DEV Community: Foundsiders

Frontend Shorts: How to rotate the element on scroll with JavaScript

Ilona Codes — Sat, 04 Apr 2020 11:06:28 +0000

While building the animated spinner on scroll for the landing page, I thought how can be done quickly and in a few lines of code with JavaScript.

I wanted to rotate an SVG reload-icon inside the circle by scrolling up and down on the web view without using any JavaScript library like jQuery or React.

So instead, I achieved this result in a quite simple way using DOM JavaScript. Let me show you my practical implementation below:

To separate the solution from the project code, I created three files for this example: index.html, index.css, and index.js.

Let's mark up a green-yellow circle with reload icon in its center:



<!-- index.html -->
<html>
    <head>
        ...
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css"> 
    </head>
    <body>
        <div class="wrapper">
                <div class="circle">
                    <img id="reload" src="reload-solid.svg" alt="scroll">
                </div>
        </div>
        <script src="index.js"></script>
    </body>
</html>

According to the HTML-tree, next, I style the elements with CSS:



/* index.css */
body {
    height: 3000px;
}

.wrapper {
    top: 50%;
    left: 50%;
    transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
    position: fixed;
}

.circle {
    width: 100px;
    height: 100px;
    border-radius: 50%;
    background-color: greenyellow;
    text-align: center;
    vertical-align: middle;
    display: table-cell;
}

#reload {
    width: 50px;
    height: 50px;
}

❗️Notice that the height prop of the body is 3000px, it's needed to show you the rotation of the reload icon inside the green-yellow circle by scrolling.

Besides, I have centered the circle element vertically and horizontally for better preview. You can see in the circle class.

Next, we need to add a rotation effect to the element on the scroll:

Create a function onscroll(), which will call scrollRotate() function in DOM.
Find the reload-icon element via id, which will rotate by scrolling and store it into the image variable.
Use transform CSS-property to manipulate the reload-icon element by rotating.
Apply Window.pageYOffsetproperty that will return the number of pixels the document is currently scrolled along the vertical axis (up/down).



// index.js
window.onscroll = function () {
    scrollRotate();
};

function scrollRotate() {
    let image = document.getElementById("reload");
    image.style.transform = "rotate(" + window.pageYOffset/2 + "deg)";
}

👉 Window.pageYOffset/2 allows making the element rotation faster. The lower number, the faster rotation. The higher number, the slower rotation.

What we do (I mean frontend developers) is not all that unique. Often we face the problem that seems easy to solve and later refactor it to the more elegant and readable solution.

Thank you for reading! 🙏

If you liked and found this frontend short practical, it would make me happy if you shared it on Twitter.

Code your best,
Ilona Codes

Photo by Kristaps Grundsteins on Unsplash

5 Ways How to Build Trust for Your Tech Product

Ilona Codes — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 09:07:11 +0000

Building trust 🤝 is an essential part of any business.

It's how you close deals, form partnerships, build your business up to its fullest potential—it's everything.

Orange Book 🍊📖

@orangebook_

Business tips.

People help you when they like you.

People pay when they like your product.

People trust you when they have known you for years.

People invest in you when you show growth.

08:39 AM - 11 Feb 2020

If people don't trust you, they are not going to want to work with you or buy from you. It's that simple.

Ramping up a new product for a new company is always a lot of work. Here are some excellent ways to build trust and reputation with early customers and users:

1. Prove yourself by demonstrating your value in public 💎

Prove to the world that you are worth working with!

👉 Reach out to the places where your target market is discussing pain points and address them directly. Think about Linkedin, Facebook groups, subreddits on Reddit, threads on Twitter, etc.

Try to become a trusted voice in your niche by answering the questions and solving their problems.

2. Tell about yourself — tell your story 💬

People want to know the person they are taking advice from or business they are going to buy from. They want to feel like they know you.

👉 And if you really want to build trust for your product or service, you have to share your personal story or the story of the brand.

Moreover, don't be afraid to speak up about your failures and moments of doubt. Share the story, and you may be surprised how quickly people will warm up to you and your product or service.

3. Do what you say you are going to do 📌

Follow through, even under all your promises with over-deliver. In building trust—they are required. Be a person or business of the word.

If someone gives you a chance with your or with their business, then "wow" them—exceed their expectations.

👉 Do what you said you are going to do, and even more. Build that "more" behind the scenes and later offer it as extra. Remember that "Wow" is a must.

4. Create support systems 🤖

👉 Provide a system in which people can directly communicate to your business and ask questions or report problems or bugs of the product.

Today there are many ways to help you collect the feedback from your customers, for example, via chat or chatbots, contact email or form, or free call.

5. Genuinely care about your customers 💆‍♀️

This is the most important component of trust.

If people don't believe that you care about them through your product, they will lend you their trust only in some circumstances but not unconditionally, even if they are convinced that you are sincere, reliable and competent.

👉 Be sure, that you truly understand the pains and problems of your customers. Make sure, your product or service at least partially relieves their pain and solves one of the problems.

Last but not least, customers are shifting towards a buying model, which is usually based on trust and similarity. Customers are willing to buy services from people who look similar to them, to their lifestyle, needs, and mindset.

Make your best product,
Ilona Codes

Photo by ATC Comm Photo from Pexels

How to Increase Productivity on Your Side Project

Ilona Codes — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 11:45:49 +0000

Productivity is not just about how much time you spend on projects. It's about being efficient when you are working.

Besides, it's also crucial to find ways to increase your energy levels, so you have the energy to tackle everything you want to work on. That's why:

1. If you are serious about your side project — prioritize it on a daily basis by setting aside designated time for it every day or throughout the week.

