Here are some common FAQs I receive about design, life, career, community building, running, content, and requests. Enjoy!
1. Learn fundamentals - Theory and principles
Familiarize yourself with some fundamentals such as design thinking, color theory and psychology, business principles and metrics, user-centered design, and more. You can do this by taking a course, reading books, watching YouTube tutorials, and more. Some great ones are shared in # faq-new-to-design in the Design Buddies Discord
2. Practice
Never stop practicing and learning from feedback. You can get opportunities to practice design via hackathons and designations, design challenges, collaborating with friends, volunteering, and making something of your own.
3. Asking for feedback
Don’t be afraid to share your work! We are all on our own journeys. Sharing your work helps you get feedback on how to improve.
When giving and receiving feedback, it’s important to be specific and actionable. For example, if someone says “this is bad!” and doesn't give you a reason when you ask, you don't need to listen.
An example of actionable feedback is: “try using a lighter background because it would make the text more readable.”
4. Improving on design tools
Design tools are important but I’d recommend improving your critical thinking and problem-solving skills when starting out. There are always new design tools coming, and once you learn one, it’s easy to pick up another.
I improved a lot at design tools by making more designs and finding more efficient ways to design (eg. Figma’s auto-layout and variants).
5. Joining communities
Participating in online design communities is a great way to help you find even more resources and connect with other designers (as well as potential employers). Design Buddies is an example of a community that offers that and more 🐰
I share more about how to become a UX designer in this video
You’ll want to have at least these pages: Landing, case studies, about
Focus on your case studies. They show the hiring managers and recruiters how you think and work as a designer.
In each case study, show your process and decision making. Tell a story:
Beginning: Why this project, Context - problem, user dempgraphic, user research, your role + team
Middle: Process, iterations, pros & cons, testing
End: Impact (user + business), outcomes, constraints, lessons learned
I walk through my first case study in this video.
Your landing page should be easy to navigate through your site. Your about page can have more of your background and tell a story about how you got into design.
Ask for feedback. You can share your portfolio in our portfolio reviews channel in Design Buddies
Reframe it as making friends. “Networking” is reciprocal, and so is friendship.
People love talking about themselves. Ask them how they got to where they are today. You might learn something new and find some things in common and connect!
Focus on quality connections, not quantity. Don’t stress about talking to as many people as you can.
Be yourself. Don’t stress out about being overly “professional.” It will make you and maybe even the other person feel nervous. Just vibe. You'll slay
Come prepared during scheduled 1:1 chats. Look through their LinkedIn and links. Come up with a list of specific questions to ask during your call.
Keep in touch. Just like a friendship, you can connect with each other, like / comment on each other’s posts, and occasionally send career/life update messages.
Join communities like Design Buddies on Discord to organically make friends
It’s impossible to vibe with everyone. Don’t worry about it, there are plenty of great people all around.
Before the conference: Connect with people before the conference to meet up with. Find them through:
Attend events: Make a list of sessions and events to attend. Often times, there are events outside of the main conference to meet more people, too.
During the conference: Approach people. Usually it’s normal to go up to people you don’t know and strike a conversation. I’ve done this while waiting in line, walking around the expo hall, and at meetups when I see someone alone or in an approachable group
After the conference: Follow up. I keep a note of people & what we talked about right after I talk with them.
Share your takeaways from the conference on social media. Include the conference hashtag and continue networking!
Share your experience. You don’t need to be someone with many years of experience to share content on LinkedIn. I started posting here as a student and sharing my experiences and learnings. Many others found it helpful and relatable.
Engage with the community. Participate in conversations and build meaningful connections. Attend events, connect with people there, and share your learnings. Engage in livestreams and audio events. Use relevant hashtags and reply to comments.
Share your work. Share your projects, get feedback, and increase your visibility
Find new opportunities. Search for posts from people who are hiring and use the job search feature. Keep your profile updated with your latest skills and achievements.
Optimize your headline and bio. Share your background and what you’re looking for. Use relevant keywords to increase your visibility in search results and make a strong first impression
Request recommendations. Request recommendations from people you have worked with, professors, and clients that can vouch for your work to help add credibility to your profile.
Show your personality. While it’s important to be professional, showing your hobbies and interests can help you stand out. Don’t change yourself for anyone else!
Design: Seeing how my design work impacts the bigger picture - does it meet both business and user goals? Is it technically feasible in our timeframe? Also Design Buddies and sharing my work online and being open to constructive feedback.
Product thinking: Browsing Product hunt daily and analyzing what user experience & business trends are bringing the top products to the top
Learning and applying topics outside of your major. Participate in hackathons and challenges.
Join clubs. They are a great way to make friends, gain leadership experience, and gain different skills.
