A collection of rough notes, half-baked seedlings that aren't ripe enough for an essay format. Ideas that need more water.
I decided to revive a long-lost interest and try my hand at cartooning. But it was an unlikely dream, given my complete lack of artistic talent and the rarity of success stories in that business. So I decided to try something called affirmations, which I will describe in more detail...
While designing health campaigns for Noora Health's work in Indonesia and Bangladesh, I was overseeing the health communications strategy for pregnant and newly-delivered mothers. There were messages in a specific format that needed to be rewritten in a more easy to digest Whatsapp format appealing to the people...
This is a list inspired by Kepano in his blog: 1. What would you do if you had 6 months to live? 2. What would you do if you had a billion dollars? 3. What advice would you give yourself 10 years ago? 4. What do you hope will be...
Brad Adkins, a fellow Indiehacker wears the same Mornino wool t-shirt every day. He has three pairs of shorts, one pair of sandals, and one pair of shoes. Other than that, it's just a jacket and some workout gear. He doesn't like wasting energy thinking about...
Have you head of the Eudaimonia machine? Imagine a one-story, narrow structure, a straightforward rectangle divided into five rooms, in succession. There's no quick escape route here. This design insists that as you move through, you're plunging deeper into the world of intense productivity. You start...
Take a small block of paragraph and sprinkle 8-10 hyperlinks in it— Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec tristique elit sit amet diam fringilla posuere sodales a leo. Cras auctor efficitur purus in suscipit. Sed ornare lectus at nisl dictum semper. Donec efficitur lorem in nisi dapibus...
Product roasts are the best way to enhance one's sensibility around building better products. It's called a "roast" because it often involves a no-holds-barred, brutally honest critique of the product's features, design, user experience, and overall value proposition. In the spirit of...
I recently transitioned from leading a product team in a region to a more centralised role overseeing products across multiple geographies. As part of that transition, I needed to onboard the new product lead of that region, ensuring they were fully briefed While a virtual onboarding could have covered the...
If you think most product managers spend time in meetings, you're mistaken. The larger chunk of a PM's time is spent in preparation for those meetings - having the "meetings before the meeting", "the meeting", and the "meetings after the meeting....
Interview hackers are those who frequently attend interviews and develop a muscle to become better at it. They might not necessarily be good at the actual job
Jakob Nielsen’s heuristics are probably the most-used usability heuristics for the design of interfaces. If you go to their website, you might encounter these dry prescriptive statements as shown in the image. Recently came across this blog by Michael Prestonise and loved the way he had repurposed the old...
Startups are interesting even if most startups fail. I’ve found Patrick Collinson’s argument to be the most convincing: “Part of the reason startups resonate with people is because the outcome is not guaranteed. If it were guaranteed, it would be boring… Whether or not you’re the best...
Design methods are life jackets. Not straight jackets. Structures, whether they’re processes, frameworks, or plans, are excellent tools to navigate complicated problems. They bring efficiency, reduce ambiguity, and offer defaults. However, when dealing with fundamentally complex problems, applying structure too early can lock in outdated notions. Because structures tend...
When it comes to task management, a fundamental principle stands tall: explain the reason before the details of what and how. By letting others know the why behind a task, it facilitates faster completion. Recently, I had a pressing deadline for an urgent activity that needed immediate attention. I had...
‘’What might seem to be merely the initial step — deciding what to work on — is in a sense the key to the whole game’’ — Paul Graham A good start when it comes to product building is half the work done. While running the Build program as a Program Director, a...
When I first started doing design observations, there was ABSOLUTELY no structure. I just went ahead to observe the surroundings and talking to as many people as I can. Although I did get some insights from this process, I realised that there could be a better way. There are three...
I’ve found this exercise very valuable when it comes to mapping both the frontstage and backstage of any product/service. It’s a terrible tool to communicate what the product/service looks like. If you squint your eye and look at it, you might see an array of sticky...
As a product manager who also pitches in as a service designer at Noora Health, i sometimes do wonder how I could use most of the design methods I’m applying at my day job for myself. Let’s take the methodology of Service Design Blueprinting for example. It involves...
Some principles which I follow while doing user-centered design: 1. Involving users early in the product development process makes products intuitive and fosters loyalty. It is essential to zoom out and follow a constant process of hypothesis testing, MVP development, review, and refinement. Preparation of research requires a clear goal...
This thought was inspired by the book Design Expertise (Lawson & Dorst, 2009) which includes an interview with the architect Ken Yeang where the author mentions: “I give every new member of staff the practice manual to read when they join. They can not just see past designs but study...