8 products I cannot live without as a UX DESIGNER: tech, stationary, furniture, & more

Okay we are out here with all the technology. My iced cafecito melted because I take so long to drink it. Hello amigos, amigas, amigues. What is up? It is a beautiful day here in New York City and I thought I would film a video for you because I have to admit I've been terrible about keeping a schedule. The state of the world is a disaster at the moment, specifically in the United States. If you know what I mean, then you know what I mean. But that's no excuse. Well actually that's kind of a big excuse. But anyways, we are here on this beautiful day here in New York City. I thought I would chat with you about eight different products that I cannot live without as a UX designer. If you've never seen my face before, my name is Greta. I am a Latina UX or product designer that's living and working in New York City at the moment. So let's chat about it. The first product is something that I can't believe. It took me so long to get one. It is my laptop stand. My laptop stand has made such an improvement when it comes to my posture. Before I would just be hunched over and just look like a little like a little hunchback of Notre Dame, just like typing away. And it was not good for anyone. It also looks better when I'm on my Webex calls or my Microsoft Teams calls. It just looks better overall. The computer is more kind of eye level. It literally has changed the way that I work. The second honorable mention is my magic trackpad from Apple. I actually used to use just a regular mouse when I would design. But because I am designing a lot of the motions and the actions on things like Figma or even when I edit these YouTube videos, I find it's a lot easier to edit and to design using the motions of a trackpad over a mouse. The scroll is much more seamless. It's not as jumpy and bouncy. So because I actually use my laptop stand, I didn't like the fact that I was still having to use my trackpad. And so my wrist would be like this. And it's honestly really sleek and beautiful. And it just looks good on my desk. If you're someone who is maybe you're a double Virgo like I am, my sun is Scorpio, but my moon and my rising are both Virgo. And if you're a little bit like me and you're a little type A and you love to plan out your week, you love to plan out your months, then I highly recommend the Hobonichi planner. I used to be a really avid bullet journaler. So bullet journal was just like a blank journal and you can literally design it any way that you like. I guess I couldn't find a planner that I really liked. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to make it myself. But over time, I just felt like it was extremely time consuming to have to design my own planner. So I was like, okay, I want to find a planner that has the basic setup for me, but it also has blank, enough blank pages for me so that I can still put in my own templates that I want to include. I did a lot of research and I bought the Hobonichi Techno Cousin AVEC planner. The Cousin AVEC just means that you get two planners so that they're spread into six month intervals. So the first planner that you get is from January to June and the second one is July to December. And it just makes it so that the planners are a lot thinner, they're easier to carry, has the basics set up for me. It has different views. You have a monthly view, you have a daily view, you can plan your day hourly, however you want. But it still has blank pages so that I can put in all of the other templates and the other types of views that I like for my planner. All right, all right, all right. We're getting to a big one here, okay? And not even just figuratively, but literally. I need to talk about the recent monitor that I got from Innosyn is how you pronounce it apparently. I really hope that's how you pronounce it. They sent me... When I tell you, it's not just an external monitor, it's literally like an external television. It's huge, okay? If you are someone that is a coder, if you design like I do, if you edit videos like I do, if you just want the most amount of digital real estate that you can possibly imagine, then I highly recommend the Innosyn external monitor. It is incredible. The one that I got specifically is nearly 40 inches wide. Yeah, it's extremely easy to connect to your MacBook or any other type of computer. It also has a height adjustment so that you can tilt it upwards or downwards so it supports vertical and horizontal screens. But it also tilts side to side so that you can always make sure that you have the best view of your work possible. And if you want to upgrade your external monitor situation and just your work from home situation, then I highly recommend this monitor. They're actually having a huge sale on Amazon Prime Day, which is happening on June 12th to the 13th, which is so exciting, extremely dangerous for all of us. You can click the link in my description box and check out all of their products that they're going to be having on sale for Amazon Prime Day. This next product is not something that I use every single day, but when I do use it, it makes such a difference, not just for my designing, but also when I'm editing my videos and I want to include really cute graphics and everything. Then my iPad and my