For most of my career, my work ended at the prototype.

I’d design the flows, polish the screens, make a clickable thing that felt real enough, and then hand it over. Someone else built it. That was the deal, and honestly, I’d made peace with it. Mostly.

Then, sometime around Mar 2026, my Twitter feed changed. Everyone seemed to be building their own tools. Small, scrappy apps that solved one annoying problem for the person who made them. I’d been playing with Vercel, Lovable and Replit for prototyping at work, so I knew the tools were getting good. What I hadn’t done was build something of my own.

So I started tinkering. Partly to upskill in AI development, mostly to see if I could. And if I’m honest, there was a little insecurity in it too. Everyone around me seemed to be shipping, and I didn’t want to be the designer still waiting for someone else to build.

From March to June, it was all local development: small experiments, testing what the tools could do, building some skills for development and getting my hands used to code again.

In June, I stopped tinkering and started building an actual idea.

I wasn’t starting from zero. I’d learned some development in college, and then left it alone for years. I’d also built web apps before, so the obvious move was to build another one.

I picked a Mac app instead.

I had no idea what Apple development looked like. I’d never designed with Apple’s design library either. It was uncharted territory, which is exactly why it felt like the right challenge. I kept the scope small on purpose, because this was my first app and I wanted to actually finish it.

The idea came from a problem I’d been living with for years. As a designer, I save inspiration constantly. Some in Figma, some in Notion, some as screenshots on my phone. And the moment I actually need it, I can’t find any of it. Everything was scattered, and it was all a mess.

That became Moody, an app to save and find your design inspiration in one place.

I had so much fun designing it. And then there was the moment the first window loaded.

I don’t know how to explain it, except that it felt tangible. I’ve shipped web things before and never felt this. But a Mac app, with its own window and its own little icon in the Dock, felt like something that belonged to me. Something I had made.

The golden period of tokens

I already had a Claude subscription. Around this time I added Codex too, and the timing was lucky. Codex had dropped its 5-hour limit and was handing out free resets almost every week. Tibo from the Codex team kept announcing them on Twitter, and the internet ended up making him a saint. I had more tokens than I knew what to do with, so I burned them. I explored, broke things, rebuilt them, and learned faster than I would have on a tight budget.

I started using Moody myself. And my mind jumped to the next question: what would it take to ship this to other people?

But before I got there, I got distracted by another app.

The app I built because of the first one

Once I got into the habit of building, I was writing a lot more. Context files, notes, instructions, all of it fed to the agents. I was switching between Claude and Codex, copy-pasting context from one app to another, and it got hectic fast.

I wanted a simple Markdown editor. One place to open any file and edit it.

How hard could an editor be? I genuinely thought I could ask Claude to one-shot something like Notion.

It opened a can of worms. An editor is full of tiny decisions that you never notice until you have to make them:

• How should nesting work?
• How do bullets and checkboxes behave?
• How do keyboard shortcuts work?
• When should it save?
• How do you keep the scroll position while it saves?
• How should it work alongside agents?

Some of these features feel like they should just be there, but there is a lot of thought that goes behind all these tiny details. Each of those deserves an article of its own. Together, they became LocalEditor.

Designing a system, not a feature

LocalEditor taught me something my job never quite did.

At work, when I design a feature, I think about that feature. How it works, what its states are, where it breaks. I rarely think about the system around it.

A Mac app doesn’t let you get away with that. While reading about Mac app design, I realised every feature lives inside macOS, not just inside my app. How does it work with the keyboard? What shortcuts does it need? How does it behave next to another app? The whole point of LocalEditor was that it should work with Claude and Codex, so I needed to be able to drag a file straight from the editor into Claude. Then there’s the menu bar. Then the Dock: how should the icon look, and should it stay there in the background?

None of that shows up in a Figma frame. All of it shows up the moment someone uses your app.

For a while, I bounced between the two apps. Moody, built natively in Xcode, and LocalEditor. I used each one to help design the other.

Building is not free

Then came the real question: how do I make this production-ready, and how do I get it to people?

I started with a website. I hadn’t designed a website in years, so that was its own challenge. I tried doing it with Claude, but I couldn’t do proper creative exploration there. I wanted Figma alongside it, and Figma was another $20 plan. I was already paying for two.

That’s when it hit me: building costs money, and it keeps costing money just to explore. So I went on a free-tier tour. Figma, Paper, anything with a free limit, I tried it. In the end, I didn’t settle on any of them. I started designing my own concepts in HTML instead, right next to the code, where they could become the real thing.

The backend made the cost question clearer still. A web app needs one, which meant Supabase, which meant another bill. That’s one more reason the Mac app was such a good first project. No backend, no monthly server cost. It just runs on your machine.

Cheaper, but still not free. To notarize a Mac app, the step that lets macOS open it without a scary warning, you need an Apple Developer account. That’s $99 a year, before a single person has downloaded anything.

The quiet part: building my own systems

The thing I’m proudest of from these six months isn’t an app. It’s the way I work now.

Every time I caught myself repeating a task, I turned it into a skill, and I kept a library of them. That library is probably the most valuable thing I’ve built, because every new project starts faster than the last.

I learned to use worktrees, so I could build two features on the same app in parallel without them stepping on each other. I learned what a preview environment is, what production is, and why the gap between them matters.

Before LocalEditor was ready, I used Notion to store my context, and it came in handy in ways I didn’t expect. When I put a signup form on my website, the emails went straight into a Notion database. Now I use that database with Notion’s MCP to send emails and create campaigns for users.

None of these are clever on their own. Together, they made me fast. If there’s one thing I’d tell anyone starting out, it’s to build the system around your work, not just the work.

When everything touches everything

As the apps grew, testing became the next wall.

Early on, a new feature was just a new feature. Later, every feature touched five other things, and testing by hand stopped scaling.

So I built a workflow for it. The agent writes every test case into a Markdown file. I run through them, add my findings to the same file, and then the agent reads it and fixes what broke. It’s simple, and it’s the reason I trust a release now. Testing deserves its own article, so I’ll stop there.

One app, and then the first dollar

Building two apps at once had a cost I didn’t see coming. Shipping isn’t the end. You also have to tell people about it, and marketing two products while building them was too much.

So I picked one. For about three months, I focused only on LocalEditor: shipping, taking feedback from users, building what they asked for, shipping again.

Before I made the pricing public, I emailed the people on the waitlist who were already using the app. If they wanted to buy it, I’d give them a discount.

The next morning, I woke up to a payment.

I can’t really describe that kick. Two payments came in from that one email. The day after, I sent the same email for Moody, and the same person who had bought LocalEditor bought Moody too.

Since then, LocalEditor has made $120 and Moody has made $40. I know those aren’t big numbers. But I never imagined I’d make a single dollar from an app, or that real people would use something I built.

What actually changed

For years, I’d design something I believed in and then wait. Wait for a developer, wait for a sprint, wait for priorities to line up. A lot of my ideas never made it past that wait, and I used to feel quietly disappointed about it.

That feeling is gone. Now I can design an idea, build it, and put it in front of users myself. That’s the real unlock of these six months. It has given my job a different meaning.

So far I’ve shipped two apps, LocalEditor and Moody, and one website, Silicon City. I’m working on another app and another website right now. I’m also building my own UI library, which is really just another system: a way to design and build faster, so I can finally finish an app that’s been pending for months.

And there’s more…

That’s why I starting to document this journey. If you’re a designer learning to build, or a builder who cares about design, welcome.

There’s a lot I haven’t covered yet: skills, worktrees, testing, and what all of this really costs. But I’d rather write what you want to read.

Got a question about building? Leave a comment, and the most common ones become the next articles. No question is too basic. Six months ago, I didn’t know what a worktree was either.

Subscribe to follow along, and if you’re curious, LocalEditor, Moody and Silicon City are all out there.

Originally published at https://designrnikhil.substack.com on November 3, 2026.

I just wrapped an unforgettable 12-day trip across Spain and Portugal with my friend — and I’m still soaking in all the beauty, history, and emotion it stirred.

Spain is often seen as Europe’s party capital — and while that side certainly exists, I wanted to explore a different story. One filled with arches and empires, palaces and plazas, pastels and pastries.

This wasn’t your typical Spain itinerary — and that’s exactly what made it special. We journeyed through layers of Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Roman influences — woven into every city, every street. If you’ve ever thought that architecture might get boring after a few days, trust me… it didn’t.

This trip was a reminder that buildings are more than just structures — they hold memories, myths, and power.

🌍 Our Itinerary: Slowing Down Across Spain & Portugal

Day 1: Madrid

We began our trip in Madrid, Spain’s grand and graceful capital. Our first day was all about context — we joined a guided walking tour to understand the city’s layered history.

Madrid felt polished yet full of life. The Royal Palace, in particular, surprised me. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did — but the ceiling art? Breathtaking. One of the rooms had painted illusions that made you pause and just look up in awe. It felt like being inside a storybook.

Day 2: Segovia & Toledo Day Trip

We took a guided day trip from Madrid to visit two gems — Segovia and Toledo. They’re both just a short drive away, but each offered something completely different.

Segovia was like stepping into a Roman postcard. The aqueduct — an ancient engineering marvel — still towers over the town square, perfectly preserved. Alcazar de Segovia was a palace right from Disney movies. (Snow white castle design was inspired from this palace).

