ShiftSlash: Recent Episodes
Pragmatics Studio
Follow two designers and first-time founders, Allan and Charlie, as they tackle the trials and tribulations of building a digital product design agency.
The hardest part of UX is never designing the interface—it’s all the human factors that we need to manage. Over the last 10 years building software, we’ve come across 3 situations that consistently get in the way of great work. These are:
- A key stakeholder isn’t making a critical decision
- Not getting approval for user research
- Competing constraints from different stakeholders
Thank you so much for tuning in. Tell us about the struggles you’ve experienced and what you’ve done to overcome them in the comments.
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We've learned so much about the business of starting a studio and we wanted to share these learnings with you guys now that it's been a year. Can't wait to see how things will be in another year from now 😂.
To watch our UX analyses, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6pQ-KVljjtPm4wv7L7XBbw
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Design tools like Figma are amazing at helping designers become more productive at creating designs, but they often leave behind the people working around the designers like developers and product managers. In this episode we discuss our recently launched FigDone, our recently launched Figma plugin, which is trying to help bridge that gap.
- Learn more about the history of the infinite canvas
- Read more about FigDone
- Try FigDone in your workflow
FigDone is a collaboration between Pragmatics Studio and Adam Albarghouthi.
Credits: Shin Ling Low (Editor)
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We're back from some much needed vacations and we're excited to be recording these from the same room now!
In this episode we're asking questions about how much "good" we're doing for the people and world around us. Are we achieving our goals as a studio to do meaningful work? Can a studio ever really fulfill that ideal?
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Many beginners feel trapped by their physical abilities when it comes to creative work. You don't have to! Sometimes all it takes is just jumping in and trying stuff out to see where it takes you.
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Often times people will have requests about redesigning something and they'll have a hard time putting it into words. The best thing anyone can do is build a quick prototype without any design skills and we're here to show you how—zero design skills required.
Tools we used:
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Marvel Pop: https://marvelapp.com/pop
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Figma: https://figma.com/
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When COVID took the world by storm in 2020, the concept of "asynchronous" communication at work took the spotlight. All of a sudden, the meetings that had flooded people's calendars were no longer thought of as normal as Zoom and the comfort of working from home gave people a new perspective on productivity. In this episode we discuss our perspective on synchronous and asynchronous communication, when is the right time for which, and the challenges of asynchronous communication as a service provider.
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The formalization of "Design Thinking" as steps you can follow to achieve the results of a designer is great for introducing people to design, but it's not necessarily an effective tool being a talented designer. In this episode we discuss the importance of curiosity and how it can be an even better tool than any structured process when trying to solve complex problems.
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You don't need wicked design skills to test potential interaction ideas for apps that are already out there. Ever noticed something about Facebook or Airbnb that bugged you and you thought you had a better idea? You can go and try it quickly with a few screenshots and free tools.
Tools used in this episode:
- Figma (for building the prototype): https://figma.com/
- Maze (for testing the prototype): https://maze.co/
You can try the Facebook share limiting prototype yourself and leave us feedback: https://t.maze.co/8901832
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We've been thinking a lot about how Pragmatics Studio team will grow. In this episode we give into those thoughts and explore our rationale behind when and how we'll start hiring.
Subscribe to our channel to see the podcasts as they launch.
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Though we're more comfortable moving pixels around, we take a stab at calculating our cash flow so that we can see what numbers we need to make our business work. If you're starting out with freelancing or thinking of starting a studio but you're scared of spreadsheets, this one is for you.
We used Shopify's great cashflow forecast template and tweaked it so it made more sense to us.
Here's a link directly to the Shopify spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Eq1CE8quJei-Lgt_1DdMVzxgv8v-ROpLQiKHT7okHgM/edit#gid=2137285335
You can read more about it from Shopify's website here: https://www.shopify.ca/blog/cash-flow-management
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In this first video podcast, we talk about how we are launching our design studio without spending much time building a custom website or branding. A lot of the time, designers get stuck perfecting details before they've even validated if anyone wants to hire them and what clients want to learn about their business. Subscribe to our channel to see the podcasts as they launch.
Links from the podcast:
- Notion startup credits: https://www.notion.so/startups
- Mmm website builder: https://mmm.page/
- Allan's portfolio: https://www.allan-macdonald.com/
- Charlie's portfolio: https://www.charliegedeon.com/
- Pragmatics' Notion site: http://pragmatics.studio
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Welcome to the ShiftSlash podcast where designers Allan and Charlie explore what it means to start a new design agency in 2022.
Check out our placeholder website: http://pragmatics.studio
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the video update: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6pQ-KVljjtPm4wv7L7XBbw
Follow us on LinkedIn to find out when we're hiring: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pragmatics-studio
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