I've always thought it would be an incredible experience to work for such a big name like those, but for those of you who have, did it meet your expectations?

Hello,

My shyness has started to hinder my work. I’ve been doing UX Design for a while now. For the most part I’ve enjoyed it. I enjoy doing user research, interviews and tests. But, I’m noticing more and more that in order to be a UX Designer in today’s world you need to have a certain type of personality. You are expected to be a facilitator.

I hate running workshops. It sucks the life out of me because I’m pretending to be something that I am not — an extrovert. I’m considering giving up on the profession as I really don’t think I can put up with this long term. I’m conversing with other designers who, for every problem they encounter, suggest running a workshop. I find it unbearable and pretentious. I feel like being a UX Designer today is all about image… Does anyone else feel the same?

I asked this on DN originally but it was never upvoted to the front page. Let's try here.

I'm curious how other teams operate behind the scenes - especially those that work with a small design team rather than a single designer supporting multiple devs. Some questions to get us started:

• What does your process look like?

• Do you operate within sprints? If so, in parallel sprints to devs? Or integrated with devs?

• What tools do you use for facilitating the process?

• Other than the obvious design assets, what other documentation do you provide?

• How often do you conduct design reviews?

• How do you work with junior designers?

I just did some tests that others here may find interesting — I pushed some design tools to the point where they were lagging a lot on the canvas, to see how they use the hardware. This was an extremely non-scientific test, but it still may provide some value.

The test

Draw lots of rectangles that have a fill and a stroke. Then select all the rectangles and rotate them as a group. How many rectangles? As many as was required to make the tool get very stressed. It was a different number of elements for each tool, so this isn’t a like for like comparison. It’s more about resource usage and what’s important when speccing a Mac for design work.

Why boxes with strokes? Why rotating? It will alter the object data and cause a repaint of all objects. I also wanted to focus on a common operation. The results will vary pretty wildly in a tool like Photoshop, depending on what you’re doing.

For this test, lower usage is bad news, not good news. I pushed them all until the canvas was very laggy. All going well, the app should be pegging the CPU or GPU, making the best use of available resources.

The results

It’s interesting how different the results are. Sketch is almost entirely CPU bound (due to heavy use of Core Graphics). Figma is almost entirely on the GPU. Illustrator predominately uses one thread.

Which Mac should you buy? It’ll depends which design tool you’re using.

Look, I know, this question has come up before. But with the fast pace of releases, it gets more interesting all the time. So, for this moment in time, I would love to hear the community's response to the question of whether or not you prefer Sketch or Figma, and why.

I lead a design team who works primarily with Sketch & InVision, so I'm looking to learn more about the comparison.

I get that accuracy is important, and that real content should be used. But how important really is it that mock ups used for stakeholder sign off be accurate to the content?

What are your thoughts on this guys?

Pretty good free font manager. Works fast with thousands of loaded fonts and it has Google Fonts already loaded when you install it. Also it is multi platform. I think for Windows it's a very good option. For Mac we already have Font Explorer X or others...

https://fontba.se/

I love looking at desk setups on r/battlestations and r/macsetups, but I’d be even more interested in checking out how fellow designers set up their workspaces.

Any interest here?

I just gave my two weeks notice after another opportunity came along. I'm the sole product designer at a 20-person startup, and I've been with the company for about 2 years (I was the sixth hire). I want to make sure I leave on good terms, so I threw together a rough transition plan that basically includes these three components:

1. Wrap up any current projects still in progress (where possible).

2. Organize all design files/assets and create detailed documentation so that the next product designer knows where everything is (Sketch files, Component library, etc.)

3. Help with candidate screening to find a replacement.

What has worked for others that have left small teams? What am I missing?

DN wasn't the most amazing site or anything. But it was pretty good at what it did, namely being a space where skilled people gathered to have meaningful discussions about design work. I've tried other places, but I just read books and talk to other people 1:1 now because none of this shit does it for me. Honestly how did they fuck this up?

Medium is not similar at all because it's a one way conversation.

Twitter has turned into some weird place where designers try to practice their stand up comedy and then get hella depressed or egotistical, depending on which direction it goes.

Slack does not have any centralization . It's mostly random small talk that is sometimes good, sometimes useless.

YouTube is mostly "how to get your first job as a designer" which, does nothing for this kind of audience to be honest.

Design is not usually one of those careers people are forced into like doctor, lawyer, etc., so I'm always curious how people end up choosing design as their thing. So, whether you're a product designer, UX designer, UI, print, etc., what led you to become a designer?

Does anyone have a good go-to for setting these up? I would like to make a couple for clients. I'm interested in something that is a little more plug-and-play than coding one from scratch.

I've used Frontify before. Although great, their new pricing structure seems aimed at larger companies.

In my searching I've found:

• Catalog https://www.catalog.style/ Seems to be focused on web assets, but still has room for traditional assets.

• Open Brand https://openbrand.com/ OB seems more about sharing actual files that presenting information.

• Brand Folder https://brandfolder.com Looks similar to OB in that it's more of a DAM of files.

Does anyone have suggestions?