Toledo, once the capital of Spain, sits on a hill like a medieval crown. Walking through its winding cobbled streets, past ancient synagogues and Gothic churches, felt like time travel. I could’ve stayed longer.

Day 3: Slowing Down in Madrid

Back in Madrid for our third day, we explored the city at our own pace — on foot. What struck me most was how walkable everything was. The pedestrian paths were often wider than the roads! Many areas didn’t even allow vehicles, and it was such a refreshing contrast to the chaos of Indian traffic.

We wandered through lively neighborhoods, stopped for tapas (Spanish small plates that are big on flavor), and spent a quiet afternoon at the Prado Museum. In the evening, we strolled to the Temple of Debod — a surprisingly serene Egyptian temple, gifted to Spain, glowing golden under the sunset.

Day 4: Hello, Lisbon

Next stop: Lisbon. We flew into Portugal’s capital, and though we only had two days there, it brought a very different rhythm to our trip. Lisbon felt more lived-in — laid-back, chaotic in places, yet full of charm.

There were trams rattling up steep hills, tiled buildings catching the light, and music floating out of cafés. It was warm, emotional, and spontaneous.

We spent a good part of the day at the Oceanarium, and then explored the Jerónimos Monastery and Lisbon Cathedral in the evening. And the pastries? Unreal. I’m still thinking about those Pastéis de Nata.

Day 5: A scenic day trip to Sintra

We took one of the most scenic day trips along the west coast — to Sintra, Cabo da Roca, and Cascais. And oh, Sintra felt like stepping into a fairytale.

It rained in the morning. It was the perfect weather for this trip. Pena Palace was the highlight: perched on a hill, painted in vivid reds and yellows, and covered in quirky details. It’s Romanticism at its theatrical best. We wandered through its terraces and rooms, a little windblown, very enchanted.

Later, we stood at Cabo da Roca — the westernmost point of continental Europe. Wind in our faces, waves crashing below, and nothing but the Atlantic ahead. It felt symbolic somehow, like standing at the edge of something infinite.

But the surprise of the day was Cascais. Our guide took us there on the way back — a charming little fishing village that felt like a postcard. Colorful houses, peaceful streets, and a coastal calm that made us want to linger.

The guided tour made the day even more special. Our guide was a brilliant storyteller and gave us so much context — legends, history, royal gossip. We also made friends from other countries and spent time chatting about food, cities, and life.

Day 6: Slow Living in Seville

We arrived in Seville by bus and… decided to ditch all our plans. After five days of packed travel, our bodies (and brains) needed a break. So we let ourselves slow down.

Seville welcomed us with orange trees lining the streets, soft golden light, and a rhythm that felt unhurried. We explored the city entirely on foot — wandering through narrow cobbled lanes, pausing at quiet plazas, letting the day unfold on its own. It became the mid-trip breather we didn’t know we needed.

Day 7: Tiles, Thrones & Towers

Feeling refreshed, we kicked off the day with a guided tour covering three of Seville’s most iconic landmarks — the Giralda Tower, Seville Cathedral, and the Royal Alcázar.

Climbing the Giralda gave us sweeping views of the city, and stepping into Seville Cathedral — the largest Gothic cathedral in the world — was jaw-dropping. But the most surreal moment? Standing in front of Christopher Columbus’s tomb, held aloft by figures representing the four kingdoms of Spain.

Then came the Royal Alcázar of Seville. Intricate tilework, endless archways, lush gardens — it felt like walking in the Game of Thrones set (fitting, since it was the filming location for Dorne). Every corner was a masterpiece.

In the evening, we made our way to the Plaza de España — a massive semi-circular plaza glowing under the setting sun. Locals rowed boats, street musicians played, and we stumbled upon a live flamenco performance happening in one of the alcoves. Passionate, raw, and powerful — it was the perfect end to a day soaked in Andalusian spirit.

Day 8: Day Trip to Córdoba

We took a morning train to Córdoba, and the journey itself felt like a small adventure. The European trains were so efficient and comfortable — it almost made travel feel luxurious.

Córdoba, once the capital of Islamic Spain, had a quiet, contemplative energy. The streets were narrow, shaded, and slower than the cities we’d seen before. But the real reason we came? The Mezquita-Catedral — a mosque turned cathedral, and hands down one of the most grand spaces I’ve ever stepped into.

Endless striped arches, each one pulling us deeper into centuries of layered faiths and empires. It wasn’t just a building — it was a conversation across time. Of all the places we visited, this one might just be my favorite.

We also tried a local dessert here — Pastel Cordobés, a flaky pastry filled with pumpkin jam and dusted with sugar. It was unexpectedly good.

In the afternoon, we took a stroll to visit other landmarks of the city — The alcazar, jewish quarters and Roman bridge before returning back to Seville.

Day 9: Off to Granada: Palaces, Patterns & Pure Emotion

We boarded another train — this time to Granada.

Our afternoon was spent exploring the architectural wonder that is The Alhambra, with the Nasrid Palaces at its heart. The detailing here was otherworldly: carved stucco walls, muqarnas ceilings, intricate Arabic calligraphy, delicate arches framing courtyards of still water.

We learned that the Muslim architects of that time were some of the best in the world. Even after Catholic rulers reclaimed Spain, they retained these craftsmen — tasking them to continue building under Christian rule. That blend gave rise to a unique architectural style called Mudéjar.

Muslim designs had lower windows, cozy seating areas facing the light, and gentle water channels flowing through quiet courtyards. Fountains were kept low and subtle — creating an almost meditative calm. It was such a contrast to the vertical grandeur of Catholic spaces.

In the evening, we went to a flamenco performance in the city. The intensity of the singing, the footwork, the rhythm — it was raw, emotional, and impossible to look away from. Watching it in Granada, where the tradition was born, felt incredibly special.

Day 10: Last Stop: Barcelona, A Slow Evening with Gaudí

We arrived in Barcelona by train — our final stop. After all the travel, we needed a slower pace. That evening, we visited Casa Batlló for the night show.

Gaudí’s work doesn’t feel like architecture — it feels like imagination brought to life. Casa Batlló was all wavy lines, colorful mosaics, bone-like balconies. At night, it transformed into something dreamlike. We wandered through its halls and rooftops, exploring the magic the house had to offer.

Day 11: Gothic Stories & City Strolls

We started the day with a mini photoshoot in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. The narrow alleys, stone walls, and pops of sunlight created perfect frames.

Later, we joined a guided walking tour to dive deeper. We learned about the city’s role in the Spanish Civil War, Catalan identity, and how the Gothic and Modernist styles coexisted in ways we hadn’t noticed before. Gaudí’s architecture suddenly felt less whimsical and more intentional.

Barcelona wasn’t just beautiful. It was complex. And the tour helped us see it that way.

Day 12: Sagrada, Souvenirs & Soft Goodbyes

We ended our trip with a visit to La Sagrada Família. It’s hard to describe the feeling of standing before something that has been under construction for over 140 years.

Each facade told a different story. Inside, the space opened like a forest of columns and stained glass. Light poured in, painting everything with color. It wasn’t just architecture — it was art in motion.

Afterwards, we wandered the city one last time. We picked up souvenirs for friends, drank one last cup of coffee in the sun, and said a quiet goodbye to a city that had completely won us over.

✨ Reflection: What Stayed With Me

Beyond the landmarks and history, it was the feeling of being there that stayed with me.

The air felt fresh.
The cities were made for walking.
And even though we didn’t speak the local languages, the people were warm and helpful — we managed everything just fine with a smile and Google Translate.

🎵 A Travel Rhythm That Just Worked

We followed a simple 3-day rhythm in every major city:

• Day 1: Guided walking tour
• Day 2: Explore key landmarks and neighbourhoods on foot
• Day 3: Take a guided day trip to a nearby town

It gave us structure without feeling rigid. And it allowed us to connect stories across regions in ways we hadn’t expected.

🎧 The Power of Guided Tours

Our guides weren’t just reciting facts — they were storytellers. They made history come alive. We also got to meet people from all over the world, share meals, and exchange stories.

If you’ve never done one before, take at least one guided tour on your next trip. It might surprise you.

🏛️ The Cultural Thread That Tied It All Together

What truly blew me away was how Spain seamlessly blends its Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Roman roots. You feel this fusion everywhere — from the architecture to the food, from city planning to local customs.

It made the experience richer, deeper, and never repetitive. We were constantly learning, noticing how names, styles, and legends reappeared in different places, tying the entire trip together like a historical puzzle.

For example:

• We saw Columbus’s tomb in Seville Cathedral — held aloft by figures from the four Spanish kingdoms
• In Córdoba, we saw a statue of Columbus where he first came to request funding for his exploration (and got rejected)
• In Granada, we saw where his second request was finally accepted
• And in Barcelona, where he returned after discovering the Americas

Similarly, we noticed parts of the Roman aqueduct system we saw in Segovia showing up again in Seville and Barcelona. Little threads like these wove the trip into a much larger story.

🍽️ Food, Culture & Breaking Habits

Because of Spain’s cultural blend, we got to try food across traditions — Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic influences all reflected on the plate.

This was also the first time I spent 10 days without Indian food or tea (which, if you know me, is saying a lot). Instead, we embraced English-style breakfasts, tapas, Middle Eastern mezze, endless pastries, and strong coffees.

There were hits and misses, but the variety kept things exciting.

