My best article yet has 5 recommends 💚

Edit: I wrote this article back when Medium had a recommend feature instead of clapping. You could recommend–or “heart”–an article, but only once.

In May 2017 I published an article called “I got frustrated with an app, so I redesigned it”. The project was a complete interface redesign of an app which had gotten some pretty bad reviews.

It was my very first major personal project during a period where I was just starting out as a freelancer and didn’t have a lot of work to do. I was inspired by other designers such as Jason Yuan, the design student who redesigned Apple Music after being turned down for an internship as well as Kim Thuy Tu who wanted to challenge herself by redesigning Instagram. Those are some great articles and pretty awesome projects too by the way. Well-worth a read.

My own article earned 200 recommends over a period of 3 months. 90% of them came in the immediate days after it was published.

It has accumulated the most “likes” I’ve ever had online in my entire life so far. And it’s only a fraction of the other two articles: the Apple Music redesign has 5.3K recommends and the Instagram redesign has 4.2K.

I first shared my article on a graphic design group on Facebook where it got some really great feedback from fellow designers and developers. One of them suggested I share it on reddit, so I posted in on r/graphic_design.

It got 272 upvotes and 41 comments.

And then suddenly, as I’m pinching my arm, A Wild Email Appears:

Where’s the “errr feck yeah” button?

I was published by prototypr Prototyping: From UX to Front End, and if that wasn’t insane enough, my story was featured in their newsletter, on their Medium blog and on their website:

From left to right: 1) the story in the newsletter with an awesome description — thanks Graeme!🤘 2) the prototypr Medium blog and 3) the prototypr website

I went from having 3 or 4 to suddenly 400+ people following me. My Medium Stats were going completely nuts. 4K reads in one day, which was probably the day the Prototypr newsletter was released. More and more followers were rolling in every day, actual people showing their trust in me and my work.

One morning, a morning so like any other morning but so unlike it as well, I woke up to an email from Medium congratulating me for becoming a Top Writer in Design. I couldn’t believe it.

Top Writer. Me.

I bet you’re thinking; “Top Writer… Wouldn’t you rather want to be Top Designer?” And surprisingly enough… no, I wouldn’t.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

As a young girl I wrote horror stories and tales of lost love. I wrote and wrote and wrote, page after page. I had very few friends and my teenage years, weeeell, they kinda sucked. So I wrote and read and I hid. I wrote poetry and songs, not that they were necessarily any good but I wrote them nonetheless. I even started keeping a journal. It’s going on 8 years now.

I’ve always been writing, so to have suddenly been accepted as a writer was maybe in some way more important to me than being accepted as a designer.

This was the point where I called my sister, my mother and my father and told them the news. They were very thrilled and congratulated me. My parents, however, were a bit sceptical since they’re not familiar with the world wide web and how it works today. My mom, for instance, still thinks the MSN Messenger is the root of all evil and blames it for giving her viruses and spam emails even though it shut down in 2014. My dad prefers Windows XP and still has the installation disk for it juuust in case.

Beaming with joy, I put the title ‘Top Writer’ on my homepage and on my LinkedIn profile. And realised; I was proud of me too. That feeling is better than any drug in the entire world.

And it’s just as addictive as well.

Within a month or two, my ‘Top Writer’ title disappeared from my profile on Medium, and I was so sad to see it go. Because of it, my self-esteem took a dive. The likes and recommends got fewer and fewer.

My 15 minutes of fame was over.

I wanted to get it back, I felt like I had to. I’m actually a bit ashamed to admit I was longing for all the feedback and the likes. The constant spamming of emails with people approving my work. But I was. I missed the way it made me feel because in truth, I’m not very good at remembering to be proud of myself before suddenly; the moment’s gone.

In my head, the ‘Top Writer’ title approved me, my work, my word and my worth as a writer, designer and thus as a person. Without it, I felt like I needed to do something, to somehow get it back.

Luckily, as I’m writing this, I’m able to remind myself how all of ‘that’ was already there long before being named ‘Top Writer’.

Still, at that time I felt I needed The Next Big Thing.

Traveling beyond A–B

I decided to look at another Danish traveling app called Rejseplanen (Travel Plan) and even though there were no major usability design issues to fix, I still got an idea about what to do with it.

But this time, it wasn’t the lack of insight or access to user research data from the original app which held me back and delayed the project. It was myself.

I was holding me back.

I was constantly reminding myself of how this had to be really, really good. Often I asked myself “is this even relevant? Is this even interesting? Why would anyone care about this?” And I’d delete an entire paragraph of stuff I actually wanted to say.

How could I possibly ever do something as good again? My belief in myself went out the window along with my stamp of approval. I truly felt the meaning of the saying “the higher you climb, the harder you fall.”

On top of all that, I’d set my own personal goal for the new project. This time, I wouldn’t do the popular thing. The projects everyone else were doing. I wanted to do work inspired by my own opinions, my own moral compass. What I feel, is the meaning of my work and my time here on earth.

And that too, added to the difficulty. Now I’d not only have to go out there and say something even better than what I said before. I’d also have to say something I really mean and care for. Which has always made me feel all the more vulnerable.

