On Starting Out

My path into Product Design

In a few months, I’ll be graduating from UC Santa Barbara and joining Citrix as an associate product designer.

And I’m pretty damn stoked.

My path into product design was never a straight shot.

Although I’m just starting out, I’m so so grateful for my own windy path, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.

Let’s rewind

At 17, I was a photographer. I spent my weekends capturing weddings and events. From it, I found a love for observing and paying close attention to the minute details. With photographs being my medium, I learned to tell stories. At that age, I was certain that I would be a photographer for the rest of my life.

As much as I loved capturing photos, I became restless and turned to something new — something where I could still explore my creativity. I got into graphic design. As I expanded my skill set within Photoshop, I became fascinated with communicating ideas through pixel-perfect designs. I loved translating storytelling into solutions. Still in high school, I freelanced for local businesses and non-profits. Like photography, this something that I thought I was going to do the rest of my life.

In retrospect, photography and graphic design taught me a lot about myself. I learned to love the process of making things beautiful and seamless. I learned to make the connection between people and ideas and emotion. I learned to understand the big picture, while simultaneously being able to focus in on the minute details.

Opening doors

College bound and stoked to start a new chapter of my life — I quickly learned that coming to UC Santa Barbara didn’t mean I was leaving my creativity in the dust. College opened up new doors for me to explore. I went out of my way to take classes in departments all across campus… psychology, statistics, music, math, history. Sticking with Communication as my major, I branched out and was able to glue together my own interdisciplinary education.

In my second year of college, I stumbled across a class called Interactive Media Theory and Research. The course description sounded badass — and throughout the quarter — proved to be so.

Something clicked. I tuned out the rest of the presentations and frantically started writing down notes along the lines of “can I find a job that lets me see how people use a website and make it better for them?”

I was fascinated by Norman’s exploration on emotional design, and poured over Nass’ classic lab experiments that showed how we empathize with our computers.

I fell in love with studying at the intersection of psychology, communication, and technology.

Diving head first

After taking the class, my curiosity was still burning and I couldn’t help but want to learn more about the field. So I went online, stockpiled my Amazon cart with books, and during my down time — would spend my time devouring them. I started off with Don Norman’s Design of Everyday Things. From there, I branched off and read books spanning usability, interaction design, and user experience.

The more I read about it, the more curious I became, and the more I knew that this was what I wanted to do.

I began to work on small side projects: website redesigns,

However, I felt that there was something missing in just digging my nose into books and dabbling in personal projects.

I needed to get out of my own little bubble.

So I started to attend local meetups, with the understanding that meeting people and getting their take on things — was perhaps the most valuable learning a student could absorb.

I spent hours crafting and sending cold emails to people. This resulted in dozens of meetings over coffee. And today, I’m thankful to say that I have received enough advice and wisdom to fill a couple of Moleskin journals.

Be empathetic, be able to talk to people, ask many many questions, be curious, be patient, and have a burning desire to help people through designing.

— Henry Truong

I loved meeting new people, learning about their paths, and hearing what they had to say about the industry. Over the past year or so, I’ve learned so much from the designers and researchers I’ve met. I’m beyond grateful for their knowledge and insights and personal stories. These are things that I’d never be able to come across by merely reading a book.

When you’re learning, don’t get too locked in. Don’t get too hard on yourself when you make mistakes.

— Pamela Pavliscak

In January, I flew up to Seattle for a conference called ConveyUX, where I was one out of seven students to receive a scholarship to attend. As a student, there really couldn’t have been a better opportunity for me to absorb UX goodness like a sponge. I was surrounded by professionals that started out in the field before it was even called User Experience. I got to talk with Steve Kaneko, a design director at Microsoft, and some really awesome authors, whose books I’ve been able to read right beforehand.

To be completely honest *cue cheesiness* — I felt like I was at home.

In January, I flew up to Seattle for a conference called ConveyUX. I was one out of seven students to receive a scholarship to attend. As a student, there really couldn’t have been a better opportunity for me to learn. I was surrounded by professionals that were in the field before it was even called User Experience. I got to talk with Steve Kaneko, a design director at Microsoft, and some really awesome authors, whose books I’ve been able to read right beforehand.

To be completely honest, *cue cheese* — I felt like I was home.

Hungry

I asked Dr. Lieberman what I could do to get involved in this field. I was hungry to find an opportunity to explore this area. I was simply hooked. Luckily enough, she was the director for the national center for digital games research. She saw the fire in my eyes, and I became her research assistant for the next few months. As her assistant, I got to wear a lot of different hats, participating in usability tests and helping design research studies. I got to work on studies commissioned by awesome companies such as Lumosity. I was also really grateful to have Dr. Lieberman as a close mentor at the time, and is someone who I consider a close friend of mine today.

After my time as a research assistant, I joined Snapwire as a UI/UX Design Intern. Snapwire is a platform that crowdsources stock photography, or in other words, an online platform where people can buy custom-request photos from photographers. I got to wear a lot of different hats surrounding the design of the product — doing everything from helping conduct usability testing to mocking up UI elements for the mobile platforms.

Today

Writing this has made me reflect on the small things that have brought me here and make me look forward to the bigger things that I want to achieve.

I’m glad I decided to get into this industry, and I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be.

Concerning my passion

• There is so much to learn. I have so much to learn. It’s constantly evolving.