That Will Never Work may not be a book for designers at first glance. As I delved deeper into the journey that Marc Randolph went through to found Netflix, I realized that the book is actually full of amazing real-life examples of product thinking and idea testing. It’s a great read for not just aspiring entrepreneurs, but also product designers and managers.
Continue readingCategory: Design in General
Tips on Creating Meaningful Designs - Fast
As product designers, one of the challenges we often face is to come up with new products or features quickly, whether that’s at work or during a job hunt. More often than not, the prompts of these assignments tend to be brief and the problems are likely open-ended. Without a lot of specifics, how can we create something meaningful without designing haphazardly and feeling overwhelmed? Having gone through multiple projects like this, I’ve learned to stick to the 3 principles below so I can navigate these situations more easily. I’m sharing them here and hope you’ll find them helpful.
Continue readingHong Kong through My Designer Eyes
These pictures were taken by me 10 years ago. They are the stunning views of Hong Kong, a city I feel very attached to. I grew up heavily influenced by its culture, and later I was lucky enough to live there for 15 years. What I love about the city is not just the amazing cityscape, but also the many great designs through my designer eyes.
Continue readingWhat Do Designers Really Do?
Design is a vaguely defined term, and people tend to have misconceptions about what designers do. When you tell people you’re a designer, especially those outside of tech, chances are they will think that your job is to sit in front of a monitor, pushing pixels and make things look beautiful.
Continue readingIs It Working? — A Simple Question to Keep in Mind when Critiquing a Design during Interviews
Recently, I was participating in a few designer interviews. After the first round, candidates would be given a design exercise which they would need to complete and present to us remotely in the second round. We would then look at the design, ask them questions and provide feedback during their presentations.
From interviewers’ perspective, understanding a candidate’s design could be challenging. Candidates usually need to go through many screens in a short period of time. Maybe the candidate is not so good at explaining the rationale behind his or her design. Sometimes there could be problems with the connection which lead to poor audio or video. In these circumstances, how can we critique a design effectively and provide the candidate with valuable feedback?