Weeknotes #29.24
It’s the first time I’m late to write (and publish) my weeknotes. I’d say 28 weeks of getting to them on time isn’t too bad going and I probably shouldn’t be hard on myself for being late once. Friday ended up being quite busy for me, and I had a hard stop at 5pm to secure a sunny beer garden table while the weather was nice before the crowds descended which is why they took a back seat. To be honest, the injection of vitamin D felt much needed after the flop that has been Summer 2024, so I think it was totally worth it.
Reflecting on a week which has passed, but the week after, feels a little different to being reflective in the moment. I’m not sure I can properly articulate that thought so I’ll leave that to float around for me to linger on…
Last week was pretty fun though as I facilitated a design sprint! And that design sprint was focused on the optimisation of address fields. Turns out, there are maaaany different variables. I was lucky enough to have multi-disciplinary participation which I felt added to the perspectives and fun. It was really great helping to break down some barriers which I think can naturally emerge between engineer and design and shed a bit of light on what we’d typically do.
The sprint culminated in an epic ideation session and four different concepts prototyped ready for testing next (well, technically this week). I think I bit off a bit more than I could chew, saying I could do four concepts. I felt a bit rushed and did not adhere to any of the Figma best practice I know about. However meetings took a whole afternoon so rather than the day and a half I thought I had, I had a single day to pull everything together which was definitely not enough. I’ve managed to get them to a place where users can test but there are a few things missing which I will slowly iterate on throughout the week.
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I’ve also said I’d help with facilitating a ways-of-working activity with the team so that will probably be on the back-burner til my hand is forced to give it some real thought.
A well-designed lunch
We were lucky enough to have a Manchester-region designers meetup for lunch! It was lovely to see folks in real life and chat over lunch, though my day in the office wasn’t the best as I’d spent most of the day in meetings;not ideal! Topics at lunch included my going on about Glasto (nothing new there), bad wedding guests, and making work fun. A lovely lunch, and time was had :)
The big news is… I did my talk last week!
I feel that I don’t need to talk about this too much. I’m doing a follow-up blogpost on it at the end of the year so that should have some more info, but for proof…
In other news
We went to Abba Voyage last weekend which was a fabulous experience! The holograms were unreal and I’d highly recommend if you want to have a good time! We also had a meal at Bubala which was all kinds of stunning. The vegan hummus was to die for (topped with date & baharat crunch).
Warmth, positivity, and good vibes,
Dani S ✌️☮️