2. Do preparation before work! When you sit at your desk to start working on your side project, you should already know exactly what you are going to do.

❗️1 hour of preparation could save you 10 hours of rework.

— Write your to-do list early in the morning or before going to bed. Don't wait to do that when you should be working on it.

— Organize the information that you need when working on your side project so you can easily access it.

— Use bucket lists. If you have one idea, don't fall into the trap that you will remember it later.

— Organize your environment to help you produce your best work. Turn off your phone when you enter this environment.

3. Cut down what you can survive without

That's probably the hardest part. If you want to focus on your side project, you will have to accept the idea that some things will have to change.

It's time to focus. Less is more. And if you are serious about your side project, it should be at the top of your list.

4. Self-discipline is very important when working on any task.

The trick is to start working almost immediately once you have your plan and timeline in place. It builds your confidence and motivates you to continue to push towards the finish line.

5. Always remember what drives you

Even if you put into practice all that I have mentioned above, there will still be days that you will feel tired and without the energy to work on your project.

The only thing that can help you in these days is your "why".

— Why are you working on this side project?
— What drives you to make it happen?

6. Do not sacrifice your night of sleep

If you need 7-8 hours of sleep to feel rested, then don't sleep less or more than that.

And avoid bright lights late at night. Its exposure suppresses the production of melatonin, which is a hormone your body produces to make you feel sleepy.

Watching TV, checking your emails, playing games on your mobile, and all those things you love doing late at night are ruining your sleep. Avoid them at all costs too.

💬 Conclusion

Just remember that sometimes we all fail and cannot keep up with plans, deadlines, etc. that we set. That doesn't mean that we fail; it only means that we are humans. We can always get back on course and push ahead, tell ourselves that we can do anything that we make up our minds to.

Photo by bongkarn thanyakij on Pexels

Are early-stage startups "dead-by-default" when Coronavirus is causing significant harm to the world’s economy?

Ilona Codes — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 10:10:36 +0000

Today the Coronavirus outbreak has plunged the world's economy into a global recession, which will cause a period of a global economic slowdown.

Regarding tech startups, the truth is that 90% of startups fail—all the time.

In fact, startups are ventures in search of a business model. Frankly, they don't have revenue in any economy.

However, now the time might be more limited for these tech startups to reach that point of profitability. In other words, it's never been so important to be lean for early-stage startups and turn the profitability switch to remain in business.

In this case, even if a recession does occur, it will not stop many startups on the road to being a unicorn later. The world economy 2020 is bad, meaning costs are lower, and probably, there would be less competition.

What do you think, which kind of startups could survive or even thrive through this crisis?

How to Boost Emotional Intelligence to Become a Better Leader

Ilona Codes — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 18:29:53 +0000

“What does it take to be a better leader?"—a lot of things: all kind of great stuff like communication skills, vision, motivations, and emotional intelligence (EI). EI is the ability to identify and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others. Though, it defines our professional growth and how people interpret us as a leader.

Emotional intelligence is all about people and relationships:

between colleagues, between managers and employees;
between the company and its customers, stakeholders, competitors, networking contacts.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. —Dale Carnegie

In seeing that people skills could make all the difference, Carnegie effectively popularized in his books the idea of emotional intelligence, decades before it was established as a fact in academic psychology.

More information about how to apply emotional intelligence in everyday life you can find in the bestseller: “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Here, you can read a quick review of the book.

Are you aware of how your emotions affect your success in life?

For sure, if you have good emotional intelligence and lower levels of general intelligence, you can still be a great leader. However, if you have lower levels of emotional intelligence and good general intelligence, you will struggle to be a good leader.

How can we help ourselves with developing EI?

❣️ Show empathy

It means understanding the needs of others, be willing to appreciate it. This, in itself, makes it essential in the workplace.

For example, for leaders to get through the tough times easier, they will have to understand what their co-workers are going through. Without empathy, it's impossible to nurture a team.

👂 Listen twice as much as you talk

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. —Epictetus

When we listen, we show people that they are valued. Enjoy the presence of other people and learn to develop a listening attitude.

✅ Become a quick decision-maker

Our emotional awareness will decide how we make decisions in our life–be it professional or personal.

richard shotton

@rshotton

Kahneman’s analogy about quick decision making

Spotted in the office of ⁦@DDBCanada

17:08 PM - 29 Sep 2019

The most critical component of decision making is self-confidence.

We decide: how we envision the world around us, how confident we are, and how we make a decision for better or worse.

🧘‍♀️ Develop self-awareness

How do emotions affect our behavior and leadership role?

Self-awareness goes hand in hand with emotional intelligence giving us a better view of how we discover things. People respect the leader who stays calm when the issues may arise.

Identify your own bad habits to develop a foundation for self-improvement. It is on us how to choose to behave with ourselves and others.

The ability to accept feedback is an excellent example of developing emotional intelligence. To truly accept feedback, you have to:

Make it clear to people that you are open to feedback, and that you want feedback.
Give up on being right during the feedback session. It is not about being right. It is about getting feedback.
Even if the feedback is yelling or completely wrong, listen attentively. It is about hearing and making sure the other person knows they are heard.
Take notes. This way, you can ask questions about the feedback for clarification. Get as much as you can.
Say, thank you. Show that you really appreciate it. Work on meaning it.

With experience, emotional detachment can come eventually. The feedback that listened to carefully can provide gems for the person: their growth and self-improvement.

💬 Conclusion

Emotional Intelligence is about recognizing our own emotions first.

It is exercising self-control within ourselves. So that we can put ourselves in other people’s shoes and bring our empathy into play not only at work but in life too. Therefore reading between the lines and understanding the needs of others.

The good news is that just like your regular intelligence, you can also train your emotional intelligence.

