You know Tony Hale from, well… just about everything. The comedic actor has been near-omniscient throughout this current era of television and film. After getting his big break as the delicate motherboy Buster Bluth on Arrested Development, he continued his manchild development in the multiple Emmy-award-winning role as Gary Walsh on Veep. Since then he’s […]

The post Tony Hale: King of the Manchildren appeared first on Den of Geek.

You know Tony Hale from, well… just about everything.

The comedic actor has been near-omniscient throughout this current era of television and film. After getting his big break as the delicate motherboy Buster Bluth on Arrested Development, he continued his manchild development in the multiple Emmy-award-winning role as Gary Walsh on Veep. Since then he’s found time to lend his voice to multiple Pixar projects and brightened up seemingly every comedic TV series in existence.

Hale’s latest project, however, casts him in a new role: producer. Directed by Seth Worley, Sketch features Hale both in front of and behind the camera to bring a literally colorful story about magical doodles to life.

“We describe it as “Inside Out meets Jurassic Park.” It’s a really fun family adventure with a theme about processing feelings,” Hale said during his visit to Den of Geek studio at San Diego Comic-Con.

Now, in his own words, Hale expounds upon his career and how he became the king of the comedic manchildren.

Growing Up With Buster Bluth on Arrested Development

Buster was so fun. He’s like a cartoon character. I once asked a very actor question to [Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz]: “What does Buster want?” He said he thinks he wants safety. That’s why Buster is always pulling his chin back. He’s always in this state of defense. He’s ready for something to come at him. 

One of my favorite things is when people come up and say, “I love this joke [from Arrested Development].” And I say, “Please tell me it, because I’ve completely forgotten.” The only joke from the show that I remember, because it’s my favorite bit, is Tobias joining the Blue Man Group because he thought it was a support group for depressed men. There’s nothing better than that. That was the level of comedy you were working with. 

Back then, people weren’t used to watching a show and having to think about it. But because of Netflix (and DVDs), people could rewind it and be like, “Do you see that blue handprint on the wall? That’s from three episodes ago. Do you see that Buster is sitting in front of something that says ‘Arm Off?’ Oh, that’s foreshadowing to him having his hand bitten off by a seal.” All those layers just made Mitch [Hurwitz] brilliant in my eyes. 

Being President Selina Meyer’s “Bagman,” Gary Walsh, on Veep

Gary spent a long time sewing pockets into that bag because everything had to have a place. He had Costco versions of whatever was in the bag at home, because God forbid he ever ran out. I think, in one episode, there was a game to see how fast he could pull items out of it. For Gary, that bag was his world. And that’s why it was so hard in that one episode when Selina gave him a new bag. It’s like Linus’ blanket. 

Here’s a fun fact. I watch [the projects I make] once, but I don’t watch them again. But I watch the blooper reels. I have every gag reel of Veep on my Dropbox to give me immediate joy. As a wrap gift to the cast, I put them all on a flash drive and gave them out. I don’t remember a lot of stuff. But I remember the bloopers.  

Becoming “Fear” for Pixar’s Inside Out 2

Inside Out is one of my five favorite movies. I remember seeing that movie and just going, “How did they conceptualize this?” They brought emotions to life and brought them into the world. I had to get past that starry-eyed thing towards Pixar—even after [voicing “Forky” in] Toy Story 4. But of course they’re very lovely. They told me the story of Inside Out 2, and I asked them, “What’s the difference between fear and anxiety?” They said, “Fear is an actual threat. Anxiety is a perceived threat.” It’s so good. 

Playing an Anti-Ghost Pottery Professor on NBC Comedy Community 

[Community star] Joel McHale is a buddy of mine. I think Anthony and Joe Russo directed that one because they were producers on the show, and I had worked with them on Arrested Development. I remember really going at it, hitting my toe against the door, and I sprained it from getting pissed off. But it was for the art!

Producing and Starring in the Family Film Sketch

It took eight years to get made. My buddy, Seth Worley, who’s the writer-director, had the idea and wrote the script. We just went back and forth for a few years trying to find financing and that kind of stuff. It’s like launching a child into the world. I haven’t produced much, so it’s a feeling I haven’t had. But I’m so proud of it. 

I play a single dad who’s really worried because his daughter is drawing these pretty crazy pictures, and they end up coming to life. We describe it as “Inside Out meets Jurassic Park.” It’s a really fun family adventure with a theme about processing feelings. One of my favorite movies growing up was The Goonies. I remember making my parents watch it over and over, and they didn’t mind because it’s a fun experience. I have a daughter, and there are a lot of movies I had to watch over and over that I was like “I cannot watch this again.” 

The post Tony Hale: King of the Manchildren appeared first on Den of Geek.

The bird was caught using a mist net, briefly examined, and released after a small blood sample was taken for genetic testing. Analysis by Stokes and his advisor, Tim Keitt, a professor of integrative biology at UT Austin, confirmed the bird was the male hybrid offspring of a green jay mother and a blue jay father.

