3 things I learned as a designer building an app
By: Wei Chen
Tags: Design Process, Side Project, Design, Work Life Balance, Ios Development

When Covid lockdown left me without a commute or social life, I found myself with something apparently called “free time.” Though I have been doing digital design for a while, I’ve never brought my designs from prototype to functional product. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to go all the way. So with only some basic web dev knowledge, I started this 6-month app-building journey of learning iOS development, designing, and coding (and much more, but I’ll get to that).

What I ended up building is a simple tool called Timepoc. It helps people track small changes of everyday life, such as fitness progress, a newborn baby, pet, plant, or just the daily view outside the bedroom window (which we can all relate to right now). Those time-lapse changes can then be played back and shared.

Now that the app is live in the app store 🎉, I wanted to share 3 things I have learned during the process:

1. It’s ok not to have the design or even product idea at the beginning.

At first I felt I should start with a fully-formed product idea, so I could be more selective on what to learn. But in reality, with zero iOS development experience, I realized I might end up designing something that would take me forever to complete. My goal was not to be a developer, but to build and publish something within a reasonable time frame. So I decided to start learning first, and let my insights guide product ideation and prioritize functionality.

I found this great course from Angela Yu that covers pretty much everything for building an iOS app from 0 to 1. I spent 3 months (probably 5 hrs per week) going through the whole course, gaining an understanding of what functionality is easier to implement (by myself or through third-party packages) and what features are available in iOS.

2. I got new perspectives on cross-functional roles.

As a designer I constantly work with cross-functional teams such as product, engineering, research, writing, data analysis, marketing, etc. However, knowing how to work with others is different from actually doing their work, just as it’s almost impossible to know what users think until we first become the users.

This process not only gave me first-hand experience of being an engineer. but also other roles I hadn’t even thought about, such as marketing. I initially thought once I completed the app, most of the work would be done. But in reality it feels like only the very first step. I still needed to figure out how to set it up on the App Store, write a privacy policy, create search keywords, and build the website, not to even mention promoting the app, which may take more time than I spent building the app itself.

Moreover, this experience puts myself in the shoes of other cross-functional teams, kind of like a mini “Bungee’’ program (a program that encourages employees to try out a department that is very different from the one they came from). I now have new perspectives and more empathy when working with other teammates, which reminds me of my favorite quote from Hunter S. Thompson, “Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.”

3. A side project can help establish healthy boundaries during WFH life.

The project did take most of my time outside regular work hours, but it’s actually pretty fun once I developed the routine. There is no pressure from stakeholders, design reviews, or timeline. I’m the individual contributor, manager, stakeholder, and user, so the only pressure is coming from me.

During lockdown, the line between our regular work and personal life becomes murkier, and sometimes it’s hard to maintain those healthy boundaries we used to have from commuting or environment switching. Having a side project that takes a small amount of time every day helps recreate that line.