Julia Norton
I build tools across product, dev, and design.
I work across technology, software, systems, and digital transformation, with a background spanning psychology, business, and hands-on technical work.
The Runner
A geometric take on the classic offline T-Rex runner, rebuilt with custom characters, biomes, powerups, and increasingly questionable speeds.
Runner Experience
Leap across obstacles, grab rare powerups, and customize your runner.
Selected Work
Object oriented notepad
An object-oriented notepad with several ways into the same document
A notepad that brings structured blocks, Markdown editing, a rendered preview, and JSON inspection into one workspace, with a small command interface for changing the document.
Unified
Design, component data, and specification connected through one model
Four synchronized panels connect a component's design, editable React/JSX, specification, and architecture. Edit any panel and watch the shared model update the others.
Spatial Canvas Engine
A visual node editor with an animated canvas preview
An interactive graph prototype for arranging nodes, connecting ports, and exploring preset visual systems. A Canvas 2D preview illustrates selected graph states alongside an editable parameter inspector.
Dopamine Tasks
Turning everyday tasks into visible game progress
A playable task manager that turns completed chores and work into XP, coins, and boss damage. Custom quests, short sprints, and collectible rewards explore a more playful way to show progress.
Looking for the rest?
Browse all 6 projects, including software, systems, tools, prototypes, and technical experiments.
Ideas
Writing on technology, systems, organizations, psychology, and the ways people interact with all of them.
Understanding Risk Aversion and Why We Fear Failure
Risk aversion is often treated as an immutable personality trait. In reality, it is frequently a rational response to the system, incentives, and transparency people operate within.
Cognitive Reappraisal: How Teams Manage Stress Better
Cognitive reappraisal involves reconsidering what a difficult situation means. At work, it can help people examine assumptions and choose a response, provided it remains grounded in evidence and does not disguise problems that need changing.
Cloud Security and the Human Decisions Behind It
Cloud security depends on the decisions people can realistically make under pressure. Authentication, access controls, and reporting processes need to account for interruptions, uncertainty, and the ordinary demands of getting work done.
Guiding Philosophy
Good technology makes complexity easier to understand. I design systems around how people actually think, work, make decisions, and adapt when things change.
Build What's Missing
Most of my projects started as a gap
A lot of what I've built exists because the tool I wanted didn't. A calculator that didn't exist yet. A PDF workflow that should have supported more languages. A way to move between code and spec without losing either.
"If the tool doesn't exist yet, that's usually where the project starts."
Work Across Domains
Psychology and business shape how I engineer
My background isn't purely technical. It includes psychology and an MBA in digital transformation. I use all of it when building: how people actually think and decide shapes how my systems work, as well as how they look.
"The interesting problems are usually the ones that sit between disciplines."
Ship, Then Refine
Working prototypes over long plans
I'd rather have something real and imperfect than a polished plan that never becomes software. Most of what I've built started rough and got better through use.
"A working version teaches you more than a perfect spec ever will."
Understand Before Replacing
Old systems usually know something
Legacy code is often the most complete record of how a business really works. Before changing a system, I want to know why it ended up the way it did. Work like translating between COBOL and specifications starts with reading what's already there.
"Every odd rule in an old system was someone's answer to a real problem."
How I Work
- Understand the problem before choosing the technology
- Connect technical decisions to business priorities
- Keep the wider system in view
- Design for the people who will actually use it
- Treat errors and bugs as information about the system
Thinking Beyond the Technology
I’m interested in how technology decisions shape organisations: what gets built, what gets changed, where investment is worthwhile, and how individual systems contribute to something larger.
My background spans psychology, business, digital transformation, and software development. I have an MBA in digital transformation, alongside hands-on experience building software and technical systems. It means I tend to approach technology from several levels at once: the technical reality, the people using it, the business need, and the longer-term implications of the decisions being made.
That thinking carries through to the things I build. My work has included developer tooling, legacy modernisation, applied AI, document software, and large-scale web applications. I’ve worked on problems ranging from translating between COBOL and specifications to building multilingual software and tools used to structure large amounts of information.
I’m particularly drawn to problems that sit above any single application or technology. Architecture, interoperability, legacy systems, information flow, technical direction, and the decisions that connect technology investment to organisational goals are where my interests increasingly converge.
I like understanding enough of the detail to challenge assumptions, enough of the business to know which problems matter, and enough of the wider system to make decisions that still make sense beyond the immediate project.
Get in touch
I'm interested in how systems fit together, how technology decisions get made, and what could work better. That's what I spend a lot of my time building and writing about here.
If something here connects with what you're working on, or you have a question about a project or a piece of writing, I'd be glad to hear from you.
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