Just for fun! Questions will be visible after I’ve answered.
What's your take on imposter syndrome? Do you experience it rarely or often? If yes, how do you cope up?
Growth happens at the edge of the comfort zone. This seems to be (correctly) correlated with feeling like an imposter. Over time I've built up confidence that I can at least ask the right questions, or know that I'm resourceful enough to figure out where to get help on a particular problem.
·4 months ago
You would have heard of the design exercise where you need to design an elevator for a 1000 floors. What do you think that the interviewer is honestly expecting in terms of an answer here.
These kinds of design exercises in interviews are trying to identify how you collaborate and problem solve. Interviewers are not expecting a solution. They're expecting a conversation that illuminates how you approach problems: what tools do you reach for (data, research, prior art, intuition, etc)? What constraints do you identify or self-impose? What parts of the experience do you gravitate towards (visual, interaction, brand, etc)?
When I've been in these interviews in the past, the interviewers also wanted to know how the candidate collaborates. What questions do you ask? Do you pause and ask for feedback? What do you do when the constraints are imposed or change mid-cycle?
·4 months ago
Great work, loved this section on your website! I thought about having a Writing section on my website as well but I ended up doing it on Medium. Do you have a Medium account? If not, why did you decide to not publish on Medium?
I used Medium in the past, but missed having more creative control over the design and layout of my site. I ended up using Ghost as a headless CMS with Next.js. You can read more about the setup here.
·4 months ago
What are you most excited about with Staff Design?
I'm late to answering this, but I wrote about what I learned from the project after publishing the 8th and final interview here.
·4 months ago
What was your inspiration for this site?
I'm just having fun, tinkering in code, and playing with visuals. I love looking at other people's personal websites, my collection of inspiration is here.
·4 months ago
Love your site, is it your own design? How could I get it?
Thanks! Yes, it's my own design. All the code is on GitHub, here.
·4 months ago
Fascinated by your site? Very curious, do you use any kind of CMS or some custom interface to update content, or do you change it all directly in the code?
Thanks! I use Firebase to store bookmarks/AMA data, plus the heart counts on each item. I have my own authentication system so I can add/edit things directly on the site. Everything else requires jumping into code. You can see how everything works by poking around here.
·4 months ago
What fonts does your website use? And do you have a set of go-to fonts you often use?
I love system fonts. But I recently updated to use iA Quattro.
·4 months ago
What do you think about Blitz.js? Would you use it if you were to update your site?
I haven't used it yet! I'm not in a rush to rewrite my site just now, though 😛
·4 months ago
How did you make this ama?
Firebase + some custom React stuff on the front end. All the code is here
·4 months ago
I liked your old site design. :/
Not a question! Change is the only inevitability 😊
·4 months ago
If you absolutely had to choose a different career path which doesn't involve design (or development), what would be doing?
Creating something physical, I suppose. Does industrial design count as a different kind of design?
·4 months ago
Do you use an iPad for designing? Any suggestions on iPad apps for designers?
I love using the stock Notes.app + Apple Pencil for sketching and writing light notes. Otherwise, everything happens in Figma or code.
·4 months ago
I'm a coder who wants to create my own website but I'm usually stuck at the designing part, it feels like it's never good enough. Any tips?
Just keep practicing! I have been tinkering on my personal website for years and years - and I still think it's not good enough! It's all part of the fun.
·4 months ago
How do you add things to the Bookmarks page of your site? Do you manually go in and add them of have you made a tool to add them from various places?
I technically have a locally-built iOS app and a Twilio phone number that lets me text a link to an API endpoint. But primarily I just have a form on /bookmarks that's only available to me, and it POSTs to Firebase.
·4 months ago