Weeknotes No.93
Another glorious week ahead of fabulous weather, challenges and snacks.
2 of 3 are certainly true.
As I don’t normally talk about my weekends, this weekend was special. I took the boy to his first Bradford City match at Valley Parade, and it was just amazing.
What a stadium, what an atmosphere and what a friendly, safe environment they’ve created there. We absolutely loved it.
They won, and when you hear almost 20,000 fans celebrating a goal in League One, it’s something special.
And the pie-and-pint offer is a dream.
Monday
Let’s not beat around the bush.
OMG there is a sale from heaven on the Nintendo Store right now.
My backlog is absolutely massive for my Switch 2, and I’ve just flooded my daughter’s too.
I bought Broforce, Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Royal Edition (not to mention the sale before…), the full Doom package (too many to list), Duke Nukem 3D, Death Road to Canada and loads more.
It might just be easier to screen-grab my games list!
In case you wondered, my source of backlog is based around two channels on YouTube:
Both are personally aware and guilty of building my backlog!
Now, to work.
Mondays are always hectic. From my experience, it’s a public sector thing. Get all the week’s worth of work lined up, ready to go, and then smash it for the next 4 days!
This includes another one of those presentations with even more folks attending (100s).
Why do I get excited for these? Is it the chance of something going wrong, or the fact that deep down I think of myself as a lead singer?
I am also being sized up and asked if I would like to work on other teams as well.
This means more knowledge of the wider picture, wider design needs, so why the heck not!
Tuesday
I agreed with the engagement manager to stay on for the next 3 months, which I’m really excited for.
It feels like a good amount of time for me to get into the work and see what happens after the pilot launches.
I had already planned “Healthcheck User Research” sessions, and a list of potential improvements from all the previous research gathered, powered by feedback from users just asking:
“Can we also have this later on?”
I’ve told the team we will do card sorting within the pilot UR sessions and have listed a potential 10 improvements to sort into a top 3.
I mentioned it before, but my kid and I have started to play games heavily now.
After all the 10342098234 steps going at the weekend, we settle in on a night playing Broforce on the Switch (it cost me £1ish).
What an absolute game.
It’s blasting arcade madness, he laughs his little head off, and I look confused as I can’t keep up with the game.
It’s a banger.
Literally.
Wednesday
Yep, you guessed it.
Another presentation.
We are on the roadshow!
This time it was sent to 300+ people and it went so well. Really pleased with the presenters, and I appreciated the team giving me a huge thank you for… I want to say selling the work.
And I don’t think there is any shame in that.
I know many designers think it’s not a positive, but I think there might be a post in that…
Time to switch lanes and work on another project, which aligns beautifully with my current one.
This team is great too, really forward-thinking, and the level of trust they have in me is incredibly motivating for us.
Quite selfishly, it’s self-esteem boosting too.
Thursday
Our skip on wheels (or family car) finally found its garage.
Recently, we took our car to an unnamed garage, and it shall remain unnamed even though I dislike it a ton, and they decided to fix things on the car that were not broken…
Roll on me taking it to my father-in-law and him finding the issue instantly.
And I mean in seconds.
A leaking turbo boost pipe thing.
So I found a garage nearby(ish) and they fixed it within half a day.
BUT… this meant I got to go and hang around locally with Emma in coffee shops and cafes.
This is the dream day.
Coffee + pies.
Yes please.
It reminded me, and I do need reminding of this often as I forget, that I need to go out more and bask in cafes, croissants, pie and chips.
I felt so much more motivated, inspired and creative to fix problems with meaty solutions…
Or is it the other way around?
Or was it the pie I’m describing?
Friday
Forgot to do this, so I’m retro-typing on Sunday.
I have no idea what the hell happened on Friday.
I wrote notes, though.
Thank goodness.
Had a huge demo in the morning, showing what’s been done so far and how it works.
I sometimes find them heavy on developer chat, but a lot of the work is heavy developer chat, and I find I learn more here than I did in my previous front-end career overall.
I’ve had a lot of work on at the moment, so I am happy to showcase it next week.
It’s very exciting for me to show work off. I know it’ll be appreciated, and the feedback is always constructed in the way it should be, for the user and the business combined.
The power of an amazing brief means I have loads to go on.
Along with 104 questions from myself!
No football this week, sad times, but life has got in the way of it (and away matches…).
I am thinking of going to Huddersfield next…
Or do I just go all in on Guiseley AFC?
Think it’s time I let the 5-year-old decide his future…
Quick video drop too.
I watched this and absolutely loved it. I could associate with it so much, and I wonder how many of you also do.
Roll on next week! ✌️