9 December 2024
Subject : My journey
Let me show you why they’re more important than you think.
Soft Skills That Transcend Professions.
With time and self-reflection, I’ve had a realization.
The soft skills I developed as an engineer are crucial.
Refining them in a corporate setting made them even more valuable.
Now, they’re essential in my new venture.
Among them, three stand out:
1️⃣ Communication
"Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity." – Bimbo Oloyede.
Effective communication is foundational, whether you’re working with clients or team members.
As an engineer, I often explained complex ideas to non-technical stakeholders.
This taught me to:
✒ Simplify technical jargon.
🎯 Focus on outcomes.
🗣 Adapt my message to the audience.
In web design, the same principle applies.
Clear communication is essential.
It ensures alignment with clients, developers, and marketers.
It also builds trust.
2️⃣ Collaboration
"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." – Michael Jordan.
Great projects rarely succeed in isolation.
In engineering, I collaborated with cross-functional teams spanning mechanical, electrical, and software disciplines.
In web design, it’s no different.
Success depends on aligning efforts between:
💻 Developers
🖋 Designers
📈 Marketers
Each role brings unique expertise.
Collaboration transforms individual ideas into a unified product.
3️⃣ Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is key for problem-solving and understanding people.
Resolving team conflicts.
Understanding the emotions behind user feedback.
Listening deeply to clients’ and users’ needs.
All these are invaluable for creating intuitive websites and seamless user experiences.
Soft skills like these are often the differentiators.
They aren’t just “nice to have” – they are what set great professionals apart.
18 November 2024
Subject : My journey
Stuck in a Creativity Rut?
Ever felt completely blocked?
You’re forcing yourself to come up with ideas, but…nothing.
Between my full-time job and side hustle, I’ve been there a lot.
😫 Frustrated.
🥱 Drained.
😩 Stuck.
After reading about it, I noticed something fascinating.
Napoleon (yes, that Napoleon) loved to do his best thinking outside whenever possible.
Andy Frisella’s #75HARD challenge emphasizes outdoor workouts (even if it is just walking).
Turns out, my environment was the problem.
Working in the same place every day drained my energy and stifled my ideas.
Turns out, a simple change of scenery can:
💡 Spark fresh ideas.
⚡ Recharge your focus.
🔥 Reignite your motivation.
Now, here’s what I do when I feel blocked:
✅ Brainstorm outdoors.
✅ Take an afternoon walk (my go-to is 4-5 PM).
✅ Work from coffee shops or co-working spaces.
This isn’t a magic pill—it’s what works for me right now.
Maybe I’ll find an even better solution in the future.
For now?
When I’m stuck, I step outside.
Here, I'm in a coffee shop preparing the handwritten summary for an upcoming post.
06 November 2024
Subject : UX (User Experience)
Here’s the truth you need to know.
Forms are everywhere in the digital world:
📊 Survey forms
🔍 Search forms
📩 Contact forms
📝 Registration forms
🔔 Subscription forms
📅 Booking & reservation forms
Of all these, survey forms often do the most damage.
Why?
They take time and mental effort from users.
They flood inboxes and cause frustration.
So, why do long forms fail?
🔻 Users are busy, often multitasking. A lengthy form quickly feels overwhelming.
🔻 Each additional question creates friction and cognitive load.
🔻 Questions that require deep thinking or lengthy responses negatively impact user experience.
But here’s the catch.
Surveys are incredibly valuable for gathering feedback and insights about your users.
The challenge is to make them work for the user rather than against them.
To tackle this, I adopted a user-first mindset, imagining my audience as busy, distracted, and tired.
Then I asked myself:
➡️ What can I do to make my form more engaging and less burdensome?
Here are some strategies I’ve found effective:
1️⃣ Keep it short.
Aim for 5-7 questions to strike the right balance between data collection and user retention.
2️⃣ Simplify answers.
Use multiple-choice options or dropdown menus to minimize effort compared to open-ended questions.
3️⃣ Use conditional logic.
Only show relevant questions based on prior answers to make the process dynamic and personalized.
4️⃣ Add a progress bar.
This provides users with a sense of achievement, motivating them to finish the form.
By making these adjustments, forms can go from a source of frustration to a tool for meaningful interaction.
