2022 was supposed to be the year we got back to "normal" but like anything in life, things don't go as planned. In the tech industry, we went from having a strong job market to massive layoffs due to the lack of profitability, high inflation and interest rates. Usually the combination of these three will result in a recession; which means we have more tough times ahead. I don't want to make speculations on how long it will last but I'm adopting a Stoic mindset and will only be focusing on the things I can control. With that out the way, lets get into what I accomplished in 2022:
One of my top goals for 2022 was to start a podcast. I had no idea how start a podcast but I knew I wanted it to focus on the interaction between design and code. I partnered with Kelly Harrop to create Code and Pixels and we release 8 episodes (5 included guests) this year 🎉. It has been a new learning experience for both of us but after a year in, we seem to be finding our stride by implementing systems and processes. We are excited for how we can improve the quality in 2023.
I left my job at MailChimp this year, which was a hard move for me since I worked with some great people. After years of hard work and dedication, the design system was at a very mature state but with the Intuit acquisition, I wanted a new challenge where I can work on design systems at a smaller company and I landed at Plaid. It has been one of the most challenging work I have ever encounter but growth only happens in a place of discomfort and uncertainty. Maybe when I'm done, it could be good content for a conference presentation 😉.
In 2022 I only spoke at <span class="text-highlight">2 conferences</span> and <span class="text-highlight">1 meetup</span>. It was hard to do more due to juggling a new job, multiple consulting projects, design token working group, podcasting and among other things. I did attend a travel conference and Clarity in person this year which was fun. Virtual conferences are great since they are accessible to folks all around the world but there is nothing like eating food at 2am with some cool and interesting people.
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/clarity-2022-dinner.png" caption={<div> Late night shenanigans in New Orleans. <br/> <br/> Credit: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=clarityconf&set=a.3348165088729292" rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer' target='_blank'>ClarityConf</a> </div>} width={768} height={1365} layout="cluster" /> <MediaCaption src="/images/blog/clarity-2022-bar.png" caption={<div> Late night shenanigans in New Orleans. <br/> <br/> Credit: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=clarityconf&set=a.3348165088729292" rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer' target='_blank'>ClarityConf</a> </div>} width={1365} height={768} layout="cluster" /> <MediaCaption src="/images/blog/clarity-2022-dtcg.png" caption={<div> Hanging out with fellow DTCG editors. <br/> <br/> Credit: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=clarityconf&set=a.3348165088729292" rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer' target='_blank'>ClarityConf</a> </div>} width={682} height={455} layout="cluster" />
I started doing community office each month for folks who are interested in design systems or design engineering and it has been a great experience. Nothing feels better than helping folks in their career and using my experiences to push them to the next level. If I didn't have to worry about money, I wouldn't mind doing mentorship and coaching part-time for free.
Work/life balance was the worst I've ever experienced. Usually with a new job you tend to work longer hours for the first 6 months before it balances out but this wasn't the case. Moving forward I will be more diligent with my calendar and set better boundaries. One quote I heard recently that resonated with me was <span class="text-highlight">"Don't prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities"</span>.
Due to my horrible work/life balance and lack of discipline, I didn't reach my goals in fitness (decrease fat and increase muscle mass) and personal (learning a new language, picking up woodworking and calligraphy). Will prioritize these moving forward.
My theme for 2023 is to <span class="text-highlight">focus on a few things and execute</span>. It is really hard to focus on 10 things and hope to put 100% effort in all of them. My primary focuses are:
Continue to grow Code & Pixels with more episodes and start building a community. We also want to generate enough revenue through sponsorship and merchandising to cover expenses.
Launch an open source project that revolves around prototyping and/design systems. I have a couple ideas but I will narrow it down to one idea and launch it in the end of Q3.
Obtain one or more advisor role positions at a startup or small company to assist with product development strategies and tactics. I realized from my consulting projects that I really enjoy working with founders from the ground up. If you or someone you know is interested in my services, please reach out to me.
