In early 2016, I decided to work more on side projects after work as a product designer for a startup for two years. I decided to focus on writing and coding, which are the respective skills of product managers and engineers, who are also the two people I worked most closely with.

What I then learned in the next eight months however, fundamentally changed my perspectives on design and life. This is the story of how I did it.

Write about what you know

Everyone knows how to write, but not all writing is interesting or meaningful. What makes good writing in my opinion largely comes from the topic we choose and the insights we provide.

Not sure what to write ? Apply this model to find out

For me it started with that gnawing feeling that the world was missing out on topics that I knew were important. I felt that these stories needed to be told. So I started writing.

Some of them became Medium articles:

Actually, write about what interests you

I realized that the sheer amount of work in putting thoughts down on paper is not trivial at all, especially when you are trying to make it coherent and interesting. What I knew was often part of the story. There was a lot of effort required in learning about the topic and researching it thoroughly to make sure you truly know it well.

My takeaway is that you don’t have to know everything about a subject to write. But you do have to be genuinely interested, so that you can research it well. If you can’t think of anything that’s interesting, or important, or not often discussed, then you need to pay more attention to the world! There are tons of problems to be solved, opportunities to be explored.

Writing elevates thinking

Another unexpected benefit of writing was that people who share similar interests as you can now find you. After I’ve written the stories on the tech revolution in China, many entrepreneurs, designers, and product folks in the country reached out and shared their experiences and perspectives; after the product design decisions article was published, many thoughtful and engaging conversations had taken place both online, and in real life, both at work and outside of it.

Writing has become an indispensable way to elevate my thinking through the process of researching, editing, and most importantly, discussing ideas with others.

Code to problem solve

I think designers should code, simply because it’s a skill worth having for the future. In fact, everyone should code for the same reason. However, the real question here is whether everyone should learn to write production-level code like engineers.

The answer in my option is it depends. If you’re are looking to become a developer, (and yes you definitely should if you’re thinking about it), the answer is yes of course. If you’re are not trying to become a developer, then you should learn to solve problems analytically and quantitively, in additional to doing so intuitively and qualitatively, because problem-solving is an invaluable skill for both the immediate and the long-term.

I adapted my “What to Write” Venn diagram into “What to Build”.

The first project that fit the bill was a chatbot.

I had no doubt that conversational / voice UI will play a more significant role in the future. Doing this project would require me to learn how to design for this new paradigm, as well as integrate various libraries and APIs, going beyond my basic understanding of simple HTML/CSS/JS.

Here’s what I built. It’s a messenger bot that sends you quotes about design — a simple tool for inspiration.

Design Quotes bot in action

Build off of the work of others to reach your goal

After a few hours of research, I realized there was a significant gap between my skillset and what’s needed to build a chatbot from scratch.

I had a choice to make then and there.

I had to either invest many months of learning into the skills for a well-functioning bot (Python/Node.js, server-side scripting, machine learning, natural language processing …), or create something that barely works in the shortest time possible, by building off of the work of others, and filling in the gaps of my learning when needed.

I chose the latter. This was because my ultimate goals were to a) experiment in designing for this new paradigm, and b) expand my programming capabilities along the way. The latter option fit the goals.

With that set, I worked off of Jerry Wang’s “Creating your Facebook Messenger bot” Github repo, where he detailed step by step instructions on how to create a chatbot in 15 minutes!

My fifteen minutes soon became a full day, but it was time well spent. I learned the basics of running a web server, setting up a Node.js project, connecting webHooks, and creating simple algorithms. By only working from Jerry’s repo, I got into the zone of flow, where the tasking at hand was always challenging yet interesting, and learning was constant.

Focus on your most important takeaways

Here’s my chatbot. Feel free to give it a try for yourself.

Did my bot work well? Nope. But did it work? Absolutely. Shipping this prototype quickly allowed me to test and see firsthand how a chatbot would perform in the real world.

How my testers started the conversation with the bot

Human communication is immensely nuanced, even in the already constrained form of Facebook messages. Every single one of my testers had a different way of starting a conversation, and confirming the bot’s questions.

The many different ways people confirm / agree

A large portion of people actually really wanted to chat with the bot. They interacted with it as if it was a real person. Some of them responded by saying “thank you” and “sorry”. Some of them tested the bot, varying their responses, even asking about the weather.

Other notable things people said

Turn projects into habits

Every time I worked on side projects, my world became more interesting. So I turned side projects into habits.

Applying the “What to Build” model, I decided to learn Framer.js. This is because 1) I’ve always enjoyed prototyping in the design process, 2) Framer is built on top of JavaScript (CoffeeScript), a front-end skill that I’d like to acquire, 3) not only is JavaScript an increasingly important language for the future, a broader phenomenon is that much of what we consider prototyping today is just design tomorrow, a vision shared by the founders at Framer. This point was also driven home by John Maeda in his latest report, in what he calls computational design.

Product in today’s world are not static. They change, adapt, and interact with you in more ways than what people could’ve imagine thirty years ago. On tops of that, static mocks completely fails in the design of new and exciting paradigms like voice interface and VR.

To prepare myself for such a future, I began working with Framer. As a result, my largest side project to date is born. It’s the largest only for one reason — I’ve worked on it everyday for 100 days straight.

Sure, the time I put in each day varied greatly, but I never stopped working on it. And that was the key.

Here’s a supercut video of some of the projects I built.

The process of using code to design interactions and seeing your intentions in real time has completely changed how I practice design. In 100 days, I went from having a very limited knowledge of CoffeeScript and Framer to being to able design entirely in it. In my daily work, Framer has replaced Sketch as the primary design tool.

What I’ve learned

One surprising outcome of doing many side projects was the gradual increase in job opportunities — I started getting emails from recruiter and product design managers, way more frequently than before, ranging from startups to big names.

Four months ago, I got to know an incredibly talented team working on products that are changing the world before our eyes. As I made my decision to join their efforts, I pondered about how this opportunity germinated from my decision to work more on side projects six months earlier.

But there was an even bigger reward—three important life learnings:

1. Let your curiosity guide you.

Take action and build things. It will take you to interesting places.

2. Life is continuous learning.

Everything substantial is the accumulation of unsubstantial things. Make learning a habit.

3. Put in the work.

There are no shortcuts.

To summarize: Be curious, and make a habit out of working and learning.