“Sign here and you’ll resign from the technical high school”, said the headmaster as he gave me a disappointed look. It was the resignation letter. I had no choice but sign it. I had skipped way too many classes. I went over the limit and this was the next step in the process. But it wasn’t just about skipping classes. I wasn’t doing well at school at all.
Category: Blog
Faster horses
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” is a quote attributed to Henry Ford. It’s a quote that many people use as an excuse not to do user testing. Because designers and product managers are supposed to be these geniuses that pull ideas out of thin air. Steve Jobs was one of those design/product gurus. All the designer and product manager wannabes have a quote or two from Steve that they hold close to their heart so they feel more secure about themselves. But neither Steve or Henry became famous for their ideas because they would be original. They weren’t. Steve didn’t make the first computer and Henry didn’t make the first car (he made the first car assembly line).
Breaking through a creative block
I’m sure you know these moments too. Working hard on something but not getting anywhere with it. Through all these years I found three approaches that help me through these moments. Most of the times they work. But sometimes they don’t and I ship average work, feel bad about it and can’t wait to get back and improve it. Anyway, here they are.
My reading process
Reading Books First of all, I keep a to-read list on Goodreads.com. Whenever I encounter a book that I find interesting, I add it to this list (more than 400 items at the moment). Besides reading I also like to plan. I use Trello for all my planning. I split every year into quarters—periods of three months. Then I write down all the books that I want to read in the upcoming period and create a checklist. With a goal of 40 books per year that’s 10 books per quarter.
I quit design twice
The last thing I remember I wanted to be was a “game designer/developer”. I just got my first PC and playing video games was all I did. Then, at some point, I had stopped thinking about what I really wanted to do. I guess the “life auto–pilot” must have kicked in.
UX design is not what you think it is
Let’s do a quick test. Go to the following website. Take a look around. Spend a minute or two on the site. Even a few if you wish. There is no particular information that you should be looking for no task. Already back? Cool. Now try to answer the following questions based on the information that you were able to get from that website. Don’t worry if you’re not a UX designer or a designer at all. In fact, that’s even better. Write down the answers.
Judging books by their covers
“I don’t trust books like these”, said James. I was surprised by the blunt comment and replied with a short: “Why not?” “I don’t know… There’s something about the title that turns me off”, James replied. “Maybe it’s the cover in general…”, he tried to elaborate. “It looks cheap right?”, Sarah joined the conversation. “How can a book look cheap”, I replied in astonishment. “I don’t know… it looks… self-published?”, she tried to explain. “Self-published? But it’s a book by O’Reilly…”, I interrupted. “I know, but still…”, Sarah didn’t know what else to say. “I kinda like the cover…”, I remarked, “…it even has a big red heart on it”, I chuckled as I finished my thought, picking up the book, taking a closer look and briefly showing it to James and Sarah.
Tab zero
Lots of tabs = chaos
Adopting a new habit
I come from a small town where traffic jams are rare and public transport unneeded. Need to go to school? Take a short walk. Need to go to the supermarket? Take the car. Life was similar in Germany and Luxembourg. Whenever I needed to get somewhere it took me about 20 minutes. Not more.
Reading
I think it was about five books per year. It was mandatory. I would read these books in the first few years but when I think of it now, that wasn’t much of a reading. You know when you read something but your thoughts wander off and even though you read it you actually don’t? I found those books boring and by the end of the school I completely stopped reading them. Our teacher was extremely strict about it and she used to scare the shit out of me. But even that wasn’t a good enough reason to read. I remember thinking to myself: “How can people read books? I rather watch a film or play a video game. At least that’s not a complete waste of time, right?”