4 Things I’ve Learned in My First 2 Months as a Product Designer at First Circle

Frances To
Nov 8 · 4 min read

As a fresh graduate, I was eager to work at a product company and kickstart my design career. First Circle provided me with that opportunity. Now, I’ve been working there as a product designer for 2 months.

There’s so much I don’t know about product design yet, and that’s what makes working at First Circle interesting — each week, I get to learn something new, whether it’s facilitating an ideation session or designing a password reset flow.

Here are four things I’ve learned so far, and each month, I hope to learn more.

1. You’ll never learn unless you ask questions.

Me asking CSJ some questions

I had many questions in my head during my first 2 months — what is happening in the meeting? How do you use FullStory? How do you do a query on Metabase? Why is a one-time password feature hard to implement?

While I had a lot of questions, I was also afraid of asking them. I thought my questions were silly and would only make me look dumb. Perhaps everyone but me knows the answer to my questions. Maybe I should just keep to myself?

In reality, by not asking questions, I was handicapping myself from growing as a designer.

Although I can always google the terms I don’t know, doing so isn’t the fastest and most productive way to learn. In fact, if I didn’t ask questions, I wouldn’t know if my understanding of a given topic was correct or not.

Asking people questions, however, helps you grow as a designer. This is because by doing this, you achieve two things. First, you bridge gaps in your understanding of a certain concept. Second, you reinforce your learning by asking follow-up questions. This gives clarity to the things you know you don’t know, as well as the things you don’t know that you don’t know.

2. Learning becomes more memorable when you’re doing unfamiliar things and making mistakes.

During my university days, I’d come across articles such as “What is a Design Sprint” and “How to Build a Better Product with UX Writing” online. I’d usually give these articles a read, and maybe learn a thing or two about design. While I understood what I read, I wasn’t able to relate to everything that was discussed in these articles. Give it a few days, and I would forget 80% of what I read.

Only after my first month at First Circle did I start to relate and internalize the concepts more deeply. That was because I was experiencing things firsthand instead of passively consuming content online.

Some of the things I did in First Circle were unfamiliar to me, and I definitely made mistakes along the way. However, I noticed that I learned most effectively when I had to figure out something I didn’t know or when I had to learn from failure. After all, experience is the best teacher.

3. Product design is a collaborative discipline

Different departments collaborating together during an ideation session

One day, I was asked to review three designs for a certain part of the customer journey. Except for a few screens, all three designs seemed fine — Usability? Check. Visual design? Check. Information architecture? Check. Everything seemed like a “check” to me.

For another person on a different team, however, the designs were problematic — they could negatively affect some areas of the business both internally and externally. “That’s odd,” I told myself, “How come I didn’t foresee these problems?”

Truth be told, I was assessing the designs only from one point of view — a designer’s point of view. However, by collaborating with people from departments such as Sales and Risk Operations, I can get a better picture of how the designs could affect the business as a whole.

4. Prioritize outcomes over outputs

It’s even part of the First Circle sticker pack!

I used to think that to be an effective designer is to execute whatever tasks you have well and on time. While it’s great to produce quality output, I also realized that it’s important to know the bigger picture, the outcome. This includes knowing what problems the team is trying to solve and how success might look like once the problem has been solved.

For example, if I’m being asked to design a password reset flow, instead of focusing on things like creating mockups or wireframes, I need to think more about how it impacts the business as a whole. Will the number of verified accounts increase? Will this help users access their accounts more quickly?

In summary

There’s so much information to absorb at First Circle. Every week is an opportunity to do something unfamiliar and new. While I’ve been at First Circle for only 2 months, I’ve learned a lot from all the amazing and talented people there — CSJ, Brian, Jan, Alastair, and GM — just to name a few, and I’m hoping to learn more in the months to come.

CX @ First Circle

Insights from the Customer Experience team (Product, Design, and Research) at First Circle

Frances To

Written by

Illustrator and Product Designer at First Circle || Born and raised in Manila, Philippines https://www.instagram.com/francescto/

CX @ First Circle

Insights from the Customer Experience team (Product, Design, and Research) at First Circle

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