You can learn to become more empathetic, to be more aware of your own emotions and to deal with them better, resulting in a more fulfilled life and career.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

When Is the Perfect Time to Move on as a Developer?

Alex Fedorov — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 16:48:04 +0000

If you want to have a simple, easy, comfy, safe and secure job, then stop reading this post right this moment!

Still here?

Good. Let’s do this then!

20yrs of experience or 1yr repeated 20 times?

If you’ve been a developer for a while, you probably have noticed that there are folks with double-digit experience in years.

But they are not as good as you wish they were.

They focus on wrong things, they are stuck in the past way of doing things, and use outdated technology, or want to spend as much as possible of their time in the meeting.

(so that they don’t have to do actual work).

There is a term in the industry for these developers: “1 year of experience repeated N times.”

Of course, it’s not so black and white, and you can have somebody who has legit 3-4 years of experience, but then they got stuck in a situation that didn’t really allow them to acquire new skills, and they were repeating these 3-4 years (or subset of them) for a while now.

So we have a whole range, from people who are plain harmful to the team, product, and the company, who just want a safe and secure job and do as least work as possible.

And somewhere in the middle, we have well-meaning folks who have lost their ability to learn new things, improve, and are terrified of stepping outside of their comfort zone. They may be a good worker or inadvertently block others from improving and delivering value quickly.

Finally, you have someone who had 20 years of experience, and this experience was always unique, challenging, and still extending their comfort zone further and further.

These are top performers who help each team member around them and deliver exceptional results. And if you ask them tomorrow what they learned yesterday—they’ll always have something interesting to say.

Unfortunately, it’s way to easy to fall into a trap and get stuck in the middle, or even worse.

It’s way too easy to become “1 year repeated 20 times.”

When you finish reading this article, you’ll be well-equipped to prevent that from happening and even become exceptional with real 20 years of experience.

But before we jump into solutions, why not dive deeper into the problem?

Problem: wasting experience years

This problem occurs when you are wasting entire years of your experience, just doing a secure, comfy job, where you don’t need to challenge yourself or learn anything (or much).

One thing is to waste years entirely (sure way to become an epitome of “1 year repeated 20 times”), and another thing is to have the quality of these years of experience reduced.

What do I mean by reduced?

That’s when you are still learning a bit, and it’s a bit challenging, but it is way below what you can really handle, and it is not really stretching your comfort zone enough.

Real experience is gained outside of your comfort zone.

How does this happen?

For example, you may be good enough with the technology at your job, and you can handle 98% of the work with your closed eyes.

Then the process—it’s just working for you, okay, even though there are definite improvements that can be done to get 50-80% efficiency gains, but no—why touch what works.

Why risk it?

Why step outside of your comfort zone, and pull your team with you?

That’s the line of thinking that gets the person, the team, and the organization into the reduced quality of experience mode.

Also, the reduced quality of performance as a long-term result of this all.

Another problem with such complacency is that the longer you don’t step out of your comfort zone, the harder it’ll be to do in the future. Eventually, it becomes a terrifying step and almost nigh impossible to do.

Don’t ever let it get to this point!

The right mindset is one of continuous improvement and growth.

In this mindset, you’re going to be improving yourself, your team, people around you, product, codebase, and the company you’re in (and maybe even the world) all the time, with small incremental, but definite steps.

Of course, you’re going to fail.

And that’s good. Failures are the signs of learning, and of you attempting to do something very likely to be worth it.

People who don’t fail—do not learn.

This mindset is how you maximize your own experience quality and get the most out of your time and how you become a top performer.

Hello, dear skeptic

I know what you might be thinking:

It’s a terrible idea only to do new things, and only learn, because you have to become good at something via repetition and practice, before you can perform at a decent level.

If that’s what you’re thinking, I cannot agree more with you!

I don’t advocate limiting yourself to doing new things only.

Instead, you should get your existing skills to an excellent level until things start to get more comfortable. And that is the right moment to add some more skills or responsibilities to your repertoire.

This way, you always maintain a constant cumulative level of challenge while delivering excellent quality work.

Alright, let’s get technical with how you can keep ever-increasing the quality of your experience years:

Practice and get better at what you’re already doing

If you are already doing something well, and it’s quite easy to deliver your work, then it’s time to start challenging yourself.

How?

You establish restrictions:

Try to do it faster while keeping the same level of quality;
Try to improve quality, while spending the same amount of time;
Help others to do this better—become multiplier.

In essence, practice, deliver, fail, get feedback, learn from it, and improve.

Every day.

If you do that, soon you’re going to reach a point where the amount of effort and time it takes to improve is just too much for the increase of effectiveness or quality.

This is where you can start handling some more responsibilities:

Get more responsibilities

For example, you’re getting really good at 2 out of the 3 necessary skills to do your job, and your boss is pleased with both of your current responsibilities.

Then it’s time to look around you and see what should be done, but it’s not getting done, or not consistently, and no one is responsible for.

But your gut really tells you these things have to get done consistently.

Get the ownership of that. Just start doing that. Learn in the process. Take that responsibility.

Of course, you’ll make mistakes. But you have your saving grace—you’re trying to make things better for everybody around you.

Once you get 10-20% of the mastery of that responsibility and see some good outcomes, go to your boss and “make it official.”

If it so happens that there are no responsibilities around you to take ownership of, then you should go with a new skill:

Get more skills

For example, you’re handling all responsibilities that suit you, and all of your three skills are at the level where improving them doesn’t make too much sense anymore. They’re that good.

Then it’s time to hunt some more skills for your belt.

First, look at what new skills you want to have (try to guess what you may need in the future), or what you think you’ll love to do.