Hope these tips help!
17 October 2024
Subject : Web Design
Spoiler alert: It’s not what you’d expect.
In my education, I was trained to approach problems methodically:
1️⃣ Identify a problem.
2️⃣ Brainstorm potential solutions.
3️⃣ Evaluate feasibility through calculations and analysis.
These evaluations often involved a blend of skills like:
🔧 Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics
📏 Strength of Materials (stress, strain, fatigue, deformation)
🌀 Kinematics (motion, velocity, acceleration)
🎶 Vibrations & Acoustics
🏗️ Structural Analysis
🙌 Ergonomics
The process didn't stop there.
Prototyping and tools like:
💻 CAD (Computer-Aided Design)
📈 Simulations
🏗 Machining processes (turning, milling, grinding, injection molding)
helped refine the solution.
Every step was aimed at guiding the design process toward a viable, optimized product or solution.
Every tool, calculation, and test either confirmed the path forward or prompted a critical reevaluation.
When I transitioned to UX and website design, I tried to apply the same rigor and structure.
I sought equivalent "tools" to guide decision-making, design, and implementation.
But I quickly realized that design isn't formulaic.
Unlike engineering, there’s rarely a single "right" answer in UX.
Solutions evolve dynamically, influenced by user behavior, emotional responses, and contextual nuances.
A powerful example is A/B testing.
Present two options to users.
Let their interactions reveal the better one.
To thrive in this environment, I had to adopt a completely new mindset:
👉 Let go of the search for "perfect" solutions.
👉 Embrace experimentation and iteration.
👉 See failures not as setbacks, but as feedback—valuable insights from users and the market.
This shift taught me that design is a journey, not a destination.
It's about learning, adapting, and continuously improving.
8 October 2024
Subject : My journey
After one year at Otis, I started a new position as a Sales Engineer.
In that role, I encountered a recurring and repetitive task.
I asked myself,
"There has to be a better way to do this."
After some research, I found my answer: using VBA to code in Excel.
I developed this skill as a side project, working on it in the evenings after finishing my day.
It was a self-taught process, but after seven months, I managed to create a fully functional version.
I acted on what I learned, assessed what didn’t work, and made adjustments accordingly.
My First Experience with UX.
With a fully functional version in hand, I decided to take it a step further.
I continued learning to make it more user-friendly and visually appealing.
Three months later, I had achieved what I was aiming for.
I implemented it for myself, and after just one month, I could clearly see the benefits.
I shared my creation with my manager, and since then, it has been implemented across the entire team (all eight members).
This experience helped me systematize part of my work, but it also awakened my passion for coding.
Since then, I began dabbling in HTML, CSS, and Java.
I’ve continued to expand my knowledge, and my story is still being written.
But this was the experience that led me to make the jump from engineer to web designer.
2 October 2024
Subject : UX (User Experience)
Before, whenever I had an idea for a design, I would dive straight into coding just five minutes after the idea hit me.
This approach consumed a lot of time and energy.
However, during my readings, I came across an important concept:
Planning your website
But planning goes beyond just deciding where to place a paragraph, image, or button.
The key idea is to first define the action you want the user to take, and then work backward to create the steps needed to guide them toward that action.
For example, let’s say the desired action is for the user to make a purchase.
What does the user need to know or feel to make that decision?
- Understanding the product’s benefits: The user needs to know if the product will solve their problem.
Action: Specify all the benefits of the product or service.
- Reassurance through social proof: The user might need reassurance from other customers to feel more confident about the purchase.
Action: Add testimonials and social proof.
- Reducing the perceived risk: The user may want to minimize the risk of their purchase.
Action: Offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
And so on...
When I first started applying this approach, I have to admit, it felt uncomfortable.
I thought I was wasting time planning instead of just jumping straight into the work.
But in the end, this method saved time and energy.
For example, when I got distracted, it was much easier to get back on track because I had already laid out a clear plan on paper.
It wasn’t just in my head anymore.
I hope this insight helps.
25 September 2024
Subject : My journey
I’m always looking for ways to make the most of my time and stay on top of everything I need to manage.
Some of my organizational habits might be inherited from my engineering background.
- like building structures
- systems to optimize my workflow (ex: GANTT charts)
While this may be true, my reading and proactive approach to self-improvement have also played a significant role.
