Re-thinking the user experience of the daily UI challenge
The Daily UI Challenge, needs no introduction to it. Almost everyone who is in UI designing has heard about it. So, I am not going to explain how to do daily UI challenge but I will tell you a few points which will help you to do it right..do it better.
For myself “Daily UI Challenge” almost sounded like a habit which I should/ must have, may be because of the word “Daily”. I started doing it as a beginner and even after I escaped the beginner level, I felt bad when I am not doing it. So recently, I tried to start doing the challenge once again but I felt something is not right the way I do it. It got me thinking as to what makes me feel off about doing this activity/challenge while part of myself really wants to do it.
The “Daily UI Challenge” was challenging in some aspects, for me it was no longer challenging in the aspects which I really needed to improve myself on. So I was having a problem, “My favourite design activity no longer excites me!”.
As UX designers, problems are our favourites! We love solving problems and it’s simply what we do everyday! Before I even realize, I had started processing this problem in my head to find the root cause of it! I had to go back to where it all began, my newbie era of UX. The main thing I realized was that the difficulty level of the challenge is no longer challenging me when compared to those days. Therefore, I needed something more challenging to keep myself enthusiastic and engaged on it. Most importantly I needed it to help me with the areas I need to improve/ gain experience. Also, I believe, knowing that you don’t know everything is one of the key forces which keeps you driven towards your passion.
“You learn something valuable from all of the significant events and people, but you never touch your true potential until you challenge yourself to go beyond imposed limitations.”
― Roy T. Bennett
As a result, I could define few difficulty levels for the challenge, for three main experience levels of UX Designers/Engineers which I have summarized below. If you are looking for a creative and challenging way to spend your free time with designing too, then I think this is the place that you are going to find it.
Difficulty Level 1: Daily UI Challenge for a beginner..
The Daily UI Challenge in its most popular format, is beneficial to a beginner in many ways. I will just briefly explain how you can do it as a beginner and how it benefits you.
Few points to start with:
- Subscribe to something like https://www.dailyui.co/ and get yourself a challenge daily
- Copy existing good designs
- Challenge yourself with a topic of your own
- Randomly select a UI from something like http://collectui.com/ and start designing your version of it.
How it benefits a beginner:
Get yourself familiar with the design tools (Ex: Sketch, Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator , Photoshop etc)
As a beginner, you will get to use your design tool often if you start doing this challenge daily. You will be tend to use the shortcuts and other capabilities of the design tool you are using which will make you more experienced with it.
Improves your creativity
When you think about how to design a particular screen or how to design for a random application which you just came up with, it will obviously improve your creativity and will tempt you to think differently.
Be more efficient by trying to complete the challenge within a limited time each day
Since this a daily challenge, you will have to find a time in the day to do this. Some days you may not have much time for it and some days you might have all the time in the world. However, if you challenge yourself with a limited time, it will improve your ability to think creatively while you are under pressure. Of course, it cannot be compared to the actual stressful situations which you will encounter at work but try making things harder for you, so you can unleash your potential, at least to a certain extent.
Keep yourself inspired and engaged on design
As beginners, it is really important to keep yourself engaged and have the consistency. Having to do this daily challenge will help you to keep your head in the game and be inspired.
Sharing your work with other people for feedback, is one of the best ways to get inspired.
This will improve your UI designing skills but not UX.
Unless you specifically think of a scenario where the particular UI is used and define UX for it, you will not get your UX designing skills involved in this challenge if you just design good looking UIs.
In my point of view , if you are still not good at the tools and designing, it’s better if you start improving your designing skills first and then start working on UX designing skills and acquiring that mindset.
Because, more often our job is a show and tell. If you don’t have anything to show at first, you will never start telling your story. Daily UI challenge will take you a long way in improving your UI designing skills.
When to shift to next difficulty level? (Exit Criteria)
Few things can be considered:
- You are getting good feedback on aesthetics of your design from a reliable source.
- You realize that you can create good looking UIs, with a limited amount of time and you are well familiar with the design tools you are using.
- You are just doing it as a habit / only reason you would do it, is because you want to post another dribbble shot / You are no longer excited about doing this!
2. Difficulty level 2: For someone who has walked few steps further in UX design
What you are going to do here is completely dependent on the area which you want to improve yourself on.
When you reach this point, you are well familiar with the design tool and UI designing is a piece of cake for you. But… Let’s make it harder for you, for the greater good.
You can select the area you need to /like to improve. It could be either applying UX to your design or implementing what you just designed!
Challenge on improving UX Design skills
One way to do this is find a problem and start crafting a solution for it or, you can select an existing solution and try to make it better by applying UX design thinking.
This may include bit of research, information architecture design, wire-framing, user-flow design, visual design and even prototyping. Therefore, you may not be able to finish the challenge on the same day you started it! So, it will no longer be a daily challenge. You can decide the time you want and narrow down the scope you are targeting for the challenge. You can work on a tiny bit of it everyday to keep yourself going.
Your overall finding / solution can come out as a case study, so all those days that you haven’t been posting a shot on dribbble will be worth it! ;)
Then you can publish it on Behance, Dribbble or even on Medium, for others to learn and for you to get feedback!
Here’s an example:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/71811055/Apple-Music-A-UXUI-Holistic-CaseStudy
Challenge on improving front-end development skills
Since I am already working as UX designer, my UX design thinking is being developed on the fly and I am ramping up on getting into front-end development, so I chose this for myself.
I simply started from the zero, expecting to grasp the fundamentals. So that I can be confident on what I do. After I am confident with what I learned, here’s how I modified the challenge for myself.
1.Select one of the designs you did for your previous “Daily UI Challenge
You might have designed this with maximum creative freedom, without even thinking the feasibility of the design when it comes to implementation!
2. It’s your time to be in developer’s shoes
Start implementing whatever you have designed! This will definitely be challenging and you will learn a lot.
Most importantly, it will make the designer in you realize about the things you should consider when designing with the feasibility in mind. Also, you will be able to find workarounds for the difficult designs.
3.Share your code on Github, while you share your design on Dribbble/Behance.
Do this because then you can easily share your code with someone and get it peer reviewed. Learn from your mistakes and note them down, just in case if you wish to come back and recall them or may be just because you want to give back to community!
Here’s my own example with design and demo of the form: https://www.behance.net/gallery/76761351/Daily-UI-Challenge-Login-form
GitHub repository: https://github.com/nadeekaAthukorala/ResponsiveWebLoginForm
3. Daily UI Challenge for a Unicorn..
I guess there’s no need to define the term Unicorn. In design, for people who has the expertise in UX , Design and Front-end development, we call them unicorns.
So, why a unicorn should take the challenge?
“Keep looking for your passion and the contribution that you want to make.”
― Abhishek Kumar, Stardust Family — We Are One!
A unicorn might have found the passion, so the next quest will be to contribute to the community! Why not work on few world changing ideas and share them in proper platforms!
It could be a case study on Behance with proper copyright license defined, it could be an article on Medium or even it could be a research paper! You are limitless..
Also, on a side note:
It’s all about what you do after you 8 to 5 work life. If you go home and don’t work on yourself, there’s no way of doing great things in life.
On your way up the ladder of UX career, the things you can do instantly will be limited. But remember, “Great things take time and make progress in silence” :)
☕️ As a writer living in Sri Lanka, I don’t have the option to join Medium Partner Program. So if you find this article helpful, Buy me a coffee.
