Those that have managed designers or who have hired one for a freelance project know that not every project goes smoothly. This often isn’t a lack of skills or experience on the designer’s part, but a lack of properly managing the designer’s role in the project. A designer’s involvement should be more than just providing them with a timeline and expected deliverables.
One common cause of problems is a misunderstood task: a manager (or client) and a designer simply don’t understand what they want from each other. This leads to mutual dissatisfaction and poor performance.
This may seem obvious, but…
Back in the early days of the Web, a lot of UI decisions were made on the fly, often having completely different sources of inspiration. There were few boundaries set: no pattern libraries, no widely-used design systems, pixelated raster graphics, and distracting Flash-based animations.
Users were thrilled to see new crazy ideas realized. Floating flashing navigation, moving text, animated logos. Sometimes there was even an instruction page to teach users how to use the website’s interface. There was no such thing as usability and couldn’t be at that level of UX competence. …
Feedback is one of the important tools that help us grow, improve our work, and create an environment of trust. We are stronger when we work together — other people have ideas that would never have occurred to us. However, criticism often becomes vague and destructive, which can demotivate the creator. Understanding how to give and receive feedback and how to work it into a final product is an essential part of the designer’s work.
How to Request Feedback
The best ideas are born in collaboration with experts from different areas. Diversity helps you see completely different points of view about your project and…
If there is any secret to a good design, then it is to conduct good research beforehand. Great design does not happen by chance, it is always based on the understanding of the user and empathy. Research is a fundamental part of the understanding context and narrowing down to the “right” problem users face, which is critical. We can’t create anything before we actually have enough information on how it’s going to be used and who are the people who will use it.
Design research is often overlooked, which usually results in having a surface level understanding of the people…
Make the best out of your career.
There’s no one particular way to become a freelancer and this career path is very complex and messy thing. But there are some certain things you should know if you want to make the most out of it. I’ve put this guide together for anyone who’s looking to improve their freelance lifestyle.
1. Find your niche
Every professional is likely to be more successful focusing on specific areas instead of trying to master different ones. You can’t be an expert in everything — to create something outstanding you need to focus and dive deep.
Defining your niche will also help you get clear on…
A simple system to track your life activities, habits and quantify your progress.
There are a ton of apps that help you track your daily habits and life activities. I’ve tried at least 10 of them, from simple “Do not break the chain” to promising “Gyroscope app” and famous “Habitica”. Always something wasn’t made the way I needed it. I was looking for a more personal and flexible system with better opportunities for data analysis about how well I am moving towards my year goals.
Then I found this reddit post and turns out that the best, most powerful and flexible solution is Google Forms + Sheets. …
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use design systems for your projects on an example of Base UI Framework.
Overview
Design system is a collection of repeatable components and a set of standards that allows you to manage design at scale.
In this guide, I’ll go through the existing design system called Base UI Framework which I created and now proud that it used by many design teams and freelancers around the world.
Base UI Framework is one of the advanced design systems that can save you tons of time and make you a much more efficient designer.
1. Requirements
Base UI is simple enough for beginners, but basic Sketch App interface understanding would be needed. …
