Hey, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Developer Tea. I'm not going to waste your time. We're going to get straight into the second part of the interview with John Jablonski. But before we do that, if you're enjoying this show, and hopefully you are if you're back for the second part of this interview, if you're enjoying the show, then I encourage you to subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use. And if you're wondering if you should take the extra five seconds or so that it takes to press the subscribe button, I want you to consider just how valuable one meaningful insight might be to your career. If you change the way you think about one thing, and you have that new information for the course of your career, maybe 20, 30 years worth of your career, then isn't that worth just a little bit of investment? Five minutes, 10 minutes of an episode of Developer Tea, and just pressing that subscribe button. So there's my sales pitch for Developer Tea. Hopefully, these episodes are extremely valuable to you and that you've already subscribed and you're a longtime listener. But if you're not, I hope you would consider becoming one. All right, let's get into the interview with John Jablonski. So I'd love to ask you about Jacob's Law. This one's a really interesting one because I think it actually wraps up some other, it has kind of these other references to some interesting psychological and behavioral, behavioral psychology, long-term research that has been done. But Jacob's Law, can you tell me what Jacob's Law says? Sure. So Jacob's Law, a reference to Jacob Nielsen, who really defined this as, in the longer form term for it would be Jacob's Law of Usability. So users spend most of their time on other sites. And this means that users prefer your site to work the same way as others. So they're not going to be able to do the same thing as other sites they already know. You know, a great correlation I like to make on this one is that, you know, we become familiar with how certain interface elements work, for example, a dropdown menu or, you know, checkboxes or a checkout flow even, something a little bit more complicated. We become very familiar with these patterns, both on the web and in our mobile apps. And, you know, I think that... I think that those are very convenient for users because they don't have to, you know, they don't have to relearn these interaction patterns every time they go to a different website or download another app, for example. So, you know, I think that that's very useful for the user because it's less that they have to kind of take on cognitively and learn how it works. On the other hand, you know, we all understand as designers and developers that sometimes breaking from the web and the app is a lot of work. So I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point. If you're looking at something from the status quo, if you will, a common pattern has its benefits as well. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. So when are the times that Jacob's Law, you intentionally want to break it? You know, I think it really comes down to the content itself. Will the content dictate a different pattern that serves its message more effectively? So, you know, it's easy to take a paragraph of text. for example, and just drop it on the site. But if you can format that into something that's slightly more interactive, you can tell somewhat of a more compelling story and as a result, have a more human connection with your users that they'll respond to, you know, they'll respond to it just because of the mere fact that it kind of spoke to them on a level that wasn't just a paragraph, a copy. Right. Yeah. It's kind of like this idea that everybody's goal is to efficiently perform some procedure when they go onto a website, and that may not necessarily be true. And so you get this in all kinds of cultural artifacts, music, for example, there's some music that is intentionally obscured, right? So that you have to kind of dig for meaning. And so if the point of music is to efficiently, you know, convey a particular meaning, then everyone would use the same exact form. And perhaps, you know, that meaning could be conveyed directly. But the point of music is not necessarily to just convey meaning directly. Sometimes it is to convey meaning through a process of exploration or of discovery. And of course, music is different in most, in most ways from the average website, but in many ways, it's very similar. And so making it accessible, some music is more accessible than others, right? Based on what the intention of that music is. And the same can be said of many other cultural artifacts. Websites are certainly a part of that cultural artifact bucket that I'm talking about. I absolutely agree with that. And so I think Jacob's Law, and John, feel free to disagree with me here. I think the interesting thing about Jacob's Law is mostly around your awareness of this reality that, you know, this is another Kahneman-Tversky thing, but you only see what is in front of you, right? What you see is all there is. And so if you're focused on making your website, then very often it's hard to reference things. It's hard to remember that for this person's day, for their web experience, you know, you are only a small, unless you are a super giant, if you're Google or Facebook, then, you know, this probably applies in a different way to you, but you're probably a small sliver of their user experience for the day. And typically we treat things as if we are a major, very important user experience for that person's day. And that's, that's somewhat skewed. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, you know, the, the, an example of like that pattern, that exactly would be like the pull down to refresh pattern, which, you know, we're all familiar with now, but when it first came out, it was, it was somewhat foreign to people. And over time becomes very intuitive. But if it had not been for, I believe Apple who first introduced this as a feature, you know, it probably would have taken a lot long, longer for us to adopt. Yeah. Yeah. And these, these strange kind of, moments in design where somebody had an idea and then that idea became popular and it gained enough traction to become a standard, right? And we have those all over the place. We certainly do. I'm thinking of the hamburger menu, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Which, which really is like this, this it's, it's a form of skeuomorphism maybe where you have this, this abstract representation of menu items, but that has been, you know, shifted and changed and reused and, you know, flipped around in 500 different ways. And so now you have a hamburger with the word menu next to it that morphs into an X and that's the pattern. That's the way everybody does things. Yep. It's interesting how that stuff, how that stuff comes about. And I think a lot of it is actually driven by some of these laws of UX. I think a lot of it is the way that we learn, you know, a lot of it is actually cultural. It's, taste oriented. And it just so happened to gain enough kind of momentum that it became the way to do things. Yeah. And that, you know, that that's actually relevant to Jacob's law in a lot of ways, because, you know, that's sometimes it's exactly, even if it's, you know, somewhat of an anti-pattern, which I think many people would argue a hamburger menu is, um, it becomes somewhat of a, of a standardized pattern, uh, over, you know, repeated use and it just being a common feature, uh, to the point where it kind of transcends into this principle of Jacob's law, where people are somewhat familiar with it. And so even though it's not the best, you know, purest form of, uh, clear design or, or whatever that you, that you may want now, Because people are used to it and because it's what they expect, that is the right way. Yep. In some way. And this can be very frustrating. It can be very frustrating reality. Uh, I think this has happened, um, for, especially in the JavaScript community, for example, you know, one of the things that you see happening, uh, in the JavaScript community is this really massive kind of takeover that, um, quite frankly, react is, is highly responsible for this. Uh, I'm not going to say that they're in a negative way responsible, uh, but this very simple websites that previously would have been delivered in significantly fewer bites are now being thrown down the pipe with these massive, massive JavaScript programs to render that content on the page. Now, this is obviously a hot, hot button topic for a lot of people. Uh, but this, you know, from a purist perspective of, Hey, you know, you only send down the content that you really need to send down, right? Uh, you, you never send assets that aren't necessary. Uh, this, this idea that, well, now we're adopting this and it's okay because people have faster internet connections or because the, the gains that we experience as developers, the productivity gains, there are these interesting consequences and they're not necessarily, you know, they aren't necessarily, uh, horrible for the industry by any means, but we should, we should be able to, we should be able to, we should be able to, we should be able to, should be aware of them. That's kind of my homily for the day. Yeah. You know, I, I think that, um, Jeremy Keith, I think has brilliant thoughts on, on specifically around, you know, the, the role of JavaScript and how fast it's changing. And I think that, um, you know, he, he, he describes this, this concept of, uh, layer rates of change and how JavaScript is really, um, this layer of constant, you know, it's, it's all over. It's, it's working ahead of us and it's moving so fast that it's really, um, you know, discovering these new patterns and new ways to build things on the, on the web. Um, and ultimately that will kind of filter down into the fund, the foundational elements of the web. And, and it's kind of necessary if you think of JavaScript in that way, that it's kind of working, it's progressing quickly. It's not always moving forward. Sometimes it's moving up, down into the right, you know, like it. Yeah. Yeah. Sideways. You know, it, I, I talk, I saw him give it, you know, he said, you know, by the end of this talk, there'll be two or three frameworks already, you know, launched. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And that's how fast JavaScript is moving. And I think that ultimately, uh, it's frustrating as that can be for developers that that's actually a good thing. It's out there and it's breaking things and it's figuring things out for us. And that'll eventually filter its way into these slower layers of the web that don't change. Yeah. Because of, you know, the things that we're creating in JavaScript now. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's challenging people to learn how to work around these restrictions and these long held, you know, established, uh, whatever it is that, that has prevented us from doing this in the past. You know, I, I think it's a very good thing. Um, if you want to know my opinion on the subject, um, you know, I think it's a very good thing. But it also has these interesting consequences. And I think both are important to recognize. Anybody who leans all the way and says, this is absolutely the correct way to go, or this is absolutely the incorrect way to go, they probably are being more dogmatic than they are pragmatic. And so it's important to keep that in mind. When we look at progress at any level, a lot of the time, progress in web development comes by way of abstraction. And as we discussed earlier, abstraction necessarily means that something else is dealing with complexity. In this case, complexity may mean increasing the file size. Something else is going to, that abstraction is not going to be perfectly efficient. It's kind of the point, right? I like it. Tesla's law. Yeah, there it is. Okay, so let's talk about another fun one real quick. I'm going to pick one out. Here, Occam's razor. All right, this is not an intuitive concept necessarily, I don't think. I'd love for you to describe Occam's razor for me. You know, this is one I've actually spent quite a bit of time with, and I've even written about a little bit. And, you know, it can have different meaning depending on, you know, how you interpret it. But I think what it boils down to, if I was to just, you know, paraphrase it, is that, you know, if you have multiple ways to create something, for example, I need people to select an item from a list. What Occam's razor really predicts is that the simpler option, the one with the fewest assumptions, is the more effective choice. And, you know, I think that this, what I really like about this one is that it has a, it, it, it indicates a kind of a methodology of thinking, of constant questioning and really asking yourself if you really need that, you know, slider carousel element, or can you, can you communicate the same thing effectively with a much simpler pattern? For example, just a, you know, an image and text or something that's just a little bit less. At the same time, you may have, you may have taken theijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijijij And this concept is such an important, it really comes down to ego. All right. I'm making a huge jump here. Okay. It comes down to ego because our assumptions are things that we typically have added to the conversation. They're based on experience. They may be based on taste. They can be based on sometimes even nothing at all, right? They can be based on intuition, that is informed by something that we can't quite place our finger on. And unfortunately, those assumptions can lead us down a really bad path. And typically that bad path looks more like expensive decisions than it does bad ones, right? Because a lot of times our assumptions are not necessarily grossly wrong, although they can be, but usually they become really expensive. And that's to your earlier point about the slider. This is something that happens in webpages. It's something that happens in webpages. It's something that happens in development, web design all the time. And it comes down to ego, not only your ego, but the ego of the people that you're working with, of understanding how to connect a particular decision to its outcome. And so if you have two or three options and there's a cheap one and a middle road one and an expensive one, and the cheap one will effectively accomplish the same thing that the other one will accomplish, then you're going to have a lot of money. The other two will, then why would you choose the other two, right? That's kind of the question that Occam's Razor asks. And it's hard. It's very hard sometimes to say, man, I really had this vision for this site that I really wanted it to do this thing. And I have to kind of let that go, right? Have you ever faced that problem as a designer of having to let go of an intuition or your gut, even when you really felt strongly about it? Absolutely. I mean, I feel like every day or at least every week, I have to, there's that saying, kill your sweetheart or kill the idea that you love the most. Be willing to do that. Be willing to sacrifice it in favor of something that really is going to be more user-centric in the end. And I think that sometimes as... Designers can get really married to a concept. They can really think, get drawn to how clever the solve was. And we're so close to the problem sometimes, it's hard to see the fact that maybe we are making too many assumptions and that really the simpler solution in that particular scenario is more effective. Yeah. It happens more often than perhaps even we realize. I think the idea of striving in your projects, and I'm going to apply this to developers here for a second, the idea of striving as a developer to learn various things or to pick up a language or, you know, there's nothing necessarily wrong with learning. There's nothing necessarily wrong with picking up new languages. In fact, I really encourage that. But to assume the value is a huge error to make. And it's an error because so often we build up these stories about what we can make happen in the world, about how we can affect the world, about how we can affect our users, right? And so we create false expectations for ourselves. We create false expectations for our clients, for our employers, and ultimately those false expectations end up being, you know, dissatisfied. And that can become... Yeah. A really frustrating experience for you, for your employer, for your clients, for everyone involved. And it can also be very difficult to detect where it came from. And that's actually maybe the hardest part of all is that something went wrong and you