Digging into Erica Stoll’s Stuff
So, the other day, we were stuck on this user interface thing. You know how it is, you stare at the same screen for hours, move a button here, change a color there, and it still feels… off. Just wasn’t clicking.
My buddy, Dave, leans over and goes, “Hey, ever check out Erica Stoll’s approach to this kind of layout?” Honestly, the name rang a faint bell, but I couldn’t place it exactly. Sounded familiar, maybe from a conference talk or an article I skimmed ages ago.
Time for a deep dive. I put the kettle on, grabbed my notebook, and just started searching around, looking for anything related to her work on layouts, specifically for the kind of data-heavy dashboard we were wrestling with. Took a while, sifting through bits and pieces online, some presentation slides here, a couple of mentions there. Not always straightforward finding practical examples, you know?
Found some mockups eventually, looked like concept work mostly. What struck me was the way she handled information density. It wasn’t about cramming everything in; it was more about prioritization.
- First, I saw she used spacing really deliberately. Lots of white space, more than we dared to use.
- Second, the visual hierarchy was super clear. You knew exactly where to look first, second, third.
- Third, color was used sparingly, mostly for status indicators or calls to action, not just decoration.
We didn’t just copy it wholesale, obviously. That never works. But seeing her take on it definitely broke us out of our rut. We started sketching again, focusing on that clarity and hierarchy idea. Tried throwing out some elements we thought were essential but maybe weren’t. Stripped it back.
The result? Still working on it, it’s never instant. But it feels like we’re on a better path now. Sometimes you just need to see how someone else tackled a similar headache to get your own brain moving again. That little bit of research, just digging into how Erica Stoll approached things, it gave us that nudge. Simple as that, really. Just looking at a different perspective.
