The following rules are a continuation of a collection started in a previous article. For part one, see below:

11.) Round Number Bias

The posted image is a bit dated, but still relevant, especially considering the rise of online dating. The graph from 2010 explains that men on OkCupid tended to round their heights up to an even six feet to give them a better shot at women looking for a taller man. This is a tendency that we see all throughout society. Top ten lists, marathoners looking to run under four hours, and Alex Rodriguez’s failed quest to reach 700 home runs. …

There’s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that goes something like this:

If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.

Whether or not Einstein stuck to this exact ratio in real life is tough to say, but it gives a good insight into understanding how to effectively approach a problem. Planning is the majority of the battle. …

To no surprise, the world has become an extremely different place in the past few months. As UXers, we excel in the uncertainty, finding hidden solutions for problems that our clients may not even know exist. With much of the world transitioning indoors for remote work, approaching how to set up your own work habits during the pandemic is best served through a UX lens. Let’s drive right in.

Have a Set Schedule

As the world retreats inside during the global pandemic, books may provide a good refuge, especially in the case of learning new skills or improving old ones. Becoming a better designer doesn’t just mean making good prototypes and mockups — it means taking time to understand for whom you’re designing.

The following books range in subject matter. Some are more focused with forming better habits while others tackle skills to have a better design process. All have effective skills inside and should be considered for reading.

Atomic Habits

James Clear’s Atomic Habits is not a book just for designers, but for everyone…

Meetup is a tool used to have people with shared interests come together in person. With such a broad audience, the typical user may be hard to pin down, but the brand’s value is apparent. What was created in 2002 to create a sense of community in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks was bought by WeWork in 2018 and given quite the rebrand.

Meetup is an extremely useful tool, but the rebranding didn’t go far enough, and the usability of the site can use a rehaul. …

Despite its nature as a single threaded language, one of JavaScript’s greatest strengths is its ability to make asynchronous requests — AJAX.

Take an application like Instagram or Pinterest for example. How is it that I can continue scrolling forever and ever, without a page reload, and content continues to show up? What’s happening behind the scenes is this asynchronous request to a server that does not end up disturbing the user? Around 2005 (when the term AJAX was coined), this was pretty revolutionary. …

There’s a movie from 2004 where Tom Hanks plays a man from the fictitious country of Krakozhia. Hanks’ character, Viktor Navorski, is forced to live inside of JFK airport’s terminal since his passport is no longer valid.

While using Mac’s Terminal may not be as heart-wrenching as being forced to spend months inside of an airport, there’s a particular anxiety that comes from a blank screen that lacks any sort of GUI or prompt to tell you how to maneuver. However, mastering the Terminal pays dividends as a developer, so it’s definitely in your best interest to level up.

What is the Terminal and How Do I Get There?

There are certain instances in my childhood that stand out above the rest. A good number of these involve some sort of video game, with my face glued to a screen. One of the earliest games I could remember was King’s Quest VI, a choose your own adventure game that ran on probably the first computer I ever touched. A few years later, I remember heading to the Toys ‘R’ Us in Sheepshead Bay, where I would make arguably one of the biggest decision a kid in Brooklyn could make in the mid-1990’s — Red version or Blue.

Fast forward…