Apple Design Principles
On April 2021, Apple approached Carousell for a education workshop about Apple design principles and how we can apply it
Develop your taste and craft in the AI age
Will AI replace designers’ jobs? Well, yes and no.
My personal website design philosophy
Simple, humble, writing-first
Different High-level Designs
The more senior the designer, the more abstract the problem they should be solving.
Designer Lvl 1: Design a form
🌱 Being a generalist helps you find the right career choice
Being a self-taught designer has been something that made me unconfident.
I hated how I never specialized in anything in
🌱 Children who are later talkers
🌱 Feynman was an American theoretical physicist born in New York City. He’s a famous physicist, but many people know
🌱 Feynman
Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist born in 1918 in New York City.
Feynman was a very late talker—
🌱 Fall in love with the process over outcomes
If you are like me and many other creatives, you have many interests and want to do many things. You’
🌱 You can improve anything with 30 min a day for 30 days
🌱 The Seinfeld strategy — Don’t break the chain encourages us to use a big calendar that has a whole year
STAR Interview Method for Product Designers
STAR interview method is a powerful tool that product designers can use to showcase skills during job interviews.
🌱 Atomic essays
Have you heard of the term "atomic essay" coined by the Ship-30-by-30 creators? It's a fascinating
And I got an offer 🎉
Oh Yeah. I got an offer.
After almost 3 months of unemployment and many rejections, I got an offer. I
📗 A company I'm interviewing at has conducted a layoff
Do you believe that?
Yeah, it's the truth. Anything can happen, mah.
I was in the middle of
How to prepare for your Facebook product design interview
Highlights from Lily Konings’s sharing on how to land a product design job at Facebook
🌱 Ask for quick sharing right after every user interview
Doing this will help you synthesize user research 2x faster.
🌱 📗 Whiteboard challenge Step-by-Step & Tips
Some companies will have a whiteboard design challenge. I will have one session next week. It will be a case
🌱 Building a product isn't about whether it can be built
But about if people need it.
Learning to code might be wise. I think everyone should learn to code nowadays.
📗 Interviewing & Rejection
Yesterday I had only one interview with a designer from a big crypto company.
The interviewer is very nice, kind,
Powerful life hacks for career, health, and relationship
Sahil Bloom is my greatest resource for learning. His newsletter and Twitter content always give me new and powerful lessons.
Write first, present later
Writing first and presenting later is one of the best pieces of advice I get in my career.
📗 Two more chats with HR, and it was good
But today, I got two chats with HR from two new companies.
Both are crypto companies, one is a startup,
📗 Chat with Viki Recruiter
I had a Chat with a recruiter from Rakuten this morning. He's very nice and warm. Talking with
📨 Letter from Audience #01
💌Hi Trong,
I am Yurong, a product designer based in Singapore. I chanced upon your article on LinkedIn and when
📗 Chat with a crypto company and ex-colleagues
I’ve had a chat with HR from a crypto company. He set up a 1-hour interview, but it only
📗 Chat with a recruiter from a 3D AI Startup
Today I will have two chats with HR. I did one this morning with E. Their product is innovative. Building
📗 An ex-colleague asked to refer me to a company
Today is Sunday. There’s no more reply from companies. But I have some chat next week. Around 4 chats
📗 One chat with HR and one more invite to chatting
Today is Friday, and there is no job that is in the interview yet. Most of the meetings are with
📗 Getting some replies from companies that I applied
Today I got some replies from some places that I applied: Viki Rakuten, and Coinhako.
I also applied to some
📗 The first official day to look for a job
Today is Wednesday. The first official day for me to look for a job.
Seems like not many companies are
🌱 Folders kill creativity
The folder structure defines specific content belonging to one category.
The content is stored in the same place, but they
🌱 Morning page
Morning pages was mentioned on Julia’s book The Artist’s way.
Every morning, you write three pages in a
📗 Much support from friends and LinkedIn people
Keith, my ex-head of design, sent me a message yesterday. He sent me a Job description from Google and a
🌱 Post Layoff Diary
Sharing my process of looking for new jobs after the layoff.
📗 A long one-hour call with a recruiter
This morning, I had a call with a recruiter from Neuron Mobility, it’s a company I didn’t know
🌱 Goodbye letter to Carousell Product Designers
A note to send to my designer folks. We had too many good things together.
I was laid off, here are some thoughts
On this page
Well, I got laid off.
This is the first time I have left a company without intention,
📗 Affected (by layoff) colleagues are starting to look for a job
Today is the last day we stay in Singapore this year. We will come back after the holiday and with
🌱 From Collector to Creator
We often hoard information because it gives us an illusion of knowledge. We consume too much, but we don’t
📗 Digest the bad news of layoff and meeting Felipe
Many things happened to me. The worse thing is I got laid off from Carousell. I have no more work
🍓 4 User Research Lessons for Beginner Product Designers
Personal reflection after doing the first usability testing abroad.
🌱 A system should follow you, not the other way around
We try to learn a new system, so we ask others what their best practice are and how to do
🌱 The point of taking notes is to think better
We have a habit of taking notes and saving valuable things.
But in the end, those ideas get forgotten and
🌱 Why do we need a second brain?
We often hoard (or save it for later) content because it gives us an illusion of knowledge. But in the
🌱 Build your own Wikipedia
We all heavily use Wikipedia to learn.
Imagine you could have your own Wikipedia with all the things you learn,
🌱 A second brain
A second brain is the trustiest place where you keep all information that matters to you.
