Action Play
How to get started with GitHub as a designer
The developer ecosystem is a goldmine for designers. Here are six things you can do today to start using GitHub and open-source libraries in your workflow.
Watch real users in their real environment.
Action play: Spend one hour watching a user interact with your product in their natural setting. Let them work the way they normally would - no prompting, no guiding. Take notes on what they do differently than you expected.
Example: You're designing a delivery tracking app and notice that couriers keep screenshots of addresses instead of using the in-app map. That small observation exposes a huge usability gap.
Summarize what surprised you most and share three actionable insights with your team.
Why: What people say and what they do are rarely the same. Observing in context reveals real habits, workarounds, and pain points that interviews can't capture. It's one of the fastest ways to turn design from theory into reality.
This action play is from the full article: 3 ways to turn research into design decisions
Written by
Björn Rutholm
Founder of PixelPappa
Technical cofounder for hire. Product designer and developer helping teams build digital products that work.
Keep reading
Action Play
How to tell the money story
Skip the adjectives and show the numbers. Connect your design work to revenue, retention, conversion, or cost reduction.
Action Play
How to map the value exchange
Pick one key interaction and draw a map showing what value the user gives and what they receive. If the scale isn't balanced, tip it in their favor.
Sign up for our newsletter
Insights, case studies, and updates from PixelPappa.