The post Has climate change created the first grue jay? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

The luxury resort now under legal challenge on Assomption Island is being developed by Assets Group, a Qatar-based real estate company that advertises the project on its own website as a collection of high-end villas and spa facilities in the Seychelles. According to multiple reports, including Mongabay and The Seychelles Nation, the developer is tied to Qatari investors and has relied on the London-based PC Agency to promote the project internationally. Environmental groups allege that Assets Group’s expansion near the UNESCO-protected Aldabra Atoll risks introducing invasive species and undermining decades of conservation work.

The post Seychelles activists sue government for Qatari development on turtle nesting sites appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

Researchers who have studied the island for decades describe it as a key ecological buffer for Aldabra, helping to protect the atoll from pollution, invasive species, and light disturbance. If Assomption’s natural systems collapse, they warn, Aldabra could be next.

The post Images of Assomption Island development show extensive beach development appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

That same spirit still drives me today. As many of you know, my beloved parents, Yaccovi and Bilha, were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7th. Since that tragic day, I have taken on a new mission: to do everything I can to help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians—so that others will not suffer the same fate as my family.

The post My parents were killed on October 7. I am not giving up on peace for the Middle East appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

Modern infrastructure relies on advanced insulated heating pipes for professional use, particularly in district heating and large-scale commercial projects. This is because the smart integrated insulated pipes ensure reliability and sustainability across diverse professional applications. These applications include: 

The post Smart Integration of an Insulated Heating Pipe for Sustainability appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

A lot of people think that all wood is equal, but this is not the case. Most of the time, decking materials come from irresponsible logging. This is not natural and sustainable at all. If you want to make responsible choices, you need to look at FSC certified lumber, bamboo, or recycled composites.

The post Green Architecture at Home: Eco Decks as a Bridge Between Indoors and Outdoors appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

Biohack your food by creating healthy meal plans  Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep.  Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern […]

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

Recurring tasks have a way of getting away from you quickly and there’s no task more demanding than grocery planning. However, the prospect of planning out meals can be overwhelming, but the cost of not doing it is steep. 

Food waste is an unfortunate reality of modern convenience and packed schedules, but it’s an unnecessary outcome with lasting impact. Waste costs families hundreds of dollars annually, diverting dollars otherwise used wisely. Learn how to plan meals and grocery shopping strategically to save money and create sustainable food habits for life. 

1. Purposeful Planning Gives Each Ingredient a Job

Look at meal planning like you would a game plan — every ingredient plays a role. A bunch of green onions accents a salad one day and brings fried rice together the next. 

Plot your meal plan to account for the entirety of your food purchase. Items that come pre-packaged may contain more than you need for a dish. Take this into account when you plan and collect a group of dishes using the same key ingredients. 

Healthy meal kits make this strategy easy as they include the exact amount of everything to make meals. Packaged with pre-measured ingredients reduces food waste and saves time washing, cutting, and measuring. Choose meal kits for easy, delicious meals for stress-free planning and mealtimes where nothing is wasted.  

2. Multipurpose Ingredients Flex for Real Life

Sometimes, what you’d planned for dinner just doesn’t sound appealing come mealtimes. Other times, your original plan gets sabotaged by life. That’s why it’s smart to plan meals with multipurpose ingredients that can flex. 

Shop for ingredients that require only arranging for the busiest of nights. A head of iceberg lends itself to lettuce wraps, a nutrient-dense salad, or extra crunch for a sandwich. 

Frozen chicken chunks crisp to perfection in an air fryer and work for the whole family. Dunked in dips for kids or tossed into a salad or wrap, frozen chicken can save dinner. 

3. Post-Shopping Storage Extends Freshness

There’s no denying that throwing groceries in the fridge and moving on is easier than the alternatives. However, taking the time to properly store your haul makes all the difference for their longevity. 

Pay attention to social media hacks that promise fresher berries — a quick wash with water and vinegar retains moisture and keeps mushiness at bay. Place herbs in a jar of shallow water and cover them with a new disposable shower cap. This approach retains optimal humidity levels that’ll keep your parsley perky and cilantro crisp. 

Split packages of chicken into meal-sized portions to make prep easy and avoid package leakage. Trim cuts for your meals while you’re at it, cutting strips for tacos or splitting breasts for chicken Parmesan. Working ahead now will save time throughout the week, dirty fewer dishes, and reduce meal planning stress. 

4. No-Prep Foods Make Snacking Easy and Fresh

Reduce the friction between you and your next snack to keep hangry feelings at bay. Toasted nuts, fresh fruit, and cheese sticks are easy snacks and provide quick energy. 

These and other no-prep options help them get used well before their expiration. Shelf-stable nuts, prepackaged beef sticks, and dried fruit last for months. Monitor shelf-stable and pantry items’ expiration dates and rotate them to avoid spoilage. 

Wash and cut next-day vegetable snacks while you prepare dinners to maintain crispness. Rinse and store in individual bags for easy access. If you have extra carrots at the end of the week, use them in a salad, soup, or freeze them. 

5. Stock Freezable Favorites and Eliminate Waste

Include several freezer-friendly foods in your weekly ingredient list to adjust meal planning on the fly. Peppers, onions, carrots, and celery are key players in many meals and perform well frozen, too. Stash extras after cleaning, cutting, and packaging in freezer-safe storage. 