Use all the available resources and connections you have in university. You have access to labs, professors, clubs, and industry connections. Check out your school’s career center
Joining online communities outside of school to gain more skills and meet more people such as Design Buddies and BobaTalks.
Utilize your student status to reach out to professionals. Some of them may be more willing to help
Participate in research. Reach out to professors researching an area that interests you and ask to be involved. If you’re interested in doing a PhD, this would be very valuable.
In general when I was trying to apply in early 2020, I prepared:
1. 2 case studies to present of my personal projects (Cell-fie and Discord Bookmarks)
2. A doc of the commonly asked behavioral questions with answers in the STAR method. Emphasize areas of your experience that are related to the company's industry
3. Practiced critiquing the top most popular apps for app critiques.
4. Practiced presenting my case studies and ran through some mock interviews
Be proactive with your manager. Show your interest and goal of coming back. Find out what can you do to achieve that.
Make the most of your final intern presentation. Know your story and project well. Share what got you interested in design. For your project, you can share what problem are you solving with your project, why you made those decisions, and who you collaborated with and what you learned from them. Also, connect with everyone who visits your booth on LinkedIn with a personalized invite.
Network within your company. You can find people through interest groups (eg. searching topic channels on Slack), ERGs, events, searching people on LinkedIn, internal mentorship / buddy programs. When you’re meeting someone new, you can learn about what they do. You may even meet your future hiring manager this way! You can also ask them if they would recommend you to speak with anyone else.
Connect with other interns. You can form support groups to learn about adulting. Better yet, you can strengthen the community by organizing gatherings and offering to help intern program managers. This helps you make more friends while gaining leadership experience.
Document your learnings and accomplishments. This helps you prepare for future interviews and further builds your case for the high value you bring. You can also leverage this for negotiation. Better yet, you can even share your learnings (without violating any NDAs) on LinkedIn to help others and gain even more visibility within your company
I think imposter syndrome means you're growing - putting yourself in opportunities that you're not familiar with. I think imposter syndrome becomes a negative thing when it stops you from taking action.
Stop worrying about being perfect. Life is all a fun iterative experiment. Keep creating and doing, making mistakes, and learning from them.
Instead of looking at other people as “competition,” focus on what you can learn from them. Maybe even collaborate and create something cool together.
Stop comparing yourself with others. You have so many great things yourself.
Try new things. Don’t wait for anyone’s “permission” to do so. It’s fun and will help you build more skills! It’s your life, not someone else’s. Own it.
Being curious. Have time to try everything you're interested in. That won’t happen if you focus on trying to perfect every thing.
Understanding WHY you think you need to be perfect - is it to meet some requirement, impress a stakeholder, yourself, etc? Why do you feel the need to impress them? How do you know that perfectionism will impress them? Keep asking why and how questions until you get to the root of it.
Stop pleasing everyone. It’s impossible. Oftentimes, it doesn’t matter when you look at the big picture.
Focusing on the big picture. How will perfecting every single detail lead to more impact?
Be open to feedback. Constructive feedback is objective data to help you improve.
Breaking down goals to prevent feeling like you have to do everything all at once, then feeling paralyzed by it.
Giving yourself time limits. Work expands to fill the time it takes up
Perfectionism doesn’t exist. Don’t waste your time chasing an impossible goal.
Work smart, not hard. Define goals and MVP, then decide what tasks to prioritize from there. You don’t have to do everything. You can even create systems to help you scale tasks.
Doing things you enjoy just for fun, every day. You don’t need to sacrifice your whole days just to accomplish one goal
Trying new things. Changing up your routine
Focusing on executing then learning instead of needing to be perfect.
Delegating.
Go outside more. Being more social overall.
Stop associating your job and side hustles as your only “identity”
When I was a kid, I enjoyed drawing my favorite anime and video game characters. I thought school was boring. I drew and wrote stories in class instead.
In college, I studied bioengineering and computer science/engineering. I wanted to biohack myself to run faster after being a nationally-ranked runner in high school. Then I wanted to make games.
Soon after graduating from undergrad, I was drawn to product/UX design after doing a game development internship. Honestly, I tried to enjoy coding but my brain ain't thinking that way.
Design seems lime a happy medium that combines a lot of my interests - storytelling, solving problems, art, and science. I go into more detail about my design career journey and learnings in this article.
I was drawn to bioengineering because I wanted to learn how to biohack myself to run faster. Biology was also my favorite subject in high school. I love learning about cellular processes.
I also studied computer science/engineering because I wanted to make fun games when I pivoted away from medicine.