can't really understand when it went wrong because it could have been multiple bad decisions along the way that were all based on assumptions. I couldn't agree more. Well, this has been an excellent discussion. Are there any other laws that you feel like are useful to bring up before we bring this thing in for a landing? Hmm. Let's see here. Well, I think that, you know, the only one that I think is really relevant in a lot of ways to what we've discussed tonight is the Von Restorf effect, which effectively predicts that when multiple... Yeah. When multiple... Yeah. When multiple... Yeah. When multiple... When multiple... Yeah. When multiple... When multiple similar options or, you know, objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered. So, you know, in design, this would quite often be, you know, use contrast to make things stand out like buttons or elements like that. You're using these contrasting colors. But I think that this idea comes with a huge caveat and that's that if you overdo this one, everything is going to be the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. competing for your attention. And we know that for users, that can overwhelm them. It's hard to concentrate on anything when everything is competing for your attention. And I think that that's one that kind of touches on some of the things that we were covering earlier with the serial position effect and really just kind of undergoing that decision making process through something like Occam's Razor, for example, where you're really just kind of questioning what should compete for the user's attention, what you're going to place emphasis on, and going through that process of reduction to the point where only the important things are going to stand out. And I think as designers, and developers for that matter, as teams building things for the web. We have to really sometimes be willing to cut things that we were kind of tied to collectively, things that we were kind of married to, ideas that we are babies. We have to be willing to sacrifice sometimes in effort to focus the experience on the user. At the same time, you may find that you may have taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and taken the plunge and Now imagine this, imagine that you have 10 microservices and each of them only cost you $5 a month. You could be running an entire infrastructure for only $50 a month. In this infrastructure, you would have total control over each of your Linode instances, can do things like run private VPNs, or you could have your own Git server. You can do anything that you can do with Linux on Linode. Linode also has high memory plans. So imagine that you're not building something with microservices, but instead you have this larger application that has higher CPU power needs, or maybe it has higher memory needs. Linode can provide for those situations as well. I encourage you to go and check it out. Linode's going to give you $20 worth of credit just for being a Developer T listener and using the link spec.fm slash Linode to get started today. Thank you again to Linode for sponsoring today's episode of Developer T. This is super important, the Von Restor effect. Understanding, again, these underlying principles. Really understanding, even at the neuroscientist level, why does this happen, the isolation effect? Why does this happen? My theory, and this is backed up by a very small amount of neurocognitive research that I've done in the past, is that the neurocognitive research is a very small amount of research. John, I'd love to bounce this off of you, see what you think. My theory is that when you see a bunch of things that are similar, that your brain kind of goes on autopilot. It's already processed that information. When you see another one, it's going to fill in the space. In fact, your brain can actually do this with a vision, by the way. There's a super weird thing that happens. If you have a clock or even a watch that has a... an analog second hand, and you look away for a second, and then you look back at your watch, you'll see the second hand seem like it's frozen for a little bit longer than a second. Why does this happen? What's happening is, when you look at that watch face, your brain is filling in, it's like backfilling the frames where the second hand was moving when you looked at it. It's like... It's a very weird effect. And it's one of the ways that your brain actually smooths out your experience as you are experiencing the world. Right? So it's kind of this... It's also, whenever you move your eyes from one point of focus to another, you're actually effectively blind during that period. And the way that you can test this is if you look in a mirror and you look at... you focus on one of your pupils, one of your pupils, and then you focus on the other pupil. You don't actually notice the transition time, but when somebody else looks at your pupil, and then they look at your other pupil, you can see their eyes move. It's a very... Again, it's a very strange effect, but what's happening is, your brain is essentially saying, hey, you know, your experience is jarring, and I'm going to tone it down for you so that your brain... So you don't have to process it. You don't have to process so much information that really isn't useful to you. Again, your brain is your friend, right? It's trying to keep you alive. It's trying to keep you focused on the things that matter. So instead of you focusing on how dizzy you are from moving your eyes around, it's saying, hey, you know what? We don't really even need that information. Let's just