Elevate your food’s flavors and even further reduce waste with thoughtful scrap saving. Tops of carrots, ends of onions, and dregs of celery can be bagged and frozen for future use. Simmer these scraps along with other fridge castaways for a flavorful broth the next time you’re prepping for the week. 

Cooked foods freeze well, too, and can make weeknight meals a cinch. Pulled pork from a weekend barbecue makes incredible tacos, nachos, and even pizza. Freeze extra soup for a comforting meal any time of the week. 

6. Buy-in From Diners Makes a Difference 

Don’t meal plan alone — get your fellow diners on board with the plan. Include roommates, your partner, and your kids in the process, too. 

Review the week ahead and discuss activities, work, school, and the weather to shape the plan. A rainy day might demand a hearty soup while sunshine calls for burgers. Gather everyone’s ideas and give everyone a voice, and a role, in meal planning.

Kids can be assigned jobs that help them develop skills, too. Writing down the menu and ingredients makes it fun to work on spelling. Learning about cooking brings in math through measurements and ingredient count. 

When everyone is involved in the plan, preparation, and cleanup, food is more likely to be eaten. You’ll experience less waste, fewer arguments, and happier, healthier eaters. 

Smart Meal Planning Saves Food, Money, and Time

An investment in meal planning pays dividends in less than a week, making your return on investment a no-brainer. With a plan for mealtimes, you can dedicate your time, energy, and attention to what matters most. 

The post Sustainable Eating: How Smarter Grocery Planning Reduces Food Waste appeared first on Green Prophet.

“Any comment?” is probably one of the worst ways to ask for feedback. It’s vague and open ended, and it doesn’t provide any indication of what we’re looking for. Getting good feedback starts earlier than we might expect: it starts with the request. 

It might seem counterintuitive to start the process of receiving feedback with a question, but that makes sense if we realize that getting feedback can be thought of as a form of design research. In the same way that we wouldn’t do any research without the right questions to get the insights that we need, the best way to ask for feedback is also to craft sharp questions.

Design critique is not a one-shot process. Sure, any good feedback workflow continues until the project is finished, but this is particularly true for design because design work continues iteration after iteration, from a high level to the finest details. Each level needs its own set of questions.

And finally, as with any good research, we need to review what we got back, get to the core of its insights, and take action. Question, iteration, and review. Let’s look at each of those.

The question

Being open to feedback is essential, but we need to be precise about what we’re looking for. Just saying “Any comment?”, “What do you think?”, or “I’d love to get your opinion” at the end of a presentation—whether it’s in person, over video, or through a written post—is likely to get a number of varied opinions or, even worse, get everyone to follow the direction of the first person who speaks up. And then… we get frustrated because vague questions like those can turn a high-level flows review into people instead commenting on the borders of buttons. Which might be a hearty topic, so it might be hard at that point to redirect the team to the subject that you had wanted to focus on.

But how do we get into this situation? It’s a mix of factors. One is that we don’t usually consider asking as a part of the feedback process. Another is how natural it is to just leave the question implied, expecting the others to be on the same page. Another is that in nonprofessional discussions, there’s often no need to be that precise. In short, we tend to underestimate the importance of the questions, so we don’t work on improving them.

The act of asking good questions guides and focuses the critique. It’s also a form of consent: it makes it clear that you’re open to comments and what kind of comments you’d like to get. It puts people in the right mental state, especially in situations when they weren’t expecting to give feedback.

There isn’t a single best way to ask for feedback. It just needs to be specific, and specificity can take many shapes. A model for design critique that I’ve found particularly useful in my coaching is the one of stage versus depth.

“Stage” refers to each of the steps of the process—in our case, the design process. In progressing from user research to the final design, the kind of feedback evolves. But within a single step, one might still review whether some assumptions are correct and whether there’s been a proper translation of the amassed feedback into updated designs as the project has evolved. A starting point for potential questions could derive from the layers of user experience. What do you want to know: Project objectives? User needs? Functionality? Content? Interaction design? Information architecture? UI design? Navigation design? Visual design? Branding?

Here’re a few example questions that are precise and to the point that refer to different layers:

• Functionality: Is automating account creation desirable?
• Interaction design: Take a look through the updated flow and let me know whether you see any steps or error states that I might’ve missed.
• Information architecture: We have two competing bits of information on this page. Is the structure effective in communicating them both?
• UI design: What are your thoughts on the error counter at the top of the page that makes sure that you see the next error, even if the error is out of the viewport? 
• Navigation design: From research, we identified these second-level navigation items, but once you’re on the page, the list feels too long and hard to navigate. Are there any suggestions to address this?
• Visual design: Are the sticky notifications in the bottom-right corner visible enough?

The other axis of specificity is about how deep you’d like to go on what’s being presented. For example, we might have introduced a new end-to-end flow, but there was a specific view that you found particularly challenging and you’d like a detailed review of that. This can be especially useful from one iteration to the next where it’s important to highlight the parts that have changed.

There are other things that we can consider when we want to achieve more specific—and more effective—questions.

A simple trick is to remove generic qualifiers from your questions like “good,” “well,” “nice,” “bad,” “okay,” and “cool.” For example, asking, “When the block opens and the buttons appear, is this interaction good?” might look specific, but you can spot the “good” qualifier, and convert it to an even better question: “When the block opens and the buttons appear, is it clear what the next action is?”