After doing a few internships in both fields, I looked forward to going home. I learned about product/UX design through the internet. I then did some projects, freelance work, and an internship. I enjoyed it, and decided to do that for my career.
Engineering taught me a lot about how different systems work with each other. Just like how different parts of the user experience in the product work with each other. Also how different cross-functional teams work with each other to build a product.
I think building a personal brand translated into action is - do things, and tell people. Telling people can come in posting on social media and organically in conversations.
I’ve been blogging/sharing my art and content online since 2014. I didn’t fit in at school, and wanted to improve my writing. I started blogging about running and life on Tumblr. I talked about what I did and learned every day, as well as some of the life obstacles I was experiencing. I realized that vulnerability helped a lot of people, so I continue to do so today.
How to build your personal brand:
1. Start sharing your story, what you're learning and doing, and what inspires you
2. Connect with others on a similar journey and make friends!
I like to live life without constraints. I have no job title goals. This helps me feel free to try anything I am curious about.
I think long-term and have short-term habits that compound to long-term results. I say no a lot so I have more time. I don't worry about pleasing everyone to focus on making more impact long term.
A lot of my initial motivation came from being bullied in school and not fitting in. People told me that I’ll never accomplish anything, and I believed it at first. It then became a chip on my shoulder and motivated me to work harder to prove them wrong. It was the motivation I needed at the time, but I no longer do things out of spite. But instead, out of vibe~
These days, I'm motived by curiosity. I live every day differently. I also travel and try new things often to learn and see things from a fresh perspective.
UX/UI design: Figma
Drawing & illustration: Procreate & Illustrator
3D modeling: Blender
Building websites: Webflow
Notes & content management: Notion
To-do list: Google calendar
It’s great because I feel like there are a lot of opportunities for growth. I started at EA as an intern in June 2020 and started full-time in December 2020.
I’ve gotten to learn a lot and improve as a designer while working on high-impact projects spanning both the consumer and enterprise areas.
I’m currently working on products for player experience/marketing. In the past, I designed EA’s global game store MVP launch, and experiences to help people (both players and employees) find help easier.
I like the games industry because it's the intersection of entertainment and technology - lots to learn from. I also grew up playing a lot of games and dreamed about working in games when I was a kid.
I normally receive requirements and insights on what to design from product and research. I get feedback on my designs from engineering, product, research, and business partners.
I design workshops, user flows, wireframes, and website mock ups. I make decks to present my work.
Check out some of my day in my life as a UX designer reels on Instagram!
In general, I'm working at the same time as everyone & regularly getting feedback on design. My cross-functional team typically consists of product managers, engineers, other designers, researchers, and business partners.
With product managers, I discuss priorities, business & user goals, and feedback. The goal is to know which features to prioritize a few sprints ahead of engineering.
With engineering, I get feedback on tech feasibility on my designs & provide design documentation (support before and during the development).
With other designers, I collaborate on different features on the product & give each other feedback.
With research, I'm working with them to uncover user needs & define goals in the beginning of the product or feature, test out designs with users, and synthesize results to inform product decisions.
With business partners, I’m getting a deeper understanding of how the product impacts the company as a whole and what they are prioritizing.
Building Design Buddies is fun because I get to learn from many diverse perspectives.
Creating content about design, career, running, lifestyle, and travel.
Drawing what I feel like for fun.
Traveling the world.
Overall, I love to experiment and try new things. I do many things outside of my UX design day job.
I never imagined myself as a community builder. In fact, I used to be shy and scared of networking events.
I attended the Grace Hopper Conference in 2018, wanting to get my first internship in tech. I noticed that people really put themselves out there in the career fair expo. I thought I had to be super extroverted and out there to get a job in tech. I worked on talking to new people to get used to it.
At GHC 2019, I randomly planned a meetup the day before. I made a Facebook event and posted it in the conference Facebook group. 100 people showed up. I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to plan with me, so I did it myself. I needed to “warm up” before talking to recruiters. That experience was so fun, that I brought it back to the Bay Area after the conference.
In late 2019, I hosted weekly work/study sessions at local cafes with the Facebook community, Subtle Asians - Bay Area. Each time, I’ll meet someone new and learn their story. It was fun until the pandemic happened. We had a 24/7 Zoom call open for months, and then I shifted my attention to Design Buddies as it was taking off.
I wanted to pivot my career to product/UX design shortly after graduation. I wanted to learn from others.
I didn’t expect Design Buddies to take off. As Design Buddies continued to grow, I realize there’s a huge opportunity to help a lot of designers. I'm continually trying new things to try to help designers improve their skills and land jobs.
As of late 2023, we have 62,000+ members, hosted 100+ events, and had 2000+ people show up to our in-person events.