drop it altogether. And so we can do this. This is also the same effect that you get when you take the same way home every day. And if you've ever been tired while driving and you wondered, wow, how did I even get here? How did I even get home? That's exactly what's happening. Your brain is essentially going on autopilot. So you're not having to actively make decisions. You're not having to actively process information. It's all just kind of happening without your input or awareness. Now, to get to the Von Restorff effect, when you encounter something crazy, right? When you encounter something out of the norm, and it doesn't even have to be that extreme, when you take a new way home, we've talked about this on the show, countless times. When you take a new way home, or when you look at something that you've never actually looked at before, suddenly this becomes a higher cognitive load because your brain is having to reorient itself around that new unexpected thing. It was going along. Everything was smooth. It didn't have to do any work. And suddenly something unexpected happened. And so these moments stick out. It's also one of the reasons why we can look back on our, you know, on our lives, on our childhood. And we remember very specific events, not because of their ordinariness, but because of their unordinariness, right? Because they stuck out. So our vacation experiences, these are anchors that we remember because they were so different from our normal everyday life where we were on autopilot. I love those examples. It has such a profound effect that it also is relevant at the very minute level when we're just browsing a website, right? This is kind of a profound reality that our brain is doing this literally all of the time. Yeah. It goes back to what you were saying earlier, where it's, you know, it's, it's something that we've inherited genetically over, you know, thousands of years, essentially. Our brains are, are very effective diffing machines, right? Yeah. That's a great way to put it. And they, and they can really point out the, you know, our, you know, like you were saying, our brains have a natural tendency to want to make order, make things make sense. And when something sticks out, it visually, or even mentally, like a memory, for example, it sticks around our brain. It stands out. And you can essentially, find this everywhere. And that's really what I think is great about these, these psychology principles is that once you've identified them and, and started to kind of understand how they work and why they work, you start to see them everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you can start to make concession for them, right? So you can start making decisions that respect them rather than trying to reverse them. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now, you know, to make the homepage load particularly fast because the, the first and last effect, I can't, I can't remember the name of it. Serial position effect. There you go. The serial position effect, because the serial position effect prefers the first and the last things. And so it's less important that somebody is middle of the road experience is incredible than the beginning and the last. Right. Yeah. I totally agree. It's just really, you're unlocking these, these, you know, patterns that, that we all fall into on a psychological level. And if you can start to create and craft user experiences that consider these patterns, you're essentially creating more human centric experiences. Absolutely. You are respecting the user even further than you were, before. All right, John, this has been an excellent discussion and thank you so much. First of all, for creating laws of ux.com. I believe it's an incredible resource. If you're browsing this and you haven't seen it yet, you can actually go and download the PDFs of these and print them out. I encourage you to do that. Put them in your office or wherever, John, where else can people find the work that you're doing and learn more about you? You know, John, johnjablonski.com is a great, great place to start. Uh, I do, you know, I, I, um, I love taking on projects like this. Uh, I, I curate something called the web filled manual, um, where, um, you can, you know, learn a lot and also do something called storytelling design, which really kind of, you know, collects great interactive stories on the web that I think, um, that, that really kind of stand out from your normal experiences of, you know, e-commerce sites and, um, you know, informational websites. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Webfield manual.com. If you're looking for that one and then storytelling dot design, I believe is the other one, correct? That's correct. Awesome. Great resources. Absolutely beautifully done by the way. If you're, if you're wondering how to make a website look good, these are three excellent examples. I guess, uh, the fourth one would be John's personal website is, uh, johnjablonski.com. I believe. Nailed it. Awesome. Well, John, thank you so much. I have two questions that I'd like to ask all of, the developers and designers who come on the show. and, and if you're ready for those, we can go ahead and jump into that now. Yeah, sure. All right. So the first question, what do you wish more people would ask you about? That's such a great question. Uh, you know, I think that inevitably when you're talking about these psychological principles, I think that there comes up this topic of ethics. And I think that, um, you know, well, I really wish that, people would ask me about that more because, um, it's, it's