The journey of #100DaysOfCode (@Darine_Tleiss)

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day94

Hello guys , a new day is up and our daily counter is incrementing and from one day to another more topics are targeted and discovered.

Today we will talk about the best practices to present a design to your stack-holders.

1- Know your audience

In order to deliver an effective presentation, you need to meet your audience wherever they are. A few questions to consider, to set yourself up for success

• Who are you presenting to?

• Do they have much design knowledge?

• How much do they know about the project already?

• What do they expect to get out of this presentation?

• What are their expectations of the project?

2- Structure your presentation in a simple and visually engaging way

• Include an executive summary — it should be short, not too technical, not too vague, with enough information about the context, challenges and goals of the project.

• Structure your presentation in a logical manner — clarify what you’ll be covering during this session and what the overall goal is.

• Avoid large chunks of text — simplify, add visuals, and make the content easily digestible by breaking it down into several slides.

• Finalize with feedback and questions, and next steps.

3- Collect feedback

• Do not ask for feedback before you justify your design decision. Do that first.

• Ask questions that direct your audience towards the goals of the project, e.g. “How do you think this solution meets our goal of increasing engagement?”

4- Record your presentation

• Present your design concepts even when you are unable to meet synchronously.

• Communicate your decisions clearly to stakeholders who were unable to attend that specific session.

• Allow everyone, including those who attended, to review and reflect on the information you presented.

5- Make your presentation engaging and interactive

• Add animations and motion. Animations are not just meant to make your slides fancy; they can direct attention, illustrate a specific concept, and reduce cognitive load by introducing your content progressively.

• Make it interactive . An interactive presentation is one where everyone is able to participate and feel part of it. This can be achieved with prompts, questions and even ice breakers when appropriate.

6- Show practical examples and scenarios through storytelling

• Who’s the hero of your story?

• How does your solution help the hero achieve their goal? What’s in it for them?

• What does it look like when the hero achieves their goal? If you’re telling a story from your user’s point of view, feel free to use scenarios and examples.

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day95

Hello friends , a new day is reaching the end, And ONLY 5 days are left in this amazing journey.

Today and as usual, a lot of UX/UI stuffs are targeted and for now we will talk about, the 5 common career paths in the user experience industry.

1- The management career path

• The management career path is probably the one that is most familiar when we think about career progression. As you gain more experience as a UX designer, there are usually opportunities to lead projects and teams, and eventually become a formal manager. This usually means taking on people management responsibilities (e.g. hiring, performance evaluation, supporting career development), and often also means taking on leadership responsibilities such as budgets and timelines.

Pros :

• Leadership of teams and projects
• Can be rewarding to support team member growth and career development
• Typically very well compensated at senior levels
• Opportunity to influence business decisions and strategy

Cons :

• Limited (if any) hands on design work, often become further from the craft of design
• People leadership is a serious responsibility, that often means you are starting over learning a new set of skills
• Can be a high stress, high responsibility role depending on the organisation and team

2- The individual contributor career path

• The individual contributor career path is one where you continue to gain seniority in your role, without taking on people management responsibilities. (Also sometimes referred to as a ‘technical’, ‘subject matter expert’ or ‘craft’ track.) This is a popular path for designers who want to continue to deepen their craft, stay practice oriented, and continue to do design work in their day to day. Over time, this path leads to roles like ‘Staff UX Designer’ or Principal Designer’.

Pros :

• Stay close to the craft and continue to do hands on design work
• Opportunities to build deep expertise and become a leading practitioner
• Typically well-compensated at senior levels (depending on the organization)

Cons :

• Not all organizations are well set up to accommodate for this role
• Pressure to contribute at high levels of expertise and knowledge
• Sometimes not compensated at the same levels as the people leadership track

3- The freelancer or solo consultant career path

• Designers often come to the freelancer or solo consultant career path after building up experience and a network, or perhaps freelancing on the side of a full time job. Freelance UX work is often project based, and relies on having a strong network of clients and prospects. Solo UX consultants are similar to freelancers but often work on higher value or more strategic projects, with freelancers tending to be more executional.

Pros :

• High level of control over the type of work you take on
• Lots of variety and different project work
• Can mean a flexible schedule or the opportunity to shape how much you work

Cons :

• Requires a lot of self discipline to create your own structure
• Means running your own business and taking on overhead on things like taxes, invoicing, finding new clients

4- The specializing or related field career path

• Many designers choose to specialize in a certain area of UX, or move into a related field. The knowledge and skills that UX Designers have translate well to other roles, and over time many designers find a niche that they want to explore further. The possibilities here are almost endless, however some common examples include becoming a UX researcher, moving into product management, or perhaps transitioning into teaching or academia.