If you'd like to learn more about Design Buddies, you can check out our website (which contains all our social media links, too) and join us on Discord.
Sheer curiosity, fun seeker, and having a data driven mindset. I'm also shameless about promoting it.
I also find natural ways to promote it. For example, when people ask me about how to get a job in design, I share Design Buddies. I also welcome anyone to share Design Buddies with their community as a resources to help them out, too.
Create a space where people feel comfortable being themselves. This looks like having respect for others, even when they have a different opinion.
It’s a fun experiment. Always be creating, launching, learning, and iterating. Community building is iterative - the needs of people and your interests will always change. Don’t be afraid to try something new.
Delegate and give others opportunities. Understand their interests and goals to help give them opportunities to create the community, too.
If you try to satisfy everyone, you will satisfy no one. It's not scalable to please everyone.
Build in public. Understand your community member’s needs and get feedback on your ideas and features early on.
Now is the best time. You don’t need anyone’s permission (as long as it’s legal). If you’re wanting to start a community but don’t feel like an “expert” yet in that field - still go for it. You’ll probably make some mistakes along the way but they will always teach you something new.
My mother started paying me to go to the gym with her when I was 13 years old. I discovered I was fast. I joined cross country and track. I took running more seriously, placed at Nationals several times, and won school records.
In college, I kept getting injured. I ended up quitting competitive running, I diversified my interests.
I'm a few years after college now and am back to running. I'm working towards competing again!
1600m: 5:08
3200m: 10:54
5000m (cross country, course with hills): 18:08
This was all done in 2014 when I was 16 years old, before my many injuries stopped me from competing in college.
These days, I’m working to build up my mileage and speed to race (and work to win) 10Ks, half marathons, and maybe even marathons. My other goal is to not get injured and work on being patient (not running when my foot doesn’t feel right). I’m also working on not comparing myself to my past.
I get this question a lot, so I’ll answer it - Asics GT 2000.
However, take this with a grain of salt - everyone’s feet and biomechanics are different. I encourage you to visit a running store, have an expert analyze your running biomechanics to help you find your shoes. It’s important to find shoes that work for you to help prevent injuries, too.
Disclaimer: I am not a certified coach or trainer. Everything here is from my own personal experience and what I learned from my coaches and doctor.
The most important part about running is making it a habit but taking a balanced approach. The most difficult part is starting. It may feel unappealing at first but as you build up your fitness, it will become easier. Also, don’t run too much too soon, it may lead to injuries and burnout.
Make a little progress every day (or week), it will all add up. When I started running), I increase my mileage about 10-20% each week, build up from there, and scale back if needed (ie. feeling an injury).
Staying motivated: Join a running group, join running online communities, and sign up for races
Injury prevention: Have the right shoes, run on softer surfaces (ie. trails, rubber track), stretch, ice, and sleep well
Additional resources: RunnersWorld (magazine/blog) often has running plans made by professionals (ie. couch to 5K/marathon) on their website
I generally enjoy business, tech, and finance in non-fiction content and action, mystery, and adventure in fiction content
Robinhood Snacks, Founder’s Journal, The Quest, Invest Like the Best, Web3 Breakdowns, Entreprenurs on Fire
Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Making of a Manager, Zero to One, Hooked, Lean Startup, The 10X Rule, 4 Hour Work Week
Morning Brew, The Hustle
Colin and Samir (creator economy), The Futur (business and design), Polygon Runway (Blender tutorials), MrBeast (entertainment), Tiffany Ferb (internet analysis), Graham Stephen (investing), Invest with Rose, femke.design (design), Figma
The Promised Neverland, Attack on Titan, My Hero Academic, Sword Art Online, Fairy Tail, Death Note, Erased
Genres: role playing, simulation, puzzle
Games: MapleStory (PC and mobile), Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Sims, Neopets, Harvest Moon, Hay Day, and Candy Crush
Recently, I’ve been playing Pomodoro mobile games - Focus Plant and Focus Quest.
Genres: JPop/Anime, Punk Rock, Emo
I also have a playlist here with some of my current favorite jams.
Yes, I would love to! Please send me an email at graceling08@gmail.com.
It depends on the requirements and your audience. Please send me an email at graceling08@gmail.com.
Yes, I host in-person and online events with Design Buddies and friends. I'm based in the SF Bay Area and travel. Please email me at grace@designbuddies.community
It depends on the requirements and scope of the work. Please send me an email at graceling08@gmail.com.
Yes if I know you well, worked with you, or know your work. No if I don’t know you. We also have a #paid-opportunities channel in the Design Buddies Discord community.
If there is another questions you’d like to be included here, feel free to email me at graceling08@gmail.com or message me on LinkedIn!
