an important talent for product success. Good gross sales is nearer to analysis than most of us suppose.

“After I discovered to do gross sales, I noticed that really it’s empathy; it’s storytelling. It’s setting up an argument with an understanding of what the different particular person actually wants. Good gross sales is discovery. Good gross sales is understanding the different particular person — is there a factor which you can meaningfully do to assist them?” — Brian, Researcher-Maker

Founding like a researcher

However what about analysis founders — those that begin corporations, construct apps or {hardware}, and check out to compete with conventional product house owners?

The phrase “founder” has a foul status. It implies a tech bro, move-fast-and-break-things ethos that almost all researchers recoil from. However what in case you may “discover like a researcher”? For a lot of of the individuals I spoke to, the breakthrough got here after they outlined “founder” on their very own phrases. Values-driven, not simply growth-driven, like Neha.

Though a lot of the actions have been the similar — defining an issue, establishing an organization, determining a worth proposition — the motivations have been completely totally different. It was about serving to individuals, expressing creativity, and attaining independence from company life. It wasn’t about blitzscaling, exit methods, getting wealthy, or crushing the competitors. They knew this put them outdoors the startup mainstream; VC funding was not often talked about.

Brian’s story

Though he studied pc science and artistic writing, Brian’s first job was promoting vintage carpets. It taught him storytelling, empathy, and studying what a buyer truly wanted. He moved into entrepreneurship, then found analysis — not as an finish in itself, however as a greater method to make issues. I used to be like, “This is the factor I really want to get good at — understanding people and the way to establish issues and resolve them. That’s the sturdy talent.”

Now Brian runs AI Kids Club, instructing kids to suppose critically and create with AI. The aha second, he says, is visceral: “Oh, I’ve creativeness, and oh my God, I made a factor.” He needs extra grownup researchers may have that epiphany: he runs workshops and evangelizes for the researcher-builder path by way of writing and talks.

Brian believes researchers are well-placed to be makers. “I strongly consider that UX researchers are completely positioned to discovered and construct issues, particularly on this second with AI, however in apply, they not often do it.”

His anticipated wave of researcher-builders hasn’t arrived but. His take: Many researchers merely aren’t drawn to constructing. “There is a sure inhabitants inside person analysis that… they’re not keen on that aspect of issues. The constructing and the making… Some individuals simply don’t like these toys.”

3. So, is this our second?

The circumstances have not often seemed extra favorable. Making is being democratized, and as AI commoditizes operations and supply, the differentiator for great products is increasingly discovery — understanding which issues matter and for whom. That’s researcher territory.

It’s additionally a type of reversal. For years, many researchers have labored with no seat at the desk: not listened to, their suggestions left unimplemented. The democratization of creating fingers us the means to construct the modifications we used to merely suggest.

So by rights, we must be dwelling by way of a golden age of researcher-makers. We’re not. Inside corporations, the transfer to making is typically dictated from above; outdoors them, researcher-makers stay skinny on the floor. What’s holding us again? Generally, it’s us.

Overthinking it

Researchers are rightly cautious of the founder’s ethos, however its bias to motion has a bonus: it doesn’t get slowed down in deliberation. Our job in organizations is often to be the voice of warning and to floor the dangers, and entrepreneurs, in contrast, have a tendency to rating greater on threat tolerance. As makers, racing towards restricted time and price range, our intuition to weigh each angle can turn into a legal responsibility moderately than a power.

New powers, new issues

Transferring from advising to making is a basic shift in our principle of change. In the previous, we’ve had affect by way of affect: producing and transmitting information and understanding issues in order that others can resolve them. Being a maker is totally different. It means proudly owning the resolution, not simply the perception.

It’s uncomfortable: the capability to create options additionally requires us to be accountable for outcomes. It confronts us with the chance that our nice concept — the one no person would hear to — wasn’t so nice in spite of everything.

