What is UX?
The show dedicated to inspiring, educating, and motivating UX designers both new and seasoned. Guests share their UX journey, career, and industry experience.
Jay Demetillo, a designer that strives for greatness.
Jay works as a designer at Grab. He has also worked for the likes of Twitter, Yahoo, and Pinterest. Just to top it off, Jay was an adjunct professor at CCA in San Francisco. Jay currently teaches design innovation at New Campus.
Highlights from the episode:
· Jay speaks of how he switched teams and now belongs to the safety team which he says he considers to be much more interesting.
· Pek subjects Jay to the question of how it was, growing up in New York and how he decided to become a designer. Jay starts by blaming his parents for being typical Asians and believed that he should be a doctor or nurse.
· Jay advises looking at how and where everything is going in terms of blockchain and states that AI or VR are the most impactful factors.
· Jay narrates how he landed at Google Ventures.
· On how he explains UX design to most people, Jay simplifies it and just gives a reference to how you'd help your grandmother get from point A-B.
· Jay talks about the design team at Grab back then in 2017 where he says that he was the sole designer on the consumer side.
· As the episode approaches its latter stages, Pek asks Jay if it was a culture shock for him to move to Southeast Asia. Jay expresses his reasons and says that he did not move for love and that it was a lonely first year.
· Asked about any career advice he'd give to his younger version and what he'd wished to have known, Jay says that he wishes to have taken more risks. He really does encourage the importance of taking risks.
· Jay mentions a few books like 'The First 90 days’ where he states that it is a great book if you find yourself in a new job.
Relevant Links
https://www.instagram.com/asianxjay/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondemetillo/
Catch up with Malea Gadoury, the female designer Leading exemplary.
Hello people and welcome to yet another UX episode. In this episode, our host for the show, Pek Pongpaet introduces his guest, he says he's very happy to be synced up with his lovely guest for this episode in Malea Gadoury.
Who is Malea Gadoury?
Malea Gadoury is a stylish hardworking woman who is the Co-Founder at ILK. She grew up in the suburbs of Montreal in Canada and she was also previously head of design for Wonderschool. Malea was at google for about 6 years where she held various roles.
Episode Highlights
- Malea speaks up about how she joined Wonderschool. (A marketplace for early childhood education). She adds that at Wonderschool, they help in providing day-care. She was there for a year before the pandemic struck.
- According to Malea, it's all about exposure. Where she says the majority of what she knows about UX, she learned it from google.
- Pek asks Malea to describe what Google firebase is. Where she sums it as a tool that helps mobile developers be successful.
- They both speak about growth features and Malea expounds a little bit more about AB testing.
- Among some of the interesting stories of her work at Google plus, Malea remembers when they were working on Google plus collections because they wanted to be like Pinterest. She also mentions the time when Tiktok and Instagram came out and then they needed to do reels.
- As the episode rolls on, Malea says that it's really hard to recruit talent in a start-up because you might not have the means or the resources to offer as many perks nor the ability to offer professional development and growth.
- Pek asks Malea for some advice to someone who is a designer and wants to be an entrepreneur. She insists that you should have a mindset that doesn’t waver and always believe in what you want to achieve.
- Pek and Malea both agree that customer communication is very important and that it saves you some real pain. It minimizes the tendency of designing the wrong products.
- As the episode draws to a close, Malea says that anyone who wants to work for google should have a really solid UX process and make sure that they articulate it.
Relevant links:
https://twitter.com/maleagadoury
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maleagadoury/
Nor Sanavongsay, a senior product designer that stands tall.
Who is Nor Sanavongsay?
Nor Sanavongsay is a senior product designer currently working at Workday. The reason why he stands tall in his field is that he tells stories through interactions with storyboards, visual designs, and prototypes. Nor also runs a nonprofit publishing company that mainly focuses on helping southeast Asians tell their stories.
Highlights from the episode:
- Nor says that he read a lot of comic books growing up and he aspired of becoming a comic book artist when he grew up.
- When Nor was trying to discover himself a little bit more, that’s when he realized that they were refugees from Laos escaping the communist regime by coming to the US to have a better life.
- He then talks about how he went to school at NIU, Northern Illinois University, where he enrolled as an illustration major, just because he wanted to pursue a career as a comic book illustrator.
- Nor talks about working at Workday doing design systems and explains how they have a workforce of more than 150 people within his group.
- Pek asks Nor to explain how he communicates about the new changes or updated components to the 150 designers.
- Nor explains how he is now involved with reorganizing the old legacy stuff into new variants.
- Pek intervenes at some point and asks Nor to talk more about analytics and the role it plays in design systems. You’ll hear Nor boldly explaining the role of the analytics panel within Figma.
- Nor says that the most important step that people should always consider when they’re thinking about creating a design system for their organization is the research. Put some effort into the research.
- According to Nor, you know you’ve achieved success when your team can build a layout much quicker than they used to.
- As the episode wears on, a flashing memory comes to Nor’s mind about his time at Zoosk where they had introduced a new thing called couples profile in the dating app. He clarifies that the goal was to make couples share their experiences with their single friends so that they can sign up.
- Asked if he considers other constraints as well and if he consults engineers or people in the business, about what they want to achieve. Nor says he does that and refers to a scenario where they recently hired a chief design officer.
