Why it's about to change the social media landscape
Like most people, you probably tried TikTok once and thought: cool, but not for me. After all, it’s mostly teenagers dancing.
I did the same, but this quarantine caused me to give the app another try. After a month of using it, I finally understand its appeal.
If you’re remotely interested in tech, content creation, or influencer marketing, you should pay attention. Here’s why.
TikTok is Twitter for Videos
This is a written version of the talk I gave at WAQ19. Watch the video with English captions on YouTube.
Last year, the Web turned 30.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, used the occasion to declare that he isn’t happy with the direction the Web has taken in recent years.
“At age 30, this is not the Web we wanted”
To understand his perspective, and why this is important, it is worth looking back at the history of the Web.
A Short History of the Web
Brain-Computer Interfaces will blow your mind. Perhaps literally.
There’s a lot of acronyms in tech today.
AI, AR, BTC, VR, IOT.
All of these are promising upcoming technologies. Companies are investing billions in the hope that they will be the next big thing.
However, there is one acronym that isn’t getting that much attention. Yet, it has the potential to transform our lives as much as the other ones.
It’s BCI, which stands for Brain-Computer Interface.
Connecting our Brain to Computers
4 years ago, I had my first experience with BCI at the CHI conference. I flew a drone with my mind.
For designers and engineers who want a tech career in the US.
5 years ago, I made a decision that changed my life. I said goodbye to my friends and family. I broke up with my girlfriend. I left my hometown in Quebec, Canada, and moved to San Francisco, California.
It was difficult at the time, but looking back, it’s the best decision I have made in my career. Since then, I met incredible people, built great products, and made good money along the way.
If you’re considering doing the same, this is the article for you. Below, I break down the entire process of moving to the US, getting a job, and getting a work visa. …
My controversial tip that will get you the interview.
Prefer video? Check out my YouTube video on this article.
I’ve been hiring designers for the past 4 years. During that time, I’ve seen amazing portfolios and terrible ones.
Among all of them, there’s one thing I see over and over that makes my life really hard as a recruiter:
UX portfolios have too much text
This is probably going to be controversial. I know it goes against most of the advice you see elsewhere online. But hear me out.
Recruiters review hundreds of portfolios per day. They spend probably 5 minutes per portfolio on a good day. …
Why Google Duplex is a big deal for UI designers.
Last year, Google blew the world away with Duplex, an AI assistant that can make phone calls for you. The demo went viral and raised a lot of ethical and philosophical questions.
Last month, Google announced an update for Duplex: it can now use websites for you.
This announcement might not have been as controversial as last years, but I believe it is a transformative step towards the future of user interfaces. To understand why, let’s have a quick look back at the history of HCI.
From the command line interface to AI
Ever since they were invented, computers have been weird and hard to use. The history of technology has been a constant battle towards making them more human. …
In the span of two months, I interviewed at Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google for design roles. Here’s everything you need to know if you want to do the same.
Check out the YouTube version of this story:
2019 brought a lot of changes for me. After four years spent leading UX/UI at Osmo, I felt it was time to work on something different. So I took the jump and interviewed at four of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. I ended up receiving three offers, and joined Google.
If you’re interested in doing the same, this is the right article for you. Below, I break down the full interview process. I provide tips and examples for every step. …
Bitcoin and Snapchat are two massively popular products. While they’re both very different, at the core of their successes is the same counter-intuitive idea. Understanding it helps us see what the next billion dollar product might be.
Bitcoin
One of the most important features of computers is that they can effortlessly duplicate information.
It’s hard to appreciate how convenient this is. Before computers, if I sent you a hand-written letter, the letter was gone. There could only be one version of that letter in the world. Today, I can send the same email to a near-infinite amount of people.
A big part of the 90s and the 2000s was about getting used to this new world where information, music, movies, etc, could be infinitely duplicated and shared. Today we’re used to it. We take it for granted.
Bitcoin changes that. …
How crypto could bring one of the most important concentrations of power the world has ever seen.
The more I think about crypto, the more I get scared about our future.
On the one hand, cryptocurrency seems like a libertarian dream. The technology allows transacting money — or anything of value — over the Internet without any third parties involved. Crypto is all about empowering individuals. Projects like Bitcoin are open source, permissionless, borderless, censorship-resistant and beyond the control of anyone. They put the existence of banks into question and hint at a world of radical self-governance.
On the other hand, cryptocurrencies could also be used by governments to gain terrifying power over the population. …
7 Design Lessons from Trump’s Terrific 2016 Campaign.
For a while, I’ve been arguing that Trump is smarter than he seems. Every time I say that I get my share of surprised and condescending looks. I understand why. Trump says and does a lot of dumb things. Yet, at the end of the day, he was elected against extreme odds. This doesn’t happen by accident. The fact that he was elected is a testament that he and his team knew exactly what they were doing, and they executed it perfectly.
This doesn’t mean I agree with his politics. My political views are the polar opposite of his. However, I don’t believe disagreeing with someone means you can’t learn from them. Everyone has something valuable to teach you, and I believe it’s particularly the case with Trump. …
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