Come Along My Weblog Design Journey

At my core, I want to do quality work. To me, quality means “useful to someone”.

I think Clayton Chistensen’s ideas are currently one of the best frameworks to help guide designing useful things.

Readers Hire Weblogs for Reasons

Get Smart Quickly

I hire a weblog to rapidly understand something without slogging through books or courses.

Readers want:

• Condensed mental models (for quick decision making)
• Clear explanations (for judging when a model applies)
• Opinionated takes (to challenge their own thinking)
• Practical insights (more judgement tools)
• A shortcut to someone else’s hard-earned knowledge (avoid avoidable mistakes)

They want to reduce the time it takes to become competent.

See How an Expert Thinks (Not Just What They Conclude)

I hire a weblog to borrow someone else’s reasoning process.

Readers want:

• A step-by-step reasoning flow (instructions)
• Decision criteria (what’s important - and what’s not)
• How trade-offs are handled (what’s important - and what’s not)
• How experts notice what others miss (don’t want to be surprised with bad conequences)

People are not just hungry for answers - they’re hungry for thinking patterns. They want to level up their sensemaking skills.

Discoer New Ideas, Tools, and Strategies

I hire a weblog to find new things I wouldn’t have found on my own.

Readers want:

• Curated links (for more information - context, credibility)
• Novel concepts (be ahead of the curve)
• Emerging patterns (be ahead of the pack)
• Niche insights (don’t be caught off-guard)
• “Edge of the internet” discoveries (FOMO)

They want to expand their sense of possibilities.

Escape the Noise of Social Media

I hire a weblog because I’m tire dof shallow takes and algorithmic junk.

Readers want:

• Depth (confident their mental model of the world is accurate)
• Focus (feeling productive)
• Slowness (not missing something)
• Signal over noise (actually making progress in their understanding of the world)

They want to replace dopamine-scrolling with meaningful learning.

Build Trust in a Voice (Not a Brand or Algorithm)

I hire a weblog to consistently hear from a person I trust.

Readers want:

• An unfiltered voice (something that sounds honest and not bullshit)
• No algorithmic manipulation (trustworthy)
• Predictable quality (don’t want to be surprised in a negative way)
• A relationship with the author (connection to ideas that resonate, validation)

They want to reduce cognitive load by following a trusted mind.

Find Someone Who Articulates What They’re Already Feeling (this one is the most powerful job-to-be-done)

I hire a weblog to put words to the vague intuitions I already have.

Readers want:

• Vocabulary for their experience (to be able to articulate the idea to someone else in an argument)
• Concepts that “finally explain it” (I want to be right)
• Validation that they’re not alone (am I the crazy one?)
• A sense of intellectional companionship (a comfortable space to come back to when the world is insane)

Humans want to feel understood and gain language to express their own thinking.

Join a Narrative or Journey (be part of a group for safety)

I hire a weblog to follow someone who is going somewhere interesting.

Readers want:

• Behind-the-scenes progress (live thru vicariously - so they don’t have to risk their current situation)
• Honest reflections (we’re all alike right?)
• Experiments and failures (why do we all have to go thru the pain of failure? can’t we learn from other’s sacrifices?)
• Long-form arcs that unfold over months/years (consistency, comfort, a sense of comradery)

We want to participate in a story that inspires us.

Make Better Decisions

I hire a weblog to make more informed choices with less regret.

Readers want:

• Frameworks (easy to follow and replicate results)
• Heuristics (path of least resistance)
• Contrarian viewpoints (not a leming)
• Simplifications (easy - or at least the feeling of being easy)
• “Do this, not that” (help me avoid mistakes)

We want to increase decision quality without increasing effort.

Emotional Jobs for Readers

• Identity
• Belonging
• Reassurance
• Inspiration

What Readers Do When Weblogs Fail Them

• They turn to Twitter/X threads
• They hunt through Reddit
• They join Discord/Slack groups (and never really engage)
• They skim YouTube explainers
• They subscribe to newsletters instead (but do they really read them or just delete them when cleaning up their inbox?)
• They buy boooks they never finish
• They search StackOverflow endlessly

Weblog Mission

Become the trusted shortcut to understanding, clarity, and inspiration for ???

TODO: Figure out what I want to be a trusted source of knowledge and expertise for.

Core Jobs People Employ Weblogs To Do

• Make thinking visible for myself and others

  I employ a weblog so I can externalize my ideas and see my thinking evolve over time (reflect on past opinions).

• Build compounding credibility

  I employ a weblog so strangers can trust me without me having to pitch them.

• Create an always-on business development engine

  I employ a weblog to attract customers while I’m busy doing the work.

• Teach at scale

  I employ a weblog so I can teach once and reuse forever.

• Think in public to attract collaborators

  I employ a weblog to signal the problems I’m interested in and attract the right people.

• Document the journey - not just the destination

  I employ a weblog to create a public lab notebook of what I’m building.

• Transform tacit knowledge into assets

  I employ a weblog to convert my experiences into something that can be bookmarked, linked, or cited.

• Establish a home on the internet

  I employ a weblog to own a place no algorithm can take away from me.

Related Jobs

Improve writing ability over time (writing is thinking), shape public perception of my career arc, pre-seed my audience for future products, test ideas before investing in them, serve as a sandbox for frameworks, create a body of work for future me, turn conversations into evergreen assets.

