🍨 The Inside Scoop: Choirul Garin 🇮🇩

Say hi to Choirul Garin! One of our Indonesian ADPList mentors.

Choirul Garin is a Product Designer at Pina, an Indonesian personal financial & investing planner. In this article, you’ll get to know him, from the fun facts to his views about mentorship. Let’s start!

First, let’s start with fun bite-sized facts!

• What’s your most listened-to song of the year? → Seize The Day by Avenged Sevenfold
• Do you have any go-to books? → Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Any favorite emoji? Why? →  😂 ; because I like to express laugh with this emoji

Hi, Choirul! Nice to e-meet you! Can you share a little bit about yourself?

I currently work as a Product Designer at PINA, one of the early stage startups in the fintech industry in Jakarta. Previously I also worked in the early stage startup in the Public Service industry in Surabaya. During my time at these two companies, I faced many unique and unexpected challenges that had a big impact on my career. Besides that, I also started an agency with my friend that provides web and app design and development services.

Do you have something unique about you, some little fun fact that would never come up in conversation?

The unique thing that I have is that I am not someone who graduated or had education in the field of design. My educational background is in Natural Sciences when I was in high school and majoring in Aquaculture at the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Affairs, Airlangga University, Surabaya.

I’m purely self-taught design and maybe I have inherited talent from my father. From participating in committees at school and campus events as a Graphic Designer to exploring more about UI/UX Design.

We were all faced ups and downs during the pandemic, and some people picked up some new hobbies. Do you have any?

During the pandemic, what I do most often is listening to music and playing games when I have free time.

I also fill my spare time sometimes by driving around the city to find culinary or tourist destinations that I can visit, I do this because my work when WFH is very draining energy.

Moving up to a little serious question, what kind of impact are you making in the world using your design skills?

The impact that I make with my design skills is to share my knowledge with other people and beginners in the UI/UX field, apart from that of course by solving problems and helping users in every product that I have designed.

I really like to share my knowledge with others because when I first learned about UIUX, I was very confused about finding a mentor and only joined in a community that lacked critical feedback. In addition, I hope that by being a mentor for beginners in UIUX, I can at least help the difficulties they face when entering the world of UIUX.

Can you share about a time when you didn’t know if you’ll succeed or not, and how you overcame it?

This question is interesting because I have encountered it several times especially during my career in UIUX or Product Design. I have weak skills in this field, especially research and illustration. At first I just looked for information on the internet and saw the practice on YouTube and tried to implement it on users, at first I was very doubtful if this worked or not, it turned out to have a big impact, from that I continued to evaluate the research method I was doing.

To make illustrations, I’m very weak because I haven’t drawn for a long time, but I try to make some alternatives and iterate over every illustration I make. Certainly very pessimistic, but there is one illustration that the team finds very good and conveys the context of the design.

As a mentor, what kind of mentorship do you want to provide, and why?

I really prioritize guidance in a two-way way starting from knowing the complaints and problems faced by the Mentee. Why? Because by knowing in advance what they are facing, I can provide suggestions or criticisms according to their complaints. Then have a two-way discussion to gain more insight into each other.

Again, as a mentor, what are the most frequently asked questions you get, and how do you usually reply to them?

• How to learn proper UIUX with lots of information hanging around
• How to make a proper portfolio to apply for jobs
• How to overcome obstacles from yourself such as self-impostors

If there’s one thing or advice you could tell to the mentees, or maybe to the junior on your field, what would that one piece of advice be?

I always say to stay focused on what the Mentee is aiming for. Then always be a learner and know all the info from UIUX design itself then choose a sub-field and become a T-Shape person in the beginning.

All right, I think that’s all of my questions! Thanks a lot, Choirul for sharing with us!

Congratulations! From this article, we learned more about Choirul Garin, one of our Indonesian ADPList mentors.

If you have any questions to ask him, or maybe want to book a mentoring session, you can reach out to him here → Choirul Garin

At last but not least, thank you for reading this article!

Follow us on ADPList, for the latest news from us, and also feel free to drop a comment if you have any questions. See you later, and… Stay amazing!

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