I have no idea how I'm going to accomplish some of these goals but I believe that with discipline and focus I should be able to figure it out. Only time will tell.
Let's get it 🙌🏿
]]>Designers are notorious for consistently redesigning their personal websites. For some of us, our portfolio sites are a reflection of our work, experience and personality all in one place. Because of that, it is always a challenge when trying to build one that truly represents us. The pressure makes it hard to execute which then leads to procrastination. This recent redesign of my personal site took me 2.5 years (on and off). It only got completed when I gave myself a strict deadline. In my opinion, it is harder to design for ourselves vs others due to the personal attachment. Here are the top three reasons why I usually rebuild my portfolio site.
New frameworks and libraries come out frequently and more often than not, you can't use them during your day job. Your portfolio site can be a great playground for trying the latest technologies.
When I made the switch from print design to web/product design, I needed to work on a bunch of side projects in order to enhance my skill and become confident with my design process. My portfolio site gave me the place where I can hone my skills without any negative consequences.
No matter if you create one or not, we all have a personal brand. Establishing one could open many opportunities for you. Like with anything great, it takes time, patience, and persistence to get it done right. Once you find that direction, you will stand out from the crowd and become an expert in your field. With that, lets explore the progression of my personal website from a design and technology perspective:
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/portfolio-v1-home.png" caption="V1 of my portfolio site." width={986} height={672} layout="stacked" />
This was a Flash website that I built from a video tutorial (I was really hyped for the animation and sound effects). I also learned ActionScript which helped me pickup Javascript a couple years later.
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/portfolio-v1-walkthrough.gif" caption="Glimpse of the animation in action 🤩." width={1440} height={900} layout="cluster" />
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/portfolio-v2.png" caption={ <span> V2 of my{' '} <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140718034705/http://www.adekunleoduye.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" > portfolio site </a> . </span> } width={1710} height={1279} layout="cluster" />
When flash got killed by the Apple and Steve Jobs, I needed to pivot. In my day job we were using PHP and I decided to use it for my next site. Let's just say that this was one of the few times I touched PHP (No shade, it's a good language but it isn't for me 🤷🏿♂️).
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/portfolio-v3.png" caption={ <span> V3 of my{' '} <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160617002232/http://www.adekunleoduye.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" > portfolio site </a> . </span> } width={1710} height={1279} layout="cluster" />
When I helped build the site for SassConf, I was introduced to the ruby based static site generator Middleman. This was my first experience working in a Ruby and RubyGems environment, which was refreshing.
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/portfolio-v4.png" caption={ <span> V4 of my{' '} <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170903060451/http://www.adekunleoduye.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" > portfolio site </a> . </span> } width={1710} height={1279} layout="cluster" />
This was also built on Middleman. For this version I wanted to explore using serif fonts and animation.
<MediaCaption src="/images/blog/portfolio-v5.png" caption={ <span> V5 of my{' '} <a href="/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> portfolio site </a> . </span> } width={1710} height={1279} layout="stacked" />
The first iteration was built in GatsbyJS. I ditched it when I got plugin errors from upgrading Gatsby. I moved to NextJS and it has been a great experience. For my blog and portfolio pages I’m using MDX. The combination of markdown and react components simplified the process of page layout. Since some of my past work can't be shown publicly, I used JWT to control which projects are visualable based on the authorization level. SendGrid is used for the contact form and Mailchimp for capturing emails for my newsletter.
As you can see, a portfolio website can be a playground for learning new skills. Your site doesn't have to be a Basquiat for it to be released to the public. Because like any product that is out there, iteration will make it better over time.
]]>My journey to Scotland CSS and Scotland JS was an interesting one. I haven't attended or spoken at a technical focus conference since giving my first conference talk back at CSSConf 2015. I submitted my talk proposal earlier this year when I seen the call for proposal on twitter. But to keep it real, I felt the chances of my talk being accepted was low due to it being a new and kinda controversial topic.
