PJ Stephen

VP, Customer Experience - Valtech • Design Thinker, Futurist, Creative Connector, Dad. #CX #UX #Design #Transformation #Creativity #DigitalHealth #Prosthetics

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

Facebook surfaced the most wholesome video I've ever created. An everyday ride-along experience with my now three year old, a year ago at age two.

Can't wait for the little one to start talking soon too!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

My kids iPad committed swollen batterycide. So she’s been using my M1 iPad Pro.

Last night, Apple’s aggressive OS upgrade dark pattern defeated her 7 year old defences, and now my iPad has been ruined by iOS 26.

Laggy, frame-rate dropping, over-designed MESS.

R.I.P. iPadOS18

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@wesbos @Shpigford Email has only functioned as a system of record for me for the last decade. If you NEED me to read an email, I have to be promoted in a notification, DM or text. No work or real conversations can happen in email in 2026.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@KevOnStage I'm a Xellenial (born in 1981) & we have a printer in our house that's capable of inkjet on regular paper, AND photo quality on proper photo stock.

And wife came home last week with an envelope from the local Walmart photo centre full of prints of memes our daughter collected.🙃

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@Wellgraf @luke_orb I learned this experimenting with the Xbox Kinect. Then with the MyoBand, by Thalmic Labs. Then with the Leap Motion Controller. Then with the Flutter app on Mac OS… then with… 🥳😝😅

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@jonathangardn @zendadddy Oof. You’ve been neck deep in horseshit minimal aesthetics for so long, you’ve forgotten what it was like to have usable software.

At one point in time, you could walk away from your TV, then come back & know from a static view where you were in the UI. Not anymore!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@zendadddy @KEMOS4BE The wonky is literally the point. We’ve had enough design for aesthetics, elegance & simplicity.

Bring back clarity of meaning. This radius does an excellent job communicating the end of the list, the direction to scroll for more. It’s a very hard working & appreciated design!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

GUYS. Plugged in an old hard drive & found an AMAZING artifacts of a bygone era.

Circa 2011 (iOS5) Apple Human Interface Guidelines for iPhone & iPad!
LOOK AT ALL THE BEAUTY & MEANING IN THESE UI !

Fresh off the launch of the RETINA displays, Apple out here saying DETAILS PLS!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

I believe his is why I adore Brutalism as an architectural style. As monolithic & imposing some Brutes can be, they are HONEST. There's no facade. Just REAL.

When I gaze upon any new build edifice, my uncanny valley unease is triggered. It feels like I'm in a simulation!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

Industrial Design in the modern, global, free drop-shipping fr China, IKEA flat-packed world, is less about designing artifacts, as it is about designing process by which artifacts can be broken down & compressed into as little space as possible.

The REAL WORLD is compressed.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

This is one of MANY ways I've observed the Digital & Physical realities converging into a single, seamless existence.

The WORLD as we experience it, is increasingly populated with video-game sprite-esque, exact replica objects. It's a clone stamped, uncanny valley-ass world.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@gpdawson Used accessibility, appearance & app level controls (NO Safari, I do NOT want you to change your base colour with every website... destroying usability of my tabs and browser chrome...) 😑

The unmoored lack of structural cohesion is MORE visible without the fluff to hide it!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

I had to come back to this website, because I don't have any other voids I can yell into about this.

Got issued a new work computer & HAD to accept Liquid Glass in my life, and OH MY GOD IT'S SO TERRIBLE.

Everything about it feels WRONG on the Mac. I hate it. It's very bad.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@palmerized I am glad you hear you like it though! I have felt like an old man sitting on his front porch yelling at kids to get off his skeuomorphism for the last decade...

I'm glad SOMEONE is enjoying this... 🤣

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@palmerized You like having to click on a volume button on Apple Music to REVEAL the hidden volume control slider? You like that content BLEEDS THROUGH the back of the app chrome? You like that everything is homogenized and confused and contrast is horrible and inconsistent?! 😝

WILD.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

I can't wait to move back to my personal computer to use Keynote again. I can't believe Apple unveiled a version of Keynote that could make me long for the 2025 version... but here we are!

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

Liquid glASS is horrendous from every perspective. I've been railing against Apple's homogenizing of UI for a decade (bring back Scott Forstall) But this is beyond any previous usability regressions.
NO amount of accessibility tweaks cure the unmitigated disaster foisted upon us.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

For a decade, I believed Apple was right to keep touch off the Macbook screens.

But now, after nearly 4 years using an iPad Pro as my “daily driver” machine, I’ve come to deeply resent that I can’t just occasionally tap the MacBook screen to complete certain actions.

[MacRumors.com @MacRumors]

Touchscreen MacBook Pro to Be 'Touch-Friendly, Not Touch-First' https://t.co/rPIhEGCN1L

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

@ICameLegally @MacRumors 80% of Mac users I know (not power users or “creative” historical user base. But the extended users Apple has courted by consistently making the most beautiful & desirable notebooks) has fingerprints all over their screens because they expect to work like an iPad now.

[PJ Stephen @ThePeej]

Justin pulled up like Jimmy Neutron because his hair got blown up from driving in the Phantom with the roof gone.

Some of the best visual storytelling in recent song lyrics memory!!

https://t.co/5DxYFag1dg

[Ben Phillips @benphillips76]

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is