a natural progression into talking about these patterns and limitations of the human mind. And then at what point do we want to draw the line and, um, you know, not make these things, uh, cross that boundary of, uh, being too sticky or too addictive. And I think that you see a lot of that, uh, now in the, in these, you know, digital experiences, that we engage with every day. Um, you know, there's kind of a level of, um, addiction there. And then I think designers, uh, a question I w I w would like to be asked more about is really, um, where that line is. And at what point do we start to consider the digital wellbeing of our users? I think this is a key question as you start to gain what effectively feel like superpowers, even though they aren't, uh, by understanding the way people's brains work, you will have a new found, uh, kind of tool set that can, it really is a powerful thing. It really helps shape people's behavior. And so the, the question, John, that you're asking, if I'm understanding you correctly is, you know, how do we do that ethically? How do we take those things that we know about humans and not use them in a way that is to their detriment and also not use them in a way that is abusive. And so, um, um, um, is abusive of that power, but is actually empowering them and is in a way that is, you know, using those, those principles in a way that is empathetic rather than, uh, you know, opportunistic. That's absolutely correct. I think there's an, uh, there's an excellent book on this subject. It's called nudge as written by, uh, the Nobel prize winner, Richard Thaler. He recently won the Nobel prize. Actually, I believe that was this year. Uh, he won the Nobel prize, uh, and it's all about making these, helping people make better decisions by kind of shaping their decision architecture, right? It's, it's kind of a parallel discussion to what we're talking about today. Uh, but it is a worthwhile read. I encourage anyone who's interested in this ethics of, uh, design decisions to, to take a look at that book. There's certainly other literature in the area that I'm not aware of. John, do you have any recommendations on places that they can have that discussion? You know, one of my, my favorite resources, my favorite sources on the web right now regarding this topic is, um, uh, cognitive USD newsletter that goes out, um, excellent newsletter that really collects a lot of cognitive principles and it's overlap with design. Um, you know, I think that that's a great, that's a great place to start. Um, and, uh, you know, there's a lot of books on the, on the subject matter, almost too many to start to, to mention here, but I, I, you know, I really, um, um, I, I would encourage people to, to go to laws of UX and really kind of dig through the further reading. Um, because a lot of these topics and conversations and, and articles that I reference, um, you know, really kind of evolve into this question of ethics and, and how it kind of plays into our role as designers and developers creating, um, things for the, for the world. Yeah. Yeah. Because we are creating, you know, we're, we're putting things in people's path. They're going to encounter this stuff and it will change the way they live their life in some instances. Uh, and it may change the, it certainly changes the way they spend at least a small fraction of their time. And so it's important to, to pay attention to it. I think, you know, I had a, a guest on the show recently, his name was Max Hawkins and Max as kind of a personal, uh, uh, expression in this arena, he has intentionally, disconnected himself, um, from these algorithms that try to make decisions for him. Right. And so the idea is that he's going to de bias or in fact, uh, create an opposing bias to escape that little bit of decision that is imposed on him, uh, by these, by algorithms that have been designed to help him, you know, like for example, uh, w we look for, you know, the best restaurant in the area and the way that max does it is he visits a random, uh, restaurant. He takes a sample of the restaurants in the area and then quite literally, well, I guess not literally, but figuratively rolls the dice, uh, and then goes to that restaurant and where most of us would ask for the best item on the menu. Max asks for the worst item on the menu. I think this is a very interesting, uh, process, right? But it speaks very well to this exact topic that you're, that you're talking about. And that is, you know, how these decisions, these decisions are made. They really are, uh, uh, affecting even the smallest parts of our lives. Absolutely. And I, you know, I think that this is, this is becoming more and more of a topic. Um, you know, a great place to go and, and learn a lot more about this is human tech.com. Um, and, and, or humane tech.com is, yes, agreed. Absolutely. Great. Excellent. Yeah. It's really this whole time well spent movement, which really is, um, an awareness of what we're doing in our, with our digital lives. Um, I think is important and seeing the patterns and even the anti patterns in this, you know, um, technological revolution that we fully adopted. Um, and being cognizant of its drawbacks is, is, um, I think it's our, uh, responsibility as digital citizens. Couldn't agree more, John. Thank you for, for that. Uh, I do have this last question I want to ask you, I believe it's probably going to end up being somewhat related, but if you could give 30 seconds of advice to all developers of any background, uh, any level of, of experience, what would you tell them? Hmm. You know, I would tell them