Why its important for Designers to learn on the go - Accelerated Learning

Why it is very important for designers to really learn on the code. It's a very uncertain time and it's also very important like we will have to manage the time effectively while adapting to a new projects or while adapting to a very new environment or even sometimes the brief will not be very clear from the customer side. Right? So in that case, learning becomes very crucial. Not all the people have the luxury of time and resources to really learn the things very properly. So how do you really tackle this? There are 10 strategies which I'm going to be explaining to you how you can do that and I will also tell you why it is very important to develop that growth mindset while learning and improving being a designer. Okay, so let's dive into this topic, take a lot of notes and subscribe to my podcast channel for Spotify and Apple for further episodes. So it is very important, I told you why it is necessary to learn it in a very accelerated or a very fast environment. Learning. See, it is a difficult environment of education which we have been come across, right? We have a syllabus and a study subject to do and then we allowed to write an exam and you'll have to pass the exam and then you have to get the job. But when it comes to solving a real time problem, 99% of the things what you've learned is not going to be used at all. And you, you also know today majority of the people are working very differently compared to whatever they've studied, right? So why it is very important jagdish to learn on the code. Designers are definitely having this problem and I'll tell you why. It is because in design there is no defined subjects itself. The way in which the design has been learned. In activity based learning based on the problem statement, students do that problem and then they solve it on on the way they learn. So what happens is your learning happens whenever you're doing. There is nothing like you pre prepare something and then you are becoming ready and then you are going and solving it. No, it's not like that way, okay? And many of skills like let's say sketching skills or research skills or rendering skills or what you call any kind of presentation skills or research skills or anything like that. People have a little skill set which has been learned before, but it is not necessarily it can be directly applied because problems are uncertain. The nature of this complexity is uncertain. Client is different, user is different. Even sometimes the country or the region or the entirety of the problem itself is very different. That is why we cannot have a structured syllabus or a method for a designer to learn. Okay? In that case, Jagdish, how do you really understand and go about it? Right? Anyway, problem is going to come and we're going to solve it, right? That's how we make a living and we make a career and then we make an impact in design. So very first thing which you will have to be prepared is embracing a very important growth mindset. It's all come to the mindset, okay? Skill sets are only 20%. Mindset is 80%. The reason being, if you are able to have that mindset to learn and if you are able to cultivate that particular challenges and make this into an opportunity, what happens is you will find a way to develop ideas. You will be dedicated and hard work to make sure that you need to figure out a way to come out of that particular solution, whatever you're solving with that problem, right? Sometimes I'll tell you one example. Instead of viewing a complex problem as very difficult or complex or daunting, see them as a chance to acquire new knowledge. Like let's say if you're working on something like a, what you call something which is very like let's say just periods, health for women, right? So let's say if you're doing that entire team is men, no women is there, right? So the men has very little knowledge about it, right? So you cannot say, hey, I'm not prepared. Nobody taught me about the subject in the college and I cannot do this project. No, you cannot say that. Ideally, speaking design projects will be like this. Many different topics, many different areas will come. So in that case what you'll have to do is you have to be very, very, very careful in doing that. Like you need to make, you need to take an approach called active listening and observation. You need to talk to right stakeholders, observe their environment, try to get more nuances at that problem at hand. See, you cannot become an expert by living with a woman for 20 years, right? You have to really go and understand a woman who has experienced these particular things and you have to talk to a lot of people and observe them. Then you will get a best at it. This is a very important aspect which you will have to develop. The third is you will have to make some prototype and iterate it, right? Like let's say if your understanding is good on the above step, you'll have to make quick prototypes, solutions and make a testing out of it. Make sure you get a feedback and then you get a hands on approach on the learning process. I'll Tell you guys, this is the only way to learn and design. It's by doing, it's by getting mistakes, it's by getting some iteration and feedback you are learning will be like 100x faster. That level of understanding you will get once if you do it, if you talk to the right person, if you talk to the right environment, observe it, listen to them and make iterations in the prototype and learn it. Hey Jagdish, this seems like a steps here. It's not like a learning method. Whatever you're saying. No guys, this is exactly the learning method. The very first is embracing the very growth mindset. Second is active listening and observation. Third is doing some rapid prototyping and iteration. And fourth, I'll tell you, you need to have a cross disciplinary collaboration, collaborate with different expert. See you're not domain expert, right? In menstrual health or pediatric health of women, you're not expert in that. So try to talk to people who are doing a lot of research in this for years. Try to talk to gynecology doctors, try to talk to obstetrics and gynecology doctors where they have gained experience over 25, 30 years where if you spend only 25 minutes you will get the whole gist of what is happening. In that scenario they will give you global perspective, they'll give you Indian perspective, they'll give you local perspective and they'll give you some very interesting stat which the world is fighting against. This menstrual health, you don't need to do hours of research, you need to be smart in cross disciplinary collaboration. This is how you need to tune your mindset for learning and growing and learning in a very faster way. I'll tell you an example. Partner with some data scientists