Emoitional Jobs

• Identity / Legacy (whoami?)
• Confidence / Control (sense of control over my destiny)
• Belonging (be part of something bigger than me)

Personas

• CTO with engineering capacity problems. To attract “high-quality” engineers.
• Consultant to pre-sell expertise so sales calls are warm.
• Founder looking for their audience.
• Domain expert solidifying their expertise.
• Creator to think out louad and attract like-minded collaborators.
• Professional manifesting their destiny. Opening oppurtinities.
• Software engineer documenting their rediscoveries.

Iterate Over Every Job-to-be-done (Pick a job, execute a design iteration, pick the next job and repeat)

Next: Translate Jobs into Job Requirements -> Design Criteria -> UI Patterns for the Weblog Design

Get Smart Quickly

Requirements

• Reduce cognitive load
• make the core idea obvious within 5 - 15 seconds
• allow skim-first, read-depper-later
• visually summarize the post at the start
• avoid deep scroll walls

Design Criteria

Cognitive Clarity

• Every page must have a 5-15 second “graspable idea”
• Key takeaways must be summarized visually
• Navigation must show where you are and what else is adjacent

Skimmability Without Shallowness

• Content must be layered: overview -> details -> deep dive.
• Typography must support scanning: bold anchors, clear hiearchy.

Structural Integrity

• The mental model of the article must be visible.
• Readers must sense the shape of the argument.
• Articles must include structure markers (e.g., TL;DR, path diagram).

Calm, Mission-Control Aesthetic

• Spacious margins
• Monochrome + accent color
• Flight-manual typography
• Zero popups, autosresponders, or “growth hacks”
• A visual language of clarity (grids, lines, sharpness)

Jobs-Based Navigation

Not categories. Not tags. Missions, jobs, and concepts.

Navigation must orient the reader by:

• Problem they’re trying to solve
• Level of depth
• Domain (Systems, Leadership, Engineering, Integration)

Trust-Forward Presentation

• Author bio in sidebar
• “What I believe about X” pages
• “My current projects” status board
• Updates and logs (mission logs)

Turst is built through clarity, not persuasion.

Narrative Continuity

• Breadcrumbs for story arcs
• Season-based content groupings
• Mission log timeline
• Highlights for recurring themes

UI Patterns & Components

Article Layout

• Insight Header (5-second punchline)
  • Bold, distilled idea
  • Subtitle that frames context
• TL;DR Panel: Block at top containing:
  • The problem
  • The insight
  • The outcome
  • (Optional) Diagram miniature
• Reasoning Pathway: A vetical or horizontal diagram
  • How I got here
  • Key decisions
  • Alternatives rejected
  • What changed my mind
• Structured Sections: each with:
  • A bold insight header
  • 100-250 word explanation
  • Inline callouts (“Why this matters”, “Trade-off”, “Pattern”)
• Concept Anchors: Glossary cards embedded inline
• Mission/Series Navigation
  • “Part of the X Mission” block
  • “Next->” and “Previous <-”
• Related Missions (Jobs-based)
  • Cards linking to content the reader might hire next.

Reader Navigation Model

Navigation is not chronological. It’s built around Jobs, Missions and Concepts.

Jobs Navigation: Sections like:

• Learn fast
• Fix Broken System
• Scale without the back office
• Build better integrations
• Think through complexitt

Each job acts as it’s own “playlist”.

Missions (Narratives/Series): Examples:

• Mission: Build the Hubot Data Plane
• Mission: Juphjacs Web Framework
• Mission: Scaling Field Ops SaaS
• Mission: Everday Systems Thinking
• Mission: Kaizen Ops Blueprint

These are story arcs.

Concepts/Field Guides: These are recurring intellectural tools:

• Leverage
• Feedback Loops
• Interfaces
• Idempotent flows
• State machines
• Coordination cost
• Observability
• Dynamic models

Each concept page is a mini playbook.

Mission Dashboard (reader home page) - Think: NASA Mission Control meets a modern blog.

• Start Here: A welcome explaining the blog’s purpose and who it servers.
• Reader Jobs: Where do you want to go? Cards for each job.
• Big Ideas: My signature frameworks.
• Missions in Progress: Projects I’m actively writing about.
• Mission Log Timeline: A chronological view, but story-first.

Concept Map Sidebar: Optional slide-out panel showing:

• All major themes
• How they relate
• Expanded view of conceptual landscape
• Navigation through mental models

This helps readers “see the system” at a glance (re: seeing spaces)

System architecture (reader mode) - High-level structure of the weblog system

• Start Here (Priming layer)
  • Missions (Narrative layer)
    • Mission X
    • Mission Y
    • Mission Z
  • Jobs (Intent layer)
    • Get Smart Quickly
    • Escape the Noise
    • See How Experts Think
  • Concepts (Education layer)
    • Field Guides
    • Frameworks
    • Glossary
  • Articles (Content layer)
  • Mission Log (Chronology layer)

Multi-layer information architecture designed for progress, not posts.

Design principles summary: The reader mode weblog UI must:

• Make thinking visible
• Expose reasoning, not just results
• Enable skim-first reading
• Highlight big ideas visually
• Structure everything around user progress
• Create calm amidst the noise
• Turn the weblog into a narrative system, not a feed
• Show your personality and honesty
• Help readers learn fast
• Invite them into missions, not posts

Design

• Rader homepage: Mission Dashboard
• ARticle page layout with reasoning path
• Concept/Field guide page