Apple Pencil are just incredible. Especially when I was starting out my career as a UX designer and I was sketching a lot and just coming up with different ideas for different school projects, then having my iPad and my Apple Pencil to be able to sketch was just so easy. And specifically, I want to give mention to this specific app on the iPad, which is called Procreate. I'm sure that you have maybe heard of it and it's just honestly one of the best drawing and sketching tools out there. But I actually would use it specifically for UX because I could create and design and draw mocks on their wireframes. That way, I didn't have to spend a lot of time creating these and mocking up these ideas on Figma or on Sketch or whatever. And I could just draw it by hand on Procreate and then I could export my mocks as PNGs and upload them to Figma, upload them to Slack. Even if you're not a designer, even if you don't edit videos, it's just really fun to use. It's fun to create illustrations. That's all I got to say. Now, as I am a UX designer who also edits and films and uploads lots of videos, not only on YouTube, but also on TikTok and Instagram Reels and all of the everything, you can imagine that I have very large amounts of files, of video files. Video files, by default, usually take up so much space. And when you include all of your video edits and your graphics and you export it in the highest quality and everything, the file just gets huge. So I've learned that it's probably not best and it's also just safer to save your files on an external hard drive. I have tried so many external hard drives. I have gone through them. Some of them have broken. I have lost all my files before. I've gone through all of the stages of grief with these external hard drives. But my favorite, favorite, favorite one that I've tried to date is my SanDisk hard drive. I love it for several reasons. Number one, it is just so compact. It's tiny. All my other external hard drives have been monsters, have been dinosaurs. They're huge. It just blows my mind how it can store so many files on this tiny little thing. People are so smart. Not only is it so compact, but the one that I have is two terabytes in storage. And it's just so nice to have that peace of mind that let's say my computer just shuts down, explodes. I throw it out the window one day because I'm pissed or something. Whatever it may be, then I know that my files are safe in my external hard drive. It's so nice. You don't need to have your specific computer with you. If you need to pull up a file, you just take your external hard drive with you and you can plug it into literally any computer that you want. My next mention is one of my more expensive mentions, but honestly, it is the best thing that I have done, not only for my productivity, but also for my health, if that makes sense. Greta has back problems. I know. I'm 26 years old and I've got some back problems and it's really sad. But anyways, let's not talk about that. I'm being proactive is what I'm trying to say. I used to have an Ikea desk that worked fairly well, but I really wanted a standing desk. I was just so ready to have the option to stand up while I work. I spend a lot of time on my desk because obviously she's a designer, she's a video editor, she's a YouTuber. I'm sitting down right now. Insert my branch standing desk. I have shown this in a video before. I showed me setting it up, upgrading my work from home office, but honestly, now that I've had it for some time, it's still one of my favorite things. It's just also just beautiful. Every single time someone comes into my apartment, one of the first things that they mention is my desk. They're like, that is such a pretty desk, Greta. Now that I have my huge, nearly 40 inch Innocent monitor, I was really worried that it was not going to fit on my desk, but it does because this desk is such a good amount of space. Definitely an investment, but it's something that I know I'm going to have for so long. The very last thing is not something electronic, not something super expensive, but I still want to talk about it because it's something that I use every single day. It's my Pigma Micron pens. These are just, they're so hard to beat. I just love these pens so much because they're just so clean when writing. I love the crisp black color of them. I don't know how to explain it. They're like the blackest of black, and I love that they come in different thicknesses. You have the really, really thin pens all the way up to the super, super thick pens. Whatever you're feeling that day, if you're feeling bold and you want to really cross something out of your planner, then you can do that with the thicker pen. If you want to make a small note, then you can use the thinner pen, and they will hopefully never be discontinued because I think I would literally die. That's all that I got today. Of course, all of these products, including my Innocent monitor, will be linked down in my description box. You can also shop my Amazon front store, which I have pretty much everything that I have ever purchased and loved from Amazon on that page. So if you're curious what other things that I like, including like my coffee cups that I like to drink my cafecito out of, I have everything linked down there. I will see you in my next video. Adios!