December disappeared.
That time of year
In hindsight, I don’t feel as bad about not getting much Dev learning done in December. It is the 1 month of the year where family & friends take precedence over just about everything else.
Sure, there are days & weeks here and there when our attention rightly shifts to our loved ones, but I know that I’m not alone in thinking that it becomes so much easier to do so in December.
It feels… right.
Now it’s January
There is no ‘New Year, New You’ for me this year – or any other year.
I am however more and more determined to get myself back on track with my studies.
The ideas are building up, but I’ve also got some good fundamentals that I want to spend some time on – getting more familiar with them and being creative.
Why development ‘works’ for me
Development work is enjoyable for me.
Even when just working on learning projects, the mindset and focus is one that is difficult to find in my regular work.
Although I get to spend a decent amount of time using my coding skills to create interactive prototypes, I often spend a lot of time talking about other stuff.
The big picture, service design, user research, policy (that one is new to me, but not going away anytime soon!) All these other things fold into the space that I exist within, but they can distract from the work itself.
The practice of interaction design.
A plan for the year ahead
I saw a job advert for a Creative Frontend Developer.
Amongst the desirable skills, it said:
‘You enjoy bringing sites to life using CSS animation/animation libraries’
As much as I do – I don’t have the best practice in this area and it’s an area that I always thought I was destined for. It’s still interaction design, but it’s very much about delivering delight and enjoyment through code.
I’ve been learning how to use Principle for animating UIs. The goal now is to improve on that alongside learning more about how to implement those designs.