Articles by Matt Medley: Design, Culture, and Creative Tech
The Sentence Beneath the Screen
How AI exposed product design’s clarity problem A few months ago I was early on a dashboard project, using AI to help think through the problem before opening Figma. I typed
The Brief Has No Seat at the Table
Why every serious project should have its own AI system There’s a meeting that happens on most projects, usually around week six or seven, where someone says: “Wait, I
Designing the Failure Script
A colleague at another company recently forwarded me an email their AI assistant had summarized before they read it. The assistant interpreted the sender’s tone as passive-ag
Systems that remember
Why modern design systems aren’t libraries, they’re organisational memory. TL;DR — Key Takeaways for Time-Poor Execs Modern design systems succeed by reducing the cost of cha
The Human Interface
What management taught me about designing for people, not products. An essay on the invisible art of designing for humans. On teams, in leadership, and within ourselves. I know, th
Measure What Moves Users
A playbook for UX metrics that actually change the business Executive Summary If you’re tired of metrics that look good in presentations but don’t drive business results, this
How to Build a Design System in Figma—The Right Way
A product designer’s guide to tokens, variables, and scaling without chaos What makes a design system usable isn’t just consistency, it’s clarity. And what makes it scalable?
Best Google Font Pairings for UI Design in 2025
Header & Paragraph Combinations That Actually Work Font pairing isn’t just about aesthetic taste, it’s a product decision. The wrong combo can add friction, hurt readabilit
Beyond AAA: The Accessibility Gold Standard Checklist
For years, I treated accessibility as a finish line. Hit Level AA or AAA, check the box, move on. But the more I designed, the more I realized: WCAG Level AAA isn’t the summit—
Agent-Aware UX: Designing for Humans and AI
🧠 A visual guide to FRAME—the 5 pillars of AI agent UX There’s a new kind of user inside your product. It doesn’t click.It doesn’t swipe.It doesn’t sleep. AI agents ar
It’s Not Code. It’s Vibecode.
Why the AI shift in design and development needs structure, not just speed. Vibecoding is transforming software development. But without structure, it can wreck your codebase, conf
Outsmart the Loudest Voice
5 Shifts to Run Brainstorms That Actually Deliver Most brainstorms aren’t broken.They’re just designed to reward whoever speaks first. You’ve seen it play out:Someone claims