Between two Product Designers;
Anojen Jeyapalan and Sarina sit down for a table tennis-style interview.
Forward;
The article is written by two product designers who have decided to share their perspectives and working styles in order to emphasize that there is no one or right way to utilize design. They aim to provide a well-rounded insight into real examples of working styles by discussing the importance of effective communication, critical thinking, and sharing work in the design process. The article is an experiment in sharing multiple perspectives on design, rather than the perspective of one singular person as seen in other medium articles on design.
It’s all about communication;
Can you share a time when you switched up your communication style?
Sarina — “It’s funny to think the time that I switched up my communication style involved no direct communication. I switched up my communication style by not meeting (digital or virtual) for 2 weeks. The goal of this challenge week was to get creative; to think about the quality of communication and the quantity. Using tools like Loom, Vidyard, and Slack video recording helped me communicate in both an auditory and visual way without having to have meetings. It was a great method that allowed quality documentation and sped up the communication process.”
Does your communication style change throughout the design process?
Anojen Jeyapalan — “Towards the initial phase of a project, most communication is about the vision and purpose. Understanding why we are working on this, who we are building for, and how we might be able to achieve our goals. Once established, the communication shifts into the nitty gritty details of the design and implementation. Communicating specific points around the visual and interactive elements of the design and working with engineers to ensure intended implementation.”
What's your most effective communication method?
Sarina — “When working in groups such as a triad or a product focus area, communication is most effective when everyone is in the room. The reduction of multiple areas in which communication crossover happens is the best communication method.
When you have everyone in the same room at the same time using one source of truth, it enhances and strengthens alignment. Thinking about effective communication, I have always found the best solution is to question: how can we stay effectively aligned as a group?”
Critical thinking sounds fancy but it's not;
Share a resource available to you that deepens your critical thinking.
Anojen Jeyapalan — “One of the best resources available to designers at Auth0 is our insights repository (set up by our fantastic research operations team). There is great feedback and information from the interviews we conduct, and the research team is always willing to work with designers to conduct new studies to have all the information we need to work on a project.”
… And how did you get better at critically thinking?
Sarina — “The best way I found to strengthen how to think critically about solutions is through Systems thinking. Working on design systems helped me to think systematically and widen my range of understanding of the product.
This not only helped me to strengthen my critical thinking but help me to think efficiently about the problems and solutions I was designing. Because I had a mental inventory of components and how they are implemented, I could make better decisions about effective and efficient solutions. It also helped me to communicate better with stakeholders because I understood the product constraints.”
Literally, sharing is caring;
Tell me about the outlets that are in place for you to share your work.
Anojen Jeyapalan — “The design team here at Auth0 has set up multiple areas for designers to share and get feedback on their work. One example is our work-in-progress channel on slack, where we can throw any idea or design to get some eyes and quick feedback on any stage of our design work. I also have sessions with my PM and some engineers on the team to ensure I capture feedback that’s not only from the design team.”
Image Description; “Morning team! I’ve been working on designs for the notification migration. For some context, support center is deprecating and now needs a new home to display all in-app notifications (announcements, API misuse, billing…). For the MVP we are looking to create a notification dashboard page, which displays all notifications, that is accessible from the notification panel. Feedback I’m looking for specifically:
1. Overall flow, 2. I’ve dusted off some old ideas to update the notification cards and panel to call out some actions and create some grouping, 3. Any edge cases that are missing or overall concerns. Here is the link to the file, feel free to drop comments in Figma or this thread”
Sarina — “1:1 with PM. I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again your product manager should be your best friend! They are a wealth of knowledge and can help you stay in the loop with business objectives, roadmap priorities, and get ahead of customers' needs to work smarter, not harder. Sharing your work with your PM helps to ensure alignment and thoughtful scope, tremendously speeding up the process.”
You give and you get;
Where in your design process do you lean on feedback and what kind?
Anojen Jeyapalan — “Two areas of the process stand out to me in collecting feedback. The first is the initial ideation stage, where I lean on my PM and engineers. I present my ideas and do a quick sanity check to ensure nothing seems too out of the ordinary. Also, leaning on engineers to better understand the technical limitations of the project. The second area is when designs are close to completion. This is where I will rope in other designers to verify that the current design is consistent with other experiences in the product and that I’m not missing any critical details.”