Sometimes we actually do want broad feedback. That’s rare, but it can happen. In that sense, you might still make it explicit that you’re looking for a wide range of opinions, whether at a high level or with details. Or maybe just say, “At first glance, what do you think?” so that it’s clear that what you’re asking is open ended but focused on someone’s impression after their first five seconds of looking at it.

Sometimes the project is particularly expansive, and some areas may have already been explored in detail. In these situations, it might be useful to explicitly say that some parts are already locked in and aren’t open to feedback. It’s not something that I’d recommend in general, but I’ve found it useful to avoid falling again into rabbit holes of the sort that might lead to further refinement but aren’t what’s most important right now.

Asking specific questions can completely change the quality of the feedback that you receive. People with less refined critique skills will now be able to offer more actionable feedback, and even expert designers will welcome the clarity and efficiency that comes from focusing only on what’s needed. It can save a lot of time and frustration.

The iteration

Design iterations are probably the most visible part of the design work, and they provide a natural checkpoint for feedback. Yet a lot of design tools with inline commenting tend to show changes as a single fluid stream in the same file, and those types of design tools make conversations disappear once they’re resolved, update shared UI components automatically, and compel designs to always show the latest version—unless these would-be helpful features were to be manually turned off. The implied goal that these design tools seem to have is to arrive at just one final copy with all discussions closed, probably because they inherited patterns from how written documents are collaboratively edited. That’s probably not the best way to approach design critiques, but even if I don’t want to be too prescriptive here: that could work for some teams.

The asynchronous design-critique approach that I find most effective is to create explicit checkpoints for discussion. I’m going to use the term iteration post for this. It refers to a write-up or presentation of the design iteration followed by a discussion thread of some kind. Any platform that can accommodate this structure can use this. By the way, when I refer to a “write-up or presentation,” I’m including video recordings or other media too: as long as it’s asynchronous, it works.

Using iteration posts has many advantages:

• It creates a rhythm in the design work so that the designer can review feedback from each iteration and prepare for the next.
• It makes decisions visible for future review, and conversations are likewise always available.
• It creates a record of how the design changed over time.
• Depending on the tool, it might also make it easier to collect feedback and act on it.

These posts of course don’t mean that no other feedback approach should be used, just that iteration posts could be the primary rhythm for a remote design team to use. And other feedback approaches (such as live critique, pair designing, or inline comments) can build from there.

I don’t think there’s a standard format for iteration posts. But there are a few high-level elements that make sense to include as a baseline:

1. The goal
2. The design
3. The list of changes
4. The questions

Each project is likely to have a goal, and hopefully it’s something that’s already been summarized in a single sentence somewhere else, such as the client brief, the product manager’s outline, or the project owner’s request. So this is something that I’d repeat in every iteration post—literally copy and pasting it. The idea is to provide context and to repeat what’s essential to make each iteration post complete so that there’s no need to find information spread across multiple posts. If I want to know about the latest design, the latest iteration post will have all that I need.

This copy-and-paste part introduces another relevant concept: alignment comes from repetition. So having posts that repeat information is actually very effective toward making sure that everyone is on the same page.

The design is then the actual series of information-architecture outlines, diagrams, flows, maps, wireframes, screens, visuals, and any other kind of design work that’s been done. In short, it’s any design artifact. For the final stages of work, I prefer the term blueprint to emphasize that I’ll be showing full flows instead of individual screens to make it easier to understand the bigger picture. 

It can also be useful to label the artifacts with clear titles because that can make it easier to refer to them. Write the post in a way that helps people understand the work. It’s not too different from organizing a good live presentation. 

For an efficient discussion, you should also include a bullet list of the changes from the previous iteration to let people focus on what’s new, which can be especially useful for larger pieces of work where keeping track, iteration after iteration, could become a challenge.

And finally, as noted earlier, it’s essential that you include a list of the questions to drive the design critique in the direction you want. Doing this as a numbered list can also help make it easier to refer to each question by its number.

Not all iterations are the same. Earlier iterations don’t need to be as tightly focused—they can be more exploratory and experimental, maybe even breaking some of the design-language guidelines to see what’s possible. Then later, the iterations start settling on a solution and refining it until the design process reaches its end and the feature ships.

I want to highlight that even if these iteration posts are written and conceived as checkpoints, by no means do they need to be exhaustive. A post might be a draft—just a concept to get a conversation going—or it could be a cumulative list of each feature that was added over the course of each iteration until the full picture is done.

Over time, I also started using specific labels for incremental iterations: i1, i2, i3, and so on. This might look like a minor labelling tip, but it can help in multiple ways:

• Unique—It’s a clear unique marker. Within each project, one can easily say, “This was discussed in i4,” and everyone knows where they can go to review things.
• Unassuming—It works like versions (such as v1, v2, and v3) but in contrast, versions create the impression of something that’s big, exhaustive, and complete. Iterations must be able to be exploratory, incomplete, partial.
• Future proof—It resolves the “final” naming problem that you can run into with versions. No more files named “final final complete no-really-its-done.” Within each project, the largest number always represents the latest iteration.

