Is user experience > design or is a balance a better way to go about it?

Aug’17 I enrolled in Interaction Design Foundation(IDF) and completed five of its courses in three months. To get practical hands-on I then completed Freelance Web Design course on Udemy, and have written more about it here.Soon I started participating in design contests on 99Designs and submitted two designs. But soon realized that it is better to build portfolio and start approaching for work instead of putting too much time and energy on crowd-sourcing design contests.I was looking for a better way to create a portfolio. I did not want to just put out my design on Dribbble and Behance. I wanted to put my thoughts and research which goes behind the actual design and explain the process. This approach was inspired by The Dribbblisation of Design, special and heartfelt thanks to Paul Adams. I still go through this article every now and then to make sure I do not fall into this trap.Luckily I came across Portfolio Principles by Martijn van den Broeck and following the lead I started working on mine, Portfolio - Vikrant Singh. Since I saw many people talking about design, I thought to introduce this new way of building the portfolio and putting oneself out.Let me know your thoughts on this!

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So, yesterday paytm rolled out it's in-app message service PayTm inbox that will allow users to chat, send & request money to other users. What do you think about it's overall user experience and design?

I think Zendesk did a better job. Zendesk has done a phenomenal job adding in subtle, yet advanced, animations across their site.

According to me

I have learnt a lot by following some of the great designers like Aarron Walter (@aarron) & Wilson Miner (@wilsonminer). I thought it would be great to share our design inspirations with others.

There are many easy-to-use UI kits/JS/themes to build web UI. Similarly do you know of any for React Native UI developement.

Why

Dropbox has rebranded to promote itself as a creative platform rather then simply a file-sharing service -  but the design has attracted criticism for its use of clashing colors.

How would you practise user observation in their own environment, as i feel user interviews are insightful, but people think something, say something else and do something else.

Creating meaningful Specsheets

Well , so  I have been into photoshop for more than 4 years now.Al these years I used to do works like manipulation and all.I have never been into ui/ux design. What actually is it ? Can anyone explain with examples and the softwares used ?

There are a series of design aspects like typography, content, interaction etc. that you take into consideration while designing, what are the top proirities for you. 

What methods do you use to set goals for yourself.

While working in a team, how do you manage expectations and deliver where everyone pitches in with ideas/concepts. What process do you follow, also since everyone has their own perspective of design how do you decide and lock down on the final design. 

Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp and X number of apps have made *Stories* into a full blown feature where the complete screen is used to either show you an image or a short 10 second video. How do you design imagery for such an interface where the attention span is significantly low.

Conversational interfaces are very popular right now. How do you make your design stand out as the scope is limited.

If I'm a beginner in UX and want to learn, what slides, blogs, podcasts, videos would you suggest?

Apps & websites these days focus more on User Experience and is one of the most important factors guiding product design. Which apps or websites do you think provide one of the the best User Experiences in India or abroad.