Work Like No One's Watching

Learnings comes from anywhere.

A few days back, I happened to visit a government building. There was a long queue. Due to COVID, it is compulsory to have yourself registered in the Indian government's ‘Aarogya Setu' app. The gatekeeper was letting each one go in after checking the body temperature & the app.

Now, as the government workers' impression goes, he could have let each one go in by just pretending to check the phones for the sake of surveillance cameras. But this gatekeeper would wait for the app's splash screen and check the home screen to see if the person's registered. That was quite a task looking at the number of people he was supposed to attend. He was going patiently with the people who were clumsy with their phones & waited for them to figure out the app. At intervals, he would announce to the people waiting in the queue that he is going to check the app.

I was observing him. No one was watching over him directly, the cameras were there, of course, but it was up to him and his values. This incident inspired me in my work & this blog too.

How does it apply in design?

Looking at the things from the design's microscope, the practices seemingly pixel in size build the finesse as a designer at large. The pixel scaled alignments, sizes, colors that might not be visible to the eyes but you still should not leave them at the flaw on your watch.

Once a coworker asked Steve Jobs about why they are wasting so much money to keep the design of the internal boards & systems neat. It's not like the users will ever get to see it, they will never know about it. Jobs responded - “They won't but I will”.

The Nitty-Gritty

I am a UI/UX designer, I work on the Sketch & the work outcomes are designed screens. For me God lies in:

1. Grouping & naming the layers (relevantly).
2. Converting the dimension points from fraction to integers.
3. Making & following the grid & layout. I even change the sketch preferences to move by 8 on shortcuts for an 8-point grid system.
4. Naming my artboards & tidying up the distance between them by 100.
5. Removing all the hidden layers & extra exports.

Feature: Work from Home

Thinking about the new normal - the culture of Work From Home. No one is watching over you (literally) but if you love what you do, you put your best - even if anyone's watching or not.