But to my surprise, I got an email that my talk got voted in by the conference attendees! I was so honored that people wanted to learn more about front-end prototyping and the benefits of it. But my excitement dwindle when I realized this will be my first time in Scotland. As a black person traveling anywhere in this world where there isn't a significance black population, I always have to take extra precautions about my safety. To ease my nerves I asked one of my good friends Natalya, who spoke at Scotland CSS last year and was speaking again this year, about her thoughts about the conference. She said:
<Quote quote="The Scotland CSS people are the nicest and kindest people and pro conference organizers. If you're able to go, I think you'd really like it and have a great experience." author="Natalya Shelburne" title="about Scotland CSS" img="https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/6720549?v=4" />
From that conversation with her, I was super excited to be participating in my first international conference!
Both Scotland CSS and Scotland JS was incredible. From the talks, people and beautiful town of Edinburgh, it was an amazing time. Here are some of the highlights:
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__rachel.jpg" caption="Finally know the difference between align-content & justify-content" width={1078} height={808} layout="cluster" alt="Rachel Andrew CSS Grids" />
Rachel was the opening keynote for Scotland CSS where she talked about power of CSS Grids.
Takeaways:
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__eli-1.jpg" caption="Write UI without writing CSS." width={1078} height={808} alt="Eli Fitch - write UI without writing css" />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__eli-2.jpg" caption="Classes do one thing and are scoped to the element." width={1078} height={808} alt="Eli Fitch - classes do on thing and are scoped to the element" />
I've been having an internal battle between BEM vs. Functional CSS for a while and Eli's talk really sold me on why Functional CSS is a great mythology for scaling applications. I was eager to hear the story behind Assembly.css and how it worked within his team. From his talk, I'm planning on using a similar approach when building out the design system components. Stay tuned!
Takeaways:
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__sareh.jpg" caption="Looking at an example of load order from the network tab" width={1078} height={808} alt="Sareh Heidari Scotland CSS" layout="cluster" />
Sareh gave a lot of great tips about creating performant websites. I definitely needed a talk like this since I knew very little about this topic. I was surprised how doing small things when building web sites and applications can have a huge impact to performance.
Takeaways:
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__olivia.jpg" caption="Olivia Liddel provide tips on how to overcoming the fear of failure." width={639} height={479} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__natalaya.jpg" caption="Natalya Shelburne talked about her journey of going from twitter bootstrap to CSS Grids at the New York Times." width={639} height={479} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandcss__nico.jpg" caption="Nico shared his story about going from a front-end developer to type designer." width={574} height={430} imgLayout="responsive" />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandjs__katie.jpg" caption="Katie Fenn talked about how someone hacked Myspace from the front-end and gave tips about web security." width={638} height={478} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandjs__jessica.jpg" caption="How we can battle imposter syndrome with Jessica Rose." alt="Jessica Rose giving great tips on how we can battle imposter syndrome." width={638} height={478} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandjs__luke.jpg" caption="Luke Bonaccorsi showing us how he controlled his thermostat using Javascript." width={638} height={478} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotland__chicken.jpg" caption="These are supposed to be 'Chicken Lollipops'..." alt="Chicken Lollipops" width={359} height={478} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotland__me-eli.jpg" caption="Me and Eli twinning during Scotland JS." alt="Me and Eli twinning" width={984} height={737} layout="cluster" />
<MediaCaption src="/images/scotlandjs__kim.jpg" caption="Kim Crayton was the surprising closing keynote for Scotland JS. She gave a passionate talk about the problems of diversity and inclusion initiatives in tech industry. She also discussed how white people can improve the work environments for POC." alt="Kim Crayton on DEI" width={638} height={478} layout="cluster" />
Overall, my time at Scotland CSS & Scotland JS was a great experience. I'm sad that my first time attending these conferences will be the last one but through it all, I learned so much and met some amazing people. Big shoutouts to Peter and the volunteers for all their hard work and putting on a great set of conferences...it was a blast!
