How Grammarly engages with users while respecting user privacy
Grammarly is no longer the new kid on the block. It makes its users writing better than it actually is. It is easy to install and checks for grammar horrors on every word that touches a web-editing interface — like emails, documents, essays, message texts, and scripts.
Start — Stop — Continue from 2020
I always keep a running journal of things that I come across on social sites and valuable links shared by friends or colleagues from my network. Here’s a list of 55 notable learnings that I want to keep in mind as I roll over to the new year of 2021. I have divided the list into design, leadership, hiring (hiring/getting hired), writing/communication, and relaxation for ease of reading. Scroll below to see the entire list of learnings from the year 2020.
Design and being a designer
“Design doesn’t happen in the deep, cold vacuum of space. Design happens in the warm, sweaty proximity of people with a lot on their minds.” …
What makes a low code solution compelling? How do consumers decide to spend money on it?
Low-code solutions are all the rage these days. But what is low-code really? Low-code is a visual approach to software development. Low-code abstracts and automates every step of the application lifecycle to enable the rapid delivery of various software solutions. It breaks the traditional silos of business and IT to promote continuous collaboration. Increased business demand for software solutions and a shortage of skilled developers have propelled the adoption of low-code development platforms to the forefront.
To give you an example, in the consumer space, tools like Webflow and Squarespace are excellent for low-code website designing/building. While designing a website using JQuery doesn’t count as a low code solution since it involves a lot of coding, backend setting-up, and management of files across the project. …
Studying and unifying the payment systems in Grab — South East Asia’s top super-app
A crash course on Super Apps
Rise of Super Apps
If you have ever been to one of the bustling Asian countries, you would have noticed the growing trend of super-apps. Super App is an app that puts a bunch of services together into one bundle. Some of the countries have their homegrown super-app that caters to the needs of individuals and businesses.
Great startups always have plenty of challenges to overcome and problems to solve. They never rest on their achievements; they are always hungry, humble, and have a sense of urgency. These values attract diverse people from different cohorts to join them on their missions.
Arguably, the most prominent challenge startups face is cultural sustainability as they grow in numbers and scale of business or users when they have tried everything on the planet's face. The best way to solve these problems is by holding themselves accountable to their users and everyone who can potentially be their future users. …
How to use JDs and set up a learning path using them
It’s Monday morning, and you just got an email notification that says something like— “Facebook, Apple, and 3 other companies are looking for product design talents like you .” You get excited a bit and immediately tap on the “See more” button. You read through your dream job description and decided that your skillsets match the mentioned responsibilities well. You click on the “Apply now” button, select the last applied resume document from Dropbox, and hit the “Apply” button. …
How I managed to convert a design library with all its symbols/components between XD, Sketch, and Figma
Design systems libraries are about flexibility and should always aim to empower efficiency. Unfortunately, with tool competition brewing big, design teams and individual freelancers are left in a long battle to convert long and complex design libraries. Let us understand how to design libraries in XD, Sketch, and Figma and how we can move our design libraries between these tools.
Tool Basics
- Adobe XD is a vector design tool used for wireframing, mockups, and simple click-through prototyping. …
Don’t stop until you’re insanely proud of yourself.
I can’t believe that I am still analyzing my efforts from last year. 2020 was an insanely great year, to be honest. I decided to be consistent at doing various things, and no matter how hard I tried, I failed miserably at every one of them. It sounds quite disappointing, but the best part about putting consistent effort in any direction results in insane success and unfathomable resilience.
Let’s take a few examples of consistency I have considered for 2020–21 —
- Exercise — HIIT exercising daily for 15 minutes, 365 days a year can result in a fitter body with significantly reduce body fat and toned muscles. …
My journey on how to import Illustrator files into Figma
Introduction
In the last couple of years, notably last year, designers have largely changed their workflows to integrate Figma into their daily lives. Except for maybe the digital arts and print design industry, everyone is affected by this tool targeted towards product designers in the tech industry. I am one of those designers who jumped ahead and canceled all my existing subscriptions last year to shift to Figma.
Solving small user problems using minimal research methods
I have been working with a mentee thru’ Designed.org from a Transport 🚕 & Food 🍱 super app from South East Asia (SEA) called Grab. His main pain point is that his company doesn’t spend time improving user experiences because they don’t yield any monetary gains for company growth. These more nuanced user experiences can also be called invisible UX problems, and he wanted those problems to be addressed.
Having some experience with this kind of problem, I suggested he pick up end-user expertise to change and do a real-life user-research-study to take it to the next level (with small design changes). If the experiment goes well, he can highlight the results to his manager/team-members and get some engineering bandwidth allocated to such projects in the future. We decided to do a small experiment with a 50–80S$ budget and capture how we can improve experiences quickly with limited resources at our disposal. …
