здраво from Belgrade.
I came to Belgrade a few weeks ago to spend some chill time and visit Paysend's (the company I am currently working for) office and work together with my colleagues. It feels good to meet and work with people in person.
While I was here, I had the opportunity to try very good tastes from different cuisines. I have tasted various Michelin-starred places that maintain their rise in the list of the tastiest places in Europe. It was all beautiful. I tried to share all these experiences under a single thread on my Twitter account where you can find it here.
On the other hand, my work at Paysend was continuing. Recently, we have been in the process of activating our crypto investment product for all our users in the countries where we live in the pilot phase. In other words, we are expanding the user scale of the product.
During the processes, we have to conduct a lot of user research and reporting. We publish surveys containing different questions and flows targeting different personas. We have 1:1 interviews and delve into the details of these surveys, and in the end, we report all these research results. Naturally, we have a lot of documentation and planning tasks. I recently started using Chat GPT for all these tasks.
How does ChatGPT assist me throughout this process?
Asking questions is an art. By asking the same question in different ways, you can get answers of different types, with varying levels of detail and length. There may be different stages at which the same question needs to be asked. For example, in a question where you provide multiple-choice answers, it may not be appropriate to ask open-ended questions. However, when you want to specifically discuss that topic and ask follow-up questions - when you need to dig a little deeper into the same question - you should ask open-ended questions. In such cases and similar needs, you can quickly generate alternatives for the same question for different personas.
And of course, tone of voice is important here too. When asking questions, being familiar with the local communication nuances of the language you are using will make the question more understandable. This, in turn, will affect the accuracy of the answers you receive and ensure a research process that yields the most accurate results with minimal repetition.
Graphy.new
One of the biggest challenges I face while preparing presentations and reports is data visualization. Especially when I only need to create a few charts, I have been searching for simple tools that allow for quick chart creation, and full customization, and don't require integrating large-scale data visualization tools. Recently, I discovered the Graphy tool, which fully met my needs and has become a go-to solution for me.
In the last episode, I mentioned Wise’s rebrand details. And then I saw how Wise updated their UI components on the product side generously.
Wise's design team find a genius solution while updating the existing screens with the new design system. They built a plugin called rebrand and it makes component and token replacement easier.
You can learn more about the details from their director of design’s LinkedIn post
Turkish Only Resource
Baby steps of Open Banking in Turkey
In recent months, a revolution took place in Turkey's banking sector, with the introduction of laws that pave the way for open banking technology. Although only limited permissions have been granted so far, we can say that these developments hold promise for the Turkish banking and finance sector.
Irmak İşsever has provided a clear and straightforward overview of these laws and the current situation. For those interested, you can access the article here
Turkish Only Resource
SHERPOD: SHERPA’s Podcast Series
Sherpa is a Turkey-based digital experience design studio. Ever since the beginning of my career, I have learned great things from them through the content they have shared within the design industry. I enjoy reading their posts and following their work, and at one point, I was eager to work alongside the Sherpa team.
In recent years, they have not been very active - I assume this is due to their own business demands. However, I was quite excited when they announced their SHERPOD podcast series in the past few days. I am eagerly awaiting their new content.
Updates about Talkcast
I know there's often a gap between new episodes, which can be challenging to manage. The demands of my personal and professional life, as well as coordinating schedules with guests, can be time-consuming and inevitably delay the release of new episodes. However, I never wanted to present content to my listeners that was produced just for the sake of producing. As a result, I have not brought any topics or guests to the forefront that I don't find worth listening to, even if it means not being able to release a new episode every week. I believe this approach will continue.
For upcoming episodes, I am in contact with guests and topics as follows:
Cameron Worboys, Design Director at Wise: Rebrand Process of Wise
Feyza Okumus, Product Designer, Design System at Paraşüt
Berkay Öztürk, Game Designer at Lion Studios at AppLovin
I hope to be back with new episodes as soon as possible.
News from madebybatu.com
Last year, I took the first steps with madebybatu, and I prefer to view it as a digital agency I manage rather than just an individual portfolio site. This allows me to separate my personal identity from the brand I represent, and I enjoy this distinction.
Although it has gone through various designs since its first version, it is currently experiencing one of its richest periods in terms of content. However, is it sufficient? No. The case studies, in particular, need a smoother flow and richer content.
In the coming days, when I return from Belgrade, I will be focusing more on this issue, and I think I'll be presenting a new layout and content changes in the future.
As I always say, 1 is always greater than 0. Unfortunately, there is no way to reach 2 without first reaching 1. The path to 10 always starts with accomplishing 1 first. I learned this mentality from my dear mentor Oğuz Güç while working at Atölye15, and since then, I have made it a habit to consider every job I do as a starting point and to develop it step by step.
When you share this development and change process publicly without shame or embarrassment, people notice, and when they share their awareness with you, it makes you happy to know your efforts are recognized.
That's all for this week. See you in the next episodes, Stay healthy!