🌍 Travel, Friendship & Everything In Between

I went with a close friend, and this trip became more than just sightseeing. We walked, got lost, joined tours, laughed over food, and had unexpectedly deep conversations. Travel gives you that space to just be.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to enjoy history and architecture this much. I wasn’t a history buff before — but I’m leaving with stories, appreciation, and a whole new curiosity.

I’m glad my friend pushed me to go deeper. Otherwise, I might’ve just taken photos in front of pretty buildings and missed what was hiding inside them.

📍 My first Europe trip — and now I’m already daydreaming about the next one.
Até logo. Hasta pronto.

📫 Planning Your Own Trip?

If you’re thinking about traveling to Spain or Portugal, or just curious about this route, feel free to drop a comment or DM — I’d love to help.

Whether it’s city recommendations, day trip ideas, or Schengen visa tips, I’ve been through it all and would be happy to share what worked for us.

There’s still so much I couldn’t fit into this blog, but I hope it inspires you to explore Spain beyond its party scenes and postcard snapshots.

Thanks for reading. 🌍✨

On Mar 23, 2020, the Prime minister of India ordered a 21-day nationwide lockdown, which was followed by a series of lockdowns. We had never seen a pandemic of such a scale in a decade. People lost jobs, lost dear ones, migrated from one part of the country to another, and were forced to work from home. We had never imagined how our lives could quickly turn upside down.

One year later, we are still stuck in the COVID world. And with the second wave of COVID numbers surging up daily, we are still unsure how long we have to survive in this new normal. Although there is a glimmer of hope with the vaccination drive, COVID has changed many things which will take multiple years to recover.

I want to talk about one of such things severely affected by COVID — our finances. It is one of the crucial aspects that we often don’t talk about (unless Elon Musk tweets Gamestonk or dogecoin). COVID made me realise the importance of managing my finances well and building wealth over time to help keep me afloat in these odd times.

I started my job in 2019. Having just graduated from college, I was now earning more than I could spend. And thanks to my frugal lifestyle, I had a significant disposable income. I spent all this extra money travelling, partying, eating out, and buying expensive gadgets and clothes. I was least worried about saving. Even if I saved some money, I would leave it in my bank. My idea was that I had just started earning money so I could delay saving for at least 2–3 years and focus on enjoying my 20s. Besides, there was too much to comprehend before deciding to put my money anywhere else. Having grown in a middle-class family, I didn’t want to risk losing money that I already had. I thought I could take my time to figure out the perfect investment strategy for my money before beginning this journey.

But life doesn’t work as expected. COVID hit, and I was forced to work from home. For 2–3 months, I didn’t realise what was happening. Every day I used to hear news about layoffs. My friends were losing jobs. And so were my family members. Slowly the fear of getting laid off started lurking inside me too. It was tough. And then my fears realized. Gojek also decided to lay off some of their employees. I quivered.

“I don’t have enough money to wait for 2–3 months until I can get a job anywhere else!”
“How will I pay my rent?”
“From where will I be paying my bills?”
“My parents don’t have enough money. Who will help me?”

Thoughts like these started taking me over.

Fortunately, I wasn’t laid off. Maybe Gojek found me relevant in navigating their way through the COVID uncertainty. There was some relief. But I was still in shock. This could have happened to me. It was happening with my closest friends. There could be another round of lay-offs. Who would know? To avoid getting into such a situation in future, I resolved to save money.

I started watching youtube videos, read articles, and studied from Varsity by Zerodha. There was just so much to learn. One common advice across all these mediums was to start investing early and immediately.

I took some money from my savings and bought some large company stocks for a start while continuing my reading on the side. While it has been just a year since I started understanding personal finance, I have already gained my confidence back. I am happy that I have started investing, and with some stringent goals set up for this year, I am sure I will be able to come back on track.

Thrilled with this newly found knowledge, I want to share my notes on how I have been managing my personal finances. My hope is that if you find yourself in a situation similar to mine, some of this might help you. However, I’ll reiterate that it has been just a year since I started this journey. What worked for me might not work for you because our budget, risk appetite, and goals may not be the same. So, take this with a pinch of salt.

Before I start talking about my story of managing finances, I want to clarify why you should be managing yours too as well.

In short, the value of money decreases if the money is kept in the bank for a longer time as the bank gives a return of only 3–4% annually. India’s current inflation rate is 7%. In order to avoid this, it is important to ensure that the return on your money is beating inflation annually, at least. The way to do that is by investing in assets like stocks, ETFs, MFs, PPF, and EPF. Know more in detail about inflation and why you should be investing here.

Now since you are on the same page, let’s go…

#1. Tracking my expenses

One thing that I had always been doing well (that I realise now) was keeping track of my expenses. I used to do this with the help of the wallet app. There were other apps like Walnut and IndMoney where I could track money, but I liked this app because it lets me create multiple buckets to track my money more granularly — something that other apps were not as good at.

Continuing this practice, I religiously track my daily finances to this day. This helps me keep track of expenses against shopping, food, travel, rents, trips, bills, subscriptions, etc. Once I record the expenses, I can analyse them over the months to understand how much money I need every month for the fixed expenses (rent, bills, etc.) and variable expenses (food, shopping, travel, etc.).

I do it manually at the end of each day because it helps keep me aware of my finances daily, due to which I stay on track with respect to my set budgets.

If you’re not doing this already, I would recommend creating an excel sheet or using any of the mentioned apps to track your monthly expenses. Also, consider your annual expenses like streaming and fitness subscriptions and divide them by 12 to add to your list of monthly expenses.

#2. Creating spend buckets

Thanks to my tracking habits, I have all the data to categorise my spending into three buckets — Needs, Wants, and Savings.

1. Needs- All fixed expenses come in this category, e.g. rent, bills, subscriptions or loan EMI.
2. Wants- All variable expenses come in this category e.g. food, travel, shopping, etc.
3. Savings- The money that isn’t spent

There is a general rule of 50–30–20 for dividing the monthly income that I follow. The intent here is to not compromise my lifestyle while saving money. Hence, Savings is the least (20%) while Needs is 50% and Wants is 30% of my monthly income.

On the first of every month, I separate my savings from the rest of the income. I use this amount to save for my short term and long term goals. It ensures that I follow the discipline of saving every month and prevents variable expenses from affecting it. Every month I also try to reduce my `Wants` while keeping ‘Needs’ fixed. It allows me to save more if needed. Though I am not very strict about it. I just try saving regularly without compromising my lifestyle.

#3. Preparing for emergencies

Before starting any investments in risk assets, keeping some amount aside for emergencies has been critical to me. This ensures that I have enough money set aside to use promptly whenever needed.

There are two broad types of emergencies that I stay prepared for-

1. Medical: Situations where my family or I might get hospitalised or in the event of a death.
2. Financial: Situations where my sources of income are cut or if I need more money than I earn.

If I do not set up my emergency fund, it is likely to tamper with my investment routine if any such emergency occurs. However optimistic I am, I cannot deny the possibility of these situations. I do not want to disturb the magic of compounding. Hence I have got insurance and emergency funds in place first. (though I still need to finalise my term plan.)

Since Insurance is used for medical emergencies, I don’t see it as an investment asset. I don’t expect any returns from it. There are two important insurances to consider — term (in the event of death, money is transferred to the closest member of the family) and medical (if I’m hospitalised, the insurance company pays money to the hospital). Here are the links to understand term and medical insurances.

With insurance taken care of, I have started keeping some money aside for building an emergency fund (3–6 times the fixed expenses). I keep this money in a liquid fund that has low risks. If you want to build an emergency fund for yourself, choose anything which has low risk (i.e. money is safe from the stock market fluctuations) and high liquidity (i.e. you can take out your money and use it instantly). You can do this with a debt fund, an ultrashort FD, liquid funds, or even with a savings account.

#4. Understanding short term & long term goals

With emergency funds in place, I can focus on my short term and long term goals. I define these as follows:

1. Short term goals: Any planned expenses coming in 3–5 yrs, e.g., buying an expensive gadget or planning a Europe trip.
2. Long term goals: Any planned expenses after five years, e.g., marriage, child education, getting home, and retirement.

I separate some amount for short term goals from my savings. How much I separate depends on how much time it might take to reach the amount needed for my short-term goal. I put this money in a low-risk asset — a fixed Deposit. Other options are recurring deposit, debt funds or ELSS (slightly higher risk and comes with a 3-year lock-in)

The remaining portion is what I use for long term investing. I use the Groww app for this. I love their simple and easy UI. Other options are Zerodha, IndMoney, and Upstox.

#5. Long term investing

This is the part that I love to talk about so much that I can write a separate article on it. Here, I will just give an overview. I have divided this into two categories-

1. Retirement corpus- Money that I will need after retirement. I calculated how much money I need for retirement using this link. It’s my annual expenses compounded on the inflation rate (7%) until the age I plan to retire. PPF and EPF cover this for me now. Since these are government-backed funds, it ensures that the retirement amount is secured. Another option is NPS.
2. Everything else- This is where I can take maximum risks and expect maximum returns. Finance has a golden rule — More the risk, more the returns. I put this money in equity investments and a tiny amount (5%) in gold for diversification. Another option for diversification is Bitcoin. (Since it is highly volatile in nature, I recommend putting a small amount like 10% here.)

I prefer Sovereign gold bonds for investing in Gold. Other options are digital gold, gold ETFs, gold mutual funds and physical gold. Read here why I chose Sovereign gold bonds.

