Hello, it's Mir

Two words: par tay (this sounds similar to pad thai, which is also one of the best things in the world. It can’t be a mere coincidence).

That’s the main highlight of this week, because as someone once said: my life is pretty much like that Rihanna song: work work work, and the rest of it I can’t understand a f*cking thing.

The research phase of the final individual project has been superchallenging, I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep going with the insights I got at first *le drama*. I had to start again changing the focus of the interviews, and I finally managed to find a problem which most pharmacies are struggling with nowadays, and would even pay to use a little help, but I still feel a bit unmotivated. I can clearly see how my attention span is decreasing as weeks go by, and as I tend to work in peaks of productivity (and I’m not the queen of discipline either), it’s being hard for me to keep going.

Anyway, I’m so excited to start the final group project next Friday! It was a huge surprise finding out that I actually know one of the clients, so it would be fun to work with them. I’m not sure which projects I’ll choose yet, but it’s nice to think about that possibility.

I have a lot of work to do, so…

See you next weekend ⚡️

This week we’ve had the freedom of working on any project we liked, and we chose one idea that turned out to be something different, but SO useful for so many of us that we’re starting to think about developing it in the future 👀

Man, I love entrepreneurship memes.

I’m just going to leave this here: ditch your never-ending lists of favourite spots in the city and your Google pins chaos and meet your new friend:

So cute, right? The app is even better 😏

I’m so proud of the work we’ve done this week, we’ve managed to collaborate remotely and I think that when you see the final result, you wouldn’t say that one person was almost out of combat for some days, working part-time from home.

We started the project opening up about our main fears and concerns, and we talked about trust. A week later, I can say that this aspect has been the most important one to keep the project on track. Trust, trust, trust. And communication. I’m so grateful for my teammates, they’ve been amazing.

Tomorrow we’re starting our first 2-week project (on our own!) and I’m pretty nervous, but ✨everything will be fine✨. We’re all on the same situation, so I’m sure we’ll be able to give support to each other when we need it.

Let’s do some Figma practice now. Shoutout to @Factorial.

Happy Sunday from my second home: Sandwichez (not sponsored, though I wish it was). In case you’re wondering, the first one is Ironhack. I don’t really spend time at my real home lately, I’m afraid my cat will have forgotten my face by the end of the bootcamp.

This week has been challenging, as the main focus was user research through interviews to make design decisions based on them, and I’m not a person who feels comfortable asking too many questions to people I’m talking with. I usually feel I’m invading their privacy. However, I have to say that I haven’t approached complete strangers, so the environment has been more familiar to me. I don’t think I haven’t stepped out of my comfort zone, though.

Moreover, it’s been difficult to keep the conversation flowing without biasing the questions so they told me what I wanted to hear or even overexplaining myself. The good part is that I’m comfortable being the one who listens while others do the talking sometimes, and that’s useful for interviews, as you need to give so much space for the interviewees to express themselves.

I’ve also learned that not having a clear goal in mind when interviewing and also designing a product leads you to feel extremely lost, so you start to be more divergent to fool yourself into thinking that you’re working on something, when you’re only gathering information in bulk without a clear purpose or creating extra features to avoid working on the main flow.

Okay, enough with my therapy moment, let’s work on the design report.

Man, the third week’s been hard.

Started the bootcamp on fire and we’re already on the floor. The good part is that every Friday we close a chapter and start again on Monday 🤷‍♀️

Designing an app from scratch is not easy, but when the app is for booking flights… well, good luck with that. Even the existing apps for that purpose haven’t managed to make that process clear, and they’re supposed to have whole departments working on that, getting paid and everything 🙃

Anyway, in spite of all the problems we’ve had inside and outside the team, we’ve managed to present a decent project (technically, my teammates have managed*, as I couldn’t make it to the presentation 🥲). I’m sure we all know that we had the potential of doing something better, but it’s a huge achievement taking into account our circumstances.

All in all, I think we’ve all learned something from this experience. We know ourselves a bit more, and although I still have a long way to master the art of conflict management (with others and even with myself), I’m sure I’ve improved at least a little on that aspect.

Let’s keep working, there’s homework to do 🥲

Although changes in design for iOS and Android might seem trivial, they respond to different design systems and decisions that we should always take into account when creating native apps. Doing so will help us design with each system’s affordances, so navigation becomes easier for the user.

Let’s see some examples!

Navigation inside apps

Tabs appear at the bottom of the screen on iOS and at the top on Android,  as the control bar at the bottom is hardware. I personally prefer how it works on iOS, as it’s located in the thumb zone, making it easier to reach.

