A weekly newsletter where I share ideas from about nurturing learning and curiosity with technology.
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Positive negatives
We need a word for experiences that are positive, but their undertones are negative. The situation that happened to me feels a little like this: I discovered a new song on Spotify that resonated super deeply with me through my Discover Weekly. Looking at the two collaborating artists, I thought to myself “Who are these…
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Sharing on social media sucks because we do it too much
I had a chilling thought yesterday about the effects of excessive exposure to everyone’s thoughts online: It’s easy to mock the excited posts of people celebrating new jobs and enjoying a small moment of victory in an otherwise difficult life. I used to dedicate my entire LinkedIn to laughing at these seemingly vapid posts. But…
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Improving marketplace UX by getting more users
Improving marketplace UX means getting more users You can improve marketplace UX with better search and helping users make offers. But the real secret? Having more people ????. In our latest YouTube video, we did a UX comparison of Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji (a Canadian marketplace like Craigslist or eBay). Below we’ve summarized our learnings.…
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The challenge with ranting as comedy
For a moment it seemed like ranting could have been a comedic avenue for me. Friends found it funny and I got a high from going down a quality rant about the most irrelevant things. Alternatively, ranting for an audience is a difficult task. Audiences can perceive the performer as shallow or unnecessarily harsh. For…
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How digital design canvases will evolve to better suit modern workflows
Modern design canvases, like Figma, take inspiration from sticky notes we put on a wall. As you add and move sticky notes, their purpose gets lost and additional information not on the note is lost. Similarly, the design canvas gets messy with frames filled with UI at different states of completion. These end up strewn…
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The smiling moon
Barcelona was hot and humid beyond what we could tolerate, but walking around the beautiful city, visiting friends and eating delicious food made it worth it. At least it did for the first week and a half. In addition to the recommendations curated by one of our generous friends, we relied heavily on Google Maps…
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My lost notebook
In 2016, at the happiest moment of my design education, I forgot my notebook on a train and the documentation of my growth that year disappeared with it. “At least you didn’t lose your laptop…” a friend said gingerly when the last car of the train rushed past. It was true that I had uniquely…
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Unfiltered design #2: Informal learning, futility, and standards—oh and I have a podcast now!
Sometimes the word “design” is so heavily associated with just tips and tricks and at some point that gets stale. Good design can only come if our sources of inspiration are broad! So here goes… Informally formal Not only in learning but in work as well, there is a general reluctance for play… for silliness.…
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Unfiltered design #1: Teaching design, Apple vs Figma, too many standards, and chess.
Writing has always been about learning for me. I’ve started posting regularly on LinkedIn using articles I read as launchpads for my own thoughts. This way of making connections is a great way to digest the torrent of information I’m bombarded with on a daily basis. At the end of every week, I’ll compile my…
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Overcoming indecision
For the last five years, I’ve grappled with a crippling obsession with making the right decision. This is despite knowing, intuitively, that life doesn’t have right choices. The onset of this condition was likely an overconsumption of content about what is now known as “hustle culture.” Following a severe dissatisfaction with my undergraduate education, I…