In the digital age,
🌱 Offering multiple prices for your product to increase revenue
When we put only one price for your product, it seems that we leave a lot of money on the
🌱 Price Anchoring with Elon Musk
Twitter Blue and Elon Musk gave us a masterclass on how to use anchoring to drive sales.
🌱 The first 100 are the most difficult
Getting the first 100 subscribers or customers is the most challenging part if you are a creator.
It takes a
🌱 The new success metric for a knowledge worker is the number of evergreen notes written per day
While reading more notes from Andy Matuschak, I went from hope to disappointment to enlightening.
The light today is I
Learn in public
The fear of being judged leads us to learn and think privately. But teaching people is the best way to
🌱 Fleeting notes
Fleeting notes are your loose thoughts, ideas, and anything in mind. They are unorganized and unstructured.
They are to capture
🌱 Literature notes
Literature notes are one type of note of [[The Zettelkasten note-taking method]]. They are highlights from the source you’re
🌱 Evergreen notes
Evergreen notes are similar to permanent notes or Zettels from The Zettelkasten note-taking method. I prefer the name evergreen notes because it’s human and inspiring.
🌱 A digital garden
A digital garden is a place to plant the seeds for future ambitious works. It was seeded with many [[🌱 Evergreen notes]] and linked to each other.
Find a way to raise your voice
Today I have a tough conversation with my head of product design. Yes, it’s about the performance review.
The day I become a better designer
The day I become a better design is the day I start writing.
A complete guide for Lottie animation with GatsbyJS
Lottie animation is easier than you think. In this post, we will create a Lottie animation, from After Effect to prototype to export handover files for developers.
Systems vs Goals
I’m always failed at exercising regularly. It usually starts with passion, the first week is awesome and motivated. But the next week, it becomes less and less.
Essential skills for product designers
For designers, only good design skill doesn’t guarantee success. We need more skills to be better and succeed in your career.
Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success
I’m reading ‘How to fail at almost everything and still win big’ by Scott Adam. There's one idea that enlightens me and I think everyone should know about it.
You’re saying sorry too much
Saying sorry is a good habit, but saying it too much is the contrast. Sometimes, we apologize too much and it affects your presence. Replace sorry with a better phrase will make your ideas more compelling and show up stronger.
2020 year in review
2020 is the year none would forget. It was supposed to be a good year with a beautiful number. But what happened was terrible. Today is the time to reflect on the past year.
2020 Thoughts
✦ September
To be a good designer
One of the biggest lessons I learned this year is the power of confidence, for a designer.
Learn to code
The greatest lesson from the book The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin
Things I wish I knew when I started designing
5 years in the design field is not too long. But it gives me many lessons that if I knew about it before, it will be a better designer than I am today.
Get a job as a product designer whithout going to design school
I got my job as a designer without going to design school. This is a guide to teach yourself design.
Generalist vs Specialist
When you hire a person to solve a problem. Do you want to hire a person who knows many things or a person who great dept in one thing?
Designer’s guide for designing for performance
Performance is a shared responsibility and everyone on your team impacts it. Considering performance when making design decisions will have an enormous impact on your users.
The function of beauty
We got so carried away with the idea of functionality, we lost sight of who we were designing for in the first place, humans
Layoff diary
Documenting my process of looking for new jobs after the layoff. Or maybe doing something fun. Good luck to me!
Keep a hero file and steal like an artist
How to find your own design style at the early stage of your design career.
People I love at Carousell
Things come very differently when switching from a one-designer-team to a multi-designer-team. We have to work with many people who are better than you. So it’s a chance for you to learn from the others.
Best chapters and lessons from “Sapien, a brief history of humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari
A look at the history of humankind from a very new perspective, and surprised.
Lessons from the movie “Schindler’s List” by Steven Spielberg
Everything I learned I learned from the movies.
In a digital world, don’t forget to use your digits
Don’t let cool digital tools and the noisy world bury your creativity.
The secret of writing
What’s the primary purpose of your headline, your graphic, your font, and any other part of the writing?
2019 Year in review
End of a decade, the 2010s, the new one is coming, 2020s. What had passed last year?
Why I live so far from the office
or many people who work abroad, they tend to rent a house close to the office so they can come to work easier. But the price isn’t cheap. If it’s cheap, it isn't a good room. Let’s see what I do with my daily commute when staying far from the office.
Jakob’s law
One of the most basic and common principles of UX
Our Europe Trip 2019 — Whole journey review
The review for our whole journey, where is our favorite, where has the best food, where we will come back?
Our Europe trip 2019 — Back home
We’re playing back to Singapore, it’s a long flight, 12 hours. Long long long flight.
Our Europe trip 2019 — Paris
There are so many things to see and do there.
Can’t get good ideas? Come up with some bad ones
It’s your brain trying to protect you from harm, from coming up with ideas that is embarrassing and stupid and could cause you to suffer pain. The way you shut off is by forcing the brain to come up with bad ideas.
Our Europe trip 2019 — Bye Belgium
The second country of the journey, we are coming to Paris, France.
Our Europe trip 2019 — Germany
German people are awesome
The designer’s job is both doing and thinking
What if one day you don’t have anything to deliver? It happens very often on a product team, what would you feel?
Imposter syndrome is real
It happens to many people. Many people are facing it too.
2019 Thoughts
✦ September
Ugly truths about design systems
Design system (DS) is not a temporary trend, it has many benefits to the organization and the product. But what else?