Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Eva Decker, a design engineer and generalist web maker. I've been building things to live on the internet since I was a teenager. I currently lead design engineering at Scribe, and previously I've worked as a product designer at Cityblock, Dropbox, and Swiftype. I enjoy bridging the gaps between design and front-end engineering and I've spent a fair amount of time building design systems in and out of healthcare. I care deeply about building accessible technology that respects peoples' attention and energy, and I love to spend time polishing the little details and exploring alternative ways to design and build. I get a lot of inspiration from video games.
When I'm not looking at screens, I enjoy hiking, biking, playing piano, and attending Brooklyn queer events.
What hardware do you use?
I use a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro. I bought my first Mac in high school with money from a summer job and I've never looked back. macOS is a phenomenal operating system and I couldn't fathom ever going back to Windows.
I also have an iPhone... 12? I think? I stopped being able to keep count after the iPhone 4. It's the one with the notch on the top, but before the dynamic island. I will use this phone until I inevitably crack its screen, and maybe even beyond then. I don't think people should buy a new phone every year. It's wasteful and expensive.
Last year I bought myself an Apple Studio Display, which cost a pretty penny, but—considering how much time I spend staring at it—was worth it. Display is topped with the BenQ ScreenBar monitor light for good desktop lighting on my UPLIFT standing desk.
I tried switching to a cute mechanical keyboard last year, but the higher key travel rendered me completely unable to type a full sentence without making typos, so I regretfully and with some amount of shame returned to using my Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. I do miss using the adorable keycaps I bought, so maybe I'll give it another go some day.
I have a used Steelcase Gesture ergonomic chair from Craigslist and fitted it with hardwood-friendly and super-silent rollerblade chair wheels.
For sketching I use a Midori MD dot grid notebook. The paper texture and quality is just perfect. Mine lives in a cute slip cover that I've plastered with stickers.
And what software?
For design, I use Figma and, less frequently, Photoshop (although I'm looking to abandon Adobe). I find and organize inspiration on Are.na.
For code, I use VS Code (but keeping an eye on Zed), Warp (Rust-based terminal), Polypane (the browser for web developers!), and, of course, GitHub. I deploy most of my personal sites with Vercel, and my favorite frameworks right now are Astro and SvelteKit.
Other notable tools include Fathom for privacy-friendly analytics, Buttondown for newsletters, Discord for chatting with various web communities, ImprovMX for email forwarding, and Day One for journaling. Phew!
What would be your dream setup?
Email does not exist. I am surrounded by trees and no screens. I “design” (plant) “UI/UX” (fruits and vegetables) for “users” (me and my lovers). We have phenomenal ROI.