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| graphic designed via canva.com |
Thoughts on new years
2014 was a year I started with the decision to discard new years resolutions, and just try, learn and explore as much as I possibly could. I don't particularly enjoy the notion of new years (nor resolutions) from the restrictive perspective that only January 1st can mark a fresh start or any major change for that matter; while December is the time to wait till January comes when we would magically turn into perfect beings that wake up early on weekends, workout daily, and grow our skill sets at a steady linear rate (If this makes sense btw, you may enjoy this SPI podcast episode where the resolutions topic was tapped upon). This gives us the perfect (ok, not perfect) excuse to feel guilty for the rest of the year when we - as frequently, and subtly, expected - don’t live up to our unplanned resolutions.
I’m not against actionable goals though. Yes, they do start as mere wishes, but unless they're to stay that way, planning is necessary (note to self here)!
Apps of the year
Having said that, a new year is nevertheless a quintessential milestone for reflecting on how the year has been. One way to reflect is finding tangible assets reaped during the year; in this post, that'll be my top 3 apps discoveries in 2014. They naturally fell into three categories: educational, design and productivity.
Without further ado, here goes:
Educational
1
Duolingo
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| image captured from Duolingo |
It’s been a bit over a year now since I came across Duolingo and it is an absolute game-changer. Why is Duolingo awesome? It gamifies the language-learning process in a bright, immersive way. To learn a new lesson you need to unlock the previous one. Makes sense; but it doesn't stop there. We live and we learn, and well, we also forget. Duolingo tries to solve that by having strength bars per lesson learnt that reduce over time (and also, I guess, with mistakes too). Another thing I really appreciate about Duolingo; they value practice, not just by helping you reiterate through lessons recently (or not so recently) learnt to fill those strength bars but also because they provide a melange of methods to teach you. You can translate from your native language to the language being learned (and vice-versa); listen to natives speak (slowly or at a normal pace) and translate what you've heard; and speak in the native language to test your accent. If any of these are not your cup of tea, you can customize which learning method to turn-off (when I feel like multitasking - which is a bad idea - I turn-off the audio-based exercises).
If you ever felt like learning a new language, Duolingo is the way to go. It’s effective, free and yes, mobile.
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| Image captured from Canva |
I discovered this little beauty via its nomination at the Webbys. From the landing page, you can tell this is special, and from the loading bar you can tell you made a good decision signing up and that this is an account you won't want to ignore. I showed it to friends and was so grateful to witness their first-time impressions - if you can afford recommending this in person rather than online, it’s worth it! Canva offers a gorgeous interface to design presentations (static, but beautiful), social media banners, blog graphics (me use!) and just digital graphical media in general. They’re constantly adding more options for stuff you can design over there (recent update at time of writing: email headers). It’s one of those products that makes your work look good even if you invested minimal input. Yes, it offers templates and no, they don’t look boring nor old-fashioned - they constantly update their templates (this still hasn’t ceased to amaze me, they update their templates; like, often). They offer a wealth of (again, frequently updated) text holders, vector graphics and backgrounds, some of which are paid and many of which are free. There’s a ton of fonts to choose from and inspiration from the templates right by your side to draw from. Another major exciting feature about Canva is its design school, which you can access without an account (smart). Not only do they blog about cool design concepts, but they also offer immersive tutorials using their platform to teach the lesson. The tutorials are nicely swift, informational and Canva tracks which ones you’ve covered (when using account) so you don’t stumble into the same one twice. Simple but neat. They sometimes even supplement them with quick video inserts to show you ways to implement their suggested activities. There are also teaching materials which offer playlist-like sets of Canva tutorials. Canva’s pretty awesome for design novices, and I’m sure exciting for pros as well. For mobile, they offer an iPad app (at the time of writing, Android Canva is not yet here, something for Android users, me included, to look forward to).
Productivity
3
Trello
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image captured from Trello
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Trello! This app holds such a dear place in my browser, it’s constantly making an appearance. If I wasn't using the Palettab new tab view, I’m guessing it would've been viewed as my top-most opened tab.
Ok, what is trello?
It’s a list manager. And they got it right. I tried plenty. Not everything, not going to claim that, but enough to know that trello is special. Before I forget, it’s also mobile, but my phone’s going through a phase right now so I haven’t been able to explore that facet of this gem.
Trello facilitates efficient list-making. It’s perfect for long-term lists where you can fit those random blog ideas or movies you want to catch up on. You can add images, multiple checklists (that have progress-bars, yay!), stickers (they have a nice set of those, more options if using a paid account), deadlines and tags (yes, you can colour-code!) to your lists. You can add many lists to a board, and - you guessed it - many boards to your account.
Trello is like pinterest (and more) for your to-dos (and more).
It’s intuitive and there’s a lot to explore, with what feels like around a year in, I know I’m still not using it to its full potential. There are shortcuts, emoticons and activity trackers (nifty to review latest updates). You can archive (or delete if you want) your “cards” (aka list items) or lists. There’s such a beautiful structured meta feel to the lists, such as the way you can have a description to your cards and add comments on them (by the way, there’re also collaboration features).
There are scores of more features, such as easily duplicating a card (this is handy when I want to make many cards using the same tags), adding attachments (not just limited to images - which accept URLs btw - but also other files). The images feature makes it easy for me to group infographs I want to review (like a read-later list for infographs) in a single card, and I can easily check them right there and then by just clicking on the attachment to have a zoomed, scrollable version of it.
One really special trello feature is their power-ups, those little opt-in quirks that add an intangible value to trello as a whole. My current favorite is the card-aging feature where cards ignored for over a week gradually disappear further and further as they age, (or turn into crumpled-like stained paper; my preference at the moment). Another cool power up is their toggle calendar-view feature where you can choose to view your lists from the calendar perspective with deadlines neatly marked on it.
Ok, what is trello?
It’s a list manager. And they got it right. I tried plenty. Not everything, not going to claim that, but enough to know that trello is special. Before I forget, it’s also mobile, but my phone’s going through a phase right now so I haven’t been able to explore that facet of this gem.
Trello facilitates efficient list-making. It’s perfect for long-term lists where you can fit those random blog ideas or movies you want to catch up on. You can add images, multiple checklists (that have progress-bars, yay!), stickers (they have a nice set of those, more options if using a paid account), deadlines and tags (yes, you can colour-code!) to your lists. You can add many lists to a board, and - you guessed it - many boards to your account.
Trello is like pinterest (and more) for your to-dos (and more).
It’s intuitive and there’s a lot to explore, with what feels like around a year in, I know I’m still not using it to its full potential. There are shortcuts, emoticons and activity trackers (nifty to review latest updates). You can archive (or delete if you want) your “cards” (aka list items) or lists. There’s such a beautiful structured meta feel to the lists, such as the way you can have a description to your cards and add comments on them (by the way, there’re also collaboration features).
There are scores of more features, such as easily duplicating a card (this is handy when I want to make many cards using the same tags), adding attachments (not just limited to images - which accept URLs btw - but also other files). The images feature makes it easy for me to group infographs I want to review (like a read-later list for infographs) in a single card, and I can easily check them right there and then by just clicking on the attachment to have a zoomed, scrollable version of it.
One really special trello feature is their power-ups, those little opt-in quirks that add an intangible value to trello as a whole. My current favorite is the card-aging feature where cards ignored for over a week gradually disappear further and further as they age, (or turn into crumpled-like stained paper; my preference at the moment). Another cool power up is their toggle calendar-view feature where you can choose to view your lists from the calendar perspective with deadlines neatly marked on it.
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