Links in the Chain: Sarah Donaldson
Job: UX lead/De Facto product manager
Loves: Board Games, Volleyball, Curling, Yoga
Dislikes: Kelowna losing its sense of community
Favourite Token: KIN — loves their plans for implementation
Leaders come in many shapes and forms. Sometimes leaders are overt, commanding bodies of people, or a grand visionary. Others have a quieter approach and lead not through words or dictation but through example and behaviour, inspiring those around them to do the same. Sarah Donaldson, ABL’s UX lead, it is of the latter.
As the UX lead and de-facto project manager swimming in the chaos of Startup-land the one who can keep calm and create process is absolutely essential. It’s this combination of soft skills and efficiency that has quietly but surely become a lynchpin.
For Sarah, UX is a multifaceted role, a huge portion of which involves researching, testing and strategy, not just design.
“Any given day I could be meeting with testers, to actually test the product with them, to see what areas we could make better, what areas are confusing, where they’re conflicted. When it’s I’m doing research I’m talking to users to find out their motivations and their blockers; what they need, to understand better where our product could go to plan features — or I could be sitting and designing the interface, picking the colours, the buttons, shapes and the icons.”
Having worked in tech for just under a decade she’s used to being on the forefront of innovation, however, the sequence of events that lead her to work in blockchain was not so different from many of us.
“In the beginning, I knew about bitcoin a few years ago,” she laughs “but I had no idea what blockchain was.”
Sarah also accredits a portion of her decision to venture into blockchain professionally to her pre-existing relationship with ABL Co-Founder Karen Olsson.
“I had worked with her previously, and I was very confident in her leadership and wanted to work with her again. Her HR practices are great and she’s a huge advocate for diversity and equal rights in the workplace.”
But don’t let her friendly demeanor fool you though, Sarah’s all about the challenge. it’s the environments that force her to learn and adapt that she feels most at home in. A lot of this learning comes not just understanding blockchain, but understanding what it lacks.
“I want us to get to the point where there are less barriers in place for everyday people. Having to go through Metamask, understand wallets and economics, it’s confusing for most people. I want to get to the point where people just use and benefit from the technology without thinking about it.”
And it’s true, one of the biggest barriers to mass adoption is the complex nature of d’apps, keys, wallets and the complexity of blockchain that keep your next door neighbour at bay. It’s a tricky question with no clear answer, but fortunately, we’ve got Sarah.
