Taking the time to learn while we stay home in lockdown 😎
The COVID-19 lockdown is going to last longer than most people thought at the beginning of April. I’m sure you feel that too. Even if things begin to get relaxed, it is uncertain if or when we will get back to work. I mean “physical offices” work — an hour of commute, elaborate lunch and chai breaks, an abundance of distractions, and the need to waste time after work watching the next episode of whatever you are watching because the day at work was too damn trying. Well, until then, we have some time.
Most people on the design team at Innovaccer are engineers and create designs like we learned to write code — functional and modular — but with great taste. No, our products don’t look ugly or feel non-intuitive. However, we want to be able to support and articulate our design decisions with science than just intuition.
Over the last year, I have formed an opinion that design is first-principle thinking. (A topic for another day.) The best way to think and solve problems is through first principles. First-principles are the foundational assumptions that stand true on their own. You cannot deduce the first principles from any other assumption.
Having a good grasp on the fundamentals helps you focus on the right problems, question authority (when your boss or your product manager says, “Because I said so.”), and reach the most favorable solution — everything that’s important for designing a great product.
We plan to use this time to brush up on our design fundamentals. This is how we’ll be approaching it:
- A new topic every week. It will be through a small list of articles, chapters from a book in that area, or videos — curated by a member of the team who has the most experience in that area, or volunteers to do so.
- Every week for UX Friyays, we’ll use 30 mins to discuss what we learned. We’ll make it interesting with a fun exercise.
- The best way to learn is by applying. Learning a topic every week lets us apply that topic to the live projects we are working on.
We will also publish the topic we cover every week on our Medium page for others to learn with us. Questions and comments on the topics are more than welcome.
Until then, ciao.