The flexibility to create forces us to take care of a brand new frontier of issues. Should you’re transport code, you could now take into account code high quality and maintainability — not one thing that researchers misplaced a lot sleep over in the previous. Sarah should adjust to meals hygiene laws as she makes her merchandise. Jen has to take into consideration tariffs as she buys iPads. The excellent news: our capability to problem-solve and our intuition to work with others assist us right here.

Matthieu’s story

Matthieu is constructing a monetary planning product geared toward individuals who’ve by no means invested, who are nonetheless determining their debt, their budgets, and their relationship with cash. He had by no means deliberate for the future — his house was stuffed with information and wine, and that was about it. When he lastly educated himself on private finance, he constructed a set of instruments for himself utilizing Claude. Dashboards, roadmaps, methods. Then the thought arrived: extra individuals ought to profit from this. Not the those who current fintech serves, however the individuals round him: musicians, artists, lecturers, and individuals who run eating places.

Matthieu didn’t begin as a researcher. He studied digital design, labored as a challenge supervisor at advert companies, and moved to Boston to work at a well being meals startup. Ultimately, he moved into person analysis, however before any of that, he’d been constructing basketball blogs and web sites. Making has at all times been a part of who he is.

Years later, a expertise evaluation confirmed what he already suspected: analysis was match, however so was entrepreneurship. He thought of a document store and cafe first. He ran the numbers and realized the economics may value him his house. So he went again to consulting and waited for the proper concept.

Two months in, Matthieu had an working mannequin with twenty Claude brokers, a Notion board that Claude populates routinely, and an Obsidian second mind. He briefly believed the dream: a laptop computer on a seashore in Bali, AI dealing with every thing, and cash coming in whereas he helped individuals.

Then he confirmed his designs to a buddy, a design supervisor. Her verdict: spectacular, however it wants a complete rebuild. “You don’t get that from Claude,” he says. “Claude would have informed me my 4,000 checks handed, and congratulations.”

The dream matured. He wants a peer evaluate on the design system. He wants a visible identification from an precise designer. He wants a code evaluate. He wants one other researcher as a result of he can’t run analysis on his personal product — he’s too biased. “Claude is only a device to broaden what you are able to do. That’s it.”

That’s the researcher speaking. The identical intuition that makes him rigorous in shopper work is what stops him from mistaking AI fluency for high quality. It’s additionally what makes the course of slower than it will be for somebody who cares much less about high quality or ethics.

4. The trustworthy prices

It’s 2.30 am. Matthieu has spent €200 on tokens as we speak, and his app is nonetheless damaged. Claude has informed him to cease rage-typing and step away from the keyboard.

It’s 7 pm. Astrid has put the youngsters to mattress and is ingesting Purple Bull before she goes again to work on her startup.

It’s Could. Marco hasn’t labored in a “correct job” for six months and is questioning if he’s out of date.

Lotte is afraid to promote her enterprise on LinkedIn in case individuals decide her. Christian is cautious of conflicts of curiosity. Sarah’s nonetheless freelancing to pay the payments.

No one thought this journey could be straightforward, and but right here we are. Should you suppose the researcher-maker path is for you, then you definitely also needs to find out about the hazards alongside the method.

Extra alone than ever

The liberty to observe your concept will also be the freedom to be remoted, to lose your sense of perspective. Now which you can workers a enterprise solely with AI brokers, the threat of loneliness is greater than ever. Many missed the “productive friction” of working with others, whilst AI enabled them to obtain extra alone. Working at dwelling, not having a day job — these are compounding elements. Most researchers are “individuals individuals,” and we shouldn’t take the dangers of isolation and burnout flippantly.

Abilities we received’t permit ourselves

Not every thing comes simply. Abilities that really feel international to many researchers are crucial to thrive as a founder: powerful money movement administration, pitching, figuring out when not to compromise on high quality, and figuring out when one thing is carried out sufficient to ship. These aren’t simply gaps; our researcher identification can actively resist them.

