Signal337

Good, Fast, and Cheap. Guess what....it doesn't exist. Don't kid yourself into thinking it can. In this episode, I talk about my own experiences with the mentality to work and just how often it's doomed to fail from the start. I go over two worlds of design, advertising and product, and how this mentality sabotages the work, creates a pressurized environment, and always ends up costing you more in the long run. Quality is not measured by the speed or price tag associated, it's measured by how well your work performs. Let's dive into this episode and discuss how to mitigate this kind of work mentality so that you set yourself up for success.

Remember all of those great ideas that never made it into your product because of a tight deadline? Yea...those ideas. Sometimes they come back to haunt you in the form of negative customer feedback, poor adoption, bad reviews, or enabling competition. Design debt is one of the myriads of issues designers face with creating products. These rushed and forsaken decisions lie in wait with hopes of being implemented to improve the user experience but sadly can lie in Purgatory waiting to be prioritized. This episode talks about how to prioritize your design debt decisions so that you improve your customers' experience and build a pipeline for iteration.

When you think about your impact on the world as a designer, what effect do you think you have? Do you think about how your work has helped society? What about the negative consequences of hyper-focused work that removes the human element? I've been thinking about my responsibility and obligations as a designer and I'm glad to report that I am not the only one thinking about this in our field. In this episode, I talk about my maturation of ethics in design and discuss Mule Design's Designers Code of Ethics as a foundation to ensure we do work responsibly and for the greater good.

Understanding your personality and behavioral traits, motivators, and triggers are invaluable in business and life. When you know what drives you, you can then learn what drives others and adjust your interactions to be more effective and meaningful. In this episode, I talk about my experience with DiSC behavior assessment and how it has helped me understand how to mature and be mindful in my interactions with colleagues. In turn, it has helped me grow as a leader and become an effective partner in organizations.

Artificial Intelligence. A phrase that conjures the folly of man, the audacity to make life and become god, and the fears of something that looks down on us as irrelevant. All doom and gloom aside and before our robot overlords take over...we still have a long way to go. In this episode, I explore the idea of using machine learning tools to aid designers, viewing AI more as a tool than a sapient entity. This reality is far more capable and probably is already here; how we decided to use these tools however needs discussion.

Not many companies have a fan base. To create a fan base, you need to focus on delivering quality experiences each and every time you interact with your audience. At Sheetz, this is what they do every day. In this episode, I delve into the dedication that Sheetz has for their customers and pierce the veil on how they focus on their customer experience through the lens of a design and business professional, showcasing how their relentless drive to exceeding customer expectations is a model for companies to learn and grow from if you want a truly rabid fan base. 

Designers do a lot of things. They are asked to take on certain work and responsibilities, some are expected to, some do it to be helpful, and others do it because either no one else will or can...but what work should designers do or not do? In this episode, I talk about five things designers should do or at least have some base knowledge to be effective designers but not be a jack of all trades. Let's start off 2021 by beating a dead horse! Or at least set some context on why designers should have these base skills.

Design systems: a valuable tool to create consistent experiences for products and services at scale....but not just for large companies or products. In this episode I discuss my experience with design systems and discuss the value they bring to companies creating products and services at any scale.

Critique is an important part of the design process. To a product or service that is meaningful and valuable, it takes a village to ensure its success. However, most critique assumptions and experiences are fairly poor...both from the giving and recieving end of critique. Recently, this has been something I've been working on with my colleagues and in this episode, I want to share some basic truths about critique and how you can use it effectively in your work...all be setting the right frame of mind and attitude.

Finding a new job is tough, even without a pandemic raging. You have to make sure your resume and cover letter are current and tailored to the work you are looking for. As someone who has had a lot of jobs, I understand the amount of time needed to apply and follow up with HR and recruiters. In this episode, I talk about some strategies and tactics that I use to help me apply for jobs, whether I am passively looking or actively persuing. The biggest lesson from this episode is to not be passive in your job search, but actively maintain your documents to ensure when the time comes, you are prepared.