Second, take a look at your environment, what skills are lacking in it? That’ll be beneficial to either the team, product, or company as a whole.

Now, intersect the two. What’s left is what you should be learning, practicing, and start applying at your job.

Again, practice, deliver, fail, get feedback, improve, and repeat.

Now, there is a dark side to all of that. Let’s chat about it:

What you SHOULD NOT do

If you realize that what you want to learn doesn’t fit your current company or role, then forcing it into your job will bring a lot of harm to the people around you, product, and your company.

An excellent example of that’d be a new fancy programming language or technology. But you have to come up with almost implausible excuses to use it at your job.

My personal work ethics tells me that this is a horrible idea then.

Therefore, this is not something you want to do.

Don’t be too selfish.

But what if you see this skill or that responsibility as a vital component of your future career?

Well, if you really think so, then there is a solution for you:

It’s time to move on

For instance, you are in the unfortunate situation where what you want to get better at, doesn’t benefit your employer or your team (or even harms them).

Then it’s time to start searching for a new job, and if your company is big enough, investigate what other roles/departments you can move in, where it’d work well.

Your goal is to start learning and practicing it on your own (and in 10% time if you have that benefit at your company), but not force it into your day-to-day work (to do no harm).

In parallel, talk to people.

A lot of them.

Learn what companies are out there, and who may need your current skillset plus what you’re trying to learn.

Reach out to them and try to get through the interview process. You probably will have to play a number game, because, while you’re expert in a few topics, you’re still learning this one.

Look for something that will fit your chosen direction as best as possible, and where you, learning this on the job, will be precious to the team and a company as well.

I cannot stress enough—it’s going to be challenging.

And it’s well worth it!

Also, since you are changing roles/companies, it’s an excellent opportunity to negotiate a higher paycheck. For example, with this website for developers you can share your salary info and find out how much people earn at the other company you are negotiating with.

Finally, depending on your aspirations and goals for the future, it may be a good idea to start your own thing:

Go independent

If your ambitions cannot be satisfied anymore by any organization around you (or even remotely, in a different country), then you’re likely to be ripe to go independent.

What do I mean by that?

Well, there are three options:

become a freelancer,
start your own product company,
start a service company or agency.

There is, of course, a whole lot to learn there. And a lot of potential failures to encounter.

And that’s good. As we established, this increases the quality of your years of experience!

There are trade-offs to these options, and probably more I haven’t thought about yet. I’m not going to cover these in this post—it’s already getting long! (sorry about that)

What I should tell you, is that there are few things you should do before going independent:

Make sure to save some money for N months—you need that runway because success won’t come on day one.
Line up a job or contractor opportunity in N months for the worst-case scenario where you have failed a lot of times and never succeeded getting anything off the ground.

Just remember, failing is not a bad thing. If you are failing and failing often—that’s great. (Just don’t forget to learn and improve between failures).

It’s much worse if you are not failing for a long while, only to run out of all your saved money and realize that the whole venture was one big failure, and you haven’t had an opportunity to learn from it. And now it’s too late.

Get a mentor. Almost every successful independent person had a mentor. That’s one of the primary ways you’re going to get feedback on what you do and improve.
Seek external feedback as often as you can. Sometimes, in business, what appears to be a failure to you, may actually be a bud of the enormous success that you can’t see because you lack a specific type of experience.

That’s the hardest path, and it’s well worth the effort. Good luck, and let’s summarize:

Conclusion

As you know, some folks have 20 years of experience, but actually, just one year repeated 20 times. Let’s call it “the left side” of the scale.

And then there are outstanding professionals, who have only, what 7 years, but all of these years are unique experiences that make them exponentially better than the former. These are probably top performers in their field. Let’s call it “the right side” of the scale.

(pun intended)

And then there is everything in between.

So how does one get closer to the right side?

Don’t chase only “new and unique” all the time—make sure you actually get good at skills and responsibilities before you add more things to your repertoire.
Challenge yourself every day. Be ready to answer the question “what did you learn yesterday” with something substantial. Perhaps add “how did you fail last week” to the list of these must-be-able-to-answer questions.

In fact, answer these questions every day, if you can help it.

Never become complacent and have an “easy job.”

Get more skills that’ll help your team/product/company to become more successful when your current skillset starts to near the “easy job” state.
Become responsible for more (and more important/challenging) things.
Make sure that what you’re adding to your “toolbelt” is actually valuable to people around you, your product, your company, or your customers.
If your path forward makes the above not true, then it’s time to switch a job. Don’t forget to negotiate a larger paycheck, as this is the easiest time to do that! Use this to find out what is the pay at the company you are negotiating with.
Finally, if such a company doesn’t exist (or is inaccessible to you)—then create one! Become independent.

Now it’s your turn!

Quality of the years of your experience is entirely in your hands. Don’t let weak excuses make you think that somebody else is responsible for your career.

You are the only one.

And you owe yourself to get as close as you can to “the right side” of this experience scale.

So get out there, and never ever stop learning!

Photo by Joshua Coleman from Unsplash

How to Design Great Software Products in Small Startups

Ilona Codes — Sun, 09 Feb 2020 16:58:30 +0000

If you are aware of the values of carrying out the Product Design Process, then you are halfway through the success!

CW

@cwodtke

A quick drawing of the design process.

21:21 PM - 03 Sep 2019

And when you are starting out, you tend to change processes every day, until the team figures out which processes are the most efficient for them to deliver faster.

"If you want to have time for everything: raising children, loving, working, playing sports, relaxing, you need more time. Only those who work faster and better will flourish." — Carl Sewell, Customers for Life.

You can build a good digital product by working in a small team in the beginning. Just think about the most strong brands with their successful digital products: I am sure, all of them that came to your mind started small in the past.