Materials actuality

Being a founder, going it alone, following a dream: there’s a harmful romance to these ideas. For a lot of, this merely isn’t a journey they’re taking by selection: layoffs, burnout, and private disaster imply that founding can appear the least-worst choice. These dangers are not evenly distributed: in case you have dependents, are older, are positioned outdoors thriving job markets, are much less well-off, or are precariously housed, the concept of creating, of “following your goals,” can ring hole.

The individuals I spoke to had typically discovered methods round this downside: they’d a companion with a secure earnings or had stashed away sufficient cash to give them a 12 months’s runway for bootstrapping their concept. However for others, it’s not so easy. Once we step into the world of significant resolution constructing, time (and due to this fact money movement) is our enemy.

“I discovered that you simply don’t have a enterprise in case you don’t have cash. You want to at all times have a stability between the person and the enterprise and ensure to generate profits. We had all our non-public cash in it… I’d not do it that method once more.” — Astrid, Researcher-Founder

Sarah’s story

Sarah describes her profession as “two flowers on one stem.” Alongside freelancing as a researcher, she and her husband are constructing Bowl & Kettle, a freeze-dried backpacking meals firm. She doesn’t romanticize it: the freelancing is useful, and the enterprise is actual however not but self-sustaining.

Sarah’s profession coach gave her a transformative train: ten days of monitoring what brings her power and what drains it, from loading the dishwasher to delivering displays. That self-awareness grew to become her compass. Now, she treats her profession like an iterative journey: “Be dedicated to the objective, however not dedicated to the ways.”

Sarah strikes fastidiously, gathering the assist she wants. Becoming a member of a Slack group for outdoor-industry founders has been transformative for calibration, schooling, and connection. Having a companion with a full-time job lowered monetary stress and enabled higher selections. They bootstrapped at first, then took three small funding rounds as the enterprise grew. “Not feeling pressured to take funding before we confirmed sufficient traction to have extra leverage — that’s been vastly impactful.”

Mirjam’s story

Mirjam has by no means felt she matches neatly in the researcher field. Her background spans innovation sciences and baby security; she describes herself as somebody who fills gaps, takes possession, and builds what’s lacking.

At weekends, she builds intentionally crappy prototypes — a picnic app for her husband and a Magic: The Gathering deck optimizer for her companion. He hated it: his pleasure was in constructing decks himself, by hand. It taught her one thing about what AI ought to and shouldn’t attempt to substitute.

What began as enjoyable has turn into professionally helpful. In her company job, Mirjam now builds prototypes to gut-check product concepts for her crew. However she’s additionally protecting of the boundary: she refuses to automate away the elements of analysis she loves, like connecting with individuals face to face.

Regardless of feeling empowered to prototype, Mirjam at all times seeks collaborators with totally different experience. “Constructing one thing alone is simply very lonely. It’s simply higher in case you can bounce off different individuals.”

5. So what ought to we do?

Should you’re weighing this path, the individuals who’ve walked it have some recommendation:

• Allow your self. Experiment in low-stakes media, aspect tasks, and play. Search for position fashions. Declare your hyphenated identification. Don’t maintain your self again. 
• Assess your expertise. Those you will have, the ones you might purchase, and the ones you may’t or don’t need to develop, however nonetheless want entry to.
• Mirror on your values. What’s core? What’s nice-to-have at this stage? What’s holding you again?
• Be real looking about how far AI improvement can take you. It’s nice for spinning up prototypes and concepts and automating some processes. Except you have already got the software program improvement expertise, it received’t offer you a production-quality, regulator-compliant app.
• Discover different people to work with. Partnering with others or becoming a member of a group of individuals going by way of comparable experiences might help keep away from burnout and offer you entry to expertise and contacts you want. Share your strategies with others, too.
• Be disciplined with cash. The upper the stakes, the extra you owe it to your self to have monetary mannequin and buffers in place. Study to converse the language of startup fundraising, even in case you don’t share its values.

Cris’s story

Cris spent almost ten years in a company job. When she left, burned out, she grieved. “You lose your group — everybody I do know. Half of my identification was simply gone.” She didn’t have individuals’s cell numbers. She couldn’t entry the inside channels. The wall went up in a single day. She grew to become tribeless, she says.

