The women that made me a better designer

Posted on March 8, 2017

A while back when browsing Twitter for new insights and learnings, I noticed that most of my go-to developers and designers were women. Being so accustomed to the male dominance in the field of computer science and engineering, I found this pretty cool!

With International Women’s Day taking place today, I wanted to give these women a shout-out. You most likely know who they are already. But if not, allow me to thank and introduce…

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to post here on a more regular basis, but then I (finally) started playing Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt… So, to break my procrastination I decided to write a post about the usability delights of this wonderful game.

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt is the third game in the epic fantasy saga from the Polish game developers CD Projekt Red. It was released on May 19, 2015.

The Witcher games are based on the fantasy books by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. The books tell the story of the witcher (monster hunter) Geralt of Rivia, whom you also play as in all of the Witcher games.

I won’t go into great depths about the story of the game. If you’re interested, read A Beginner’s Guide to the World of the Witcher by Kotaku. The lore is as epic as in The Lord of the Rings and the politics is as complicated as in Game of Thrones.

But in short, You play as Geralt who is looking for his adoptive (sort of) ultra powerful daughter Ciri who is lost in war-torn world and being chased by a group of scary specters called the Wild Hunt.

Just as its backstory, the mechanics and interfaces of Witcher 3 are deep and complex. But CD Projekt Red has pulled it off remarkably well. Here’s six of my favorite usability delights of this game.

1. No crashing into trees on horseback

I’ve played quite a few games where you spend time on horseback. Mainly Nintendo’s classic Legend of Zelda games, but also Rockstar Games’ western epic Red Dead Redemption. I’ve always found it incredibly frustrating when you’re gloriously blazing through a field with the sun setting in the background only to be abruptly stopped when crashing into a tree. Ugh.

In Witcher 3, this is almost never happens. Even when you ride into the most dense of woods, you are subtly auto-aimed past the many trunks and branches. It’s such a welcomed change. Well done CD Projekt Red.

The new year has arrived and lots of people are starting it off by staying sober, getting a gym membership or starting a new healthy diet. As usual, I like to kick it off by cleaning up my Macbook.

Here’s my four best pieces of advice.

1. Buy CleanMyMac 3

CleanMyMac 3 by MacPaw is, in my opinion, the best app for freeing up hard drive space by finding and deleting:

• Duplicate photos
• Bloated caches
• Unnecessary email attachments
• Large and old files
• Long system logs
• Unused language files
• Seldom used apps

CleanMyMac 3 is smooth, easy to use, explanatory and has saved me lots and lots of gigabytes. It’s my number 1 tool for keeping my Macbook healthy.

Just download it and you’re almost done.

2016 was a challenging but great year for me in terms of work. It marked my first year at inUse, had me giving lectures all over Sweden, put me in a lead position in projects and broadened my skill set further.

Here’s some words about what happened, great things I noticed, personal achievements, stuff I learnt and what I’m looking forward to in 2017.

Designing for touch is essential for all screen sizes

Since I started working with Responsive Web Design back in 2012, I’ve been a strong advocate for Mobile First.

In 2016, it’s more important than ever to design Mobile First due to the changing nature of devices, their screen sizes and their different options for input.

Today, some smartphones are almost as large as some tablets. There’s also tablets that are larger than some laptops. We also have devices like the Microsoft Surface, which offers input from its touch screen as well as from an optional physical keyboard.

Then there’s the growing group of laptops with touch screens like the Microsoft Surface Book 2.

With a touch screen laptop like the Microsoft Surface Book 2, users can and will switch between using a mouse, keyboard and touch screen within seconds.

Designers need to design interfaces to support touch input, regardless of screen size.

On May 22, I’m turning 30. It should be just another birthday, but it feels different.

Even if you’re far from old at 30, you can’t really view yourself as being that young anymore. 30 is also an age where many people has made or are about to make major life decisions such as getting married or having kids.

One way or the other, things change and it can make you reflect about much more complex topics than if you should get a PS4 or an Xbox One.

With that said, here are nine things I wish I knew when I was 20 years old. Some of them I actually knew, some of them I didn’t and one or two of them I might have read in a post similar to this one.

1. Spend time with your parents

A tough realization when growing up is that your parents won’t be around for as long as you would like. It’s a depressing thought, but it makes you appreciate the time you have with them more.

In 2005, I moved a long way from home for college studies. During my first winter holiday back home, it dawned on me that I would never see my parents on a daily basis as I had done for the past nineteen years.

Since then, I’ve made sure to spend a lot of time with them during school holidays, vacations and other weekends. They are still here, still healthy and I love having them around more and more.

2. Hang out with your friends

When I moved away from home, I thought I would lose touch with my childhood friends. I knew we would hang out again from time to time, but I thought we would quickly grow apart and lose our special bond.

Luckily, I was wrong. During the following years, we spent more and more time together than I would have ever imagined. We didn’t grow apart, we continued growing up together.

Today with kids, jobs and some of us living in different countries, things have changed. We don’t hang out as much as I would like to, but we laid a solid foundation that’s still there. It’s nice.