I have kept other small portion of funds in mutual funds (MFs) and the remaining large portion of it in direct stocks for equity investments. Other options are smallcase and ETFs. You would need a Demat account to invest in stocks. All of the mentioned apps allow you to open one and it’s a super easy process.

For MFs, I prefer index funds. Here’s why.

Since MFs come with expense ratios, I try to avoid buying other MFs. One advantage of MFs is that it allows me to set SIPs. Every fourth of the month, my SIPs are deducted automatically.

I have bought primarily large Indian companies stock. I recently purchased some US tech companies stocks as well. I buy these stocks every first of the month, irrespective of the price.

#6. Understanding taxation

People hate taxes when they have to pay them. Thus, understanding how to save on taxes is very useful. I put most of my money in equity investments and not in FDs, debt funds, or gold because of lower taxes on the former.

Equity investments-
LTCG: No tax if returns are < 1 lakh, otherwise 10%
STCG: 15%

Debt investments-
LTCG: 20% with indexation benefits
STCG: As per the income slab

Fixed deposits-
As per the income slab

Dividends-
As per the income slab

Interests on Bank account-
As per the income slab

Hence, you can save more by putting money in equity or debt as compared to traditional investment tools such as FDs or bank accounts. Read in detail here.

#7. Following the discipline

The whole planning is meaningless if I don’t follow the discipline of sticking to it. I need to keep my emotions in check and avoid any impulsive decisions. Over the last year, I’ve seen the market going from an all-time low to an all-time high. The market is still very volatile but it always goes up in the longer term.

In such times, I want to keep my emotions in check and hold on to my investment plans. I recently read an excellent book on this topic — “The Psychology of Money” by Morgan Housel. I would recommend you to read it.

Here are some great quotes from this book-

“Doing well with money has more to do with our behaviour and less with how smart we are”.

“You’re NOT a spreadsheet. You’re a person. A screwed up, emotional person. People don’t make financial decisions on spreadsheets. They make them at the dinner table or in a meeting room, where personal history, your unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together.”

I hope you find these insights from my personal finance management helpful. I would recommend you buy a small stock and get started in your investment journey immediately. Doing it yourself is the best way to learn after all.

Let me know what you would like me to share next. Otherwise, feel free to connect with me over Twitter @nikhilshares

Until then
Happy investing !!!

Credits: Thanks, Vineet Arora for helping out with grammar edits, Udayan Vidyanta and Shashank Sahay for early feedback.

Back in 2015, when we launched the Gojek app, we had three services to offer. It was a simple app aimed at making our customers easily get through their day. Slowly, our ambitions grew, so did the number of products we offered.

There was nothing simple about the app anymore. A Super App had arrived.

Today, millions of users transact on the Gojek app every single day. With such a massive scale, every team at Gojek shares a huge responsibility.

Imagine being already late for work and wasting precious minutes looking for the ‘Book Ride’ button because we just decided to move it elsewhere, and didn’t even bother to tell you about it! The ramifications of any seemingly small design or product decisions have an amplified impact.

Here’s the story of a design project that was expected to improve a feature in driver-customer chat… But resulted in the opposite. 🤦‍♂️

This was my first big project with Gojek. I was so full of hopes and dreams, but this feeling didn’t last long though. Within a few days of launch, user complaints skyrocketed, and app store ratings plummeted. Surprised and dejected, my team and I buckled ourselves together to fix the mistakes.

Easing the coordination with driver partners

The Gojek ecosystem completes over 200 million orders a month, and our driver partners fulfil a large part of these orders (like GoFood, GoCar, GoSend, GoRide, etc.). Customers and drivers partners rely on a better way to communicate instead of traditional calls, so there’s reduced friction during coordination during an order. Here’s where our Driver to Customer Chat comes in handy.

Customers use Gojek chat for 90% of their orders to coordinate with our drivers partners. 💬

The coordination between customers and driver partners is usually full of hassle, especially when drivers have difficulty finding our location or we’re stuck in crowded places. Hence, it becomes imperative for us to try and improve this experience and reduce inconvenience as much as possible.

Quick Messages — The first solution

Quick Messages feature was launched as the first step to easing Driver-Customer chat. We analysed and surfaced the most typed messages between customers and driver partners on the chat window according to relevant booking status. This helped customers to send the messages with one tap and reduce the effort of typing messages on the keyboard.

After the launch, our numbers revealed that not many were using the feature. To understand why this was happening, we collaborated with our research team and did a user study to understand this behaviour further.

We found out that users were facing difficulty while scrolling the horizontal list to find the right message.

Besides, some users also pointed out that the messages weren’t colloquial and quite formal, which made them hesitant to use the feature. They wanted to show politeness and gratitude to their driver partners by sending more personalised messages.

Back to the drawing board

Armed with new insights and innocent enthusiasm, we restarted our journey. Apart from ensuring contextual and cultural relevance to these messages, it was important to first focus on improving the discoverability of the messages itself.

As a result, we proposed shifting the messages from a horizontal list to a vertical one. This would not only help us in legibility and better interaction but would also allow us to fit longer and more personalised messages in the future. We also decided to keep the layout always open below the keyboard to allow users to quickly discover messages and send them to driver partners with ease.

While devs were busy analysing the feature, we created a static prototype to test the new design before launching it to customers quickly. With the help of our research team, we selected a mix of low and high quick message users and showed them the prototype to figure out any usability concerns while using the new designs. Some users showed apprehension towards the content, but there were no complaints about the changed layout, which gave us the confidence to roll out with the latest designs.

Pretty excited about the testing result, we launched the feature to internal users and waited for the feedback.

Embracing the storm

It was first our internal testing channel that started buzzing in with feedback from our alpha users. We weren’t anticipating the feedback because all our focus was to fix and improve the previous UX. We overlooked the major feedback around the abrupt jump in the Quick Messages card when messages load.

The added anxiety of the users while opening the chat window to interact with drivers was leading them to tap on quick messages when they intended to tap on the keyboard. This led to accidental messages being sent REPEATEDLY. Misunderstood as a bad internet connection problem, we decided to fix the same in the next release cycle and went ahead with a 100% production release.

In-office, we were constantly discussing with our internal users and developers to understand the root cause of the problem, oblivion of the fact that some users had already started rating us with a one ⭐️ on Play Store. Some of them ended up complaining about this buggy new release on Twitter. The outrage was severe. The cracks of faulty implementation were showing up. 😨

Alarms started buzzing about the disastrous feedback we were receiving on Play Store. We had to do something and it had to be quick.

I remember my product manager and I jumping on a phone call at night and deciding to turn off the feature completely. To add to the mess, we hadn’t put the feature behind the toggle in iOS. 😐

We had to remove all Quick Messages from the backend. We were dejected. That day we realised that we had failed terribly in improving the feature and made it worse. It was such an eye-opener for all of us.

Back to the drawing board… again!

After turning off the feature, we needed to identify the issue properly and fix it so that we could turn on the feature again. We found out that the quick message API was taking some time before loading all the messages on the chat window. On top of it, on android, handling keyboard layout interactions was not straightforward due to which there was a sudden jump in the layout whenever a user entered the chat window.

Because of the above reasons, we decided to hide the quick messages under a tap instead of opening it every time, and users could access it whenever they wanted. With this quick fix, we turned this feature on, again in the next release. Despite solving discoverability issues by adding a coach mark for users visiting the chat window for the first time, we saw no improvement in adoption. Users were putting more effort into typing messages than ever before.

We then decided to go back to our drawing boards to start from scratch and question the very existence of the feature:

Why do we need it?
What problem is it solving?
What are the alternate ways of solving it better?
How can we make it relevant?
How can we do testing better?

We also dug deeper into our past research to arrive at multiple iterations for the feature. We explored multiple possibilities — putting quick messages on top of the chat input in the form of a drawer, fixing them above input, adding a floating button.

No solution felt like the messages were a part of the conversation.

But then, we asked ourselves an important question:

If Quick Messages are supposed to reduce friction for chat and help faster communication, why can’t it be part of the chat itself?

We sketched out an idea where we showed suggestions as part of the chat messages. We iterated on the interactions a bit and showed this idea around. Everyone loved the new idea.

The final design experiment

To avoid any confirmation biases, we did an A/B test with different versions (expanded and collapsed) of the last option and measured and compared their usage with our existing design. We put extra efforts into polishing each interaction to ensure that no previous issue happens again. Afraid of any unintended bugs, we launched it first for our internal users and waited for a week.

We used this time to test the developed solution with some users further. This time, we decided to test the full journey between the time booking is made to the time driver partner arrives at the location, instead of just showing users a chat window and asking them about the feature. This helped us remove any bias from the study and also enabled us to focus on the full experience rather than being limited to a screen. We also ensured that we test the feature in the natural environment, i.e., near the malls or office lobbies where coordination is generally difficult for the users.

The results of user testing were favourable. Having suggestions as part of conversations made the feature accessible and facilitated the usage of quick messages before thinking of typing. Our users loved the collapsible version of Quick Messages as it gave them more control over the space of the chat window. This was a small win for us but having failed before, we didn’t want to celebrate the success so early.

