Meet Flexport’s UX Team: Elaine Meese, Senior Product Designer
Elaine Meese is a meticulous and thoughtful product designer whose work at Flexport has greatly inspired other designers in the company. She’s based in our Chicago Makers office and has driven design initiatives for our Air, Warehouse, and Trucking products.
This week we sat down for a cup of coffee with Elaine and discussed her journey as a designer and experience at Flexport.
How did you get into product design?
I started out focusing on print and web design at a small studio. I honed my visual design skills there while also becoming interested in the relationship between design and business. I shifted gears to innovation consulting, where it was all about leveraging design thinking to transform enterprises. From there I moved into product design, and found it to be a brilliant combination of my favorite things from these prior experiences. Sitting at the merger of business objectives, user needs, technology, and visual design is a fascinating place to be. I wouldn’t have it any other way!
So you don’t have previous experience designing for Air, Warehouse, or Trucking. Was it hard to get up to speed?
This industry is enormously complex and there’s definitely a learning curve associated with that, but I view this as a very positive thing. At Flexport, the work is never boring. There’s always a ton to learn, and in my experience, the most complex design problems are also the most fun to solve. The scale of the impact we’re able to have here is inspiring. Part of what makes us successful is that many of us come to the industry with a fresh perspective, unburdened by an expectation of how things have always been. We’re free to imagine what it could become.
What types of design challenges will you be working on in the coming year?
There are some new teams starting up in the Chicago office this year, which means lots of opportunities for research. We’ll be learning about needs associated with moving freight in China and assessing the ways in which tech can improve efficiencies for warehouses. I’ll also be working on web and mobile products for moving freight via multiple modes of transportation. Our products support a huge variety of use cases, so I’ll be designing features that will be used by diverse personas.
What’s the design culture like at Flexport? How do you stay connected with most of the team based in San Francisco?
Our design and research team is full of wonderful people who are eager to share what they’ve learned and help one another do their best work. It’s so easy to stay connected with the team from Chicago. There are weekly video conference meetings and several venues for critique. Our design system team makes staying in sync with the latest component updates effortless. I was recently able to join the team for an offsite in San Francisco, and my manager just visited Chicago. Adding in-person visits to remote communication allows us to build great relationships.
Creative outlets are so important to have as a designer, what do you like to do when you’re not designing to help inspire your work?
If I go too long without some sort of personal project I start to go a little crazy. I love to make all kinds of things. Sometimes I create botanical illustrations, which I sell as prints on Etsy. Or I’ll try out a new recipe. Interior design is another favorite; I’m constantly taking in my surroundings to study different styles and making mental notes of complementary colors and textures. My absolute favorite thing to do is to travel to beautiful places, escape the city, and take in the quiet of nature. It helps me gain a clearer understanding of my own priorities.
Anything else you’d like to share?
The thing that most excites me about Flexport is how wildly ambitious our goal is: to make global trade easy for everyone. This is the industry that connects people with goods from across the world and we have an opportunity to transform it. I’m looking forward to watching the impact of our work unfold.
Interested in helping Elaine make global trade easy for everyone? Connect with Elaine on LinkedIn and take a look at the available opportunities on our career page.