To mark when a design is complete enough to be worked on, even if there might be some bits still in need of attention and in turn more iterations needed, the wording release candidate (RC) could be used to describe it: “with i8, we reached RC” or “i12 is an RC.”

The review

What usually happens during a design critique is an open discussion, with a back and forth between people that can be very productive. This approach is particularly effective during live, synchronous feedback. But when we work asynchronously, it’s more effective to use a different approach: we can shift to a user-research mindset. Written feedback from teammates, stakeholders, or others can be treated as if it were the result of user interviews and surveys, and we can analyze it accordingly.

This shift has some major benefits that make asynchronous feedback particularly effective, especially around these friction points:

1. It removes the pressure to reply to everyone.
2. It reduces the frustration from swoop-by comments.
3. It lessens our personal stake.

The first friction point is feeling a pressure to reply to every single comment. Sometimes we write the iteration post, and we get replies from our team. It’s just a few of them, it’s easy, and it doesn’t feel like a problem. But other times, some solutions might require more in-depth discussions, and the amount of replies can quickly increase, which can create a tension between trying to be a good team player by replying to everyone and doing the next design iteration. This might be especially true if the person who’s replying is a stakeholder or someone directly involved in the project who we feel that we need to listen to. We need to accept that this pressure is absolutely normal, and it’s human nature to try to accommodate people who we care about. Sometimes replying to all comments can be effective, but if we treat a design critique more like user research, we realize that we don’t have to reply to every comment, and in asynchronous spaces, there are alternatives:

• One is to let the next iteration speak for itself. When the design evolves and we post a follow-up iteration, that’s the reply. You might tag all the people who were involved in the previous discussion, but even that’s a choice, not a requirement. 
• Another is to briefly reply to acknowledge each comment, such as “Understood. Thank you,” “Good points—I’ll review,” or “Thanks. I’ll include these in the next iteration.” In some cases, this could also be just a single top-level comment along the lines of “Thanks for all the feedback everyone—the next iteration is coming soon!”
• Another is to provide a quick summary of the comments before moving on. Depending on your workflow, this can be particularly useful as it can provide a simplified checklist that you can then use for the next iteration.

The second friction point is the swoop-by comment, which is the kind of feedback that comes from someone outside the project or team who might not be aware of the context, restrictions, decisions, or requirements—or of the previous iterations’ discussions. On their side, there’s something that one can hope that they might learn: they could start to acknowledge that they’re doing this and they could be more conscious in outlining where they’re coming from. Swoop-by comments often trigger the simple thought “We’ve already discussed this…”, and it can be frustrating to have to repeat the same reply over and over.

Let’s begin by acknowledging again that there’s no need to reply to every comment. If, however, replying to a previously litigated point might be useful, a short reply with a link to the previous discussion for extra details is usually enough. Remember, alignment comes from repetition, so it’s okay to repeat things sometimes!

Swoop-by commenting can still be useful for two reasons: they might point out something that still isn’t clear, and they also have the potential to stand in for the point of view of a user who’s seeing the design for the first time. Sure, you’ll still be frustrated, but that might at least help in dealing with it.

The third friction point is the personal stake we could have with the design, which could make us feel defensive if the review were to feel more like a discussion. Treating feedback as user research helps us create a healthy distance between the people giving us feedback and our ego (because yes, even if we don’t want to admit it, it’s there). And ultimately, treating everything in aggregated form allows us to better prioritize our work.

Always remember that while you need to listen to stakeholders, project owners, and specific advice, you don’t have to accept every piece of feedback. You have to analyze it and make a decision that you can justify, but sometimes “no” is the right answer. 

As the designer leading the project, you’re in charge of that decision. Ultimately, everyone has their specialty, and as the designer, you’re the one who has the most knowledge and the most context to make the right decision. And by listening to the feedback that you’ve received, you’re making sure that it’s also the best and most balanced decision.

Thanks to Brie Anne Demkiw and Mike Shelton for reviewing the first draft of this article.

I’m not sure when I first heard this quote, but it’s something that has stayed with me over the years. How do you create services for situations you can’t imagine? Or design products that work on devices yet to be invented?

Flash, Photoshop, and responsive design

When I first started designing websites, my go-to software was Photoshop. I created a 960px canvas and set about creating a layout that I would later drop content in. The development phase was about attaining pixel-perfect accuracy using fixed widths, fixed heights, and absolute positioning.

Ethan Marcotte’s talk at An Event Apart and subsequent article “Responsive Web Design” in A List Apart in 2010 changed all this. I was sold on responsive design as soon as I heard about it, but I was also terrified. The pixel-perfect designs full of magic numbers that I had previously prided myself on producing were no longer good enough.

The fear wasn’t helped by my first experience with responsive design. My first project was to take an existing fixed-width website and make it responsive. What I learned the hard way was that you can’t just add responsiveness at the end of a project. To create fluid layouts, you need to plan throughout the design phase.

