A very realistic story of coming back as a laid-off designer in tech There is really nothing more eerie than an empty office at the end of a layoff or mass retrenchment. The air sits heavy and the silence has a lot of tension. Picture by Adolfo. I wrote about layoffs before, and I was criticised for my “lack of empathy” when it comes to not feeling sorry for people who get the boot when a company can’t pay their salaries any longer. Well guess what, haters, it did happen to me. Woo hoo! Rejoice at my misfortune. Anyway I got a new job pretty quick after, so (* ^ ω ^)。 But h ..read more

Since 2012, I’ve helped dozens of clients make their products and processes more engaging. I’ve also seen companies struggle to understand why no one uses their app more than once, no matter how much “gamification” they add. If you want your product to be disengaging, forgettable, boring, and dreadful to use, by all means do the following. Otherwise, avoid these mistakes like the plague. 1. Design The Product, *Then* Gamify It The number one mistake that people make is thinking of gamification and product design as two completely separate processes. If you spend a lot of time a ..read more

A comprehensive user interview guide for designers who want to do it all! As designers, we often have to or hopefully want to talk to customers or potential customers to understand their needs and make better design decisions. Interviewing people can be challenging and stressful for designers used to work with researchers who make this process so much easier. Interviewing users requires preparation, planning, patience and focus on making the best of each interview participant and providing real value for you, them and the business paying for it. This guide is all you need if you are a be ..read more

Staying productive is challenging when we are missing the purpose. But everyone gets a bit lost once in a while. Here’s my approach to seamless work ethics and delivery. One of the questions I most frequently receive from people who’ve just met me and have been observing me for a while is: How come you handle so much? Firstly: I handle as much as I handle. To determine whether that’s a lot or a little, one would need to know everything I’m doing at a given moment, and only I know that. Therefore, we should reconcile with the fact that it’s purely subjective perceptions of other peopl ..read more

How the stander is changing for the better For the past year I have applied to a lot of jobs. Like a lot a lot, and I have noticed a few things that have changed since the last time I was applying three years ago. For one, it’s easier to apply to jobs. When I upload my resume AI does a better job of auto filling than it used too. Which cuts down on a lot of time adjusting things to make sure your name isn’t your address, or your salary expectations aren’t your phone number (but wouldn’t that be nice). Employers have stopped asking long pointless questions and cover letters for better ..read more

Think you need to be a Pro motion designer to create incredible UI animations, micro-interactions and website transitions? Think again! All you need to know are the basic principles of UI animation and motion design and the latest modern tools that make it easy for any designer to do it! https://medium.com/media/c5a306d5d96f8015cb7e5bbc205bb70a/href UI animations like these are eye-catching and impressive! But more than that, adding the right animations can make for a more delightful, functional or informative user experience in our UI designs. In this complete guide, I’ll walk you ..read more

What I was taught in design school and what professional progression should be from a mentor’s point-of-view. Credit: Kari Bjorn “You’re all mediocre.” My lecturer pointed his nostrils at us and heaved a sigh of frustration. Atelier reviews didn’t go according to his plan and weak instruction, so unsurprisingly, he was put in a mad mood that day and decided to take it out on us. Being called ‘mediocre’; there is no bigger insult you can give to a group of young adults who choose, in our own free right, to pursue design as a craft knowing it’s an underpaid venture in a crippling expen ..read more

“The Chopsticks Dilemma” in Generative Images AI For the last few years I’ve been trying to develop my understanding of AI, taking courses on transformer models and exploring the depths of chatGPT and Midjourney prompts. However, on my journey, I’ve come across an interesting phenomenon which I’d like to coin as “The Chopsticks Dilemma”. But first, here’s a funny gag showing the dilemma. https://youtu.be/VaADDSuQqYE?si=cSPNotngNk3KznJB The Chopsticks Dilemma comes from the struggle for AI models to generate a realistic bowl of ramen, without a pair of chopsticks in the photo. Here are som ..read more

Stories from a seasoned job-hopper; amidst layoffs, challenging hiring conditions, and the pursuit of professional purpose Credit: Unsplash If there is one thing I have yet to master but strongly desire to, it’s flipping a pen between my fingers. There is nothing cooler (to me, anyway) than a creative who can do pen-hand tricks at their desk. Like wow, they must spend a lot of time with the contraption that dispenses ink on paper. If they do, it means they design a lot. If they design a lot, it means they’re good at it. While I do use a pen a lot, it’s mostly to jot down my to-dos on ..read more

In September of 2023, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Harvard Business School released a paper about the effects of AI on knowledge, productivity and quality of outcomes. In this study, the researchers examined the performance implications of AI on realistic, complex, and knowledge-focused tasks with over 700 participants. In short, the study had two groups doing different tasks, these were classified as follows: Inside the Frontier of AI Capabilities Inside the Frontier: This group was tasked with working for a shoe company, creating a new product and plan. They used AI fo ..read more