In fact, the product design process is one of those questions that is done differently everywhere.

Typically founders take responsibility when it comes to this. For example, at Foundsiders, I am in charge of developing the design concept, and other co-founder implements it into the working application for the most part.

Founders who are bootstrapping their products clearly understand the advantage of working on a small team: the smaller the team, the less formal the process is.

For design products at small startups, it usually means that the team can re-design pages/flows on the fly in their code, view that code in browser debugger/inspector, and iterate again.

Moreover, much of the design will probably be on paper or whiteboard. How does it work:

Someone has an idea 💡
Quick discussion 💬 on the feasibility of the idea
Do a quick research 👩‍🔬 to understand: why users will need this idea and which user's problem will it solve. This will lead to a rough blueprint of the feature in the next step.
Sketching out and wireframing 🏗 the idea into the app screen. It's necessary to refine and iterate on the vision from the wireframe, so you can use Balsamiq to do that.
Design mode 🎨 Going through each wireframe and laying design mockups on top with the Sketch app. However, you can use whatever app that works for you. It's just a tool.
Export ready mockups to Zeplin. Then as the team, we can navigate around it, perform design reviews 📝 and agree on what is going to be implemented.
Build the idea into the product locally. Frankly building a feature into a static frontend 👩‍💻 version of the product.
Validation and iteration within the team 👩‍💻👨‍💻
Validation outside of the team with the potential user 👤 (Don't skip this step if at all possible).
Again iterate to decide ⚖️ whether to develop the idea implementation further, change direction, or drop the idea altogether.
Develop the end-version of the idea into production and deploy it ✅
Gain learnings from data collection 📊 (review engagement and conversions).

Here is a brief explanation of the feature development cycle for the digital product:

Since you work at a small startup, you have a few resources. And it's for the better. Because everything works best when all hands are helping out and always have what to do.

For instance, the non-technical co-founders can be validating the usability running it by potential users or coming up with better ideas, do customer and market research, and so on. The tech people are doing everything the non-tech people are in addition to building out the tech according to their professional expertise.

Now I am wondering, how does look the design process for the product you are working on? Please share it shortly in the comments below 👇

How to Find Unique and Memorable Name for Your Product

Ilona Codes — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 16:16:20 +0000

Having the right name will have a huge impact on how people perceive your product. Because it can literally make, break and limit the growth potential of your product.

While a great name will make it easier for people to connect to your product, a bad one can alienate, confuse, and entirely bore potential users.

Noah Smith 🐇

@noahpinion

How to explain social networks to Boomers in three words or less:

Instagram: pictures

YouTube: videos

Twitter: eternal dorm argument

WhatsApp: talk to friends

Slack: talk to coworkers

Twitch: videos of games

TikTok: Chinese video surveillance

Facebook: Facebook, but worse

08:34 AM - 20 Jan 2020

A good name should be creative, brand-aligned associations without being difficult to understand.

For instance, the name Facebook instantly conjures up thoughts of people connecting.

Another example is Fiverr. It's naturally “developing” product name, which comes from the original price of gigs or jobs at only a “fiver” – $5.00 per task. The product name has been built on the prior product idea and transitioned to the biggest freelance marketplace that offers many diverse jobs and services.

Even though Flickr is a successful company, its product name was challenging to brand in the beginning. Because people didn't know what its name stands for. And you definitely don't want people drawing a blank when they see or hear about your product name.

That's why to discover the perfect name for your product and leave a great first impression, ensure you follow the conceptual approaches to capture people's attention by the product name at first sight:

💡 Question your product

To jump into the process of creating a name, ask yourself the following questions before, and write down the answers:

- Who is supposed to be your primary user—create a persona

- What the main problem the product is solving for them?

- How best the product name can describe what you do?

- What words or phrases—keywords, should appeal to people when they hear about the product at first?

- Are there any metaphors that communicate what would be relevant to people to understand what the product is?

- What are the competitors’ names? How would your product name differentiate from others?

I recognize that these are basic questions before defining, designing, developing, and launching your product.

Personally, I also consider these questions a checklist of sorts. As you ask and answer these questions, you’ll get more and more ideas for the naming of your product.

The naming of cats is a difficult matter.
-- T. S. Eliot

🖼 Position product image

So far, as you answered the questions, draft a creative brief.

It is basically an ingredient list of everything you need to combine to create the perfect name. It includes everything from the target audience to words to avoid and more.

This way, you will be able to define precisely what your product stands for and figure out what you want the name to communicate.

Since the creative brief is a map, make sure you approach it honestly and thoughtfully.

Check this presentation out to read the research project about the brief creative drafting by the advertising company.

🤖 Use name generator for inspiration

Once you have your creative brief, collect all your name ideas, and then dive deep into the internet to have fun and get inspiration from online name generators. That is such a great way to generate even more product name ideas!

Google it. Example: “Product/business name generator.” There are some pretty cool ones, and some are better than others.

My favorite one is Namelix, which generates short and brandable names using artificial intelligence.

Moreover, be sure to check domain registrars and see what's available. Don't forget to do the same for social media usernames and trademarks too.

Besides, consider actual words vs. made-up words. Because search engines use Did You Mean and Misspellings algorithms, which means people might have an issue finding you.

📌 Keep it simple but sticky

A name should be phonetically pleasing, stick to the ear, and set your product apart from competitors.

One of the reasons company names such as Google, Apple, and Netflix work is because they are catchy, easy to say, and produce high-quality products.

Heather Kelly

@heatherkelly

Slow clap for Amazon’s product naming team...

17:13 PM - 25 Sep 2019

Amazon is an awesome name because it implies that the retailer carries everything from A to Z, and is massive.