A new way to design

Designing responsive or fluid sites has always been about removing limitations, producing content that can be viewed on any device. It relies on the use of percentage-based layouts, which I initially achieved with native CSS and utility classes:

.column-span-6 {
  width: 49%;
  float: left;
  margin-right: 0.5%;
  margin-left: 0.5%;
}


.column-span-4 {
  width: 32%;
  float: left;
  margin-right: 0.5%;
  margin-left: 0.5%;
}

.column-span-3 {
  width: 24%;
  float: left;
  margin-right: 0.5%;
  margin-left: 0.5%;
}

Then with Sass so I could take advantage of @includes to re-use repeated blocks of code and move back to more semantic markup:

.logo {
  @include colSpan(6);
}

.search {
  @include colSpan(3);
}

.social-share {
  @include colSpan(3);
}

Media queries

The second ingredient for responsive design is media queries. Without them, content would shrink to fit the available space regardless of whether that content remained readable (The exact opposite problem occurred with the introduction of a mobile-first approach).

Media queries prevented this by allowing us to add breakpoints where the design could adapt. Like most people, I started out with three breakpoints: one for desktop, one for tablets, and one for mobile. Over the years, I added more and more for phablets, wide screens, and so on. 

For years, I happily worked this way and improved both my design and front-end skills in the process. The only problem I encountered was making changes to content, since with our Sass grid system in place, there was no way for the site owners to add content without amending the markup—something a small business owner might struggle with. This is because each row in the grid was defined using a div as a container. Adding content meant creating new row markup, which requires a level of HTML knowledge.

Row markup was a staple of early responsive design, present in all the widely used frameworks like Bootstrap and Skeleton.

  
1 of 7
  
2 of 7
  
3 of 7



  
4 of 7
  
5 of 7
  
6 of 7



  
7 of 7

Another problem arose as I moved from a design agency building websites for small- to medium-sized businesses, to larger in-house teams where I worked across a suite of related sites. In those roles I started to work much more with reusable components. 

Our reliance on media queries resulted in components that were tied to common viewport sizes. If the goal of component libraries is reuse, then this is a real problem because you can only use these components if the devices you’re designing for correspond to the viewport sizes used in the pattern library—in the process not really hitting that “devices that don’t yet exist”  goal.

Then there’s the problem of space. Media queries allow components to adapt based on the viewport size, but what if I put a component into a sidebar, like in the figure below?

Container queries: our savior or a false dawn?

Container queries have long been touted as an improvement upon media queries, but at the time of writing are unsupported in most browsers. There are JavaScript workarounds, but they can create dependency and compatibility issues. The basic theory underlying container queries is that elements should change based on the size of their parent container and not the viewport width, as seen in the following illustrations.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of container queries is that they help us create components or design patterns that are truly reusable because they can be picked up and placed anywhere in a layout. This is an important step in moving toward a form of component-based design that works at any size on any device.

In other words, responsive components to replace responsive layouts.

Container queries will help us move from designing pages that respond to the browser or device size to designing components that can be placed in a sidebar or in the main content, and respond accordingly.

My concern is that we are still using layout to determine when a design needs to adapt. This approach will always be restrictive, as we will still need pre-defined breakpoints. For this reason, my main question with container queries is, How would we decide when to change the CSS used by a component? 

A component library removed from context and real content is probably not the best place for that decision. 

As the diagrams below illustrate, we can use container queries to create designs for specific container widths, but what if I want to change the design based on the image size or ratio?

In this example, the dimensions of the container are not what should dictate the design; rather, the image is.

It’s hard to say for sure whether container queries will be a success story until we have solid cross-browser support for them. Responsive component libraries would definitely evolve how we design and would improve the possibilities for reuse and design at scale. But maybe we will always need to adjust these components to suit our content.

CSS is changing

Whilst the container query debate rumbles on, there have been numerous advances in CSS that change the way we think about design. The days of fixed-width elements measured in pixels and floated div elements used to cobble layouts together are long gone, consigned to history along with table layouts. Flexbox and CSS Grid have revolutionized layouts for the web. We can now create elements that wrap onto new rows when they run out of space, not when the device changes.

.wrapper {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, 450px);
  gap: 10px;
}

The repeat() function paired with auto-fit or auto-fill allows us to specify how much space each column should use while leaving it up to the browser to decide when to spill the columns onto a new line. Similar things can be achieved with Flexbox, as elements can wrap over multiple rows and “flex” to fill available space. 

.wrapper {
  display: flex;
  flex-wrap: wrap;
  justify-content: space-between;
}

.child {
  flex-basis: 32%;
  margin-bottom: 20px;
}

The biggest benefit of all this is you don’t need to wrap elements in container rows. Without rows, content isn’t tied to page markup in quite the same way, allowing for removals or additions of content without additional development.

This is a big step forward when it comes to creating designs that allow for evolving content, but the real game changer for flexible designs is CSS Subgrid. 

Remember the days of crafting perfectly aligned interfaces, only for the customer to add an unbelievably long header almost as soon as they’re given CMS access, like the illustration below?

Subgrid allows elements to respond to adjustments in their own content and in the content of sibling elements, helping us create designs more resilient to change.

.wrapper {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(150px, 1fr));
     grid-template-rows: auto 1fr auto;
  gap: 10px;
}

.sub-grid {
  display: grid;
  grid-row: span 3;
  grid-template-rows: subgrid; /* sets rows to parent grid */
}

CSS Grid allows us to separate layout and content, thereby enabling flexible designs. Meanwhile, Subgrid allows us to create designs that can adapt in order to suit morphing content. Subgrid at the time of writing is only supported in Firefox but the above code can be implemented behind an @supports feature query. 

