Alright, get ready, because I am officially neck-deep in the world of User Experience design, and let me tell you, it has been a ride! I am taking a UX course that has been a bit of a reading marathon, which if I’m being totally honest, is not my favorite pastime (when it is not a technology documentation). But the hands-on stuff? That is where the magic happens for me.
Lately, I have been having fun with my new digital playground in Figma, where I’ve been tackling on wireframes, animations, and playing with prototypes. And you know what completely blew my mind? Seeing how intricate animations are designed within Figma. It’s like seeing the matrix, peeling layers of a digital onion and realizing it was simpler than it seemed. This higher-level view has actually been a game-changer for how I think about CSS animations. Suddenly, the code feels a lot less like abstract magic and more like just stitching two elements to form a seamless transition. It’s building a stronger mental model, and that is pretty cool.
Beyond the technical wizardry, the real eye-opener for me has been the human element. I’ve been quite brave (or perhaps just slightly anxious) enough to share my Figma prototypes with friends, and their feedback has been invaluable. It is one thing to think of your designs as intuitive, and completely different to watch someone else navigate it. The feedback on what the user wants or needs were something that didn’t cross my mind til it was uttered. This experience has really hammered home the concept of people-centered design. It is not just about making something look pretty, but also about creating something that genuinely serves the user’s needs and makes their experience quite smooth and pleasant.
So, while I might still be wading through the occasional dense chapters, the thrill of bringing an idea to life in Figma and then seeing how actual people interact with it? That’s the stuff that got me hooked. Stay tuned! I might just finally find the missing one piece to my Ruby + Hotwire stack obsession.