Beyond the px — InVision’s Martha Bergmann on collaboration and not working weekends

Published in

8px Magazine

6 min readJan 25, 2022

Welcome to January 2022’s Beyond the PX. This month we have Martha Bergmann, who works for InVision out of sunny California.

Enjoy.

Can you explain briefly who InVision are and what they do?

InVision provides visual collaboration tools that help teams come together to ideate, plan and work in a flexible and inclusive setting.
The heart of InVision is our digital whiteboard, Freehand, which transforms collaboration from a static, siloed experience to one that is simple, intuitive, and fun.

What has been your design journey up until now?

I first really dove into the world of design at Kent State University where I got a degree in Visual Communication Design. I took courses about different mediums of design and got exposure to exhibit design when I interned at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
What really stuck out to me most though were the courses that focused on digital design. I took a responsive web design class that peaked my interest even further. I grew up in the digital world and was crafting narratives about my beanie babies with PowerPoints or iMovie stop motion videos made in MS Paint. So I think because of that, digital design felt like home to me.
After I graduated I worked at Progressive Insurance, where I focused on their website and agency quoting platform. The quoting platform was my first experience learning about power users and product design. The most humbling thing was learning about the needs of agent’s and working to make their jobs easier. It was this piece that drew me further into the world of product design, which is what led me to InVision.

What does your typical morning look like?

Since InVision is fully distributed I often have early morning meetings to accommodate people working on the East Coast or in Europe. I’ll wake up about an hour before my first meeting, take my dog outside, and then brew a simple cup of coffee with my french press.

What does your design tool stack look like?

I spend most of my time in InVision Freehand doing design thinking work and getting alignment with stakeholders. For design work I dabble in Figma but primarily work in Sketch.

Do you have any design hacks?

Product designers don’t work independently and that’s a wonderful thing because collaboration really is at the heart of a great solution. There are certain points throughout a project where I love to pull in different stakeholders and get alignment. What this typically looks like is a Freehand where I can put something down for all of us to critique or react to, such as a stack-ranking of our feature priorities. It helps to have those moments to check in often to prevent a work-stream from going in circles.

Do your career aspirations encroach your life?

I think the word encroach is interesting here because I do feel that at times it’s difficult to just turn off that problem solving part of my brain. I have to very intentionally tell myself to be okay with just letting things be. It’s really no surprise that one of my favorite hobbies is dog training since that’s all about problem solving and improving certain skills.
Another way I help to calm down that part of my brain is that I’ll take a full step away from work on the weekends. Absolutely no work. I try to not even think about work problems to keep that brain space contained during the week. Try being the crucial word here; there are exceptions of course.
With a remote job my hours during the week are flexible and I do allow myself time in the evenings if I want to dig into work a bit more after taking a break in the afternoon.

How do you design ‘for the future’?

As with many things there is a natural tension that happens between creating experiences that people ask for explicitly and creating experiences that people will benefit from but might not have even considered. The latter is a good example of designing for the future and thinking of new and innovative ways to solve customer’s problems.
Digging deep into the problem space, rather than just looking at visual design, can help to make sure that the solutions are cliche or surface level.

Can you explain the team dynamic?

The product design team at InVision is organized based on product area. We have teams of engineers and then an engineering manager, product manager and designer who lead that team. Those teams then are grouped further into a larger product zone which helps to keep the teams working together towards their larger initiative.
I work regularly with the other product designers, engineers, product managers and engineering managers along with our product and design leadership. I also work closely with our team of researchers.

Will your product exist in ten years time?

The way we work has changed forever. The need for teams to collaborate when they can’t be physically together will remain a challenge indefinitely. And while we believe that remote working has created new challenges, it has also revealed an issue that has been there all along: people struggle with collaboration.
InVision made its name helping design teams create the world’s best digital products and building a clearer path to design maturity. That said, we’re constantly challenging ourselves to evolve with the needs of the industry. That led us into new territory by bringing those two streams together and pioneering visual collaboration. Now, we’re taking what we’ve learned and built, and expanding our reach to designers and non-designers alike.
Freehand helps every team tap into the creative spirit that makes every brainstorm, planning or prototyping session an iterative, inclusive process where all voices and ideas are heard. Beyond a digital canvas where teams can collaborate, Freehand serves as a unified workspace that breaks down silos by enabling teams to centralize the documents and processes native to their own workstreams. And through third-party integrations, Freehand can further serve as the foundation for iterating and refining work through a much-needed collaborative, single source of truth.

What are your thoughts on burnout?

I think burnout is a very real concern and is something I’ve dealt with in the past. Most of us are in this industry because we are passionate about it, which is a wonderful thing but can make taking steps back harder. When the pandemic first started in 2020 I was working on a riveting work project and I coped by pouring myself into that project and working late into the evenings. It took me a while to recognize that how I was working, though I was enjoying it, wasn’t sustainable.
Now I take the approach where my weekends are free from work and my hours during the week are flexible. I start my day early because of being on the West Coast and I might take a long break in the afternoon and do more focused work in the evening. I intentionally chose to work outside the standard 9–5 and I’m privileged to be able to have the opportunity to do so.

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