Category: Blog

I don’t have a degree in design

I come from a small, seaside town in Slovenia. By the time I finished high school I had already been designing and building websites for a couple of years. There was no digital design course in any of the faculties in Slovenia at the time so I decided to sign up for the Computer Science course in Ljubljana—Slovenia’s capital. I didn’t know what to expect but shortly after I started the course I realized that it wasn’t for me. Looking back now, I think I just wasn’t mature enough to see the potential in learning Java and stuff. So I dropped out.

My favourite books of 2017

Last year I challenged myself to read 40 books, this year, I skipped that challenge. Reading has become such an integral part of my life that I don’t need to trick myself into doing it anymore (challenging myself to read that many books was a way to build a strong routine). Before that, I had to force myself to start reading a new book. Now, I can’t wait to dig into the next one.

6 things wrong about UX design recruitment

Yesterday I read the 6 things I hate about your design CV article. I found myself on the hiring side numerous times already and although a bit disrespectful, the article genuinely offers good advice for designers that are just starting out. Finding and hiring good designers is hard and yes, companies get all sorts of applications. There’s simply a lot of it to get through—many people out there trying to start their design career. 

What it’s all about

I created the course because I felt there was no concise way to learn the skills required to make typography an integral part of a web design process. The gap between designers and developers is still there and I haven’t seen many projects that are trying to address that. Better Web Type at its core is exactly that—it starts off explaining typography, how it works, why web developers need to learn about it and then shows them how. 

Measuring and quantifying the UX

“Data-driven” is all the rage at the moment, everyone wants a slice of the “big data” cake. Data scientists are the new rock stars, replacing the JavaScript and Front-end gurus and ninjas from a few years back. My problem with trends like these is that they cause the so called “tunnel-vision”. Thing x is a trend right now and we should do that too because,… you know… everyone’s doing it.

The day I proved myself wrong

Designers don’t know why a small change to an interface results in a massive drop in a core business metric, product managers don’t know what should go into the backlog and what not, developers don’t know how to estimate the delivery time of the fancy new feature. The whole team behind the product is so clueless that they don’t even know if the new feature brings any value to the users. 

Specialised generalist

Compared to them, I felt mediocre and I was frustrated because of it. You see, I never specialised in anything. Since I was a child, I had a habit of putting things together and create something out of that. I saw things differently from others. Where everyone else saw a cardboard box, I saw a cool military jeep that I could create out of it.

Getting things done with Trello

Most people will enjoy the nice weather or take a trip. I use this precious time to do some work on my projects. Sounds dull, but deep down it makes me happy. 

Putting up a wall

And that’s alright because that was a huge part of their empire. They swore to themselves never to let their guard down after Rome was sacked by the Gauls in its early history. Because of that, they developed a highly organised, professional war machine. They conquered whatever they set their sights on. And they remained hungry — after each conquest they already had plans for the next one. At their peak, the Romans controlled the region between the frozen Scottish highlands in the north and the sandy deserts of north Africa in the south. But then — they stopped.