Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Annie Ngu

From being a perfectionist to just pushing pure content

Hello, it’s me. *cues Adele’s Hello*

This year, I spent 100 days (from August through October) working on the Daily UI challenge and I just want to talk about my experience. If you know me, I like to cut the bullshit and just say what’s on my mind — I’m going to try to keep my writing that way, too.

I won’t lie — somedays I struggled hard. The only reason I persevered through the hardships was because I really, really wanted to. I needed to show myself that I was capable of improving and straight-up committed. Plus, I couldn’t stop at any other number that wasn’t the big, fat 100.

Let’s just say that the last day of this challenge was one of the most relieving days of my entire existence… like that moment when you’ve been holding your pee in at the movies. It’s that feeling when you finally relieve yourself at the end because you couldn’t miss any part of it for the world.

Some of my key takeaways

First ideas aren’t all bad.

In the immortal words of Einstein: “If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

I’ve had a lot of projects where I’d be brainstorming/thought-dumping tons of ideas but only to go with my initial idea because, as crazy as it sounded, it made sense. So, when I started this project, I had no idea how it was going to turn out; how I’d manage my time; and how I’d generate ideas daily. It definitely started out a bit rocky because I was constantly striving for perfection before I published my work (like this article I’ve been sitting on).

It took a tedious amount of time trying to plan, design, and execute that I felt drained by the end. Then, after a couple of weeks, I learned that usually my first ideas were my strongest because they were most functional and consistently made more sense — to which I then played with what attributes needed to stand-out and/or hide.

Same time, every day.

To build a habit, I had to be fairly consistent with when I started and completed my projects for the day. I find the same method works with getting in a workout — I carved out roughly the same time every day.

Depending on day, I typically spent 1–2.5hrs on the daily challenge. At first, it was really hard to get the ball rolling after commuting home and having dinner. The new short-term habit I’ve created for myself turned out to not to be because of organization but by simplicity. I kept a lot of my designs to a minimal and not a flamboyant, abstract artform.

No matter how hard it gets — don’t let up. After all, you’re creating a habit and good habits take time to get ingrained.

Do your research.

The best way to do this project if you don’t have a lot of time is to find inspiration everywhere. I know, I know… it’s hard to hear that because we live in such a busy world — both in reality and digitally. But it’s also great because there a whole net of resources out there to help the creative juices flowing.

Do your research and ideas will follow. Someone asked me what my process was and how I executed my ideas… Trial and error, my friend. And years of downloading apps and seeing what I liked versus what I didn’t. I also ask a lot of questions to figure out how people interact with their phones, computers, and other technologies daily.

Also, read lots.

Keep pushing content.

Like Leo Tolstoy once said, “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” Letting go of perfection was — single-handedly — one of the hardest things for me. For me, that seed had already been planted from grade school when we were critiqued based on a 4-tier system — which is also so evidently flawed.

We all have our own ideas of what “perfection” means to us. Sometimes it’s obvious, other times not so much. If you realize that not every work you put out would be well received but you accept it, you’ll have had successfully learned from the experience.

I’ve lived so long with this fear of making imperfect content. So, I told myself this was the end of it and decided that I’m human — I’ll have good days and bad days. Suck it, brain.

Overall recap

I had just gotten drafted for Dribbble when I decided to take on this Daily UI challenge. I needed to build my portfolio so that other UI/UX and Product Designer would take me seriously. So, I took some notes as I went through this journey but I didn’t really tell many people about it except for Twitter and Dribbble (to submit your work).

The question is: Did I learn a lot from this and did it benefit me? I think I had a pretty good experience coming out of it. Within two weeks, I also had opportunities to speak with many companies that I’d thought to be far out of my reach. I learned a lot about the industry and my competition through my line-up of interviews and some online mentors.

I think my biggest challenge was finding the time to push these projects out whilst having to commute to a faraway job. At the end, it helped to discipline myself and instil a stronger work ethic. Another great thing about this project is that you have a total of 100 days to exercise your brain muscle; make them get used to the idea of pushing content quickly and efficiently.

I would recommend this to someone who is just starting out with lots of free time to explore their creativity, get inspired, and really discipline yourself. Also, PSA, don’t beat yourself up if it’s not always the best. It’s how you learn and improve.

Why did I decide to write this article? I want to start sharing my experiences and with this being the most impactful, I can’t avoid talking about it. I hope I helped shed light in some way or form to this challenge. If you’re up for some discipline and structure, I highly recommend it!

If you like what I’m doing, let’s get to know each other! Say hi @AnnieNgu and @anguphoto.

Taking on the Daily UI challenge was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Taking on the Daily UI challenge

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