Week 2021-51 #7
Ho, Ho, Ho 🎅
I hope you are getting ready for the holiday with your family. And family means a lot of things nowadays, maybe not a traditional family but everyone close to you that is important in your life.
For this week I selected a few topics and let's start talking about the "innovation" from Adobe: CC Express.
Creative Cloud Express
Sometimes I feel Adobe takes too long to make decisions and innovations. But probably they are playing a different game. They prefer to wait for others to create the product and by the end the acquire the company.
In the past few years, it has been working well but looks like Canva changed this game. This Australian startup, founder by a woman, became a billion-dollar company. Melanie Perkins – the founder was pretty visionary on this casual photoshop app.
The only tip for Canva, for a design company their logo and branding are terrible.
You are not the user
You already know that but until now it's so easy to see case studies with so many biases. To train your brain this podcast can help you to sharpen your skill.
Why UX Research matters...
I was reading a few articles and books about research and have some highlights to share here:
UX Research helps you figure out if you are solving the right problem.
Later in the process, it helps you figure out whether you are solving the problem right.
Not only that, but UX research supports you in understanding the entire problem universe/space, in detail, which is critical to building the right solution.
While these points should serve as enough of an argument, UX research also saves you a lot of money and time.
Imagine building a solution that o one needs. How wasteful and costly would that be? Or picture yourself trying to articulate a solution to a problem you barely understand, perhaps not even knowing who you're designing for a creepy story, right?
Discovery research can help with all that.
But research is essential even after you have a solution. At that point, research can help you.
Understand how your design solution is being used.
Spot usability issues early on.
Avoid errors and mistakes in the final product, poor IA decisions.
Collect qualitative and quantitative data for improvement.
Uncover and own your solution biases.
Ensure that your solution is valuable.
Don't skip the research.
12 Junior UX mistakes
Spreading too thin: prioritize items.
Thinking 9-5 is enough: practice and keep learning. Work in passion projects.
Confusing UX & UI: advocate for users and don't jump into UI.
Focusing on Design Titles: Lead, Senior, Head... to be 👑 king you must be a 🤴 prince before.
Not taking ownership: don't wait for someone to tell you what to do, you already know a lot after the bootcamp. Take more risks. Initiate things.
Not challenging stakeholders: Just doing what people say you to do or just following orders.
Ignoring soft skills: knowing how to work in a team is key to growing.
Not reading enough or reading too much: Keep always learning but look for things that help you to solve a problem. It's like developers googling for solutions.
Overglorifying the UX: what makes you a hero because you are a user-champion. Remember you are not Steve Jobs. Or like a past student that nominated himself as the Latin Steve Jobs. 🤦♀️
Not engaging with the users enough: don't jump from a few assumptions to ideation.
Working in isolation: even if you are the only designer try to collaborate with other members of your team. A product is more than the design boundaries you need data, you need technology.
Personal Time Management: build a roadmap and use 🍅 Pomodoro methodology, and validate everything. Don't wait until the last minute.
Bauhaus Principles
Some principles to follow when you're designing and pushing a little bit the boundaries from rectangles shapes from your wireframe.
No border between artists and craftsmen.
The artist is an exalted craftsman.
Form follows function.
Gesamtkunstwerk or the ‘complete work of art.
True materials.
Minimalism.
Emphasis on technology.
Smart use of resources
Simplicity and Effectiveness.
Constant development.
Space and Grids
I know how much you loved to learn and apply 12 columns grid system, but step by step you have to also improve the spacing between your objects. Read the article How to manage space in Figma using tokens to help you on this task. I will take another approach, if you wanna know more let me know I can make a workshop about it.
Website Builder 👉 Super
The first version of Esc Design resources website I created using Super and a few weeks ago they released a super cool tool to customize your pages using Notion.
Also, they have great support on the community channel and a place where you can see many websites made using Super.
Looking for jobs?
A lot of people don't like WordPress but personally, I really like WordPress as a company. Years before the pandemic WordPress was a remote company with 1700 people working from 88 countries.
Matt Mullenweg, Automattic CEO and WordPress co-founder, actually doesn't like the remote word.
“…I don’t use the word ‘remote’ because it sets the expectation that there are some people that are essential and some that aren’t. I use the word ‘distributed’ to describe what we do, where everyone is on an equal playing field.”
And also, at WordPress
Everyone works asynchronously, from their own time zone and location. Because of the geographic variance, we’re active 24/7. We care about the work you produce, not just the hours you put in.
If you don't know every year WordPress launches a new free theme: for 2022 is Twenty Twenty-Two. It's always like this by year but they are investing a lot in design and maybe they won't do it anymore but only have an optimized start theme.
I have a good Brazilian friend that works in WordPress and he tells me a lot of interesting things. For example, his first boss was a transgender and high skilled developer, and they give you a budget to build your home office (this before the pandemic) and they pay for your internet connection – so everyone gets the fastest. And also you can take an unlimited vacation, you just have to deliver your quarter goals. He personally told me about another developer that delivers usually everything in 2-3 weeks and has a pretty good life.
If you are excited to work at WordPress, first you have to help the community, otherwise, forget about it. Here are Some open positions at Automattic (WordPress company).
Microsoft more inclusive
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, I just report facts. 😂 And the fact is Microsoft has been innovating a lot in the past years. This Adaptive Kit for Microsoft Surface is something I suppose to expect from Apple, despite I assume Apple is too busy polishing Apple Park.
Thank you for reading and let share your thoughts.
🎄Happy Holidays 🎄
Juno