- In the latter minutes of the episode, Nor advises that the best way to learn is to experience. Not forgetting to also make it a habit of eradicating the imposter syndrome mentality.
Relevant Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nor/
https://nor.sanavongsay.com/portfolio/workday/
Who is Prakan Nisarat? A little bit more insight into his life, you'll learn that Prakan Nisarat has a bachelor's degree in graphic design and a master's in marketing communications, as well as an MBA. I know, it sounds a lot right, But that’s his thing. Prakarn started as a traditional graphic designer in advertising in Chicago. Currently, his recent project is working at Lululemon to improve the app and omnichannel experience.
Episode highlights:
- Despite Nisarat’s English being so clear, you’ll realize that he studied the language at a later stage in life.
- Prakan says that he loves US education because you can tie things up. Both men discuss a mutual topic about learning photoshop where Pek intervenes and says how he started learning photoshop with Photoshop 4.
- Prakan then talks about how he ended up at Microsoft, he talks about how he did advertising for a while. Then he says that at his workplace, they gave him a full scholarship, and just like that he thought why not Microsoft, let's do it he says. He then says how he landed a job there helping out as a contractor
- About how they met, Pek discusses how he was exploring the UI of 23 and me. He says, “there was a section in 23 and me that said, Hey, share your DNA with a network, the users. And we'll tell you, we'll notify people who are a match, your genetic match.” He says it was interesting how it revealed to him a list of people on 23rd who had 23 and me.
- Both gentlemen expound about designing interfaces as applications for the healthcare industry
- Halfway through the episode, Prakan tries to explain how he’s trying to bring in a way of thinking in the healthcare industry and how they should fit into people’s lifestyles.
- On health care tips, he emphasizes how double-dosing could ultimately lead to death as hypoglycemia.
- Asked whether designing for different cultures affects his designs at all, he says that they try to do that, but they cannot because they are in the FDA. He further explains the vendor regulations
- Prakan advises the young designers trying to get into the healthcare industry and make a change. He says that they should not make any assumptions and also take responsibility because at the end of the day, your decision-making into this design can impact lives.
Links and Resources:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prakarn/
Website: https://nisarat.info/
Andrew Falcon talks about his experience at Fjord and how things are going, particularly at Accenture. Andrew explains his first day at the studio and how his team thinks extraordinary to grow the organization. Andrew and Pek speak about the role of Fjord in today's world, how Fjord expanded from 200 to 1400 employees. He explains different ways to treat the employees to get better out of them. How his team manages the problems faced by the organization early on and how they cope with them. They also talk about the opportunities produced during the pandemic time and how small organizations should work it out.
As a Managing director at Accenture, Andrew proves a lot about the investment policies and effective business models to help organizations worldwide. He was a COO at Fjord, and during his time, his vision, calmness, and articulate behavior resulted in great success for Fjord. He is on a mission to help small businesses to grow effectively in today's time.
Key Topics:
- How Andrew proves his worth at Accenture after Fjord's success?
- How did Fjord scale sales?
- Why does Andrew think that customer experience is a new way to conquer the designing world during the pandemic time?
- And MUCH MORE!
Resources and Links
- THE FIRST 90 DAYS by Michael D. Watkins
- TO SELL IS HUMAN by Daniel H. Pink
- DRIVE by Daniel H. Pink
- A WHOLE NEW MIND by Daniel H. Pink
- FREE AGENT NATION by Daniel H. Pink
- Andrewmfalcon@gmail.com.
- Andrew Falcon (LinkedIn)
I would love to introduce you all to our guest – Talin Wadsworth. He has been working for Adobe for over 10 years and has so much knowledge to share with us. Talin currently designs creative tools for Adobe and is the co-conspirator behind Adobe XD. He uses research, iterative design, prototyping and storytelling to create the best end-to-end experiences for all Adobe users. For more information about Talin, check out his LinkedIn profile. You will be able to know all about his achievements and career path.
In today’s episode of What is UX Podcast, we dove deep into Adobe XD in the point of view of one of the most important people in the project. To understand all the topics, we learn about Talin’s career from high school until his current job at Adobe.
- How does creativity affect the end result of such a complex project?
- How does finding the right stories, characters, and personas?
- How do we keep our focus, while allowing creativity to act and make the project unique?
- How did Talin develop such a strong technical skillset at such a young age?
We touched on so many interesting points when it comes to editing software, like Adobe and Photoshop and how Talin’s ability to use technology in his favor was a plus, even before his career jump-started to amazing levels. We were able to see that there is a way to turn your passion into a source of income and that there is no such thing as something being “too hard”.
Yes, we could go really technical in this description, but let’s hear every word that Talin has to share in this episode. So, join us in this fascinating episode where experts share their stories and views of their specialties.
For more information and inspiration from Talin, check out his Twitter https://twitter.com/mrtalin?lang=en and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/talinwadsworth/. You don’t want to miss out on the amazing projects he is working on.
If you’re looking for a career at Adobe, check out this link with all the job openings. You have dreams, put them on paper, write a deadline and they become achievable goals.
https://www.adobe.com/careers.html
And to help you prepare for this amazing opportunity, take a look at some up to date, detailed books about Adobe Cloud. These books can be the extra qualification you have that will dictate whether or not you get your dream job.
https://www.peachpit.com/promotions/adobe-creative-cloud-2020-release-books-ebooks-and-142099
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