The latest in our series “The Tools We
Use” features Aaron Gustafson, web standards and accessibility advocate at Microsoft.

I really love working with Interface Experience (IX) Maps when planning and
designing progressively enhanced interfaces. Essentially, IX Maps are
flowcharts detailing where there are potential deltas that affect the way a
component is experienced by the end user. The simplest examples would be
whether JavaScript is running or not or whether a specific CSS feature is
available or not. An IX Map doesn’t dwell on the cause of these experience
changes, it simply makes note of them insofar as they might lead to two
different users having necessarily different experiences of the same
component.  These simple flow charts have really changed the way I work with
my teams and the way we communicate. I find them indispensable.

VS Code: I was a Homesite user for years on Windows. When I moved to the
Mac in 2007, I tried TextMate and ended up sticking with that for a long
time. When I got a new Mac upon joining Microsoft, I tried Sublime Text for
a while, but then we launched VS Code. I was a little apprehensive at
first. After all, when you use a text editor day-in-day-out, you get used
to its look and feel, its features and its quirks. Even contemplating a new
editor gets me a little agitated. That said, when I finally jumped into VS
Code I was floored by how fast it is and how intuitive it is to use. The
integrated terminals, plugins, configuration options, and other features are amazing. And
it’s cross-platform, which is also a big deal now that I am dividing my time
more and more between macOS and Windows 10.

Ruby: I was a PHP guy for a long time, but have been dabbling in Ruby for
years. For the last two I’d wager it’s the language I use for the bulk of
my programming work—beyond HTML, CSS, & JS, naturally. I’ve always
appreciated the simple beauty of the language and I love using it to write
utilities and plugins for Jekyll.

Todoist: I am pretty godawful at time management. Occasionally I get it
under control, but then I end up going off the rails. Lately I’ve made a
concerted effort to have a burn-down list of daily tasks to keep me on
track. Todoist has been great for that.

The latest in our series “The Tools We
Use” features Rachel
Andrew, co-founder of
Perch CMS and Invited Expert with the CSS
Working Group.

Puppet: The business is run on a stack of
small VPS servers with configuration managed by Puppet, which makes
dealing with things like switching infrastructure around, creating new
sites, and setting up SSL certs, relatively painless.

Docker: I was a great fan of working in
virtual machines with Vagrant, but recently have switched to Docker for
most things as it means I’m not filling up my disk with VMs.

VSCode: I am pretty much editor
agnostic. I need a text editor of some description. Currently I use
VSCode.

Zoc Terminal: because the default OS X
terminal is horrible. I have a whole bunch of servers that I have to ssh
into on a regular basis, so the management of these connections is what
makes Zoc worth paying for—that and the fact I like to support the
creators of good software. Most crucially, Zoc has a whole set of
features for logging, scripting, and creating custom commands. It is a
bit of a Swiss Army Knife for someone who spends a lot of time at the
command line.

Beanstalkapp.com: for private hosted git
repos and deployment. Very reliable and a nice company.

All of my personal task management and GTD uses
OmniFocus. As a company,
though, we use Clubhouse.io for project
management, planning Perch features, and so on. We have tried so many of
these tools, and Clubhouse is the only one that has really worked well
for us.

I’m not sure how I would run Perch without
Xero.com for our accounts. It copes with
multiple currencies, multiple VAT rates, and all the rest of the
complexity of running a small international business.

Also, tripit.com has to get a mention as it
makes sure I know where I am tomorrow and how I’m getting there!

The latest in our series “The Tools We
Use” features Val
Head, independent
consultant and digital animator extraordinaire.

Pen & Paper: Every project I work on starts with these for
sketching, storyboarding ideas, or just making sure I don’t forget an
idea.

Illustrator: It’s
my favourite tool for drawing anything vector and for prepping SVGs for
animation.

Sketch or
Photoshop: I use one
or the other for layout things depending on the project or team I’m
working with.

Animate CC (Flash) or
After Effects: For
mocking up motion ideas that are complex or that I’ll be passing along
to someone else to code.

CodePen: My go-to for making interactive
prototypes, trying out ideas, and teaching.

IA Writer: Pretty much every newsletter
issue, article, or blog post starts here. The unadorned interface helps
keep me from getting distracted, and the preview mode makes it easy to
see the structure of articles as you write.