Pros :

• Bringing UX skills and experience to another practice area
• Opportunities to explore areas of interest and craft your own path
• Development of a ‘T shaped’ design skill with a broad understanding of UX and a deep specialisation in a related area

Cons :

• May mean not practicing design craft in your day to day
• Can mean a lateral or even ‘downward’ step as you learn new skills
• Depending on the field you choose, may have less earning potential or a different career structure/pathway

5- The entrepreneurial career path

• The entrepreneurial career path can take many forms – broadly speaking this career path is starting a business. One common path is starting a design agency, and another founding a startup. This differs from the freelance or solo consultant path mainly in the scale of the business and size of the team.

Pros :

• Opportunity to build something from scratch, including a product or service, company culture, team
• Very high earning potential with a successful business or eventually being acquired

Cons :

• Can be highly financially risky and unpredictable as it can take time to build revenue
• Tends to mean a lot of focus on building a business and less on craft and day to day design work

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day96

Hi everyone , the counter is incrementing and it’s about reaching the end.

Today we will keep discovering and exploring more in UI/UX.
And now we will dive in a very important question, everyone around us may ask: Does UI/UX require coding ?

Let’s start with the essential skills of a UX designer

• Conduct thorough user research

• Conduct competitive and comparative research and analysis

• Build empathy through personas, storyboards, and scenarios

• Implement quality visual design (UI)

• Conduct usability tests

• Create interactive wireframes and prototypes

• Analyze user feedback

• Use strong communication skills to articulate designs to all departments and stakeholders

• Collaborate and work with teammates effectively

• Read and understand analytics

Why would a designer learn to code?

Do UX designers code? For many, the answer is YES

• Most UX designers have at least a little understanding of code, including HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Other languages like Reach and Swift aren’t as important. It is best to leave coding to the experts, but there are some reasons why you should have a basic understanding of code:

  • It helps you communicate better with developers so you’re both speaking the same language.

  • It helps you remain realistic if you understand and appreciate the levels of implementation required by the developers to complete the design.

  • Knowing code is a great asset to your toolbox and makes you more marketable as an employee, especially in start-up settings where you might need to wear multiple hats.

What type of designers benefit most from learning to code?

• Designer A: The enthusiast
• Designer B: The consultant
• Designer C: The entrepreneur

So as a final answer, a good UX designer career success, is not related to their coding skills, but on the other hand having a basic understanding on how to code, with the minimal in demand technologies like HTML5, CSS3, JS … Can give the UX engineer a good opportunity to open more doors for them.

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day97

Hello friends, a new day is here, so let’s make it a funny one by extending our knowledge to discover more. and more in the UI UX industry.

Today we will talk about some tips and tricks that will help any web developer transit to be a UI UX engineer.

5 things to consider before making the move

1. Consider your personality

2. Read fundamental books about UX design

3. Talk to people who have recently moved to UX design from other fields

4. Observe the work of UX designers

5. Be ready to spend time on learning and job hunting

10 things to do when moving to UX design

1. Pick a specialization

2. Find transferable skills

3. Find design mentors

4. Get educated

5. Master your prototyping skills

6. Get real practical experience

7. Collect feedback on your work

8. Create a portfolio

9. Get connected

10. Never stop learning

Moving from web development to UX design is not difficult. The good news is you already have a lot of skills you can use in the new field, and once you invest some time in learning and practicing UX design, you’ll be ready for the transition.

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day98

Hello friends , a counter increment and a new topic is explored. What an amazing journey filled of challenges, knowledge and consistency.

Today we will dive in the Voice User Interface (VUI) Design and it’s best practices.

What is the Voice User Interface ?

• Voice user interface (VUI) is speech recognition technology that allows people to interact with a computer, smartphone or other device through voice commands . Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana are prime examples of VUIs.

Best practices for designing VUIs

• Keep it simple :

  • To begin with, don’t design your interface to be more complicated than necessary. When you’re creating voice interface software, there’s value in minimizing the steps or prompts between the initial query (“Hey Siri…”) and the answer your user seeks. Basically, keep it simple .
  • Because the user can’t visually see the path and the pattern like in a graphical user interface, where to start and where to go next should be as plain as possible

• Keep it natural :

  • Speaking of frustration, it’s easy to take our interaction patterns, especially our spoken patterns, for granted. Yes, the user is talking to a computer, but it doesn’t have to be weird. Keep the interactions natural.

• Keep it together :

  • The pace and progress of user-facing technology seems to accelerate every year. Computers can do many amazing things, but they do have limitations. Keep this in mind and use those constraints to your advantage. Design for a VUI that keeps its possibilities together.

