My experience as a product designer at Appear Here after one year
I just realised it’s been almost a year since I joined Appear Here as a junior designer. I know everyone says it but… oh boy, it really went fast. It’s been a real rollercoaster since then, so I thought it would be interesting to share my journey as a designer in the Appear Here team.
For those who don’t know, Appear Here is the world’s leading marketplace to rent retail space. An online platform that allows landlords to list their empty space for free, and brands to book it as easily as booking a hotel room. In short, an ‘Airbnb for retail’.
I’m going to briefly talk about:
- The journey: growth of the company and my growth since I started
- The job: projects we’ve been working on and key learnings
- The people: Appear Here’s culture
The journey
My journey at Appear Here actually started as a brand designer for 3 months, but I quickly realised my passion was in product. Don’t get me wrong, I love branding, but I do enjoy the rational aspect of product: the research, the psychology behind the user behaviour, the possibility of testing and iterating a design and the rationale on how it will be built.
I also think that both subjects go hand in hand – product is the focal touchpoint of our brand.
The product team received me really well and since then we have grown enough in size to be able to split into 2 feature teams.
Looking back one year, it is clear how much things have evolved since I first joined. The most obvious one is the team size, which has doubled since then and required us to take over another floor. With amazing people joining throughout the year the product has evolved with the launch of exciting new features that made ideas really happen!
The job
I’m lucky enough to be able to scope my job as a product designer at Appear Here, to embody many aspects of product design. From in-depth user research to the pixel perfect screen, no day is the same.
Here are the main projects I’ve been working on since I joined the product team and also some key learnings along the way:
– Designing exciting new features
When it comes to the early stages of defining any new feature/change, designers work closely with product managers to gather qualitative and quantitative research. Also, at the same time, we start sketching some ideas to quickly discuss with stakeholders and engineers to ‘dig up’ any concerns and relevant feedback. Images are more powerful than words.
When the path becomes clear, we usually start iterating on prototypes until reaching a high-fidelity design and animate it when relevant. This is still an open process where feedback from the team is very welcome.
It is also the time when we test with real users. We usually invite a number of our users to user testing sessions, where we try to understand their journey with our product. As these sessions only represent a small number of users testing in a contained environment, we also stay very attentive to user feedback right after we launch and keep track of user session recordings, by using FullStory.
Key learning: The best time-saving ‘tool’ is to not be afraid of asking ‘dumb’ questions. As much as I think I know the whole picture, there is always someone that has more knowledge about the subject. It is better to be mistaken at the beginning than when hours are spent designing something completely wrong.
– Maintaining and improving our design system
When I joined Appear Here there was already a design system in place, you can take a look at our open source design system, Bloom here. My job, along with the rest of the team is to maintain this library and improve it along the way.
Key learning: Honestly, I think this point is the most difficult to achieve in a very fast paced company with a million things happening. But it is possible! It is just a matter of discipline and common effort. We are still building this mindset.
By the way I’ve been reading this e-book from @designbetter.co and is incredibly useful if you want to learn more about design systems.
– Designing landing pages to promote Appear Here’s new services
For the launch of Appear Here ‘Additions’–a new service allowing brands to book everything they need to set up shop— we’ve created a landing page to share the exciting news with the press and our community.
This was a very time-sensitive project, that came alongside another landing page for one of the additions which featured our line of retail furniture in collaboration with Found.
I was responsible for the two page designs, closely guided by our head of brand and CEO that gave their input and feedback along the way. The design process started with the concept definition and creation of the branding, story, and style of photography (shout-out to our in-house photography team). I won’t go into a lot of detail but, from then it was an iterative process until the approval of the final designs.
Key learning: Always try to push all the stakeholders to agree on the briefing before starting any designs. In such a fast-paced environment it’s crucial to have everyone on the same page before you start designing.
– Improving the current user flow
This one is still in the making, so I will not be able to comment a lot about it. It is a very challenging, but incredibly exciting project that my designer colleague and I are working on. We are essentially reimagining our user flow to accommodate new features.
It might be the biggest and most interesting project that we have in our hands that requires a lot of research as well as continuous testing.
I think you get the idea — it’s a multi-purpose job, after all, we are still a growing startup. In reality, this is the best environment a young designer could ask for since it gives me the opportunity to explore multiple fields within the design landscape.
The people
The culture and the people are what I enjoy the most working at Appear Here!
Everyone breathes Appear Here’s mission and ensures that we make every idea happen! We work as a team and never limit our skills to a job title. We do whatever it takes to always ‘punch above’ (one of our core values).
Curators, Makers, Rule breakers, Questioners & Forward thinkers.
Equally important is how everyone keeps the culture so alive while we quickly grow in size. Friday lunches are just an example of one of the activities involving everyone, and one of the best moments to meet people from different departments.
It starts with a ‘Proud of’ moment before eating – where one by one we pick one person we are proud of – and ends with a casual presentation from every head department (music and sometimes dance involved 🕺) to share weekly updates. It’s a great way to understand what other teams are up to.
Inside the product team, we also have our own programs proposed by the team members. Here are some of my favorites:
- Product lunch: we usually eat together every day but once every two weeks we go to a restaurant and eat outside of the office for a change.
- Friday doughnuts: Friday lunch starts a bit late, so we get some doughnuts in the morning to keep the energy going until then. We are food lovers if you haven’t noticed the pattern.
- Board games evening: we stay after work to play board games and have some beers together. It’s a really fun night.
I hope this post gives you an idea of what Appear Here does and how we work (and play) behind doors.
Want to join our team? Find out more about open roles here. 👋
Looking for a space? or Want to register a space on Appear Here?.