Intrinsic layouts 

I’d be remiss not to mention intrinsic layouts, the term created by Jen Simmons to describe a mixture of new and old CSS features used to create layouts that respond to available space. 

Responsive layouts have flexible columns using percentages. Intrinsic layouts, on the other hand, use the fr unit to create flexible columns that won’t ever shrink so much that they render the content illegible.

fr units is a way to say I want you to distribute the extra space in this way, but…don’t ever make it smaller than the content that’s inside of it.

—Jen Simmons, “Designing Intrinsic Layouts”

Intrinsic layouts can also utilize a mixture of fixed and flexible units, allowing the content to dictate the space it takes up.

What makes intrinsic design stand out is that it not only creates designs that can withstand future devices but also helps scale design without losing flexibility. Components and patterns can be lifted and reused without the prerequisite of having the same breakpoints or the same amount of content as in the previous implementation. 

We can now create designs that adapt to the space they have, the content within them, and the content around them. With an intrinsic approach, we can construct responsive components without depending on container queries.

Another 2010 moment?

This intrinsic approach should in my view be every bit as groundbreaking as responsive web design was ten years ago. For me, it’s another “everything changed” moment. 

But it doesn’t seem to be moving quite as fast; I haven’t yet had that same career-changing moment I had with responsive design, despite the widely shared and brilliant talk that brought it to my attention. 

One reason for that could be that I now work in a large organization, which is quite different from the design agency role I had in 2010. In my agency days, every new project was a clean slate, a chance to try something new. Nowadays, projects use existing tools and frameworks and are often improvements to existing websites with an existing codebase. 

Another could be that I feel more prepared for change now. In 2010 I was new to design in general; the shift was frightening and required a lot of learning. Also, an intrinsic approach isn’t exactly all-new; it’s about using existing skills and existing CSS knowledge in a different way. 

You can’t framework your way out of a content problem

Another reason for the slightly slower adoption of intrinsic design could be the lack of quick-fix framework solutions available to kick-start the change. 

Responsive grid systems were all over the place ten years ago. With a framework like Bootstrap or Skeleton, you had a responsive design template at your fingertips.

Intrinsic design and frameworks do not go hand in hand quite so well because the benefit of having a selection of units is a hindrance when it comes to creating layout templates. The beauty of intrinsic design is combining different units and experimenting with techniques to get the best for your content.

And then there are design tools. We probably all, at some point in our careers, used Photoshop templates for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices to drop designs in and show how the site would look at all three stages.

How do you do that now, with each component responding to content and layouts flexing as and when they need to? This type of design must happen in the browser, which personally I’m a big fan of. 

The debate about “whether designers should code” is another that has rumbled on for years. When designing a digital product, we should, at the very least, design for a best- and worst-case scenario when it comes to content. To do this in a graphics-based software package is far from ideal. In code, we can add longer sentences, more radio buttons, and extra tabs, and watch in real time as the design adapts. Does it still work? Is the design too reliant on the current content?

Personally, I look forward to the day intrinsic design is the standard for design, when a design component can be truly flexible and adapt to both its space and content with no reliance on device or container dimensions.

Content first 

Content is not constant. After all, to design for the unknown or unexpected we need to account for content changes like our earlier Subgrid card example that allowed the cards to respond to adjustments to their own content and the content of sibling elements.

Thankfully, there’s more to CSS than layout, and plenty of properties and values can help us put content first. Subgrid and pseudo-elements like ::first-line and ::first-letter help to separate design from markup so we can create designs that allow for changes.

Instead of old markup hacks like this—

  First line of text with different styling...

—we can target content based on where it appears.

.element::first-line {
  font-size: 1.4em;
}

.element::first-letter {
  color: red;
}

Much bigger additions to CSS include logical properties, which change the way we construct designs using logical dimensions (start and end) instead of physical ones (left and right), something CSS Grid also does with functions like min(), max(), and clamp().

This flexibility allows for directional changes according to content, a common requirement when we need to present content in multiple languages. In the past, this was often achieved with Sass mixins but was often limited to switching from left-to-right to right-to-left orientation.

In the Sass version, directional variables need to be set.

$direction: rtl;
$opposite-direction: ltr;

$start-direction: right;
$end-direction: left;

These variables can be used as values—

body {
  direction: $direction;
  text-align: $start-direction;
}

—or as properties.

margin-#{$end-direction}: 10px;
padding-#{$start-direction}: 10px;

However, now we have native logical properties, removing the reliance on both Sass (or a similar tool) and pre-planning that necessitated using variables throughout a codebase. These properties also start to break apart the tight coupling between a design and strict physical dimensions, creating more flexibility for changes in language and in direction.

margin-block-end: 10px;
padding-block-start: 10px;

There are also native start and end values for properties like text-align, which means we can replace text-align: right with text-align: start.

Like the earlier examples, these properties help to build out designs that aren’t constrained to one language; the design will reflect the content’s needs.