]]>As my last days at NASDAQ came to an end, I took time to reflect on my tenure there. The past 3 & half years were one of my most challenging times as a designer. Building products that solved complex problems within the financial world not only made me into a better designer but also allow me to strengthen my skills in research, time management & communication. Let me talk about the three main takeaways got from my time at NASDAQ.
Selling design and its value often happens when you’re a freelance or working at agency but that was not the case, especially at NASDAQ. User Experience was treated like a dark art because very few within the company understood the process. Most thought that the only responsibility designers had was creating pretty UI. We had to educate others on why user research, prototyping and testing was important in the product design process. Understanding the why & who is as important as what & how. Educating others helped us build rapport within the company and gave us a seat at the table.
<MediaCaption src="/images/mc_011416177.jpg" alt="Adekunle's face at Time Square" caption="My face showing up in the big screen at Times Square" width={756} height={504} layout="cluster" />
Before NASDAQ, all the other companies I worked for were very small in size. Things happened very quickly and it was easy to gather momentum when working on projects. But at NASDAQ, it was a different story. Between dealing with firewalls, network security & bureaucracy that came with working at a big company, the process of getting things done took longer than usual. I used to get frustrated with the slow pace & process but I soon realized this was a good way for me to increase my patience and get better at time management. Navigating through these obstacles was part of job and being patience (and resourceful) was the only way to get things done.
I could say in my past jobs, I had a good relationship with most of the people I worked with without any major conflicts. But, that was not the case at NASDAQ. It was very competitive between businesses, departments, teams and colleagues. Trying to deal with office politics sometimes made it hard to get work done but sometimes that is the price for working in a corporation. You might not like the people you work with but you are paid to get results. Putting your differences aside to get the job is to me a sign of being an adult & a professional(wow! I sound like an adult).
<MediaCaption src="/images/mc_011416076.jpg" alt="Adekunle's face at Time Square" caption="Me at NASDAQ Marketsite." width={1054} height={703} />
<MediaCaption src="/images/mc_011416143.jpg" caption="Team photo at Times Square." width={984} height={656} />
With that said, I had a pleasure building enterprise software with some of the most talented people in the industry. I accepted this job over three years ago to take a step out of my comfort zone and go into an industry that was unfamiliar to me. But as my time at NASDAQ ends, I’m excited to start a new chapter in my career.
]]>To many, the design process is very intimidating because of the perception that design has to be perfect. In my experience, that is not the case. Design is like an iceberg, all the ugly and failed attempts are hidden and all the great ideas are on full display at the top.
<MediaCaption src="/images/why-prototype.png" alt="Why prototoype illustration" caption={ <span> Source: Bill Buxton, via{' '} <LinkExt href="http://www.slideshare.net/dlichaw/mobile-prototyping-25431091"> Donna Lichaw </LinkExt> </span> } width={800} height={455} maxWidth={800} layout="cluster" />
The design process is almost never linear. You’ll end up throwing out 90% of the ideas and making at least 30 iterations of the remaining 10%. Some of the most used applications (like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and many others) had many design iterations before they became the beautiful things they are today. They all started with simple and buggy MVPs that eventually mature over time. During the early states, they embrace the art of GSD (getting s*** done) to explore many ideas and concepts. Let me tell you about how embracing the art of GSD should be an attitude that a product team should have when creating products.
<MediaCaption src="/images/why-prototype__1.jpeg" caption="First Version of Facebook Profile" width={756} height={559} layout="cluster" />
<MediaCaption src="/images/why-prototype__3.jpeg" caption="Latest Version of Facebook Profile" width={800} height={837} layout="cluster" />
I started my career as a Print Designer doing mostly logo design and marketing materials. My mindset was that every time I was presenting my work, it had to be perfect. I would spend hours making sure the colors were perfect and everything was aligned properly before anyone else looked at it. When I attempted to use this same workflow when I became a product designer, I soon found out it wasn’t going to work. I was spending too much time perfecting one idea rather trying out many….and this was making it hard for me to keep up. I made the assumption that the first idea I was attached to was my best, and doing so, prevented me from exploring other ideas. And since any work I wanted to show had to be perfect, I missed out on valuable feedback from my co-workers early in the process. I realized that I needed to adapt a new workflow in order to survive. It took me about 6 months of trial and error to find a workflow that fits the environment and my work style.