Just imagine, if the company had still called “Cadaver” as Jeff Bezos wanted to name his venture, it probably would have followed a very different path.

Regarding Foundsiders’ digital product names, we also wanted people to get the idea of what they are about from their name, and not after reading their descriptions.

For example, FelloWage implies that it is a tool that you can use to view other fellows’ wages. And BizBookClub is a book club for entrepreneurs.

✅ Reach out to others for feedback

When you come up with your name, please take steps to ensure it is the right one. Let others review your name idea and give you feedback so that you can improve on it.

To clarify, this doesn't mean you should share ideas only with outsiders on different platforms, try to reach out to your target audience, people who are supposed to use your product in the future.

None of us is as smart as all of us.
—Ken Blanchard.

Collect their impressions—the first thoughts about your product name. You are looking for the strongest name, not something watered-down and safe.

Don't be afraid to trust yourself too. It's okay 👌 to be different. You know, the best names often seem jarring at first, like Google.

💬 Conclusion

There you have it: everything you need to generate an outstanding product name!

You don't have to be a genius creative to find the right name for your product. You have to follow the listed rules above 🔝

A good name shouldn't be complicated, short, or long—it should be easy for potential users to understand, remember, and love.

There is no right or wrong process when it comes to creating a product name. Now I am curious about:

How do you choose a great and memorable name for your product? What are your best techniques or tips for that?

Please ping me on Twitter and share your thoughts about it.

Make your best life,
Ilona

Photo by Pineapple Supply Co. from Unsplash

Why Should You Surround Yourself With Supportive People?

Ilona Codes — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 16:59:41 +0000

Ever shared your goals and aspirations with a family or friend, only for them to not understand or unable to relate?

We have all been there.

And this is why motivation and inspiration are fueled by connecting and networking with people who have similar interests and mindsets.

But who exactly should you be looking for?

You must not just surround yourself with only people you look up to, but also with people who are chasing similar dreams.

Because they can influence your course of life positively by sharing what they are thinking, showing what they are doing to reach their goals.

The people you spend the most time with shape who you are. 💎

Our environment indeed does shape and influence us both mentally and physically based on studies: the built environment and mental health.

Even the most influential and wise motivational speaker and businessman, Jim Rohn, said that:

You are the average of the five people that you mingle with.
—Jim Rohn

You can take advantage of that if you start hanging out more with people who have the mindset you seek to adopt and are achieving (or have already achieved) goals similar to yours.

🤞 Aim to pal up with truth-tellers

One of the keys to achieving success is to surround yourself with supportive truth-tellers:

Vala Afshar

@valaafshar

I have had a privileged life, mostly because I have had people who loved and supported me.

Surround yourself with caring and supportive truth tellers. Then reciprocate.

Be the person that you would want to follow.

23:31 PM - 27 Mar 2019

Everybody needs at least one person around who tells them the truth, who can tell you if you are wrong or made a mistake, who will provide you constructive feedback, and help you grow faster in this way or not allowed to make a more significant mistake.

Don't be afraid to trust people because your fears can be holding you back from further developing a good relationship with people who could one day be your friends.

Gary Vaynerchuk

@garyvee

I prefer to give trust upfront

I prefer to earn someone’s trust over time

This is becoming obvious to me and I’m intrigued by how it affects my happiness

15:08 PM - 15 Feb 2019

The best way to trust anyone is to get to know them first as ordinary individuals who have good intentions. Don't be quick to judge them.

🌟 Get inspired by people

Even the simple act of observing others can affect your own inspiration and motivation in life.

According to motivation synchronicity experiments, the person who is watching how someone else performs a task will either become intrinsically motivated (motivation comes from within) or extrinsically motivated (motivation comes from external recognition and rewards).

As a result, the person who is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to experiment with the observed task will try to accomplish this task or similar on their own too.

That's why when you see what others created or built something that you genuinely like, at that moment the thought passes in your mind:

“I can do it too! At least I can try it!”

👉 Research watching an expert do something make you think you can do it too.

📚 Learn from successful people around you

Successful people have enthusiasm for whatever they are into, whether it is the psychology, programming, medicine, teaching, or business. They are talking about it, reading articles written by others who are successful, and happily busy with full schedules.

Now imagine how you would be lucky meeting with and talking to them, learning from their experience and wise bits of advice.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
—Voltaire

Thus, you can learn something you are curious about when you talk to them. Take advantage of this opportunity and learn from smart and successful people as much as possible.

🚧 Remove negative people from your life

Most people who never achieve success surround themselves with negative people.

Negative people rarely change.

The pessimist does not care about anyone but themselves. They actually like being negative. It makes them feel authoritative, alive and gives them something to do.

Don’t try to change a pessimist! They will probably change you.

Negative people are toxic, and so they can contaminate you with wrong thoughts, words, and deeds.

If you can’t remove such a person from your life, then at least limit your exposure to them.

💬 Conclusion

Of course, you shouldn’t have only people just like you.

It’s vital to have some variety in personalities, points of view, backgrounds, goals, and where they are in their journey.

This way, you are not going to be inside of the bubble that’ll make you believe you’re doing the right thing when in truth, you are about to fail grandiosely.

Thank you for reading. If you have any concerns, questions, or opinions regarding this post, please reach out to me on Twitter!

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

How to Become an Expert in Your Field

Ilona Codes — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 18:44:15 +0000

What is the best way to develop a real understanding of something? Should you learn as much as possible about a subject, for instance?

No, you shouldn't.

The right answer is to start developing a true understanding of an issue and master the basics because true mastery is not about doing difficult things, but about mastering the basics.