first of all, right. You know, really, um, put yourself through the process of thinking through your own ideas and thoughts and putting them down on paper or, or, you know, digital paper and editing, editing them and putting them out there in the world. Um, because others will benefit from that immensely. Uh, and then you also, it has the, you know, benefit to you of clarification of your thoughts. And, um, it, it's a great way to kind of look back and, and get a sense for what you were kind of experiencing or, or, um, learning at that time. So it kind of works as a digital diary, if you will. But, um, yeah, I think that writing is a, is a, is a quintessential skill that we should all have and, um, or can have. And, and it's a, it's a big sacrifice to, and a big commitment, but, uh, it's well worth it. Yeah. And if, if you're, I totally agree with that. Uh, if you're feeling like you can't write something because it's going to take too much time, uh, something that I, I like to tell people all the time is that the value of your writing is often not at all correlated with the length of your writing. And so this is, this is something, I mean, that's the point of the show. We, we started out to be intentionally short. And so even if you get started with writing very short articles, some of my best writing, uh, especially technical writing, uh, or, or commentary on the tech industry, some of that writing has come by, by way of very short posts. And I mean, less than five paragraphs kind of posts. Uh, you'd be surprised that people are actually, you know, people's attention span is short already. Right. Um, so start with that and I guarantee you, you're going to find that, uh, eventually as you practice this, that you're going to be feeling like, man, this, this is too long. I'm going to have to come back to edit it down for people to even want to read this. Right. Uh, that's something that I've faced in the past. And anyway, the point is, and I also encourage people, uh, to, to heed John's words here to, to write. And you said that was the, that was the first of all, is there any more that you want to kind of share? Yeah, absolutely. I think the other one is, um, uh, and, and, you know, very relevant to laws of UX, really think about how side projects can, um, be adopted into your life and, and, and use them to explore new ideas and really, um, discover things that you want to learn more about. I think that, um, there's been one thing that has been absolutely transformational for me as a, as a designer and developer has been to really get in the habit of identifying ideas and, and, you know, editing those ideas and really honing in on things that I want to learn, things I want to level up with things I'm inspired by things that I want to, um, you know, really kind of explore and, um, and then, and then carve out the time and become disciplined to carry through with that. Yeah, this is super, super important. It's very hard to do. And it's also very hard to find the energy and gumption to do a side project sometimes. Uh, but I, I guarantee you if you have that first couple of steps, just take the first couple of steps, you know, and that's not just buying the domain name. It's, uh, taking the first steps of launching the project, um, make it as small as you need to, to, to get at least that very first piece at the door. You'll be surprised. Uh, I believe, especially with enough effort. Um, first of all, the personal benefits are through the roof. Uh, it, there's so much you learn by owning something on your own and, and truly kind of pushing on that boundary for yourself. But secondly, if you're, if, if the side project that you create is, is also benefiting other people, there's, uh, so much that you learn from that as well. Um, couldn't agree more. And that's really how developer T was born. Awesome. John, this has been an excellent discussion. Do you have any other thoughts for people who are listening? Anything else that, uh, you know, can they follow you on Twitter or anything like that? Please do follow me on Twitter at John Yablonski. And, um, you know, really, I, I, if you have, um, ideas for, um, principles that I can add, add to laws of UX, please reach out. I, I, I'm continuing to kind of build that website and, um, add content to it and really augment what's already there. And, um, I really want to just continue to evolve it and the conversations that it's, that it's kicked off. Awesome. Thank you so much, John. A huge thank you goes out to John Yablonski for joining me on the past two episodes of developer T and for sharing his wisdom and insight and creativity with the world. I echo what John has to say. About side projects and about having the kind of the creative output, beyond whatever you are compelled to do on a given day, to also choose something to do. So I encourage you to take that little piece of advice, even if it's something extremely small, go and make something out of your own volition. You'll be very thankful that you did. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Thank you again to today's episode sponsor Linode with Linode. You can create anything that you can create with Linux. And you can connect it into the cloud. By the way, Linode runs only on SSDs. We haven't said that in the past two episodes, but it has SSD storage. It runs on a 40 gigabit internal network, all kinds of excellent stats that you can check out at spec.fm slash Linode. And you'll get that $20 worth of credit for using that special link. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. And until next time, enjoy your tea. .