Software and Templates

Buy this WordPress Theme

I created this site from Salient. It’s a very flexible theme that helps you organize and highlight your content. Yes, it’s available at Envato market. You don’t have to start from scratch.

This is My Portfolio Theme

I use the Mugi theme from Themeforest. It’s perfectly acceptable to use a theme for your portfolio. In the past, UX designers prided themselves with designing and coding their own sites. However, now the industry just wants to see your work. This theme makes it easy to show the reviewers to who I am and what I have done.

When you get that opportunity to show your work in person, don’t rely on the Internet to show your site. I’ve learned the hard way. Put your work on a keynote or PDF deck.

Make sure the fonts on your site and deck are the same and consistently used.

Design and Research Books

Easy to read and digest, “Sprint” is an excellent blueprint for how to leverage the whole team to explore the big problem, try out ideas, and learn what to focus on in one week.

One of the most misunderstood and overused terms in tech, “Agile” is a requirement for all software companies. Yes, no one seems to really be doing it. “Get Agile” breaks down how we merge UX design and development with Agile methodology.

New to my career, I often found myself as the lone UX designer. This book saved me by outlining the skills and deliverables I can use during nearly any stage of a project.

As I start to focus more on research, I found it beneficial to explore how we should examine a problem space and the approaches that encourage discovering and understanding data.

Talking to users is a requirement for anyone who is considered a UX practitioner. However, the skills for leading a conversation that does not lead a user to a biased answer are not natural and nuanced.

Now that I am looking at systems rather than individual flows, it is key to learn ways to map out these complexities.

People and Teams

This book has helped me look beyond feeling the need to find sage advice. Instead, I can leverage a few tricks to help my mentees understand and solve their own issues.

As an introvert in an extrovert-friendly world, I found lessons in this book that guided me to see who are really the as*holes and how I can work with them.

Creativity

I have been following Austin for a few years to get inspiration on creativity that I can use for myself or my team. In the simplest way, this book gives you permission to create and f*ck up along the way.

Elizabeth Gilbert does a thorough job demystifying creativity. At the same time, she cautions us on not taking our creative “powers” lightly. We need to use these gifts before we lose them.

As an impressionable teenage artist, this book introduced me to the concept of creative habits. It has taken me a number of years to appreciate the lesson and build my own habits.

While I a not a huge Stephen King fan, I do appreciate his dedication to his craft. King openly shares his struggles with his work and life to help guide us on our path to create freely.

As a frequent visitor to Tokyo, I have grown to appreciate the complex organism of one of the largest megalopolis’. This illustrated guide manages to capture the personality of popular and not so well known neighborhoods.

This anthology of sketchbooks offers a glimpse inside the lives and work of over a dozen artists.