According to the “Developing an empirical measure of everyday information mastering” studies, the basics make up the foundation of any skill or talent, and the core of any expertise is the solid ground of knowledge about the topic first—the basics.

In other words, experts will not attempt to dive into more complex theories or methods until they are perfecting the basics. They know that mastery requires constant attention to (and understanding of) the basics.

John Arundel

@bitfield

We all get impatient with 'the basics' and want to get past them, to the secret techniques known only to the masters. But the secret is that there is no secret. Just the same old basics, thoroughly understood and thoughtfully applied.

"Mastery is nine times patience."
—Le Guin

00:32 AM - 01 Oct 2019

So when you have decided to learn something completely new, don't tackle it headlong immediately.

First, consider the basic elements of the task at hand, and only then start with each less complicated part of it.

Mastering requires you to use your ability of reasoning.

It's about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information. It’s about using all your brain’s computing power to make a worthwhile mind map of the idea you want to master.

You have everything to become an expert at whatever you wish (and quite quickly at that) if you follow the tips below:

🙌 Believe in yourself

Being an expert starts with a belief in yourself, not information or accreditation.

Stop thinking you can’t be an expert. You can.

All of us can.

A belief in yourself is how you get started. And it gives you self-approval and motivation to learn the tools you are missing to be an expert because none of us born experts.

📚 Acquire information

Start gathering the information through reading, listening, observing, and practicing in the chosen field.

Just remember that information is all around you, and you can always find it these days using DuckDuckGo, Google, or another search engine. 😜

Acquire relevant and meaningful information and develop this into knowledge and skills.

If you are confused about the ways how to learn efficiently, check out these study skills on effective learning.

🎯 Focus on one subject at a time

According to Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, the common feature of experts in any field is 10,000 hours of focused and productive time:

In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

In programming, that's practice 💯

In any academic field, that's active research, both reading and creating constructive analyses.

In writing, it's writing, reading editorial feedback, and reading really well-written things.

Whatever it is, 10,000 hours seems to be the key 🔑

Learn. Practice. Review how you are doing. Learn more where you see gaps. Practice more, especially where you are weak. Iterate.

💎 Engage in deliberate practice

Not all practices will make you perfect. For that, you need a particular one—deliberate practice to develop your expertise.

Because being an expert in something is usually the result of a deliberate effort over a more or less prolonged period of time to improve certain skills in a particular field.

For example, most people practice and focus on the things they already know how to do. It can even be chores to them.

But engaging in deliberate practice is quite different. It considers specific and sustained efforts to do something we cannot do well or even at all.

And the research about improving expert performance shows that only by working at what we cannot do (or don't know how) will turn us into the expert we want to become:

Deliberate practice: Is that all it takes to become an expert?

👩‍🏫 Start teaching others

Teaching others is another excellent way to improve our subject expertise faster.

Way faster.

It works because this forces us to think through the details. Moreover, it enables us to get new insights from others.

According to the Learning Pyramid that was developed way back in the 1960s by the NTL Institute in Bethel, Maine, you can see something interesting:

90% of the gained information learners retain when they teach someone else or when they implement it immediately.

Thus, this way will bring to our mind the information we have previously studied. And it will lead to the longer-lasting acquisition of that information than more time spent passively re-studying.

Because when we implement or teach, we instantly make mistakes at the beginning. In this case, we need to learn how to correct the mistake, and this forces our brain to concentrate and learn concepts deeper.

Conclusion

If you want to become an expert, always know that it won't be easy at first.

Yes, it's incredibly hard, but it's undoubtedly possible.

All you need to do is to continuously gain new and more information about your expertise field, practice over and over again, and put a lot of effort into it.

These qualities are always needed to become an expert in any field you choose. Even though it takes time and often differs from person to person, you can still become the best if you try hard enough!

Now, it’s your turn: What would be your top tip or hack on how to become an expert? Please reply to me on Twitter!

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

How to be Less Busy and More Effective

Ilona Codes — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 19:06:04 +0000

In our hectic modern world, we believe that rushing from one task to the next and managing multiple priorities shows everyone that we are productive.

Indeed, because of this cult of busyness, too many of us feel overwhelmed, overworked, and behind their “busy” schedule.

You, just as many other ambitious people, follow some productivity and time management tips for high-level performance and time optimization.

However, the result that you are doing more but achieving less.

What's going wrong? What is the one million secret on how to be more effective than productive? Which powerful techniques can multiply your productive hours?

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Let us have a look at some tips and hack from successful people on how to stretch your time, your effectiveness, and answer these questions in this post.

🛑 Quit complaining about how much you have to do

Usually, we complain because we feel powerless to get what we want—just excuses for not doing anything to help your situation. So what we have to do is analyze our complaints before talking about them.

When you complain, nobody wants to help you.
—Stephen Hawking

Folks are looking for people who can impact their lives positively, who can inspire them for more. If you complain about your problems most of the time, you have a negative outlook on your situation and life.

On the other hand, you can complain to yourself about feeling overwhelmed with the demands on your time.

There is no need for any study to be presented to understand that in general, we spend around 4-5 hours per day on our daily routine tasks like getting dressed, eating, gym, household chores, etc., along with the full-time job. No wonder we cannot get everything that we planned for a day.

And the #1 question is here: how can we manage our time better?

The secret is that you should

Work only on important tasks.
Don't overload your schedule.
Take your daily routine into account.
During execution, don’t think about all your planned items. Just focus on your current task at hand.
Once that’s done, move on to the next one. Thinking about your whole day of work will drain your mental energy needlessly.

Be busy, but not stressed.

🤹‍♀️ Eliminate unimportant activities from your life

Of course, it's easier to say than to do.

