Recently I chanced upon TNW’s article on Apple revamping their iPad shopping cart article on Twitter. I was reading it with interest for about 10 minutes when it hit me that I have been so involved in looking after my newborn (about 10 weeks old now) that I kinda of forgotten about my professional work.

Here’s a recap of what I had done & learnt for the past 3 years:

i) Getting exposed to social media, professionally.
Joined Twitter in early 2008 and found it extremely useful to follow tech news. Started reading lots of news on services, media companies like Google, Yahoo, Nokia, etc.

ii) Getting in-depth on interaction design
Designed shopping cart wizards for the first few months at work (which was why the article jolted my memory). Adapting to changing business requirements, presenting to stakeholders, tweaking the design again & again. I remember bringing home to edit the interaction designs so as to be ready for review the next day.

Worked on various check-out process. Typical check-out cart using credit card. Modified it later to include paypal (so as to adhere to its requirements). Designed a buying process to include points/credits system & credit card. Modified it to become a pure credit system for easy purchase.

iii) Working remotely
My projects typically consist of teams in different geographical areas. Communication is done via email, instant messaging and phone calls. On rare occassions, we even communicate via video conferencing! Challenges include poor voice quality, miscommunication due to culture & language differences, differences in project expectations. Through these 2 years, I have learnt a lot from my project teams and I will miss them a lot.

iv) Picking up Chinese
I have always struggled with the Chinese language and once I was out of the academic track (about 12 years ago), I stopped learning and using it. However, because of my team members, I was forced to use & communicate using the language. Initially I had a hard time understanding them and vice versa. So I started listening to podcasts, learning the fundamentals again, which helped me to regain my grasp of the language. Now, I am proud to say that I could speak Chinese rather fluently and it helped me to teach my daughter the language! 

v) Learning about mobile devices & Android
I have always been a web, software person. In early 2010, when we started developing products using Android, I started design interactions for smaller mobile screens, different browsing & purchase experience. Learning curve was steep but it was fun to apply skills to a new domain.

It has been a fruitful 3+ years of my life..it’s time to look forward and embark on a new journey!