Pottery had been a passion — like meditation, one thing to hold her going. It wasn’t a profession plan. However as soon as she’d left her job, she began to see it in another way. She’s constructed a studio in her again backyard now.

Her husband requested her, “Shouldn’t you will have a marketing strategy?” “That’s the PM method of doing issues,” she mentioned. “I’m the researcher. I’m exploring.” She’s prototyping, iterating, seeing what works. She doesn’t have a five-year plan; she has concepts of the place she may go, and she or he’s ready to be confirmed flawed at any level. That, she says, is what being a researcher means to her. Not methodology, a lot as a method of being in the world.

She’d additionally thought of constructing an app — a wishlist device for folks. She mapped it out and put collectively a analysis challenge. Then she hit a wall. It felt like reaching again into the world she’d simply escaped. She put it on maintain.

A couple of days after we spoke, Cris emailed. She’d been desirous about why researchers don’t construct issues and caught herself defaulting to the company framing: PMs drive, designers make, and researchers test. “Humorous how I went straight to that, contemplating I didn’t actually really feel snug with that separation. Some issues are actually laborious to shake off.”

However one thing else was shifting. She’d rejected a grasp’s in ceramics as a result of it will push her in the direction of turning into a “ceramic artist” — and that’s not what she needs. She needs to make a cup that individuals get pleasure from ingesting their espresso from: sensible design, not artwork.

The ceramics, she wrote, is likely to be the step she wanted. “Possibly this is the confidence to construct one thing myself.” She’s not positive but whether or not the pottery will lead again to the app concept, or to a studio store, or some place else solely. However she’s creating issues along with her fingers, and the permission to make is beginning to arrive.

6. The evolutionary energy of hyphens

For a rising variety of us, the query is now not whether or not to make issues however how — and whether or not we will do it with out shedding what made us researchers in the first place. In a time the place “ought to” and “should” have changed “may,” the stress in the direction of turning into a maker is actual.

However there’s additionally an opportunity this article has proven you a model of your future self — one who hasn’t deserted the researcher’s method and as a substitute has discovered to carry it alongside the calls for of constructing: the promoting, the transport, and the managing of cash. It received’t have modified your employer’s expectations, your circumstances, your threat tolerance, or your monetary scenario, however it could have shifted one thing in the way you see your self: the identification you’ll permit your self and the hyphen that unlocks a brand new route.

This isn’t asking you to do one thing completely new. Like many researchers, you might have had totally different roles before person analysis and have been artistic in different media. You could have already got navigated identification transitions; you could carry a number of identities proper now. Including one other hyphen — researcher-maker, researcher-founder, researcher-developer, researcher-potter — doesn’t diminish the researcher half. Reasonably, it creates a brand new utility of these expertise and a brand new expression of you as an individual. And if it creates new challenges, then that may be a type of development, too.

Cris sits in her pottery studio. Jen expands her enterprise. Sarah develops her worth proposition. Brian codes an app. They’re nonetheless researchers, but additionally researcher-something else. The hyphen has liberated them. Their method of creating is distinctively a researcher’s method of creating. They’re on a path to creating — and turning into — one thing new.

Thanks to…

The researcher-maker-founder-multitalented individuals who have been beneficiant with their time, tales, and observations in the direction of this piece, together with Aaron Lynch, Amulya Tata, Brian Greene, Christian Lawrence, Corbin Cunningham, Cris Bilsland, David Tang, Jen Romano, Grace Nicklin, Kim Feenstra Kuiper, Kristen Lee, Jan Ahrend, Julio Angulo, Katherine Norwood, Katie Tzanidou, Lorraine Burrell, Matthieu Guilloux, Megumi Morigami, Neha Vadrevu, Rob Youmans, Sarah Bowlin, Shipra Bhutada, Will Myddleton, Zack Stewart, and all my colleagues at Together by Design.

Featured picture courtesy: James Lang.