What type of feedback do you like to give to your peers?
Sarina — “Someone once told me as feedback; that I should try to be a lazy designer. (Shout out to the best mentor, you know who you are) Being a lazy designer means you are freeing up your time by using a lean UX practice, ensuring you deeply understand the problem and highlighting solutions based on scope.
When giving others feedback about being a “lazy designer”, I like to consider and ask how are you helping yourself to spend less time on a solution and more time on the things that help to ensure it’s the right solution. To do this I like to give feedback on; what data and research are used to validate/measure your solution and its successes pre and post-release.”
Pixelated performance;
Working from home changes how you perform and work, what have you noticed?
Anojen Jeyapalan — “Being in the office helped create organic conversations and it was easy to nudge the person beside you for some quick feedback or thoughts on a topic. With being at home I think it’s important to stay connected with your team by checking in frequently and sharing work more often through means of slack or setting up meetings.”
Sarina — “Interestingly enough, I’ve not worked from home. I started my career as a product designer just before the pandemic. It’s forced me to be better at being a good communicator and staying organized to ensure I communicate with stakeholders clearly and concisely. As a neurodivergent person, working from home allows me to utilize my time to ensure I was not exhaustively using my brainpower. This ultimately helps stay creative and have enough space to think critically!”
Pleasure or Pain;
Do you view pressure as a good or bad tool…elaborate on why?
Anojen Jeyapalan — “This depends on the situation. I believe pressure can push you to your limits and enables you to think and act quickly which allows for faster problem-solving. With that being said, some problems I feel need more time and attention where you may need several stakeholders' opinions and a better understanding of the problem which may take time. Adding pressure to those situations may lead to a messy and rushed result.”
Sarina — “Have you ever heard of the idea that starting on a blank page is a lot harder than starting off with a prompt?
I use pressure as a constraint to help me guide my practice by being able to say yes or no to something because of costs, time and other resource limitations. By pressure creating limitations and constraints, it helps me think critically about what really matters and how to be able to use lean UX as a way of working in an iterative and agile approach.”
No “I” in, lead or we or team;
What can you define as a team player?
Anojen Jeyapalan — “A team player in my eyes contributes not only to their individual work but supports other team members in their efforts. Lending a hand, providing feedback, and being a soundboard to bounce ideas off is just a few of the things an excellent team player does.”
Sarina — “I can only define someone as a team player based on my learnings through the countless mistakes I’ve made (haha). That being said;
- Staying aligned with your teammates and within your objectives helps you as an individual and helps your teammates out. In the end, alignment is about moving together as a team.
- Being transparent in your process and how you work helps to build an understanding of how you tackle problem shaping and solutions. It helps to give insight and knowledge to your stakeholders, ultimately helping with alignment.
To summarize, if someone is constantly thinking through how they are creating alignment and transparency, they own their processes and craft = a team player.”
Explain how being an individual team player is important.
Anojen Jeyapalan — “If all team players were to solely focus on their own initiatives it would enable a lack of consistency throughout the product and create an environment where collaboration does not exist. Understanding other team members’ work, why their work is important, and how you can help creates cohesiveness within the team. Collaborating as a team player allows for new perspectives and approaches to solving problems that may not be evident when solving problems independently.”
In what ways has being a team player affected your design craft?
Sarina — “I think being a team player has helped me own my decision-making processes and helped me get closer to my team to build trust, consistency, and autonomy.
I think a lot of designers often start out as perfectionists, and by focusing on being a team player through transparency and alignment, I have been able to work faster and smarter and also spend time building my own design skills.”
What are some things you do with your team outside of your day-to-day work to stay connected?
Sarina — “One of the things I like to do is create 1:1 coffee chats to catch up with what my teammates are up to inside and outside of work. Also like sharing external resources like articles or videos related to my teammates’ work to stay connected.”
Anojen Jeyapalan— “The team does a lot to stay connected from sharing music to meeting up with others in the same area. Fortunately, we’ve been able to come together as a team to have in-office days and socials where we are able to stay connected. At some of our office meetups, we spent time watching hackathon finals, getting some good eats together and even playing some mini golf!”
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