I did some searching and I'm not sure the answer you remember exists. All I can find after a bunch of keyword + date-restricted searches in Google, Quora, & HN

I did some searching and I'm not sure the answer you remember exists. All I can find after a bunch of keyword + date-restricted searches in Google, Quora, & HN is Ibrahim Bashir (https://www.quora.com/Who-designed-UI-UX-and-developed-the-website-for-McMaster-Carr-mcmaster-com https://www.quora.com/Who-designed-UI-UX-and-developed-the-w...) who worked there 2003-2005 (https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-work-for-McMaster-Carr?topAns=5397568 https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-work-for-McMaster-Carr...) and who writes: > McMaster-Carr has a Systems department which handles internal software development, including the website. I actually worked on a lot of the front-end functionality (among other things) during my tenure there and we had 1 person who was essentially the UX lead (I'm sure the team / function has expanded since then). > > The design philosophy for the website was heavily influence by Edward Tufte and myself and several folks from my engineering team were enrolled in his course to familiarize ourselves with key concepts. > > When I interviewed with McMaster-Carr I distinctly remember a Director who told me about building the first version of the website himself and not realizing it would become "a real thing" one day. I cannot for the life of me remember his name, but he was a sharp guy and I'm sure he's off doing great things. We walked into work one Monday morning, and his desk was empty and his whiteboard said "poof". Given the timing and his description of what he did, it seems unlikely any other McMaster-Carr insider would have been writing about it, and this has to be what you are remembering, if anything. (And https://iacollaborative.com/work/mcmaster-carr/ https://iacollaborative.com/work/mcmaster-carr/ seems useless here.)