The big win

We started with 10% of users in production, split equally for both versions, and then waited for 2 weeks for the result. We were constantly checking social media and Slack channels for any feedback. Our eyes were glued to the screens as the graph was rising steadily and by the end of the 2 weeks, we saw a 3.5x improvement in the adoption. 🥳

We also saw users using the keyboard lesser while using the chat, which meant an 8% reduction in the typing effort. The positive feedback had us smiling ear to ear. We then gradually rolled out the feature to 100% users.

Our users loved the solution. We also saw our Play Store ratings returned to the old numbers.

Our learnings

The bittersweet journey of Quick Messages right from horizontal pills to vertical layout and then finally, the suggestion box taught us multiple lessons. It again proved the importance of listening to our users constantly, putting efforts in polishing small details and improving the feature can have a lasting effect on not just our adoption numbers but the brand of the company as well.

Here are the lessons we learnt from this journey and hope they can help you or your team to take such decisions in the future:

1. Prepare for the unexpected
   This being my first BIG project, I had never anticipated such failure with the proposed design improvement. Putting the feature/change behind the toggle helps in turning off a feature in an uncertain time, and it becomes easy to recover.
2. Respond quickly
   Such an unanticipated outcome showed Gojek’s resilience. It was a fanboy moment for me. My team was not afraid to accept the failures, and instead of wasting time blaming any function or team, we all focussed our efforts on fixing the problem first. Wasting any more time could have resulted in more churn.
3. Start small and then scale
   The other mistake we did during the release of the v2 experiment was to release the feature completely to 100% users. We realised the importance of releasing the feature to a small percentage of users, proactively seeking feedback from all possible channels, rather than just sticking to numbers (blind sighted with initial spikes in adoption) and then gradually scaling to other users.
4. Test for scenarios, not screens
   During our first user testing, we didn’t take into account the environment or state in which the user will be using the feature. On top of it, we also used a static prototype for testing. Because of this, we were not able to catch any interaction issues. Chat is a dynamic product and hence should be tested in an interactive prototype. We should also try to aim for testing of the task/journey instead of focusing on the feature that is just a small part of the journey. This will help uncover some hidden insights that can further help improve the feature.
5. Polishing small details matter
   We neglected the keyboard interaction considering it to be a minor issue, but it turned out to be the opposite. Hence in the latest design upgrade, I spent extra time with developers in polishing all the micro-interactions. Kudos to our developers for bearing with me throughout these small changes.

I’d like to thank all the Chat Team members who were involved in building and shipping this feature. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve such a positive result.

We are now putting efforts into making these suggestions more relevant by suggesting the right set of replies for the users depending on the messages they receive. There are many more feature improvements in the upcoming days.

Stay tuned!

Click here for more stories on how we build our Gojek #SuperApp. 💚

Gojek Chat: The Gateway To Successful Order Completion was originally published in Gojek Product + Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For easing the pain of setting up Notion, they provide multiple templates for every purpose. Look at their template gallery below. It’s crazy!

While templates are an excellent way to start a project, they can become problematic when we use them without a thought. And it doesn’t apply just to Notion templates but to all kinds of templates, be it a template for writing a UX case study, user persona, a portfolio website, or for an app for maintaining a to-do list. Thus, I want all of us to be aware of some problems and be cautious before we religiously begin using them.

However, before we dig deeper, let’s begin with understanding why templates exist in the first place.

The horrifying blank canvas

We all have stared long enough on the blank screens with no idea how to start the project. It feels like there is too much to do for setting up the stage. Templates solve this problem by providing pre-defined structures. They come as a useful handy tool for increasing efficiency and reducing the prep time for a project.

They remove the need for doing the same work over and over again — no more making the same structure before every project — thus reducing the cognitive load of setting up the project.

Today it is elementary to make a simple resume. We don’t have to invest time in thinking about what will go inside it. Start with a predefined template, and there is no need to set up the bare-bone structure.

But did it reduce decision making?

Templates, templates everywhere

Not a template to use

This is what Samuel Taylor might have said in his words. Where templates were supposed to reduce the effort of decision making, the sheer number of template choices has aggravated the decision-making problem further. Now we have to spend time thinking about what template to choose for a project. But before we talk about the solution, let’s first understand why we have so many choices when the idea of templates itself was about reducing the cognitive load. Why are there so many templates?

It is because of CONTEXT.

Every template has a context associated with it. Because there can be numerous contexts, there will be multiple templates. Different factors build the context-

• The person who created the template
• The time when it was created
• Its objective

Let’s take an example where we are trying to build a portfolio website and download a website template. Before we start working on it, we need to figure out if the template suits our requirements. We can begin with the following questions:

Who created the template?

Did the person who developed the template have enough knowledge to understand what an ideal portfolio website should look like? Was that portfolio website meant to be used by a product designer or a graphic designer? Did they build the template to support case studies? Or did they make it just for images?

How old is the template?

Is the template obsolete? Is it suitable for current design standards? How advanced was the industry, technically, when the template was created? Is the template capable of doing everything we need? Or can we add more capabilities to it?

Why was the template created?

Lastly, what was the objective of the template? And does our objective align with that of the creator? Maybe it was created to showcase some of the work, whereas we might want to use it as a blog website to publish new articles.

Asking these questions can help us gauge how relevant the template is to our project.

Finding our perfect template

With the problems associated with using someone else’s template, it feels compelling to figure out what a perfect template would look like. Here are some of the methods which I use, to ensure that I make proper use of templates-

Not all boxes need to be ticked

Since a template is customized according to one’s needs, the requirements may vary from person to person. The same template that worked for somebody might not work for us. We need to modify it according to our context.

One way to modify a template is by ticking just the right boxes i.e., by questioning every requirement in the template and then understanding what to filter out — what to accept and what to reject.

Mix and Match

Another way is experimentation. I remember an episode from Powerpuff girls where Mojo Jojo was desperate to find out a way to create a power equal to The Powerpuff Girls. Mojo placed an anonymous phone call to Professor Utonium, to ask about his recipe for the girls’ creation. Finding the ingredients of sugar, spice, and everything nice “too girlish” for his needs, He wanted something “tougher” and “more manly.” So he made a few variations on the recipe with everything he needed available in prison.

It is a great example where Mojo Jojo used the recipe given by Professor with some modifications to create something similar, but which suited his needs.

We need to find our recipe too!

With rigorous experimentation!

We can collect different template choices and use them as varying data points to mix and match what works for us and what doesn’t, to arrive at the final structure that suits our needs.

We might not need a template

As ironic as it may sound, the perfect template could be “no template.”

Templates are useful when the objective is clear e.g., keeping track of all the articles that we discover on social media. A simple “to-do list” template that lets us save article/video links fulfills the purpose very well.

But when the objective is not clear — when we don’t even know what we need — it’s best, to begin with, a blank slate and to start maintaining a list; however, we feel comfortable. Once we’ve had enough list items, we can take a call on how we want to organize it into a “template.”

Summing up

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”- Aristotle

Critical thinking is essential to any project. Let’s not use templates as an escape board to short circuit our way out of critical thinking. Instead, let’s use them as a tool to navigate through unfamiliar methods and concepts and learn on the way.

Do you think there is a shortcut? Maybe there is. Or perhaps we have a long way to go before we figure that out. Let’s keep exploring. :)

Thanks for reading this so far. Keep following me on Twitter and Medium for more such updates. If you have any concerns about anything design related or other, ping me on any of the above platforms. I ‘d be happy to help.

Thanks, Vineet Arora for helping with the edits.

We have seen many instances of designers ranting on Twitter about case studies. They are our major bottleneck to building portfolios. While there are various portfolio solutions like Dribbble, Behance, Medium, Wordpress, or Webflow available to ease our pain, We still haven’t seen any app that can provide a solution to magically fill in our portfolios with case studies.

No matter how much we procrastinate, We know that it is an important part of our portfolio and there is no magic that can save us from the pain of writing them. Mostly because we still haven’t been able to figure out-

What are the ingredients of this secret sauce?
What should be the right order?
What should be the right amount of these ingredients?

Through this article, I want to uncover the ingredients of this secret sauce and share my thoughts around documenting case studies and what I think we might be missing in our case studies.

General ingredients of a case study

For the sake of this article, let’s consider a hypothetical problem statement for increasing the conversion rate of the ticket booking process for an event booking app. While we can decide to name our sections differently and tell about our design process in any manner, Here are the general details to put in our case study:

#1. Problem Statement: It is the first section of the case study and it sets the stage for the reader on what they can expect in the case study. It is generally a wider problem statement that the designer is trying to solve. For e.g., Increase the conversation rate of the ticket booking process, Improving the engagement rate for the event catalog screen, etc. It is usually associated with the business metrics/goals that the business is trying to improve with the help of design thinking.

#2. Design process: The next section gives a glimpse of the design process we followed for solving the above problem. This helps the reader understand how we approached the problem statement. Did we do user research? Did we work on just visuals? Did we work on the prototyping tool? This is the section to tell about that. We don’t have to go into detail to describe it. This is also the section that boasts of the fancy double diamond images. Tell about the process, however, messy it was.

#3. Data collection: Every problem statement needs some background knowledge or data to begin understanding what exactly we are trying to solve, who are we solving for and what is the scale for the problem. We can utilise this section to tell about the user research, the questionnaire we worked on, competitive study or stakeholder meetings we conducted and even, the user persona we created.

#4. Breaking down the problem: After collecting all the data, explain how we analysed it and what different problems we figured out that were contributing to the given wider problem statement (in the first step). The idea here is to break down our wider problem statement into smaller problem statements. For e.g., Difficulty in understanding what will be included in the ticket price, too much input required for booking or payment wallets not available for payment.

