Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Single-Tasking Interfaces: Designing for Focus
Interfaces that present everything at once invite divided attention. Designing for single-tasking means showing one thing to do and protecting it from the rest.
Topic
product-design
13 articles on product-design.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Progressive Onboarding for Complex Tools
Powerful tools overwhelm if they reveal everything at once. Progressive onboarding teaches capability in layers, as the user is ready for each one.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
The Role of Defaults in Ethical Product Design
Most people never change a default, so defaults are decisions made on their behalf. Setting them in the user’s interest is a core ethical responsibility.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Designing for Memory and Recall, Not Only Attention
Interfaces compete for attention but rarely support memory. Recognition over recall, durable cues, and respecting working-memory limits make tools easier to return to.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Designing Notifications People Keep Enabled
The real measure of a notification system is how many notifications people leave on. Relevance, control, and restraint keep a channel worth attending to.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
The Case for Fewer Features: Scope Discipline
Why adding features steadily makes a product worse, and how scope discipline keeps software focused, maintainable, and genuinely useful.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Designing a Minimal, Durable Design System
How a small team can build a design system that stays useful for years by keeping it minimal, grounded in tokens, and built only as real needs appear.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Onboarding Paths from Empty State to First Value
The empty state is where users decide to stay or leave. How to design the shortest honest path from a blank screen to the product’s first real value.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Designing for First-Run Versus Returning Users
The same screen serves a confused newcomer and a fluent regular. How to design so first-run guidance does not become permanent clutter for returning users.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Designing Onboarding That Respects Attention
Why most onboarding overspends a new user’s attention, and how to design a first run that teaches through use rather than upfront instruction.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
Designing for Executive Function: Reducing Task-Initiation Friction
Why starting a task is harder than doing it, and how interface design can lower the activation cost for people with executive-function differences.
Maksym Bardakh6 min read
The Attention Cost of Notifications, Examined
Notifications are not free. They borrow attention, interrupt working memory, and accrue a cost users eventually repay by disabling them entirely.
Mykhailo Boichuk6 min read
Designing Focus Modes That Reduce Overwhelm
How to build focus modes that genuinely narrow attention rather than adding another layer of configuration and noise for the user to manage.