Anurag Dommeti

Sr UX Manager. Mentor. Art and Code enthusiast. Maltese Parent.

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

My babies 🥰

[Aastha Gaur @astahearts]

Hello from smol and x-smol

[joshpuckett @joshpuckett]

How to Ask for Help

If you're a junior designer, I want to share a few things that will help you ask for help more effectively, be it wanting a portfolio review, introductions, advice, or anything really.

1. Be direct.
Most of the people you want help from are busy people. It is *greatly* preferred when you are upfront and direct about what you want. There are only so many hours in the day, and I'd rather know exactly what you want and how I can help.

2. Be specific
There are very few people in the world who ever want to 'catch up' or 'get their brain picked' when you don't know someone and it's ambiguous what they want.

If you want feedback on your portfolio, ask for that. If you want ideas on how to reposition yourself, ask for that.

If you aren't specific, you'll either get no response, or get generic response. My general feedback on every portfolio will always be: show your work upfront; remove half the words then remove more again, and spend 10x the time refining the work shown vs the design of the portfolio itself.

3. Be concise
Everyone is busy, so be respectful of their time and be as concise as possible with your ask.

4. Follow up
If you don't hear back from someone, the most likely answer is they either missed your message or forgot. Platforms like X have, somehow still, terrible DM's that always seem to be buggy, so just follow up respectfully. I don't find it annoying; rather I appreciate the persistence and reminder.

5. Follow through
If someone takes the time to help you, and gives you advice or suggestions, you should follow through on them. I love hearing about how things went or the updates someone made, but I'd guess less than 3% of the time I hear back from someone. Want to know an easy way to start to build a relationship? Follow through. Those who follow up I am more likely to want to continue helping and building into.

So what does this look like in practice?

Instead of "Here's my portfolio, let me know if you have thoughts!" say "I'm updating my portfolio as I look for a full time role at a startup. Would you mind letting me know 1) if this would pass your first 5 second screen, and 2) do you think the work examples I have selected seem credible to an early stage founder?"

Instead of "I'd love to meet if you're ever down", say "I have a few first round interviews coming up in a few weeks. Would you be open to doing a 30m practice portfolio presentation with me? I'll show up at any time that works for you this week or next."

I have generally found our industry is full of people who want to help others, so I hope this is helps you better ask for help!

[Dan Primack @danprimack]

This is very well done.

[DANN© @DannPetty]

Hey Freelancers! 👋

For the next 48 hours, my freelance course https://t.co/RKGoZRELsS is ONLY $5 as my gift to you! (Originally $249).

That's right—an entire freelance course for $5.

I want to see you succeed in 2023. Go get it and please share the joy!

[Dan Liu @danliu]

Design is hard (II).

A large part of this is choosing colors — *everything* you design needs a color.

I’ve realized that while true mastery takes years, there are simple, scientific rules that can make your colors much nicer.

Here are 10 practical tips for choosing colors.

[Kurt Varner @kurtvarner]

Today was quite the day for Design Twitter.

I thought it’d be appropriate to share my experience being acquired by @Adobe. It runs counter to many of the worries I’ve heard today…

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

@Ridderingand Involving engineers in the ideation process is also a great way to increase your technical understanding.

And depending on how keen you are, learning some front-end code always helps bridge any language gap. But any attempt at meeting them half-way will always be appreciated!

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

@Ridderingand Starting point - develop a technical understanding of your designs. How is data being fetched/displayed? What causes errors? This should happen naturally during reviews with engineers.

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

@gleb_sexy @figma Maybe helpful - a colleague discovered that if you add an emoji as the first character of the file name, then Figma removes their favicon from the tab 🤷

[Rollsroycelyn @rollsroycelyn]

Im a black lesbian wedding and event planner in Los Angeles. I designed, planned, created the cake for this beautiful wedding. Here are some of the ceremony photos 🥲

Would love to do more black elegant weddings but y’all know how hard it is to gain followers😩 Share me please

[Lily Konings @lilykonings]

Give yourself full permission to interview your future managers back. When they ask "Do you have any questions for me," take the opportunity to expose what your next 1+ years under this person might be like.

Here are 5 questions I have or wished I'd asked of my future managers:

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

Our team at @_superformula is hiring Product Designers! We are a fun group working remotely across the Americas helping companies with their digital transformation. Reach out if interested! DMs open. RTs appreciated.

https://t.co/gyTg5eSRux

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

Our team at @_superformula is hiring Product Designers! We are a fun group working remotely across the Americas helping companies with their digital transformation. Reach out if interested! DMs open. RTs appreciated.

https://t.co/gyTg5eSRux

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

@nicolefranq Hi Nicole! Nice to meet you :) I’m a designer at @_superformula and we have an opening for a Senior Designer, fully remote. DMs open if you have any questions!

https://t.co/CVITWWaAXe

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

@astahearts @SaswatiSM in case you have contacts in India

[Bern Irizarry @bernirizarry]

I recently came across this cool podcast focused on spotlighting the experiences of #BIPOC "designers, entrepreneurs, and technologists". For anyone interested, Aastha Guar's, #UX Director for @Google, conversation on "Leadership, Individuality, and Balance" was truly inspiring,

[Aastha Gaur @astahearts]

Loved this conversation with @hmwheele. Fav part of the conversation:

“How to maintain balance in and out of work: Brunch, dancing, and feminine energy in Corporate America.”

Thank you, Harrison!

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

@bonniekatewolf @threadless has a cool service for independent artists - https://t.co/8HGEKwlj2I
(Disclaimer: speaking only as a customer 😬)

[Anurag Dommeti @adommeti]

I’m the dad.

[Why is Rumi barking @whyisrumibarkin]

because dad isn’t letting me garden with him

[Why is Rumi barking @whyisrumibarkin]

because my dad is eating an orange