Fast forward now where I’ve spent over 3 years building web based products at NASDAQ, my mindset is totally different. I trust the process that if I understand the problem well enough and exploring as many ideas as possible, the probability of creating the right solution increases. Most of the ideas you will come up with aren’t going to be good at first. Some are going to be so bad that your eye will bleed, but that is part of the process.
One example of this was when working on IR Insight contact management system. I got an user story about inputting travel information into the system for a future roadshow. I got attached to an idea of the user actually adding everything from flight time to plane number. The solution worked but it wasn’t the right for experience. I spent more time prototyping the idea in code and at that point, it was hard to start from scratch due to time and resources. If I had quickly tested idea in the early stages, I would have found out that it was a tedious process, especially for those who have multiple trips during a road. If I invested a little more time exploring, would have been better solutions.
Now that we know how most of our early designs are often not the good, why do we hang on to them? As designers, we sometimes put our emotions into our work. Doing so makes it hard for us to share and get constructive feedback. We always want our work to be perfect, and striving for perfection can hinder our ability to execute. That is why we can never put perfection above execution. But we’ve all seen those perfect wire-frames, mock-ups and prototypes on sites like Dribbble and Behance. Most often than not, these perfect artifacts don’t show the many failed attempts and bad ideas. But seeing those failed attempts often tell a great story on how and why the final solutions were selected. The quick and dirty ideas often pave the way to the better solutions in the future.
<MediaCaption src="/images/why-prototype__4.jpeg" caption="95% of my sketches aren’t worthy to showcase on Dribbble" width={1000} height={772} layout="cluster" />
Execution should be worshipped during the prototyping phase. Being able to go through a bunch of ideas and concepts at a fast pace is a great way to filter out the bad ones and get clarity the good ones. This process reminds me of drawing exercises I did in high school where the class would sketch an object at least 30 different ways in 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes, you can see the progress and see how the first 20 sketches weren’t that good but over time, the sketches got better. That exercise proved to me why execution should be a priority over perfection. Bring this back to product design; the concept of rapid prototyping is a great way to quickly and effectively test out design solutions. Doing so not only saves time and money, but it also makes it hard to get attached to an idea. The main purpose of rapid prototyping is to make the best design decisions possible around user experience for your application.
Since prototyping is fast and cheap, it makes it easy to pivot if the direction you were going isn’t going to bring the best user experience. And sometimes when pivoting, going back to rejected ideas is a route that can be taken if the ideas were good but the timing wasn’t right.
Bringing some context to the idea, I use this process when I prototype code. I don’t spend a lot of time making sure my code is clean or scalable. So you will often see very bad techniques from me from my prototype code like having half of the file commented out, nesting 10 levels deep and using !important like I don’t know better. But to reiterate what was stated before: the purpose of rapid prototyping is to make the best design decisions possible around user experience for your application. When prototyping is code, being able to communicate your idea with code is the top priority, and that trumps all the bad techniques listed earlier.
<MediaCaption src="/images/why-prototype__5.png" caption="How my code looks like while prototyping" width={800} height={1130} layout="cluster" />
It is very hard to rapid prototype in code and at the same time make the code scalable and efficient enough that is production level ready. It’s better to separate iteration phrase from the maintaining so that process can be less rigid. Once the front-end prototype has been tested and validate, that is when scalability and performance can be focused on.
<MediaCaption src="/images/why-prototype__6.png" caption="How my code looks like after prototyping" width={800} height={1325} layout="cluster" />
For my parting advice, don’t always try to perfect an idea. Your first ideas are going to really suck, but that’s okay. As long as you trust the process and the ideas are getting better over time, the right direction easier to get to than the right idea. Because it’s better to go slow in right direction rather fast in the wrong direction.
