Work Abroad.
Stories from living & working abroad, lessons learned the hard way.
Břetislav Mazoch, UX Designer: I Want to Work on Projects That Make Sense and Are Useful to People
From England and Prague to Barcelona, life abroad accelerated my UX career. Interview with Senior UX Designer.
My Path to a UI Designer Job in England — Part 1: Where to Find Motivation and How to Choose a Location
My Path to a UI Designer Job in England — Part 2: A Rough Start and How to Kick Off Life in England
My Path to a UI Designer Job in England — Part 3: How to Land a Qualified Position as Quickly as Possible
My Path to a UI Designer Job in England — Part 4: My 15 Tips to Increase Your Chances on the Job Market
My Path to a UI Designer Job in England — Part 5: Working in an English Company as a Czech Designer
UX Design.
Notes about design process, practical tips, and more.
A Must for All Complex User-facing Digital Products — UI Style Guide
How to make your product’s user interface highly consistent…
5 Essential Elements of a UI Designer
What I Learned in My First Year as a UI Designer at a Software Company…
10 Handy Chrome Tools Supporting Work of UI/UX Designers
A selection of Google Chrome tools which I use in my design and development workflow…
My 5 Usability and UX Insights from WebExpo to Design Better Products
UX Design | UI Design | Usability (WebExpo 2017)
Ahoy, UX sailors! A day full of UX design workshops in Bristol’s harbour
UX Design | UX Techniques | UX Good Practices (UX Bristol 2017)
6 Inspiring Design Talks & Other Memories from a Web Conference in Prague
Designing systems | Design sprint | UI animations (WebExpo 2016)
Fishing for UX Design Thoughts at the Aquarium and Design Conference in Bristol
UX | Design | Information Architecture (Collaborate Conf 2016)
Barcelona Weeknotes.
Weekly notes on UX and my life in Barcelona. An online journal to reflect, share progress on my side-projects (including AI experiments), and capture travels around Spain & other stories.
Back to Blogging, UX Growth & Bits from Personal Life | Barcelona Weeknotes 1
AI tooling (Antigravity, Pencil.dev, Webflow AI). NN/g hiring insights, UX leadership inspiration, and the best Figma plugins. Followed by trail runs in Sant Cugat del Vallès, and thoughts on balancing newborn care with professional growth.
A Tech Community Vision with Strategy, Visual Experiments & Half Marathon | Barcelona Weeknotes 2
Kicked off work on a community portal for Czech-Slovak tech professionals in Barcelona, incorporating AI into every UX design process stage. This week created the project vision and strategy (Lean Canvas, Proto-personas, Roadmap), played with generating a draft design system, and did some other visual experiments. Lastly, finished a race in our town: the Sant Cugat del Vallès half marathon (1:34:13).
The 14th Czech-Slovak Tech Meetup, UX Job Beyond Screens & Forests Reopening | Barcelona Weeknotes 3
Hosted our 14th Czech-Slovak meetup for tech professionals living in Barcelona: Czech beer on tap, Czech food, and lively conversations. Went deep on AI topics (AI agents, AX a.k.a. Agent Experience, and AI-ready design systems) and a bit speculated about moving into some other field beyond screens. Lastly, took my wife & our newborn into the recently reopened forests, but turned back halfway to save the stroller from mud and a flooded stream.
A Tech Community Questionnaire, AI vs Humans & Skimo Escape to Pyrenees | Barcelona Weeknotes 4
I’m moving our Czech-Slovak Tech Community in Barcelona into the research phase, starting with a questionnaire (interviews later). It took a bit longer than expected to get the questions right and build it in Google Forms, but it’s done and I’m looking forward for the results. Meanwhile, I keep tracking AI-era shifts (agents’ forum, SaaS impact, job-market changes). And to reset my mind, I took a day off from being online and went backcountry ski touring in the Pyrenees. It was an incredible day.
Manage Agents not Prompts, Shocking Robots & Back from Parental Leave | Barcelona Weeknotes 5
Good refresher week on some AI fundamentals such as that managing agents matters more than polished prompts, the web has changed how people find information, and that context-window size is a key parameter when working with AI. Then I got pulled in by a few exciting (and slightly scary) videos about robots/humanoids, and updated our tech community questionnaire based on feedback from the draft run. My first week back at work after parental leave. Mentally energized, physically challenged by the baby’s night wake-ups. It is what it is, let’s go!
AI Swarms, UX Lead Buddy Substitution & a 4 kg Milestone | Barcelona Weeknotes 6
AI swarms are a hot topic, and I’m curious about how not to drown in them as a designer/developer. Career-wise, I’ve realized I miss having a local UX mentor, and I’m partly filling that gap with UX and tech podcasts, but I still get flashbacks to my years in Prague working with my former UX lead buddy. Great memories! Life-wise, making progress on side projects after work is really almost impossible with a baby, but big wins at home: little L is smiling more, moving more, and hit 4 kg (from 983 g… wild).
Tech Community Survey Insights, AI-Powered Research & Mountain Runs | Barcelona Weeknotes 7
I’ve been processing the results of our Czech-Slovak Tech Community survey in Barcelona, and it gave me a much clearer picture of what members value most: feeling at home, practical support, and more varied formats beyond casual beer meetups. AI helped me to accelerate research by Google Forms summaries and Gemini-assisted analysis turning scattered inputs into a usable set of priorities. Life-wise, spring is back, my regular runs are getting better and better, but Collserola Natural Park (my favorite place) got closed again because of African swine fever, and that sent me straight to Montserrat for a much-needed mountain escape.
The First Tech Walk, Vibe Coding AI Workflows & Slowing Down to Recover | Barcelona Weeknotes 8
AI keeps accelerating, bringing that mix of excitement and slight overwhelm. From “vibe coding” experiments and AI-first design workflows to local AI setups and autonomous agents. It’s clear the cost of building is dropping fast and the role of designers is shifting towards managing systems. At the same time, I kicked off our first Barcelona Tech Walk with the Czech-Slovak Tech Community, taking networking out of bars and into nature. At work, I’ve been reflecting on growth goals, ownership, and how to adapt our UX practices to this new reality. And last week I also intentionally slowed down from training and did a simple family walk as a reminder that progress also needs recovery.
Mentoring a Career Switch, Tips for Junior Designers & Baby Travel Lessons | Barcelona Weeknotes 9
Last week I found myself mentoring a friend who is switching into front-end development while still on maternity leave, which made me reflect on how different starting in tech looks today. We explored fast AI workflows, going from Figma to working HTML prototypes in minutes, reinforcing that structured thinking, research, and iteration matter more than ever. I also came across strong takes on UX, AI, and the shifting job market, confirming that communication, adaptability, and selling ideas are becoming core skills. Life-wise, our first bigger trip with baby L during Easter was far from relaxing, but a good learning experience for other upcoming trips.
The 15th Tech Meetup, AI Generalists with People Skills & A Few Life Wins | Barcelona Weeknotes 10
We hosted the 15th Czech-Slovak Tech Meetup in Barcelona, and for the first time it ran even without me, which felt like a solid milestone for the community. Then thanks to a few recent podcasts, I’ve also been thinking about how AI is shifting product work bottlenecks from execution to planning, taste, reviews, orchestration, and maybe even how we make people around us feel. And in regular life, a few small but meaningful wins: my first 10 km run with little L in the stroller, and my parents visiting us in Barcelona for the first time to finally meet their granddaughter.
Contact
Seeking someone with my skill set? I'm especially passionate about projects in healthcare, smart technologies, and project management.
Contact me at → bretislav.mazoch@gmail.com or LinkedIn