Also, iOS uses labels for each icon, so it’s more clear what the icons are for.

Going back to the previous screen

Android uses their universal bar at the bottom, but iOS needs every screen to have a ‘back’ button on the top left corner. Also, as there is no universal button, swiping from left to right generally allows to go back.

Swiping from left to right

As explained above, a left to right swipe on iOS makes you go back. However, this same gesture is used to switch tabs on Android.

Floating action button

One of the main characteristics of Android is the floating button. As its name indicates, it floats above the interface of apps, and it’s supposed to promote user action. On the other hand, iOS apps tend to place action buttons on the top title bar, so they don’t cover the main content.

Okay, so the design report took longer than I expected and I’m writing this on my way home. On Monday. I’m sorry, I know yesterday you spent the whole day refreshing Tumblr waiting for my post to close the week, but a girl needs to sleep.

On week 2, we’ve worked on adding a feature to an existing app on our own, and my challenge has been integrating donations in Wallapop. It’s been fun, as we could say I almost live there. I’ll sell my soul through this app one day.

Being an active user of the app, it seemed natural to me where to include the new feature and how it should work to feel seamlessly integrated in the main flow. However, the first idea is rarely the one, so I ended up changing a couple of things after the tests with users and the crits with other designers.

I had a great time animating the prototype, I think this is going to be one of my favorite parts of designing. I already enjoyed it on the prework and I still do, so I think this new hobby is here to stay. Can I get paid for that? I might search it on Fiverr.

Anyway, I’m proud of the work I’ve done, especially being my first design project, and on my own. I really wish to keep the good work until the end of the bootcamp (and not die trying 🥲).

See you on Sunday!

After a week learning the basics of HTML and CSS, I must say I respect and admire developers. Thank God or whatever it is up there that they exist and we can work with them to bring our ideas to life.

I’d also like to thank Rio, my partner in code and trusted pastanaga bullida, who has been the most clever and supportive teammate ever. I don’t know who is reading this but HIRE HIM. Rating: 5/5. Would definitely recommend.

The evening before the presentation was slightly chaotic but we even managed to hide some easter eggs on our webpage, so that turned out pretty well after all! I’m proud of the work we’ve done, I never thought we’d be able to make a decent responsive page from scratch in less than 5 days. That’s a win! 💪

All in all, this first week has been intense. Beginnings always are, but believe me when I say this one definitely was. Oh, that homework. I’d like to say sorry to all those unanswered messages since Monday. I promise I’ll get back to you someday.

Anyway, these people are great. Everyone in class seems to have an interesting story to share about how they ended here in Ironhack, and I can’t wait to live this experience with them (beers included).

I thought this day would never come, but here we are! Well, it hasn’t ended yet. I’m actually writing this post to clear my mind a bit between readings for tomorrow. As Punset would say: neurons are fried. Blame it on the excitement of the day (anticipation really does exhaust me).

Today we’ve done a recap of the design thinking process, and I must say that I’m not sure whether I have a divergent or a convergent thinking. I tend to be the one who overflows the group chat with restaurant ideas, but in a brainstorming context I usually find it hard to think without constraints. I guess I’ll be able to tell you in a few weeks.

Then, coding. It's been fun, now I need to try that blueberry and squid salad. I’ve felt like a baby taking her first steps, but I believe the prework has helped a lot. Let’s see how it goes, I really need to shift that baby-feeling to this:

I’ve had a great time meeting everyone this morning, I can’t wait to have some bonding time the next few weeks, whether that may be having a laugh over IronBeers or crying in the bathroom because it’s only week one and there is too much work already, hahaha.

*sung in Adele’s voice*

I think I was 18 the last time I posted something on Tumblr, so I’m feeling a bit nostalgic (am I even allowed to be here at 26?).

Let’s go with the basics: I’m Mireia Movilla, born, raised and based in Barcelona. I graduated in Law and Business Administration and started working in Marketing in the banking and payments sector. However, although I had learned more than I can imagine in those 2 years, I felt I was missing something. That’s why after much thought, I decided to quit.

I gave up the mindset of going with the flow without asking myself if I’m happy with that, and in the last year I’ve given myself the chance of discovering what I want to do next. I’ve been trying new things such as graphic design and UX writing, and I’ve even learned about social and sustainable entrepreneurship!

Now I’m so excited to start this new journey in UX/UI at Ironhack and learn to create pleasing digital experiences for everyone. What’s better than interacting with a product feeling like everything’s flowing so naturally? *Goosebumps*