Human Design Problem
Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Fadi Arab; I’m a lead UI/UX Designer at a reputable company based in Beirut. What do I do? I always try to find a solution for any existing problem and even at times I create the problem and then try to solve it myself. What I mainly do day by day is storytelling going from one screen to another identifying the main characters and shit, so for our story today, I would like to tell you about my “Achilles heel” and how I was able to overcome it.
I was born in a city called Tripoli, in the north of Lebanon, I was raised as a bilingual child and I had something they called Dyslexia.
This meant that I always had reading, spelling and orthography problems, and Grammar didn’t make any sense to me in any language.
I used to stutter while reading until I was about 17 years old, and even as a kid I was writing mirror letters. All of this seemed very normal to me.
As a 90’s kid, I had no proper diagnostic about my condition, my teachers always said: “your kid is smart but stupid” but later on when we had the “Internet” I was able to see that I wasn’t alone and it was a very common condition!
This started to be a bigger issue for me during my last year in high school. My reading problems were really bothering me so I decided to step up and do something about it. In order to overcome it, I started reading everything I could get my hands on. I was able to gather several good books to read but still, it was difficult to even get it starting and flowing properly.
A few months fast-forward, my self-esteem grew, I had more self-confidence and it was like a flip of switch “POOF”: I was able to read flawlessly!
I’ve earned my Master ‘s degree in 2012, I found myself working for a startup who turned out to be a real success story, so I started to build more confidence in myself and my work surrounded me by really friendly people.
As a dyslexic, I was always dependent on my visual memory so storyboarding for me was like a walk in the park, the first years of my career I was designing mobile apps.
So while I was briefed about a project or reading the scope of work I would visualize the interface and flow of the product/ project.
Meanwhile, the company was growing and so were my responsibilities. I was designing more complex and well –thought designs. Everyone called this: UI/UX. For me, it was generally common sense but suddenly it had a name now.
What really made a difference in my career was designing with empathy really understanding the user and not getting attached to my own ideas; Design methodologies and understanding the laws of UX made me who I am today.
Dyslexia never defined me, at some points in my life it allowed me to see stuff from a different perspective.
For all of you guys out there struggling with writing and reading “NEVER GIVE UP” there is always a solution and tons of tools that can help you with grammar and spelling mistakes for instance “Grammarly” is one of my favourite tools.