• Keep it goal-oriented :

  • Finally, so much of user-centered design can and should focus on the needs of the user first (or at the center). Just like a web search or a call to a restaurant for takeout, VUI designers should always try to keep the interactions brief and goal oriented.
  • To do this, focus on the general design practices of incorporating research-backed personas and user flows.

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day99

Hello friends , Our 99th day is here, we have only one day left. What an amazing journey filled with knowledge, happiness and a lot of consistency.

Today we will talk about the the Main Pillars of Effective Design Systems.

The main pillars of a design system

1- Purpose and shared values

• Right from the start it’s important to understand and align the design team with a set of clear goals. Where are you actually going, and why? Make sure the team understands the values of the brand or product in order to stick to the brand objectives. Not only will this keep consistency with the product, but it will also bring the designers together for a more cohesive group.

2- Design principles

• Next you need to explore your design principles. What exactly are you wanting to make, and what should it look like? Put together guides on the purpose of the product to ensure your team really understands what you are creating, so they can make more meaningful design decisions

3- Brand language and identity

• Essential elements of a style guide include colors, fonts, icons, shapes, animation, voice, the use of the company logo, and more. It’s important to document these, and establish rules and guidelines, so that teams use the right combination of elements.

4- Components

• Components can be seen as LEGO blocks that are built out of all the other parts covered above. They’re the interface and UI elements – for example, call-to-action buttons, form fields, and checkboxes – that make up the heart of the design system. Created by designers and coded by developers, they minimize the effort required to build a product.

• Components can be seen as LEGO blocks that are built out of all the other parts covered above. They’re the interface and UI elements – for example, call-to-action buttons, form fields, and checkboxes – that make up the heart of the design system. Created by designers and coded by developers, they minimize the effort required to build a product.

5- Patterns

• Design patterns, meanwhile, are the building instructions or recommendations that you need to use the components effectively across all your products. Standardized patterns also create familiarity, which means things will be quicker and easier for users. It helps them understand your services and establishes trust.

[henna.s (Henna Singh)]

Super happy to see your progress @Darine_Tleiss

Many Many Congratulations on making to the final day

I hope you had a great time learning and sharing new things… Thank you so much for inspiring so many others…

Wish you all the best in all the things you do next…

Cheers,
Henna

[Darine_Tleiss]

100daysofcode - Day100

Hi family , hope all of you are doing great , this will be my last check up on you guys , today marks the last day of the 100daysofcode , what a journey, what a 100 days. it was a journey filled with knowledge, success, and failure…

I started my journey with learning JavaScript moved to CSS and SASS,on the 11 of June i became a WOMAN TECHMAKER AMBASSADOR , on the 21 of June i GRADUATED as a Computer Scientist , on July second i did my first on site talk which was in the google io extended event where i gave a talk about UI UX domain, after this session I decided to switch my content to discuss the UI UX field , then learned some React JS, Aug 9 I was happy to announce to you that Figma chose me as a community advocate , Then moved back to UI UX, on the 21 of August i turned 21 year old , and lastly on the September 5 i launched my course targeting Figma published on Udemy . And ended my journey with some more information on UI UX.

After all of this success there was also lots failure , sadness , exhaustion , everyday the imposter syndrome would come and give me a visit telling me i will not graduate, i will not achieve my dreams . I would stay up for 4 am to simply finish editing my videos for the course and in the morning i used to film my content. Everyday I thought to myself i will never finish the 100daysofcode but look at me i really achieved all my goals.

What a roller coaster of feelings , it was really an awesome journey, i learned not only consistency but how a very simple improvement every day can add a lot to our learning journey.

Thankful to everyone who supported me and followed my daily posts .
Special thanks to the MongoDB team who made this awesome community where people share knowledge, experience, and so much more.

Thank you so much for everything,
Hope you have a great life and all your dreams and goals become true,

Regards,
Darine Ali Tleiss

[Doug_Duncan]

Congratulations @Darine_Tleiss on completing the 100 days of code. Thank you for bringing us along on your journey and helping us to learn along with you.

[Kushagra_Kesav]

Amazing @Darine_Tleiss

Congratulations on reaching your 100th day and sharing it throughout!
I appreciate your diligence, consistency, and determination

Wish you all the best in your future endeavors

Cheers,
Kushagra

[webchick (Angie Byron)]

WOW, Darine! What an incredible journey! Congratulations to you!

[SourabhBagrecha]

Congratulations @Darine_Tleiss, that’s so awesome .
That’s indeed a roller coaster ride .
All the best for your future endeavors, onwards and upwards .