Fixed and fluid 

We briefly covered the power of combining fixed widths with fluid widths with intrinsic layouts. The min() and max() functions are a similar concept, allowing you to specify a fixed value with a flexible alternative. 

For min() this means setting a fluid minimum value and a maximum fixed value.

.element {
  width: min(50%, 300px);
}

The element in the figure above will be 50% of its container as long as the element’s width doesn’t exceed 300px.

For max() we can set a flexible max value and a minimum fixed value.

.element {
  width: max(50%, 300px);
}

Now the element will be 50% of its container as long as the element’s width is at least 300px. This means we can set limits but allow content to react to the available space. 

The clamp() function builds on this by allowing us to set a preferred value with a third parameter. Now we can allow the element to shrink or grow if it needs to without getting to a point where it becomes unusable.

.element {
  width: clamp(300px, 50%, 600px);
}

This time, the element’s width will be 50% (the preferred value) of its container but never less than 300px and never more than 600px.

With these techniques, we have a content-first approach to responsive design. We can separate content from markup, meaning the changes users make will not affect the design. We can start to future-proof designs by planning for unexpected changes in language or direction. And we can increase flexibility by setting desired dimensions alongside flexible alternatives, allowing for more or less content to be displayed correctly.

Situation first

Thanks to what we’ve discussed so far, we can cover device flexibility by changing our approach, designing around content and space instead of catering to devices. But what about that last bit of Jeffrey Zeldman’s quote, “…situations you haven’t imagined”?

It’s a very different thing to design for someone seated at a desktop computer as opposed to someone using a mobile phone and moving through a crowded street in glaring sunshine. Situations and environments are hard to plan for or predict because they change as people react to their own unique challenges and tasks.

This is why choice is so important. One size never fits all, so we need to design for multiple scenarios to create equal experiences for all our users.

Thankfully, there is a lot we can do to provide choice.

Responsible design 

“There are parts of the world where mobile data is prohibitively expensive, and where there is little or no broadband infrastructure.”

“I Used the Web for a Day on a 50 MB Budget”

Chris Ashton

One of the biggest assumptions we make is that people interacting with our designs have a good wifi connection and a wide screen monitor. But in the real world, our users may be commuters traveling on trains or other forms of transport using smaller mobile devices that can experience drops in connectivity. There is nothing more frustrating than a web page that won’t load, but there are ways we can help users use less data or deal with sporadic connectivity.

The srcset attribute allows the browser to decide which image to serve. This means we can create smaller ‘cropped’ images to display on mobile devices in turn using less bandwidth and less data.

The preload attribute can also help us to think about how and when media is downloaded. It can be used to tell a browser about any critical assets that need to be downloaded with high priority, improving perceived performance and the user experience. 

There’s also native lazy loading, which indicates assets that should only be downloaded when they are needed.

With srcset, preload, and lazy loading, we can start to tailor a user’s experience based on the situation they find themselves in. What none of this does, however, is allow the user themselves to decide what they want downloaded, as the decision is usually the browser’s to make. 

So how can we put users in control?

The return of media queries 

Media queries have always been about much more than device sizes. They allow content to adapt to different situations, with screen size being just one of them.

We’ve long been able to check for media types like print and speech and features such as hover, resolution, and color. These checks allow us to provide options that suit more than one scenario; it’s less about one-size-fits-all and more about serving adaptable content. 

As of this writing, the Media Queries Level 5 spec is still under development. It introduces some really exciting queries that in the future will help us design for multiple other unexpected situations.

For example, there’s a light-level feature that allows you to modify styles if a user is in sunlight or darkness. Paired with custom properties, these features allow us to quickly create designs or themes for specific environments.

@media (light-level: normal) {
  --background-color: #fff;
  --text-color: #0b0c0c;  
}

@media (light-level: dim) {
  --background-color: #efd226;
  --text-color: #0b0c0c;
}

Another key feature of the Level 5 spec is personalization. Instead of creating designs that are the same for everyone, users can choose what works for them. This is achieved by using features like prefers-reduced-data, prefers-color-scheme, and prefers-reduced-motion, the latter two of which already enjoy broad browser support. These features tap into preferences set via the operating system or browser so people don’t have to spend time making each site they visit more usable. 

Media queries like this go beyond choices made by a browser to grant more control to the user.

Expect the unexpected

In the end, the one thing we should always expect is for things to change. Devices in particular change faster than we can keep up, with foldable screens already on the market.

We can’t design the same way we have for this ever-changing landscape, but we can design for content. By putting content first and allowing that content to adapt to whatever space surrounds it, we can create more robust, flexible designs that increase the longevity of our products. 

A lot of the CSS discussed here is about moving away from layouts and putting content at the heart of design. From responsive components to fixed and fluid units, there is so much more we can do to take a more intrinsic approach. Even better, we can test these techniques during the design phase by designing in-browser and watching how our designs adapt in real-time.

When it comes to unexpected situations, we need to make sure our products are usable when people need them, whenever and wherever that might be. We can move closer to achieving this by involving users in our design decisions, by creating choice via browsers, and by giving control to our users with user-preference-based media queries. 

Good design for the unexpected should allow for change, provide choice, and give control to those we serve: our users themselves.