Done and New Chapter! (Again?)
June to September became my first experience moving out from my home town to another city that I never visited before and I’ll stay there (Batam) for my Job.
So, I joined Stranger Soccer tried to help them as a Lead Designer and created all the design things that they need but in other side, I feel responsible for building design culture at my company, so all the team aligned and have same point of view about building the product. That’s my goal!
Actually I joined Stranger Soccer from talent search company named GLINTS, they really take care of me while I was there. Thank you so much Jhon and Sarah!
And here is little introduction about GLINTS and Nongsa Digital Park — Batam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCOpP0bKprQ&feature=youtu.be
What did I learn from my experience there?
I learn many things during my time there, both of pro and cons things. But, it will always be my experience that made me stronger.
Communication
Like I said in my previous article, I still learn how to communicate with english but I’m sure with the term “Learning by Doing”, it really works on me. In the beginning, surely it looks like awkward to communicate with english, even to think and translate it before I speak it to my partner, need to think first before I speak it. And also, communicate with Singaporean with his own accent ‘singlish’ is interesting, even though I did a research first about it, but when I face it first time, hmm, hard to understand, so I ask to my partner to speak up slowly so I could understand what did he say.
The other things about communication, I’m sure it’s the basic things for working especially with people from another country (without Bahasa) so, I need to fluent to speak and communicate with it. And that’s make me learn it everyday, with my own word library to make increase my vocabulary knowledge and also with the grammar I learn it 1 by 1.
True fact: I don’t feel my english going better now, BUT I do feel that I’m more confidence to communicate with English!
Design Culture
Building design culture is not a theory or even a .pdf presentation. You need to face other people and give real example about the design culture even with the simple things, doing research, competitor review, give wireframe first before creating Hi-Fidelity and give the real prototype presentation and ask the team to use it and get the feedback. It even can work smoothly compared with the only “Hey we should to A to B to C before deploy it” without any exsample.
Is it work? Not really!
Don’t forget 1 more thing. Explain WHY, so your team know why you create that and why you choose it.
“We need to redesign our home page, especially on bottom navigation bar because . . . . . . . . .”
“Boss, we I think we need to add empty state page because . . . . . .”
“Hei, we can’t have to much icon on this page because . . . . . .”
Moving Out?
It’s the hardest part of me. I never stayed more than 2 weeks at another place, in this case, I need to stay longer at another place for work, Batam.
At first, I felt so hard because I don’t know anything about the city, even where to get dinner ahahaha.. The hardest part is lost all the activity that I can do back in my hometown like mentoring class, manage my band, playing music with my band, hangout with my friend and also attend design workshop, I lost all of it and sometimes it make me feel home sick. I need more time to have an adaptation if I moving to another place and 3 months, I didn’t make it. Next time, if I go move to another place, I need to push my self to adapt as fast as I can and trying to find the interesting part that I can enjoy it to make me comfortable with the location.
But, 1 interesting part of Batam is, I can easily move or go to Singapore! Only 1 Hour! Compare with my home Bekasi to Kelapa Gading, I took almost 2 Hours! So easy to go there. Also, because of I need to have report to my HO, I went to Singapore almost once a month, so it more like vacation than working time and sure, that’s also my 1st time to go to Singapore.
And this is it, I have finished my role with Stranger Soccer, hopefully all my thoughts, my designs, my illustration and all my page that I created for them works and help them to growing. All the best for Stranger Soccer and thank you so much for all the team there.
Visit and download Stranger Soccer Here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.strangersoccer&hl=in
And, what’s next?
Right now, I joined Malaysian digital company, 123RF — Inmagine group as a Product Designer. It’s a little bit complicated at first to stared this role, because the first plan I will joined as a full time Product Designer based on their Head Office at Selangor, Malaysia. But, unfortunately 2 weeks before I went there, my permit rejected because of the quota, So I need to wait until it get approved and will be there. Since then, I work remotely from Jakarta.
As a Product Designer, I will help 123RF to create best product that they need, both of website and also mobile app. With my experience about UX/UI I will give my best to create it, even right now I stayed in Bekasi — Indonesia to work remotely. And Being remote designer also new things for me. Interested part with some obstacle also and also funny things I will face it until my permit approved and move to Malaysia for full time ASAP.
So, what will I do as a Remote Designer?
Is it trend right now to be a Remote Designer especially for Indonesian that need to face bad traffic jam everyday to go to the office building?
Next I will share my experience as a Remote Designer — Although it’s only my 2nd month to be it.
This is it!
Let’s the journey begin!