Let me explain.
About 3 years ago, I was searching for a new way to organize my workflow and personal life.
After some research, I decided to read a highly praised book on the subject:
Getting Things Done by David Allen.
I loved the concept, so I decided to apply it right away.
Here’s how I did it.
I chose to go digital instead of paper-based.
For my app of choice, I went with Joplin.
You might be wondering, "But why not Notion? Or even Evernote?"
The fact is, I’m a privacy advocate.
I always pay attention to how my data—and now also my clients’ data—is used.
I prioritize open-source and free software over proprietary options whenever possible.
Joplin also offers end-to-end encryption.
Compared to Notion, Joplin prioritizes user control and privacy over data management.
Here’s what happened after 1 year:
- Project follow-up process was great on paper, it was too time-consuming in practice.
- I processed the inbox every day, but it was a never-ending task.
- I managed to have a place to store all my daily ideas.
- I felt stressed out because my inbox was always full.
- Maintaining the system took a lot of time.
- I never finished filtering the inbox.
What Didn’t Work for Me
- I wanted to keep almost every piece of information "just in case I needed it"
- I wanted everything to be perfectly organized.
My Takeaways
- I still use the concept of an Agenda
- I still use the concept of an inbox, but I don’t process them daily.
- I’ve reduced the amount of information I choose to introduce into the system.
- I keep using the 2-minute rule—if it takes two minutes to do, DO IT RIGHT AWAY!
- I keep using the categories @Actions, @Pending, and @Answered to manage my email.
When emails come into my inbox, I delete what’s garbage, and I classify the rest:
- @Actions – Emails requiring action from me.
- @Pending – Emails waiting for feedback from someone else.
- @Answered – Archived or processed emails.
I initially adopted this system because of all the positive results others had experienced with it.
Maybe I didn’t apply it correctly.
If you decide to try it, I hope it works even better for you than it did for me.
I’m currently testing a new way to organize my workflow.
Let’s see how it goes! 😁
.jpg)
16 September 2024
Subject : My journey
I faced a new kind of challenge.
I didn’t need to learn something new.
Instead, I had to unlearn one of my engineering habits.
With an engineering background, some of the lessons I had learned were actually hindering my progress on my web design journey.
The lesson I had to unlearn was this: striving for perfection before releasing a product.
During my engineering experiences, there were multiple stages involved in developing a product before it was released to the public.
First, it was about identifying an idea that could solve a market problem.
Then came the design stage, followed by the CAD stage using tools like CREO or SolidWorks. This was followed by creating a 3D model, often with 3D printing.
The next steps usually included the prototyping phase—first a scale model, then a full-scale model—always followed by testing phases.
Only after several prototypes and validation stages was the product ready for launch.
But this process could take months, even years.
In some cases, the product released was no longer aligned with the needs of the market.
I had to unlearn all of this to make room for a new approach: creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), getting feedback, and iterating.
The new approach was to release quickly, hear feedback from the market, and iterate.
As MJ DeMarco likes to say, the 3 A’s: Act, Assess, Adjust.
It took time and energy, especially an increased level of awareness, to identify when I was falling back into old habits as soon as possible.
But it turns out that this approach works better for web design and UX design.
10 September 2024
Subject : My journey
I had an incredible time at Vivatech 2024 in Paris, a hub of innovation and technology.
It was an amazing experience to be among the people shaping our world and the startups that will do so in the future.
The event included groundbreaking AI, sustainable tech, and visionary startups.
Some highlights :
- AI and Robotics: Revolutionary advancements set to transform industries.
- Green Tech: Cutting-edge solutions addressing climate change.
- Startups: Brilliant minds ready to disrupt markets with their creative solutions.
A lot of interesting and promising projects caught my eye.
You could find laptops with transparent screens or wheelchairs that can climb stairs.
There was even AI software that separates a song into individual instrument tracks—very cool for musicians! 😊
Networking was a major highlight, with great conversations with entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts.
The keynote sessions stressed the importance of innovation, sustainability, and inclusivity.
Paris, with its rich history and innovative spirit, was the perfect host.
I'm returning from Vivatech 2024 inspired and excited for the future!
