This is going to be big.
I've been keeping a secret for a few months, that I'm finally able to share with my friends and colleagues who follow Konigi. Today I'll be bringing my love of interface design to the small team at Balsamiq. I will be joining Peldi, Val, Marco, Luis, Mariah, and Malcolm, my new family at the company that introduced software and web designers to the fun and easy way to create quick, sketch-style wireframes with Balsamiq Mockups.
This move is the right change for me at the right time. I'll be able to marry my experience at working in-house on an evolving product, with my love of creating tools that advance my craft and sharing that knowledge and toolset with the UX design community. The move also represents the need at this point in my career to find a small group of passionate people that feel like family, that share my values, and that have a commitment to delivering a fun, simple product that people love to use.
I've communicated with Peldi off and on in the past few years. We actually made contact initially because we both wrote daddy blogs a while ago. Every time I've spoken to Peldi since, it feels like talking to a brother, and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious. We've ended some Skype calls giving high fives on screen, which felt at once nerdy and totally awesome. He's a natural leader, and I respect his commitment to transparency and doing good. When I've chatted with Val, Marco, Luis, and Mariah in the past few months, I felt that same kind of warmth and enthusiasm, and I knew I found my home.
I can't wait to start doing the work. I think we can expect that I'll be working on the user experience for Mockups Desktop and the myBalsamiq web app. My goal is to support the team in continuing to improve the overall experience with Balsamiq products, from providing support and fielding customer needs to bringing rigor to the design of every product feature. There's a clear vision for simplicity and quality in this team, and I want to help fulfill that. This is going to be big, and as you can tell, I'm having a hard time containing my excitement.
Read Peldi's announcement on the Balsamiq. You can also follow my new Twitter identity, @balsamiqMike, for Balsamiq related UX tweets.