#5. Brainstorming/Wireframing: Explain how we began solving the identified problem statements. Did we make paper sketches? Show them. Did we make multiple versions of the solutions? Show them as well. Describe why we selected one version over the other. This is the part of the case study that recruiters are more interested to see. Describe how the final design reached the place it is now. What all design/product/dev decisions were taken. We can also start by writing the pros and cons of each proposed solution.

#6. Visuals: Once the solution was finalised, Tell about how we converted the wireframes to high fidelity designs/visuals. Did we tried different layouts? Did we tried different colours or visual hierarchy? Did we took care of accessibility? Did we designed icons by ourself? Were we involved in deciding type scale and style? Mention about them.

#7. Testing (if done): Once the visuals were finalised, Did we also test them with users? Did we make any prototype for it? Did we A/B test variants in the production or alpha release? Mention about them or feel free to omit this section if no user testing was performed.

#8. Results: The last step is to explain if our designed solutions were able to make an impact on user experience? Did we move any numbers we’re expecting? Or was it a failure? Are we planning any next steps for it? Did we get any play store reviews? Did we learn anything different while doing this exercise? Have we done anything different if some constraints were not there?Mention about it.

Related reading:

The case study factory

Deciding the amount of each ingredient

The next problem that we face while writing a case study is deciding the number of details for each section. This creates two most common problems-

Not knowing what to detail out enough?
Not making a connection with A→ B section of the case study?

What happens at the end is that we fill case studies with all the details that were not even required or end up making it too long for the reader to read it. Often times, in order to write everything, we might miss out on small details that we shouldn’t have missed in the case study. For eg, Describing wireframes and visuals but missing out on showing various iterations for the same. There are also some case studies that go in detail describing the solution they have designed rather than telling how they got there.

One thing that we should remember is that we don’t create shiny and perfect designs in one go. We iterate over multiple times. Create different solutions for the problem and reject some. It is necessary to tell about them in our case studies. Good storytelling can play an important part in this. These different iterations tell the reader about our design thinking and process. Mentioning about user research in our case study and applying for a job that doesn’t even require us to do research is a waste of time for the reader. It is great that we know about it. Save it for interview questions later. Try to keep case study short and crisp. Focus on explaining design decisions that matter. This brings me to the second question-

Who are we writing a case study for?
Alternatively, What role are we applying for?

Having the clarity of the role we’re applying for saves us from adding unnecessary details in our case studies. For eg, If we’re applying for the UX Researcher role, focus heavily on the “data gathering” section. If we’re applying for the Product designer role, focus on problem definition and wire-framing part. Similarly, For the visual designer role, focus on the visuals section. Go into as many details as possible for these sections because this is what we’ll be doing eventually at our job. The rest of the sections, we can keep brief or just omit because we don’t do all of these things necessarily for every design problem.

Some good examples

Here are some good examples of case studies over the internet-

Product:

1. http://simonpan.com/work/uber/
2. https://medium.com/@keithahn/venmo-in-imessage-577271c1ee88#.8dhgcgr8q
3. https://www.bildcreative.com/
4. http://thunderfruit.com/work/casestudy-codepath.html
5. http://www.kellynloehr.com/project/eero-plus
6. https://www.kabhishek.com/zinggr
7. https://www.marco.fyi/take-out

Visuals:

1. https://yi-nie.com/projects/basecrm.html
2. https://www.brehuang.com/uber
3. https://mahimoto.com/a-fish-in-your-ear
4. https://www.byalicelee.com/slack

Research:

1. http://www.crwatkins.com/lyft

Thanks for reading this so far. Keep following me on Twitter and Medium for more such updates. If you have any concerns about case studies, ping me on any above platforms. I would be happy to help.

Also, If you know any good case study, feel free to comment. I will update the list further.

The secret sauce of design case studies was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After coming back home from work, I had always wondered- How can I utilize my free time? Should I invest some time in writing articles? Should I start working on a side project — my design podcast, maybe? Or Should I just relax because I had already worked enough in the office? But somehow, this thought was very unsettlingly for me because of the mindset that I can’t relax. I have just started my career.

The last 4 years of college were pretty straightforward in the sense that I knew exactly what I would be doing after my classes. It was clear that I wanted to pursue design as my career option. It was then, either getting an internship to brush up my skills or getting freelance work to build up my portfolio and in the end, It was getting a job. On the sides, I used to work on publishing dribbble shots and medium articles. But this year felt different. It broke my momentum and I started finding job life to be very monotonous as compared to college life which was very dynamic.

The new job life also raised multiple questions — How to measure growth in a company? Am I learning something new? Should I invest some time outside the office to brush up my skills? What to invest in? How much to invest in?

The simplest answer that came to my mind was doing a side project to break the monotonicity and work on something exciting. Side projects would give me a sense of accomplishment and I would utilize my free time better.

Another problem was finding what side project to choose? To find that answer, I tried to find patterns in what other people were doing in their free time with the help of a google form. I managed to get 26 responses. Although I got fewer responses, they were an eye-opener for me.

PS: On the side note, I have also realized that google form was not a good option to get these types of answers. Always better to converse in person where intentions are well communicated.

#1. Ask why, before what

While I was obsessing a lot about side projects, I failed to ask myself whether I really wanted to do it and was it just the same as following the herd? 65% of the people who were already doing side projects responded saying that it helped them to earn money and build a personal brand while 25% of them didn’t feel the need to do side projects and in that case, it was perfectly fine to chill. It is not necessary to have a defined goal every time and that time it’s better to take a break.

#2. Burnout- It’s your choice

Self-development comes at a cost and that is your choice. I really liked how one responder stated,

“If you want something, put in the inputs to achieve it. If there’s nothing in particular that you want right now, chill out it’s totally fine. But don’t pretend/be forced to pretend like it matters what others are doing. I appreciate that you feel something is missing in your life and you want to fix it. But look internally not externally.

-While designing products we take feedback from people because we’re designing for them
-When building your life, nobody’s feedback matters. You’re building your lifestyle for you, not for anyone else. Your goals are nobody’s but your own”

It took a hard time for me to digest this but this made sense eventually. As long as my personal goals were getting fulfilled, I need not worry about burning out to do more. I don’t have to pretend/force to do hustling because everyone is doing it.

#3. Don’t confuse career growth with personal development

I had made a big mistake in my life by confusing career growth with personal development. While career growth requires putting in efforts to grow professionally, Personal development requires putting in efforts to grow as a person and these don’t have to be collinear, always. In the responses too, I was surprised to see that it was very difficult to find a pattern between people utilizing their free time. People were doing a wide variety of things, be it, swimming, dancing, writing, reading, etc.

Over the 4 years, I never put in efforts in my personal development. I thought that I would be wasting the time in which I can invest in my career growth. You can’t imagine the places where I have felt complete noob because I have never done things like bowling, badminton or swimming. I always wanted to do these but never invested time in them.

Last year, I spent time doing all such activities — cooking, bowling, swimming, snorkeling, ice-skating, etc. and you can’t imagine how much fun those were for me. This year too I would like to invest more time in such activities.

Some interesting insights

1. 50% of people are writing an article once a week while 46% choose to chill at home every day.
2. Most of the time of the weekend is reserved for movies (27%), hanging out with friends (38%) or just chilling at home (50%).
3. Blogging (35%), Youtube videos (18%) and Building an app (30%) are most popular among side hustlers while other things like a podcast, comics, organizing events have an equal share of 6% each.
4. People are serious about workout these days. We should be. 😝
5. HTML (100%), CSS (95.5%), Javascript (59.1%) remain as most learned coding languages.
6. Photography (42.9%), Sketching (33.3%) and playing music instrument (38.1%) is the most popular hobby among designers.

PS: The stats are not mutually exclusive.

Personal development is of utmost importance as career growth and doing side projects is one and the not-the only way for it. Some people like to attend meetups, do podcasts, blog while some people don’t socialize at all. This doesn’t make any section of people better. It’s an individual choice and how do we want to manage our time for it. While weekdays can be reserved for focussing on the personal development post office. Longer/More intensive tasks required for career development (e.g., blogging to build a personal brand) can be tackled on weekends

From now onwards, I need to start setting up small goals for my career growth and as long as they are in check, I can focus on personal development or just chill without worrying about anything, spend some more time with family and hangout with friends to break monotonicity in life.

I want to thank people who took the time in answering the google form. This exercise helped me to find answers about personal development but I still have many unanswered questions about career growth. I want to talk to designers about it and I will compile them in my next article.

Thanks for reading this so far. Keep following me on Twitter and Medium for more such updates. If you have any concerns about any thing design related or other, ping me on any above platforms. I would be happy to help.

In the pursuit of side hustle was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Fourth-year of the college was such a terrific year for me. While every other student had already decided what they’ll be doing next, I was struggling to find answers to what to do next. It was a stressful time with multiple questions lingering in my head.

Although I had fixated on doing Design, I was constantly juggling with whether I should go for higher education, do a startup or join a full-time job. I am sure many students are still struggling with these questions. I want to share a decision model that I used to arrive on my final decision of going for a full-time job. I’ve also highlighted how I shortlisted the companies for it.

Decision tree

The decision tree is a tree-like structure of decisions as nodes with branches as possible consequences of the decisions. It helps to map out all the possible outcomes of a decision and thus acts as a support structure for making the right decision.