Human nature craves the satisfaction of achievement. We are seeking for results but rarely progress. That's why we often tend to engage in trivial activities first. For example, by taking a course and get a certificate for the accomplishment, learn new 100 Spanish words in a month, and so on.

It explains the pointless accomplishments of a random activity that does not lead towards our goal—our success.

The most productive people among us regularly ask themselves which tasks they can eliminate because they focus on results and know that success is not about the number of tasks you finish, but about their significance.

The advice here is, to begin with

Multiplying your time by going through everything you do in a day with eliminating mindset;
Cutting off unnecessary distractions like the TV, Netflix, or video games to return to the effective mode of operation;
Organizing and prioritizing first the tasks and needs that have to be done to fulfill urgent commitments and are important.

What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.
—Dwight Eisenhower

With that being said, and with a little bit more effort by using the Eisenhower Matrix, prioritizing your tasks based on their urgency will be more comfortable.

➗ Enhance productivity using the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto states that in any pursuit, 80% of the results will come from 20% of the efforts.

And highly productive people are

Trying to identify the most important 20% of their work to maximize efficiency.
Looking at ways to cut down the other 80% of their schedule.
And finding more time for things that make the biggest impact.

More about the Pareto principle, you can read here. This method will help you focus. The next step is to take the right action to solve your issues.

✨ Start working on getting the motivation to continue

Motivation comes after productivity and not before.

As soon as you planned and prioritized everything, do not try to look for motivation and inspiration right after. Instead, focus on getting started—whether you are motivated or not.

You don’t need to tackle everything at once.

The trouble of getting motivated, it’s often because we are looking at the massive scope of a task or problem at the first glance.

Just start doing something, and you will find it easier to keep going because taking action is what leads to motivation, which in turn leads to more action from your side.

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
—Confucius

⏳ Use your “lost” time

Last but not least, and more effectively, is to do your chores while you cannot work on essential tasks.

Listen to podcasts on your commute. Reply to Whatsapp messages while waiting in line. Read a book while on a plane. Call your doctor for an appointment while waiting for a meeting to start, etc.

There are endless examples of how you can use “lost” time to get required (but not vital) stuff done.

Conclusion

Gain control of your daily schedule by carefully evaluating your daily activities and determine what can be eliminated, what can be delegated, and what should become a current or future priority.

Know when to take action and when to be patient, focus on your current priority without distractions.

Because productivity will increase with your efficiency and proper time management. You must have heard the phrase:

Winners don't do different things. They do things differently.
—Shiv Khera

I hope this post will be useful for you and your success journey.

Perhaps, you would like to share your tips on improving work efficiency, if yes, then don't hesitate to approach me on Twitter or leave a comment below.

Make your best life,
Ilona

Photo by Rudolf Kirchner from Pexels

Why the Best Designers are Storytellers?

Ilona Codes — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 18:28:49 +0000

People love stories because they tend to impart valuable compelling messages, and are inherited from generation to generation.

In today’s world, digital transformation is revolutionizing the art of storytelling: “How the smartest leaders use storytelling to drive digital transformation."

The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.
—Steve Jobs

📇 Storytelling in UX design

Heading toward a digital era and using the web and mobile applications, interactivity became an essential part of an excellent user experience. That makes it crucial to apply an interactive storytelling UX strategy to retain user behavior across the digital product.

Good UX design begins with the words.

No matter in which part of your application you want to use UX storytelling, the result is to create content that people would be interested in and wish to proceed further.

💎 How storytelling impacts product design

Just watch this fascinating talk about how Netflix product team creates a narrative around content to deliver the perfect content in the right format to over 100 million members in 190 countries.

People connect to stories. And they want to know what comes next, and immediately engage in what you say. Because it's our nature to be intrigued and engaged with stories.
—Michaela Tedore, Product & Motion Design Lead at Netflix

So storytelling is essential in the world as well as in design, where interfaces are stories, and a product designer is a storyteller.

🖼 Storyframes before wireframes

Whether you are designing user onboarding or chatbot conversation or sign up form, think about people who will interact with it first.

Try to make this user experience memorable, engaging, and interactive with powerful stories to build a long-term relationship with the user.

Let’s try to figure out now how to put storytelling into product design:

1. The design process starts with creating the persona

2. Next, imagine the real-time conversation with that persona and write it down. It's possible to have a few scenarios in the beginning.

3. Frame the story by creating some structure—define the order of presenting the information.

4. Then provide the story flow—the reason for the user to go further and enjoy this journey by making them curious about what will happen next.

5. Make sure that the story is coherent with the product tone of voice, simple, user-friendly, and nice.

6. And keep the causation. The order of presented information shouldn't be random.

The point is when visualizing a real-life situation to a virtual world, the channel of communication is changing, but the context remains the same.

💭 Keep the user in mind

It's possible to write down everything as a person to person conversation through word-based user experience. Because people still stay in the same place along with their problems, goals, and needs.

Let's imagine that Alice, your ideal user, and she has a certain problem. So how can your product help her? How would you, as a product maker/designer, talk to her?

To answer these questions, this approach described above will help you keep your model persona in mind and write a good narrative.

This kind of narrative will take the user through the app and evoke the user's feelings as they are using the product. It will hook them to return to your product again and again.

Conclusion

Storytelling helps product designers put themselves in the shoes of the product users.

When they start thinking from that perspective, they have more information to make a decision that will benefit the user in addition to the product, because the true beauty of great design lies within the solution that a product provides.

Would you like me to make a case study towards a product based on storytelling strategy? Or maybe, you know and want to share a product with a great storytelling user experience? If yes, then reach out to me on Twitter or leave a comment below to start a discussion.

Make your best life,
Ilona

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels