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726 karma · joined August 21, 2012
I accidentally made several decisions in latest years that (in retrospective) made me more prepared for worsening of world economy.
- A couple years ago, I decided to quit a full-time "office" job and return to free-lancing. Within a year, I had 4-5 projects running simultaneously (with clients from different countries). It helped tremendously when I had to escape Russia in March 2022. It also feels much more reliable than a single source of income.
- we've been living in various cities for 4-6 months, "trying them out", hunting for the best balance of climate and quality of life. So we prepared ourselves to change location with less effort. Currently living in Tbilisi, Georgia.
- my wife trained me to optimise our spendings ;-) And that is a great thing actually. We only have necessary belongings (because we move a lot), we cook at home often, I use Hi-End in-ear headphones (because they have great sounds but cost less and take less space when moving), etc.
I can safely consider myself senior designer (doing UX design for more than 20 years).
I always ask about deadlines. I believe not doing so is highly unprofessional. I have other tasks in parallel, clients have other tasks in parallel. Deadlines = priorities. Discussing priorities is critical.
I only "explore beyond just one idea" if agreed with the client.
Of course I explain what I did and why, but I also say “let me know what you think!”.
I never actually ask for help :-) But if I did, "asking for help by proposing a solution" seems counter-productive to me.
I disciplined myself to never "struggle" while working. But this line - "One blames their manager, mentor or client for their struggles. The other keeps working." - just sounds wrong to me.
I also think the most important piece is left behind in the article. The secret of successful UX design is to understand deeply what problem(s) your design is solving. Then it's just a matter of finding the best solution to these clearly defined problems and "designing" it.
I found not so popular web app - FileRun - and have been very happy with it so far.
I'm a big fan! I even have a small website dedicated to it (not much content but anyway):
After all these years, it still amazes me some people are ready to pay for pictures :-)
To learn more about the concept, please take a look at Essays here: https://htmx.org/essays/
(P.S. Let me also recommend BitWarden - password manager UX is highly subjective topic, but it worked well for me, and it does not require subscription).
* no one ever reads instructions :-) If user makes any changes to settings (genre, etc), I'd suggest to show an overlay saying something like "advance to the next track to apply changes"
* any chance for keyboard shortcuts? Space to pause/resume, right arrow for next.
That's all so far! Music is power.
It took me some time to uncheck all genres except "Ambient" :-) but now I got myself a nice background music station for programming.
It's been discussed here at HN too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812
Even if I was affected, I'm not sure I'd want to continue relationship with them. Anyway, user of name.com now, so far so good.
(P.S. Might need to say that I support Ukraine in this horrible conflict, I just happen to hold a Russian passport)
Not only have I been working with the post author ever since - half a year later, someone else approached me for a design project, because they found this post and my reply to it! Thank you HN.
However, to be fair, I must note that similar problems may happen with a freelancer (myself included). Self-management is hard, and I tend to underestimate, which leads to delays and/or working late.
Clear and frequent commucation is not as hard, but requires a good habit. You may or may not get it from either agency or freelanced.
“How long is a piece of string?” their lead designer asked. -- sounds like a red flag to me!
An interface is a story. Even better, an interactive story.
P.S. I also found that it helps a lot if you read the copy aloud when designing it.
Make sure to check other essays at https://htmx.org/talk/ (scroll down for Essays)
Seems like writing "per se" does not excite you enough ("too much effort"). Perhaps, sharing knowledge on sites such as HN, StackOverflow, etc might work as blogging replacement.