I picked a chart paper and started to map all my thoughts on it. I started with a node called “College” and the aim was to reach a node that says “Happiness”. I branched out the college node into 3 further nodes- higher education, opening a startup and going for a job. On the branches, I wrote down the pros and cons of that decision.

Clearly, higher education would have allowed me entry into silicon valley (US) and gave me the exposure (pros) but I was also afraid of financial instability that it can cause to me and my family. I also got to know that it doesn’t add much educational value to your profile (cons). Opening my own startup would have required a lot of business, marketing, operations, and other skills apart from Product knowledge. I wasn’t really sure if I am quite yet ready for it. Also, I wanted to understand these skills and disciplines better by joining a firm first and then think about doing something of my own. I also decided to work on my craft first and stick to design for some time rather than investing my time in doing other things. This left me with the option of going for a job.

I again branched out the nodes to drill down on my decision better and began thinking about the consequences of going for a job, startup and higher education irrespective of cons. I branched out job into a remote job and onsite job and again wrote their pros and cons.

A remote job would have benefit in terms of freedom that it has given to me and the ability to travel and work from any place I want but over time I have figured out that I am kinda not a person who can work alone. I need people around me to work and chill and not every learning happens over the working desk. I can relate to this more now as I am working in a full-time job. Thus, I realised that the onsite job would suit me.

I again repeated the process and branched onsite job to working at a studio or product based company. Working as a freelancer for 2 years during college, I realised the fact that I was not getting an opportunity to see how my design decisions turned out. I wanted to see the results of my design decisions. I feel that job of designer in a studio/consultancy firm is very short term and it ends after he hands off design to the client. Thus, I would have missed the opportunity of improving the product further. Though working in the studio has given me a chance to work on different problem statements but this is a trade-off I took over improving the depth of my knowledge.

I again branched product-based company into going for an early-stage startup, middle-sized and large settled company. I was concerned more about joining an early-stage startup. I didn’t want to invest my energy in solving problems that the settled teams had already solved. I didn’t want to fight with developers and PMs over design and best practices because they have yet not realised the value of design in the org. I wanted to cut this crap and focus on my craft in an organised way. I wanted to learn from settled design teams and get mentored by them. So, I started focussing on both middle-sized and large-sized companies.

I continued this whole process until I vaguely defined how my journey is going to be. To give you an example, I bifurcated working at middle/large-sized companies to then working on an early-stage startup or climbing up the career ladder as a design manager. To this stage, writing pros and cons did become difficult but I still tried to branch as much as possible until I can’t branch more and that’s when I reach the node called “Happiness”. When I saw this tree again from top to bottom, everything started to make sense and I became more clear in my decision of going for a full-time job.

Shortlisting a company

The next question was to figure out which company to go for and how to shortlist companies for the interviews. Here I started listing down what matters to me most for the job.

#1. People
I value people a lot in my life. This was the value that I cannot trade-off while working in any company. I wanted to make sure whatever company that I join has a good set of people whom I can work with, who can motivate me to do more than my regular desk job and people whom I can look forward to for any kind of help.

To measure this, I started looking for people (mostly designers) who are actively sharing knowledge on social media, be it Twitter, LinkedIn or Dribbble even.

#2. Work Opportunities
The next important thing for me is whether the company allows the employees to work beyond their assigned job. I was looking for opportunities where I would get the chance to work with different product and functional teams like motion, creatives and also the chance to get involved in organising events, social/content marketing, et cetera, etcetera.

To know about this, I made sure to ask these questions in the interviews.

#3. Product Maturity and Impact
Product maturity was also one of the criteria for me to decide what impact my product decisions would have on the company? If I would be able to create enough value for the company? To give you an example, You will get more credit for your designs while working for a competitive product than a settled product. You’ll be working on bigger and impactful projects.

#4. Compensation
I was sure if all the above criteria were met, I would be able to grow professionally. The last important thing for shortlisting companies was financial growth and compensation because money does matter.

Ending notes

The decision tree helped me to see a clear picture of all the consequences of my decisions and helped me to make the right decision. It was also important for me to trust myself and remain committed to the decision and not let others alter my decision because of their lack of understanding of the situation. Also don’t worry too much about shortlisting companies for the interviews. Not all companies will fit all of the above criteria. Thus, choose whatever company feels right for you and go ahead. You’ll do good.

I hope this decision model can also help you to arrive at the final decision and If you’re still not sure about the decision, I recommend talking to multiple people and do whatever that you feel is right for you.

Thanks for reading this so far. Keep following me on Twitter and Medium for more such updates. If you have any concerns about any thing design related or other, ping me on any above platforms. I would be happy to help.

How I used decision tree to decide what’s next after college was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I started Design, I didn’t have any idea about how hard or easy it’s going to be. I didn’t even know that I could make it a career choice. I jumped right into it because I enjoy doing it. As the years begin to unfold and I started digging deeper into it, I realised that the journey wouldn’t be easy. I faced difficulties and failed multiple times. This blog is a compilation of all such big and small failures.

It’s an effort from my side to bring my vulnerable self in front of you. I believe that this article would encourage many of us to bring their stories of struggles to the world and bring an end to the glittering life as seen on social media.

If you’ve been following my yearly series “summarising my design story”, you must be knowing most of my story so far. I’ll try to focus on the unspoken things and tell you how they had contributed to becoming what I am today.

#1. Summer internships

Over the course of 4 years, I have done quite a lot of internships. Getting internships hasn’t been all easy. When I started in 2016, I got my first internship quite easily. My senior who was freelancing for a startup for quite some time, referred me. Until then I didn’t really get a taste of how hard getting an internship could be until I had to apply for next summer internship.

I sent out multiple emails to the companies, applied through the website and cold messaged multiple people over LinkedIn but I didn’t get any reply. I began wondering what could have gone wrong. One of the obvious things was that I didn’t have a good portfolio. I was sending my resume as my portfolio. It’s funny right — I was applying for a process-focused internship and sending a sheer piece of paragraph (resume) with a Dribbble link as my portfolio. How could it have done any justice?

After receiving so many rejection emails, I managed to get an internship in a small early-stage startup. Being the only designer at this company, I struggled through the internship and left it after a month. I felt dejected and made a promise to myself that this isn’t going to continue the next time I had to apply for an internship. I started working on my portfolio and launched it. Fortunately, It became a huge success and helped regain my confidence.

#2. Google Internship

My newly launched portfolio helped me secure a winter internship and consecutively helped me to sit for google internship interviews. I was so happy about getting this opportunity to be able to work in one of my dream companies but then another failure hit hard. When I was so close to getting the offer, I got rejected in the last round. Since I had spent 3 months in the process, most of the companies had already filled the positions of interns. I also hadn’t applied to any companies during that time hoping that I would get selected for Google.

All my confidence was shattered.

I then started applying to other companies but I wasn’t getting any reply. I got frustrated and ranted on social media about companies not caring about candidates. Unexpectedly, hate comments started coming in. That day I learned some harsh lessons-

A. Never rant on social media
Posts on social media lack context and emotion. We cannot expect sympathy from a group of people over the internet who had no idea about what’s going on in our life. It’s better to find friends at this moment with whom you can rant and bitch about life and they won’t judge you.

B. Invest in networking
Even after having a good portfolio, I wasn’t getting any reply. I was sending cold emails and messages to random people on LinkedIn and expecting a reply from them. It is the time when I realized that good portfolio cannot guarantee you a good job. There was a need to be equally socially active as well and tell about my work. Being socially active will also increase the chances that people will know about you and highly probable that people will reply to your emails.

C. Your circle is not your competition
We, in college, are all stuck in rut to get better than others. We forget to realise the fact that there are more and better people outside of our college. I realised this fact when I joined twitter and started following so many amazing students. I had always thought myself lucky to be among the best of minds with easy access to resources and such caring seniors. I was wrong and Twitter was an eye-opener for me. Twitter fam, I love you ❤

In the end, It was not all bad for me as I was able to secure an internship in UrbanClap. I got the chance to work on an amazing project and learned so many new things. I also started heavily investing in networking and been preaching the importance of it since then.

#3. First job interview

It was my last year of college and I wanted to put all my effort in securing a good job. I had my portfolio in check and was active on social media too. I shortlisted a few companies and started applying. Since I was rejected in the last round of Google, I wanted to give it another shot. I wanted to do something unique for Google. So I got the idea of converting my illustrator themed portfolio to a google themed portfolio. I also added the ability to switch from presentation (ppt) style layout to doc style layout. I worked on it and tweeted about it in the hope that someone from Google might look at the portfolio and reply.

Contrary to my expectations, I didn’t get any reply. Probably folks at Google were super busy. At that time, Flipkart was also at design hiring spree. I mailed and got a reply immediately. I had my first round of interview and I got rejected.

Such a bummer.

I had no idea what could have gone wrong this time. Folks at Flipkart replied to me saying that they were hoping to see the more in-depth rationale to my design decisions. Some major lessons were learned here-

A. Don’t be underprepared for your interviews
Get your presentation reviewed by a couple of people before sitting for an interview. I made a high-level presentation of my work for the interview and thought that I would answer the questions as and when they would come up. But when they did ask me, I fall flat. I wasn’t able to remember the details of my work. Hence, I believe that it’s the best idea to do some mock interviews before actually sitting for interviews.

