Just a quick note about the name change. Because you might have noticed it's not Newsletter anymore. It's Hirlevel, which means 'newsletter' in Hungarian. I got the idea from Candost, who uses a Turkish word for his Newsletter. Also, I like how native English speakers pronounce Hirlevel. It sounds cool to my ears.
If you read my Hirlevels before, you saw I have a personal approach to my newsletters, and I instead follow an informal & conversational style. I used to write academic papers...the format required for academic writing did my head in sometimes. I prefer to write in the way I speak. I hope it works for you too.
It was my birthday this month. Some people like to do reflection end of each year. I like to do personal reflections on my birthdays. It's kind of like a retrospective of the year. It's almost like a year in review. I apply retros to many aspects of my life, including relationships, work, and habits etc. Here's a template for how you can get started as well...yes, it comes from Agile development, but I believe we can utilize these tools and apply them to improve our lives.
In November, I also participated in National Novel Writing Month (often shortened to NaNoWriMo). Its signature programme is an annual worldwide creative writing competition in which participants attempt to write a 50,000-word book during November.
It was my first time taking part. And I'm glad to announce that I succeeded. I completed my first NaNoWriMo and wrote 50K words...actually, 52,182 words, to be exact. If you're interested, I'll be posting about my experience on Medium soon. But I can tell you right now that writing 1,667 words every day is not an easy task. It would not be a sustainable lifestyle for me...at least not with a full-time job.
Cyberbullying is a growing problem that affects both children and adults on the internet. It is critical to understand it, its symptoms, and how to deal with it.
Some of the more visible indications are when someone posts anything unpleasant about an individual, group of individuals, or organization on social media or in a forum. It can also be done by making false claims about someone on the internet. Cyberbullying has many platforms. Through forums and social media comments, it can occur in chat rooms where anonymity allows more provocative remarks, and people's real identities cannot be tracked.
Why do I mention it? Well, because it happened to me this month. It wasn't the first time. However, how I dealt with it now was different — in the past, cyberbullying stopped me from sharing things online. But I decided I could not let that happen again.
Cyberbullying hurts people's self-esteem and can lead to despair over time if we don't deal with it properly at the emotional level. If it ever happens to you, you should feel free to block the people who make harmful comments that affect your mental health. I did the same as well.
It's such an unfortunate but also a natural side effect of being online. If you share something online that attracts many views and reads, there will inevitably be a few trolls amongst the thousands of viewers.
Here's a great resource on how to build mental resilience. If you ever struggle, there is help.
UX & UI design trends in 2022 by Envato
Typography trends prediction by Satori Graphics
An intricate graphic design trend might be on the rise? Graphic design prediction
Which one is your favourite? I am a huge fan of types, so anything in that arena is super exciting to me.
In November, I went back to the basics and explained a few job titles and the distinction between user experience design, user interface design, and product design? UX designers are primarily concerned with the usability of products. They focus on how the product works. UI designers focus on the visuals and the aesthetic experience of the product. Product designers do both; they do UX and UI design. They focus on the overall feeling and experience of the product as a whole. I’d say the term “product designer” encompasses the responsibilities of both UX and UI designers. My personal experience is, product designers are frequently UX designers; they do have a stronger UX side.
Videos I created in November, in case you want to check them out:
Which design career path is right for you? UX design vs UI design vs Product design? How to choose?
What is UI design | User interface design explained | UI designer's responsibility | UI design means
10+ Best FREE Figma UI kits and Design systems in 2021 for UX UI product designers
Or watch my nine shorts from November. I’m really into creating them: UX Shorts playlist