]]>A month ago I had the pleasure of speaking at CSSConf here in New York City. It was my first conference speaking gig ever which made it both exciting and terrifying at the same time. The journey from submitting the the proposal, working on talk and delivering it to a live audience was definitely a great experience.
At the start of this year, I made a decision to start doing public speaking events. I wanted to wait a couple years after college to gain some experience in the industry and get some talk ideas from from problems I’ve encountered. I've seen enough talks to see patterns of a great presentation so I started brainstorming things I wanted to talk about. I had three strong proposals with the help of co-workers and friends which I felt that were good enough for me to speak on. Once the proposals went through several iterations, I had enough confidences to start submitting to conferences.
<MediaCaption src="/images/cssconf-sketch_1.jpg" caption={ <span> Sketch Notes by{' '} <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/bysusanlin" > Susan Lin </a> </span> } width={515} height={343} alt="CSS Conf 2015 Sketch Notes 1 of 1 of Adekunle Oduye" />
<MediaCaption src="/images/cssconf-sketch_2.jpg" caption={ <span> Sketch Notes by{' '} <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/iamjessklein" > Jess Klein </a> </span> } width={515} height={343} alt="CSS Conf 2015 Sketch Notes 1 of 1 of Adekunle Oduye" />
I have to admit, I really thought my proposal was going to get rejected due to the fact that it wasn’t an advance technical talk about the latest and greatest in CSS. My talk was specifically aim to designers who wanted to get into programming but had trouble understanding the key concepts. I used Sass, a CSS preprocessor that has some programmable capabilities, as my example of it being a gateway drug for designers who want to learn programming languages like Javascript and Ruby. If you have time, check out the video and slides at bottom. After my talk was done, I was happy that it went well and able to enjoy the rest of the talks from Chris Coyier, Sarah Drasner, Jenn Lukas and others.
<MediaCaption src="/images/cssconf-me_8.jpg" caption="Me pretending to know what I'm talking about" width={960} maxWidth={960} height={720} layout="cluster" alt="Adekunle speaking at CSS Conf 2015" />
I would like to thank everyone who helped me throughout the process. Big thank you to Amy Silvers for helping me brainstorm talk ideas and create talk proposals, without her my proposals wouldn’t have been readable. Also huge thanks to Francesca Wedemeyer for giving me the great idea for a talk title. Shoutouts to Scott Kellum and Sam Kapila for being my CFP mentors (SassConf not CSSConf, but their help improved my proposal and presentation). Thanks to Claudia for giving me valuable feedback the day before my presentation and special thanks to Jenn Lukas for giving great advice to think about my feet during my talk to slow down my pace while speaking (sounds really crazy but it work!).
In conclusion, my journey to my first conference talk was a roller coaster ride. Having been an conference organizer, attendant and speaker…I can say being a speaker was the most challenging experience due to the fact that people are paying good money to see speakers deliver great talks. But after giving the talk and hearing great feedback from both attendants and other speakers, I was happy that people found the presentation useful and informative. With a talk under my belt, I aim to do 2 more conference/meetup talks by the end the year. Hopefully in a couple years, I hope to add “professional speaker” to my job title...which I hope will open new doors for me.
I’ve learned so much in the past year. I came from being a Front-end Developer at a mid-size company to being part of 30 person product design team at NASDAQ. This has been a new experience for me since I never worked in a big team before. Gone are the days of being a hero designer/developer where everything I did was praised and liked by everyone. Now I’m surrounded by some of the smartest people in the UX community. I would like share with you what I’ve learned in the past year:
With time split between meetings, design studios, research and collaborating with others…there is little time left for executing desing concepts. The best way to handle this is to breakdown a project into small, manageable task that have daily milestones. I've also learned that it’s okay to say NO once awhile.
Product Design is a team sport. Being able to work well with fellow designers, product owners and developers is encourage because it helps with the iteration process and group dynamic.
This one was hard for me to get used to. Coming from a waterfall-model environment, I never presented work that wasn’t polished and put together. Now as a product designer, showing work in progress is encouraged because others can give you valuable feedback that can take your concept to the next level. It can also save you time if you're heading down wrong direction.
Product Design is more about executing an idea rather than creating beautiful interfaces. Most often than not, your design concepts might get scrapped after a sprint and all the hard work was for nothing.
Gone are the days of being a designer who creates stuff because it “Looks good”. Now you have to discuss and explain your decisions to your team. Check out the article Better User Experience With Storytelling from Smashing Magazine to read about the relationship between user experience and storytelling.
Sometimes you will be in a position where you want to build something but lack the knowledge to do so. Earlier in my career I’ll spend substantial amount of time learning how to do something. But now since I’m on a stricter deadline, It's more efficient to ask my fellow designers who are more skilled than me for some help. This approach saved me a lot of time and is a great way to learn a new skill.
Some of these made me feel very uncomfortable at first. But with anything, it takes time, practice and determination to get comfortable in a new environment and position. As I get comfortable working in cross-functioning teams, the better I understand the process of building a product.
]]>What a year! Alot of things have changed for me since 2013. New job, new apartment and a bunch of new opportunities have knocked on my door. Let me outline what I have did this past year.
<h2>New Job, New Challenges</h2>
In February I decided to leave my job as a Front-end Web Developer at healthcare publishing company and join the Product Design team at NASDAQ. By switching into a new role and industry, I've stepped out of comfort zone and picked up new skills like research, usability testing, data mining and wireframing. I'm also learning the importance of collaboration & communication and how being a great storyteller can help sell your ideas. Building enterprise software has it ups and downs but overall it has been a great experience!
<h2>Hustle while you work</h2>
Other than my full-time job, I’ve been keeping busy with a lot of side activities/projects. I was again part of the team that organized <a href="https://www.sassconf.com" rel="nofollow">SassConf</a>, a conference for front-end developers and designers that love Sass and are passionate about building a better and beautiful web. I got to see some interesting talks and meeting people who are passionate about front-end development. I’ve also became an organizer of the local Sass meetup, GothamSass, which gives me an opportunity to give back to the NYC front-end community. And with the little time I had, I did some UX consultant work with Mansa Collabs, a company supporting startup in West Africa. I had the pleasure of working with a startup as the UX lead to help them build a MVP.
<h2>Press & Other News</h2>
That concludes my year. In 2015, I hope to start speaking at conferences, get involved in open source projects and borden my experience in user experience. Let’s make 2015 a great year!
]]>I had the pleasure of being interviewed by <a href="https://twitter.com/mauricecherry" rel="nofollow">Maurice Cherry</a> of <a href="http://revisionpath.com/archive/" rel="nofollow">Revision Path</a> last month. We talked about various things from how I got started in the tech industry to my new endeavors as a Product Designer at NASDAQ OMX. He also gave me advice on speaking at design/tech event too. Check out the interview below!
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Here are some interesting articles I came across this week. In this roundup I've included articles from Philip Walton, Whitney Hess and Leo Babauta.
Philip Walton writes an article about the goals of good css architecture, common bad practices and incorporating programming techniques like Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) into CSS. Check out the full article <a href="http://engineering.appfolio.com/2012/11/16/css-architecture/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.
A simple interpretation of what's User Experience is from Whitney Hess. One thing I got away from this was that UX is more of a collection of the company's philosophies and principles that each individual contributes to. Having great UX is a marriage of business' wants with the user's needs. Check out the full article <a href="http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2014/01/28/user-experience-is/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a>.
Leo Babauta writes about the top habit creative people do to make them successful. The most common habit was solitude, which allows a person time to reflect on what they’ve done, and learn from it. Most of the greatest work was done while the creator was in isolation. Check out the full article <a href="http://zenhabits.net/creative-habit/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> here </a>.
]]>Welcome to my blog! I finally made the decision that in 2014 I’ll start blogging. The purpose of my blog is to share some of my experiences, discuss interesting news in the design & tech world and recaps on events I’ve attended.
My articles are going to be light and straight to the point. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will enjoy my future post!
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