B. Untidy sketch file is the new portfolio
Case studies in portfolios are the shiniest version of our work. They often fail to capture intricate details of how our work evolved otherwise they would be too long and not readable by your recruiter. This is where our untidy sketch files can help us and become our new portfolio. When I was asked to show some iterations of my work, I didn’t have them ready on my sketch to show because most of these iterations were done roughly on paper or in the head. Since recruiters are very interested in knowing how our research translated into design, It’s probably a good idea to keep all iterations in sketch file for documentation. I, now, maintain a “dump” page in my sketch files to store all the past iterations and attach a note on each artboard detailing out why the iteration was rejected.

C. Is it all game of luck?
Some of you will be shocked to read this statement but I have come to believe that Interviews are all a matter of luck. Your interviewer has the job to decide the fate of your interview. His behavior, personality, and mood can affect the result of the interview (not pointing out my interviewer though :P ). In addition to that, every interviewer has a different style of interviewing. Like in my Google interview, They wanted me to take one topic and explain that in detail while in Flipkart interview, they wanted to know the full project in detail. While most of the interviewers require you to present 1–2 case studies but in Gojek interview, I was expected to explain all of the projects that I have done so far. You have to be ready to face any kind of situation in an interview.

After Flipkart interview, I detailed out my presentation, moved all the iterations from my notebook to Sketch and sat for Gojek interview and luckily, I cleared the interview and got the role.

Although this 4 years of battle ended unexpectedly, in the end, I am happy too that it ended with Gojek. It’s been three months here and there is a load to learn — be it convincing our developers to push a small pixel or presenting the work in a meeting. At the same time, I am looking forward to all the new challenges that are yet to come.

Summing up

All of the above failures had their own amount of impact in shaping my life. I am happy that some of these failures happened and helped me to show a mirror. I hope this article can inspire anyone of you reading this to start embracing our failures and learn from each one of them. Failures as small or as big as they can be, always suck. It was because of my friends that I was able to deal with these hard times. My advice is to try to make as many good friends as possible with whom you can share anything or try to distract yourself from all negative thoughts as much as possible. Because this is what best you can do.

In the end, I will end this article with a quote-

“Work hard and fail until world fall short of good designers and that day would be yours.”

Thanks for reading this so far. Keep following me on Twitter and Medium for more such updates. If you have any concerns about any thing design related or other, ping me on any above platforms. I would be happy to help.

Story of failures — anecdotes from a designer’s life was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chapter 3: Farewell to college days

The college days have finally ended and like every year, it’s time to reflect on my past year learnings and failures. I ended the last year article (Chapter 2) on the note to cherish my final year of college and spent time on the things that really interest me which is sharing my knowledge with the community. Let’s see how it all went so far. I hope you’ll enjoy reading the article.

2018 was the final year of my college and it couldn’t have been better. I spent most of the time with my friends cherishing the last days of the college, traveled a lot, attended my first design conference (It was rad), understood more about the community and most importantly — secured a job.

Here’s a quick recap of everything significant that I did in the final year of the college-

#1. Increasing the quality of blog posts

Although I promised to be more regular in the sharing of such posts, I couldn’t increase the number of my posts. The primary reason being I wanted to increase the quality of my posts. I didn’t want to push articles for the sake of posting. I wanted to write detailed quality posts that could touch different areas of my experiences instead of posting just case studies. Now I am happy to see that the quality of posts has increased. I can say this because of the increased readership and appreciation emails that I have been getting.

From writing articles on designing your resume, publishing a website on GitHub, designing for variants, design conferences and becoming a freelancer, I tried to touch everything that I wished I had known before starting out, in a very detailed format. I hope you had also enjoyed reading such blogs and I promise to deliver more in the coming year.

#2. Bursting my comfort bubble

By the end of my third year, I figured out that I had to do something for the design community. I wanted to give back to the community that has helped me to become what I’m today. One way to do that was by sharing my knowledge in the form of blog posts. I didn’t have many ideas about other things that I can do. Due to which I had confined myself to a very comfortable bubble. I thought that I had learned almost everything that everyone in the college was doing and pushing articles regularly would keep me at the top layer of the bubble. There were only quite a few people who were posting articles in my college at that time.

Poor, me. I was so wrong.

Little I had known about the community at that point of time than I know now. The major amount of the year was spent understanding the value of this community and connecting with more people outside my college mostly through Twitter. Oh God, Design community at Twitter is amazing. The people are so accessible and helpful that some of them may go out of their ways to help you.

Here’s a thread by Madhuri Maram of all amazing Indian designers on Twitter. Follow them all. You don’t have to be limited by these set of people. Keep exploring and using Twitter, you’ll find other people too.

Madhuri Maram on Twitter

Indian UX/Ui/Product twitter, need recommendations on who all to follow in the product design world. So far, I have followed amazing people: @paraschopra @gonsalves_r @saptarshipr @WeirdoWizard @RamaKrishnaUX @karthi2209 @JellyIvy Any more recommendations?

Previously, I was so stuck in the rut to compete with each other and become better than others in my college. I didn’t realize that the real competition lies outside the college. I was amazed to see the vast possibilities of things that people were doing. There are students who are launching products on Product Hunt, designed and developed solely by themselves. There are people who’re doing amazing at Hackathons, launching their podcasts and yadda-yadda. Everyone is writing. There is nothing unique about me. There was a need to burst my bubble, come out and get inspired by these people and find new ways to grow.

Recently I did a thread on Twitter to highlight these amazing students. You can follow them too.

Nikhil yadav on Twitter

Most of the difficult times I had as a student is to figure out what to learn next. While following people on twitter helped a lot, I feel it's more beneficial to connect with fellow design students. Let's start a thread for such amazing students with thier super powers. 1/n

There is so much that I can say on the value of networking and I could go on and on but that is not the point of this article. You understood my point, right. I have realized how much I have to learn and it’s endless. People outside our community are amazing. Let’s join them all to give healthy competition.

#3. Attended my first design conference

The highlight of the year was definitely attending my first design conference. It was organized by DesignUp in Bengaluru, India. I never had a chance to visit conferences before because they were too expensive. This time I was lucky to get the scholarship from DesignUp itself with a small task of covering the conference with one or two articles. I had written about it in one of my articles. It gave me the chance to interact with people who I only know by their social profiles. From staying in a lavish hotel to watching the grandeur of the conference, the experience was amazing and I now look forward to attending more conferences in the future.

#4. Achieving a balanced life

Since I was in my final year of college, I had so much time at my disposal and I never really enjoyed my college life to the fullest because I was so busy with the design work and academics. I thought If I don’t enjoy this last year too, I probably would regret it all my life. Thank god, I didn’t. My last year was the best year of college life.

I spend some quality time with my friends and had so many trips. I will be going to miss those late-night campus walks with my friends, gossips in front of the main building, CCD or subway banters (not boasting, there were subsidized for us 😛 ) and even late night gossips in my room.

Oh, my eyes are wet now. 😢

The fourth year was not only best in the way that I was spending so much time with my friends but also it was the year where I got to do something different from design. I started learning harmonica (thanks to my friends for the gift) and learned some card tricks too. Whenever I used to feel sad, I start playing harmonica randomly. It was the best thing that helped relieve me of all the stress. I also started watching so many TV series on Netflix. “Black Mirror” is my current favorite and I’m deeply disappointed by “GOT”. “Friends, Netflix and Chill” became my life mantra, literally.

#5. Securing a job

As obvious as it is, the final year means securing a job. For me too, the story wasn’t very different. There are people who are doing their own startup and going for higher studies but I had finalized that I will be taking up a job. My focus is to learn more for now. I had my portfolio in check so I started applying for jobs. After some hustle, I finally secured a job at GOJEK. I will be covering a separate article on how I secured a job. There is a lot to say about it.

#6. Bidding adieu to my college days

Good things have to end and so my college days. I cannot believe that I could get so connected to my college. IIT-R was the best thing that had to happen in my life. It was the people who made that place very special for me. Now when I look back I cannot imagine how one place can turn someone into a curious and self-dependent person that I am today. I am very anxious about how my job life would turn out.

In college, I got so much freedom. I could make so many mistakes and be vulnerable but at job life, my one mistake can cost a lot to the company. There is a lot of responsibility on me. But I am assured that good people at GoJek will make the job life easier for me. I recently did a thread on Twitter asking for what people would recommend me to do in my first 30–60–90 days of the job life. Surprisingly, Abhinit (Design Head at GOJEK) jumped in and wrote some beautiful tips. You can also give it a read here.

Nikhil yadav on Twitter

Can we have similar thread for Designers? 😅 https://t.co/sDgBP7Htsf

Ending Notes

2018 was an amazing year for me in terms of clarity it gave me in understanding the community and the value of networking. I made so many memories with my friends. I know that I have to still learn a lot from these folks. I am, now, again at the stage where I feel that I didn’t know anything. Next year would be the beginning of a new chapter in my life. No new promises for the next year but to do amazing work at my job and rest, start to take care of my health too.

As I end this article, I would like to thank all the people who were part of this amazing year. I am now prepared to enter a new chapter. I will share about it in the next part of this series, next year.

Until then
Happy Designing!

Thanks for reading this so far. Keep following me on Twitter and Medium for more such updates. If you have any concerns about any thing design related or other, ping me on any above platforms. I would be happy to help.