Don't
Get
the
Wrong
Idea

I’m Thom Hines — a UX designer, developer, and professor who’s spent 20+ years building digital tools and teaching people how to design them well.

I design interfaces that work exactly the way people expect — plus a few details they didn’t know they were hoping for. I’m most interested in spaces where complexity meets real human stakes: education, productivity, creative tools, and systems that quietly shape how people live their days. At the end of the day, the only thing I really care about is whether something makes sense to the person using it.

Alongside client work, I’m a tenured professor of Interaction Design at Portland State University, where I teach UI, UX, motion design, creative coding, and design thinking. Teaching keeps my practice sharp: every week I watch new designers struggle, adapt, misunderstand, and ultimately create brilliant moments of design. Dang, it’s nice to work with such talented students.

I run Don’t Get the Wrong Idea as a small, ocused studio for teams who care about building things that feel clear, humane, and genuinely nice to use. Over the years, I’ve worked with clients both large and small — from early-stage ideas to mature products — and I’m most excited by thoughtful people with a strong point of view and a desire to make something genuinely better. I’m equally comfortable sketching concepts, running UX explorations, designing interfaces, and writing production-level code — but I always start with the human problem first.

If you’re trying to make something clear, useful, and human, let’s talk.