Wandering to inspiration, pt. II
Part two in a series about the journey to build something, starting from the moment inspiration struck
With a general plan for my mood-tracking app in-hand and the time to commit to a project, I had no choice but to chase my idea. The basic version was simple enough, and left plenty of room to grow into the hearty, lovely, and supportive app I envisioned. But where should I start?
The Nielsen Norman Group, founded by formative UI/UX thinkers Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman in 1998, espouses a structured approach to design thinking that enables the freedom to explore ideas while building things with people in mind. Generally, design thinking is about understanding your users, exploring ideas and potential solutions, then materializing those ideas in some way. Anyone in the UI/UX world and many beyond are very familiar with NN/G and design thinking, so it felt like a good path to follow.
As I am the target audience, I began by letting opinions formed from my accumulated knowledge and experiences guide me in the initial stages of design. For now, this path would allow me to move forward without letting obstacles like a lack of expertise in a technology or system slow me down. I could focus on building the app I wanted with a deliberate naivete, instead of trying to build something I thought others may want.
So what did I want? I wanted an app to color-code my mood or outlook, tracking changes over time, with fun pixelated drawings to celebrate achievements. I wanted it to look clean and simple, embodying ‘less-is-more’ to the core. And I wanted to do as much of it myself as possible.
The last goal was borne not out of possessiveness or a misguided belief that ‘only I can do this the right way’, but a deep and intense passion for growth. I wanted to push myself to grow in direct antagonism of the employment funk I found myself in. I felt under-utilized and surplus, and making this happen for myself could provide a critical foothold from which I could construct a new path.
As I pondered data storage and how to design a smiley-face from a collection of pixels in two to five colors, I continued my acceleration toward the inevitable wall of my limited technical knowledge. I am not a UX/UI designer, I am not a mobile developer, and I am not a graphic designer. While I pursued ways to address these gaps — a desperate dive into Expo.io’s ability to allow me to sandbox Xcode in React was fun but fruitless. Technology can make life easier for people, but in this case it was doing everything but that.
Six weeks into my Great Idea, I felt like the hair-on-fire pace that thrilled me also accelerated my arrival at the greatest obstacle to my success: knowledge gaps. Momentum was key to my enthusiasm for the idea, and my inability to translate notes on a page to anything digital drained it all. Friends tried to help guide me to solutions, but nothing worked. I could feel my motivation grinding to a halt. The project was in peril, and I had no idea how to get it back on track.
Through all of this, life continued moving forward. In August of 2019, I got engaged (!). In September I took my dad on a 10-day trip to Spain — his first time visiting Europe. October saw my fiancee and I pack up our lives and move into a temporary apartment in anticipation of a cross-country move for her job in February 2020. In November, my fiancee and I spent 10 days in Italy, gorging ourselves on the specialties of the Emilia-Romagna region. December was consumed by planning for then hosting my wonderful future in-laws in New York, ensuring the biting cold didn’t hinder their first meeting with my parents. January 2020 was a bittersweet farewell to the friends, family, and city I love. On February 1, 2020, my fiancee and I boarded a plane for our new life in Los Angeles. When we were greeted by the enveloping heat of Hollywood Burbank Airport, a new chapter began.