who are working on these nuances, who are working on this menstrual health, who are working on this women health. So you'll be able to get more clarity. Utilize design thinking. This is the fifth strategy. Always apply design thinking, have an empathy, have a research, have an ideation, prototype, testing and understand and solve the complex problem. See when you go through a design thinking process automatically, there is a process to learn and grow. Because you need to do research, you need to understand, you need to empathize, you need to make a mapping, you need to definitely solve the problem. So in that way your framework will help you to learn more clarity and more technical details of that content, right? And sixth is very important thing, you will have to do some testing. Once your prototype is ready, please go and test it out with small groups or Even big groups or even sometimes it's a random group. Whatever you've taken. But make sure you're observing that feedback and documenting it. What happens is when you do a quick testing with a targeted user, research to whatever user needs are there. That particular prototype will give you a lot of learnings, it will give you a lot of confirmation and validation. The decision what you made is correct or not. Like let's say in an example of an E commerce industry conducting user interface to identify their pain points in purchasing process, in searching process, in finding out the right match for their needs of the products and service in your website. So this kind of a testing will give you some learning method. Whatever you're doing is you are learning better to solve the problem of a customer. You need to understand this. Okay, and the eighth important step is you need to do a case study analysis. Take some case studies, analyze the design case studies with various industries. Like let's say it could be from aircraft industry, it could be from what you call space industry, it could be from mining industry, it could be from any different industry. But try to approach with the mindset of openness and collaboration. What happens is when you go through that analysis, sometimes that insights and inputs and data will be useful for your own project. This is the best way to learn and implement and become expert in a very short span of time. You know what? Big billionaires and big design thinkers like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, they have really made world class products using this particular method. They used to always keep an eye on the market, study, case study, analyze and then they make an innovative and visionary approach for their products. And you know what? Sometimes you will build on top of a big what you call perspective or an idea or a thought that will become a masterpiece. Successful case studies in the travel industry, like what Elon Musk made, which is like a boring company and Hyperloop, they've understood how the user experience can be enhanced by implementing some of the biggest bullet train technology or maybe sometimes like how tunnel trains are running and how much efficient we can able to run the transportation. And using that particular old methodology, Elon Musk has really built an industry called Boring company. So this particular tunnel bore is able to, is able to bore the ground also is able to put the road also simultaneously, right? So previously there used to be a boring process separately and there used to be a concrete process which lays the outer layer and then there used to be a road laying process. So here in the Boring Company, three things are combined together and made as a whole. So by the time the boring happens, the construction also happens and the road also get constructed. See, so this is an idea when you use other case studies to build on top of it and make sure you do some informed industry trends. Okay, this is the ninth, eighth strategy. So regularly read some industry publication blogs, attend conferences. This is, this is to keep you updated what's really happening in the industry. Okay, you can read through a magazine called Medium Blog. It's a very good. You can read through a blog called Medium, okay, and you can read through a blog called Smashing magazine and attend some conferences in UI design, UX design like Summit or a conference or some kind of a festival so that you can learn and build on your own. Okay, so the ninth important thing is build a personal knowledge repository. Always have an article, a diary, a kind of a good journal where you can collect all of your works and inspirations and keep them updated continuously. Okay, so the 10th important last point is you need to be continuous learning in different, different platforms. Please register for some good courses in Coursera or Udemy or LinkedIn learning, or you can choose your mentors or you can choose any education program or buy some books or audio programs. Please make sure you're continuously learning about something like an approach, like a meth, like a, like a strategies in design. You know what, this particular one point will help you lot to improve on your career. Okay, so to reiterate on this 10 methods. So embrace a growth mindset, have an attitude of learning, active listening and observing and build some prototypes quickly and test it out with your customer. And fourth is cross disciplinary collaboration, how you can mingle with these people and utilize the way of design thinking where you can approach this design thinking and you can learn on the go. And six is user testing. And seventh is case study analysis. Eight is staying informed on the industry trends and updated. And ninth is building a personal repository. And tenth is having a continuous learning mindset. If you're able to do it, what happens is no matter, the problem is you will deep dive into the subject. You will become a domain expert by interviewing the domain people and you will create a new learning path for yourself so that you can utilize this rapid testing and prototype whatever you did. And then you create a very, very, very beautiful product in a very short span of time. Okay, so I hope this podcast would have given you clarity. You can read about the Google Material designer, you can read about Airbnb's design thinking approach where they've used this kind of an approach of iterative process. You can read about Apple's iterative design process as well. Okay? So thank you so much, guys. I hope you have understood why it is very important for the designers to learn on the go and you can embrace it. Okay, thank you so much. And if you feel this is added value in your design career, give me a best training in Apple and Spotify. And if you need my mentorship support, you can write to that email and I'll be happy to help you out. Okay, thank you so much. Take care. Bye. Bye.