Hi there! Welcome to the second edition of the Thinkmill newsletter. We’re thrilled to share what we’ve been up to lately — from launching new projects to connecting with the community.
Thinkmill news
Project highlights
Since our last newsletter we’ve been helping fintech startups and scale-ups to tackle complex design and engineering challenges. From refining user experiences to building scalable, resilient systems, it has been rewarding to support teams shaping the future of finance.
In other news, we have a new blog post: Inclusive User Testing with Browser-Based Prototypes. In it Jordan Geizer shares how he leveraged tools like Astro, Tailwind, and Keystatic to make user testing more inclusive in a recent project.
A major uplift to our Product, Design, and Engineering playbook
That’s right, we’ve published 13 new plays to the Thinkmill Method Playbook!
They distil many learnings from 10+ years building compelling client and open source projects. We’ve put a lot of heart into refining and documenting these plays that have helped our teams navigate ambiguity, break silos, and create meaningful outcomes.
While the Thinkmill Method isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, we hope these new plays help you and your team craft impactful product experiences:
- Activity mapping
- Core concepts
- DACI
- Design ethnography
- Functional wireframing
- Kick off
- Low fidelity prototypes
- Mock API
- Process mapping
- Route mapping
- Sparring
- Playback
- User journey mapping
Dive in, explore, and let us know what resonates!
Conferences and meetups
Dinesh Pandiyan was in India earlier this month to run a week of workshops. He talked about his experience deploying NextJS apps to Google Cloud’s Cloud Run environment.
In Australia, recently departed Thinkmill alumni Simon Vrachliotis was at Laracon Australia discussing unleashing designers with Tailwind. This is an extended version of the presentation he gave in the USA at Epic Web Conf 2024.
Open source
We’re thrilled that Keystone will soon get a Next-gen Admin UI, thanks to our new Keystar UI design system. It’s responsive, accessible, and battle-tested. Check out the release candidate on the main branch.
Emma Hamilton has also launched the first major release of graphql-ts, providing type safety for your GraphQL schema. Keystone already uses it under the hood, but it can be applied to any GraphQL server which uses GraphQL.js (GraphQL Yoga, Apollo Server, graphql-http, etc.)
Posts from the Thinkmill team
Using Loops and Maps for Efficient Data Transformations. Luke Bennett explores optimising large data transformations in single-page apps, comparing approaches like chaining array methods, using reduce, and employing for...of loops in performance-critical scenarios.
Designing with APIs: A Practical Guide. Murphy Trueman discusses how designing with APIs fosters better collaboration, uncovers gaps early, and enables quicker adaptation to changes, creating more resilient, user-friendly platforms.
Arch Linux with Hyprland is very good. Dinesh Pandiyan shares his positive experience transitioning to the Arch Linux operating system and pairing it with the Hyprland tiling window manager. Praising its keyboard-driven workflow, dynamic tiling system, and aesthetic animations.
Curated links
Good forms. A short, simple list of things which make for a quality online form.
Design Systems Report 2025. Zeroheight’s report highlights how design systems have become essential in product development. The report focuses on the challenges of measuring impact, ensuring adoption, and speculates what’s next for design system teams.
Why I Like Designing in the Browser. Tyler Sticka reflects on the advantages of designing directly within the browser, highlighting how this approach provides a true-to-life representation of design elements and allows for rapid prototyping.
Clear communication: the silent architect of good design. It’s Nice That explores the critical role of clear communication in design projects, emphasising the importance of transparency in collaboration to avoid misunderstandings.
The Secret Inside One Million Checkboxes. Nolen Roy shares his experience with a project that allowed users to interact with one million checkboxes. After 650 million interactions, a hidden message appears in the data.
Thanks for tuning in — we hope to see you next time!