The latest in our series “The Tools We Use” features Jaimee Newberry, co-founder of Picture This Clothing.

Trello: My company uses Trello to track our
product flow from processing, through production, to shipping and any
little nuances in-between. It’s a lifesaver and keeps us super
organized. We also use a separate board for individual team to-dos,
priorities, and “things to do if there’s nothing to do” lists. I have a
personal Trello board to keep master lists of things I need to do, a few
of lists on my personal board include:

• Household

• Parenting

• Health

• Big Bulky Desires

• What’s Important

• #tinychallenges.

Pocket-sized notebook: Currently using a hardcover Moleskine I got
in a conference goodie bag. I use this for my Daily 3 – each
morning I consult my Trello master list and pick three priorities to
focus on, I write them in my pocket-sized book. I also keep it with me
for things that pop up throughout the day, phone call or meeting
notes/doodles, ideas, etc. Things that may need to end up back on the
Trello master list.

iCal: I know, I know. But it’s
the one that works best for me! Appointments and whatnot, it all goes in
here. If I’m ever a no-show, it didn’t make it into my calendar. I’m
rarely ever a no-show, but sadly, it has happened.

1Password: This is a newer one to me but I
recently discovered the hard way how badly I needed this in my life.
It’s got some learning curve, but I think it’s a better approach than
the previous ten years of using “the usual password,” or the usual
password plus some variation of extra characters when “the usual”
doesn’t meet the password criteria, then forgetting which variation I
had to use, then nearly throwing my computer through a window out of
frustration when I can’t remember my password…

When we ran a survey earlier this year about the tools designers and developers use, we got a lot of interesting results, and they made us curious. In addition to following up with some of our respondents, we wondered: what about the speakers who share the AEA
stage? What tools do they use? Here we present the first in a series, “The Tools We Use,” starring none other than our co-founder, Jeffrey Zeldman.

Pen & Paper: I no longer do traditional wireframes. Instead, I start
with super-rough, hand-drawn sketches of design patterns and pages. I
draw them quickly and dispose of bad ones without a moment of regret.
Keeping things loose, fast, and rough keeps me from getting hung up on
presentation aesthetics, as is too often the case when I design with
software, and helps me focus relentlessly on ideas and interactions.
Jason Santa Maria
has often explained why he starts his logo and layout work in fast,
pencil sketches by saying, “Ideas are born ugly.” He’s right, and it
applies equally to layouts and interactions. I have so many more ideas
now, and I come up with them so much more quickly. Best part? Clients
love working with me this way.

xScope 4.0:
“A powerful set of tools that are ideal for measuring, inspecting and
testing on-screen graphics and layouts.” By my good friends at
Iconfactory.

Chrome Plug-ins: While Safari is my
favorite browser UI when I’m enjoying the web like a civilian,
Chrome is my go-to for design work,
largely because of its plug-in ecosystem. Plug-ins I find useful in my
work include:

• WhatFont, which names the fonts used on any web page
• ColorZilla, an eyedropper and color picker tool (also available for
  Firefox)
• Font Changer with Google Web Fonts, which lets you quickly swap font families and sizes globally or per-page (useful for quickly torture testing whether your design will hold up under the custom font settings some users rely on for accessibility or other reasons)
• Dimensions, a tool that lets designers measure screen dimensions
• CSS Viewer, which does just what it sounds like (also available for Firefox)

Adobe Photoshop CC:
the great white whale. Yes, it’s a monster of a program. There’s still
no better way to design pixel-based presentations.

Basecamp 3:
Been a Basecamp user since version 1.0 and still find it a great place
to share project files, tasks, notes, announcements, and more with my
teammates and clients. Basecamp 3 adds a slew of new features I
love—including one I use every
day
to share my life with far-flung friends.

Dropbox:
a shared folder between all my devices, and easy sharing with the whole
world. We all use it because it just works—and because file-based
management
is still the most comfortable way for most of us to work.

Github:
The best place to tackle and share technical tasks. 

Google Docs:
The ability to write collaboratively is changing not only how we work,
but how we get jobs.
(But we still use good old MS Word
on projects with serial editing workflows, where tracking changes is a
must.) 

That’s all for this edition of “The Tools I Use.” Check back soon for another installment, featuring your favorite designers and developers.