It took me two months

The project swallowed most of my entire summer break. I slaved, hour after hour, suddenly waking up from my trance and realising I hadn’t eaten anything all day. When I wasn’t working it, I was thinking about it. I was pursuing it so hard. The more words I put in, the more app screens I designed, the more I could taste it.

I edited a lot and deleted even more. I was afraid to really say what I meant. Afraid it would ruin the article when not just focusing on usability issues alone, but actually taking it a step further and involving my moral and political opinions and ideas.

I nearly drove my boyfriend crazy in the process. I snapped at him and acted like an idiot. Somewhere in the madness, I remembered to apologise.

Apologising is important.

August the 9th and it was finally done: “Traveling from A–B: Evolving a Travel Plan app (Rejseplanen).”

Impatiently, I published it to Prototypr. And like the previous article, I was hoping it would be featured in the newsletter. I was almost sure of it. I’d worked so hard on it for so long!

And so I waited.

I posted it to Facebook and Reddit, following the exact same procedure as the last article which surely must’ve been the recipe to success.

I waited some more.

I was checking my phone again and again, even when I was out. Not even finding peace when I forced myself to put it away. A few recommends ticked in. 1, 2 and 3. A day after, 4 and lastly 5 recommends.

My fellow designers and developers on Facebook were nice to the post. My link on Reddit went unnoticed.

Lastly, the article wasn’t included in the newsletter. I checked the email as soon as it came, scrolled through it and deleted it.

Recalibrating

At first, I tried coming up with reasons why it didn’t get as many likes. Maybe the topic just wasn’t interesting enough or the article itself was too long? Or maybe the title simply wasn’t catchy enough, though I was personally very excited about “Traveling beyond A–B” and the dual meaning of it.

Lastly, I came to think about how I’d tried to work and write something different in the project. Not just doing a redesign like any other, but moving beyond design alone. Into the wild territory of what should design really be. And how we need to treat technology to be able to coexist with it as regular humans.

Then I thought of how it was going through my teen years. I wasn’t really the popular type of kid. I didn’t do what was expected of me, deliberately. Fuck the system and all that. I even insisted on not doing the popular thing. Not wearing the “right” clothes and not saying the “right” things the adults expected of me, because it often just didn’t feel like me. And also because I enjoyed pissing people off who tried to tell me who I should or should not be.

And as I thought that, I suddenly realised this is who I am.

I know what my opinions are and what I want to do as a designer and as a person. If it’s not popular opinion then so be it.

There is a chance of standing out in an unpopular opinion. Because what makes us different is not our education or our skills. What makes us different is what makes us human; our histories, experiences, opinions and even feelings. Our motivations, goals and dreams.

Once I’d accepted I wouldn’t be getting that massive feedback I had once wanted so much because I’d chosen to focus on something else in this project, something happened.

It wasn’t at all what I’d expected, but I welcomed it — recalibrated. I didn’t get thousands of recommends or a newsletter feature or the title as ‘Top Writer’ back.

On the monday morning right before writing this article, a monday morning so like any other monday morning but so unlike them all as well, I woke up to an email from Medium saying my new article had gotten a comment. That comment is and probably will continue to be the single only comment on the entire article. But it’s the best comment I could possibly imagine at the time:

The comment is in Danish, check below for the translation

Translation:

Hey Signe! I’m the product manager for Rejseplanen[The Travel Plan]’s apps and I’ve just read your blog. I’m completely blown away over partly how great it looks and partly how you’re just putting it all out there. Love it. There are different reasons why Explore* might not be realised in the near future; we’ve been over that type of feature a few times… But I hope we can contact you when and if we’re looking at a redesign next time, the rest of your look is great. Thank you for an awesome, awesome monday morning experience!

*”Explore” is the name of the new feature I added in my project Traveling from A–B as an opposite to the app’s current main feature.

Quality over Quantity

My previous article “I got frustrated with an app, so I redesigned it” has 200 recommends. My latest article “Traveling from A–B: evolving a Travel Plan app” has 5 recommends.

And it’s beyond a doubt my best article yet.

It got me a much needed reality check. I had the opportunity to recalibrate myself before getting sucked in by the likes, recommends and those 15 minutes of fame.

It got me to remember who I am. Who I was raised to be. What I believe in.

In truth, I’ve been chasing approval for most of my life and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon. But I’m really going to try to give less fucks about external acceptance, and look for it within, instead. That feeling of being super proud of myself? I want to be able feel that because of who I am and what I believe in. Not because of what I publish on the web or how many likes it gets. I want to aspire to be a top writer in design, not just have the label on my Medium profile page.

I’ve learned to value the quality of the feedback over the quantity.

Despite the 5 recommends on my newest article I’ve met and connected with complete strangers— that’s how interesting they found the article to be.

I’m still continuing in my pursuit of being a passionate designer and writer. And if it’s not as the ‘Top Writer’ in Design on Medium then so be it.

Lastly, I want to give a big, heartfelt thank you to those 5 people who recommended my article. Thank you!

💚

And thank you for reading!