Define Your Own Value — with Alan Cheng
Alan Cheng is designer who helps businesses grow by using user research driven design methodologies to create impactful, humanistic digital experiences for their existing and potential customers at PALO IT.
What inspired you to pursue design? How did you start getting into it?
I started design midway through my career as I was not trained as a designer during my studies. I studied psychology and communications. I got into tech by chance right after I graduated. From then on, I realized that I’m very interested in tech. Based on my experience and skills, one of the more suitable paths within tech would be design, more specifically UI and UX design. That’s when I tried to seek out some education to learn about design. After a boot camp, I got my first job as a designer at EPAM.
What was your main motivation to transition to design?
I guess I just enjoy solving problems. Design allows you to do that in a very fun and exciting way. I’m not looking at a spreadsheet or numbers. It’s more visual, and it allows me to tap into the psychology side of things, which I was quite interested in as well.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced with design?
Communicating the value of design to non-designers in a very digestible way. People often have assumptions about design, and they will shape what designers do around those assumptions. They’re not always correct. As designers, it’s part of our job to help those people understand what design actually is, especially when they are your clients, stakeholders, your colleagues, etc.
How did you overcome these challenges?
I don’t have a hard and fast way because it’s a case-by-case thing. You have to first understand what assumptions the person has. Then, figure out the gaps you need to fill. I guess I overcome this challenge by empathizing with them. Ask more questions about their understanding and try to get into their perspective as much as possible.
What does a typical day look like for you?
It depends on whether I’m working from home or the office. My day usually starts with checking emails and then participating in stand-up. Then I will get a coffee and go through my to-do list or Kanban board to complete some design tasks. To take some breaks, I will scroll through social media or look for some inspirations on Muzli. I’ll wrap up the day by listening to a half-hour-long video and falling asleep to them. The video might be a documentary or one of those current affairs videos, so it’s like listening to a podcast.
What is your current workspace setup?
What are your go-to or “must-have” apps?
- Figma
- Spotify
- Leave Home Safe
- Teams
Is there a product that recently impressed you? Can be digital or physical.
My watch. It’s a mechanical watch that can tell you the time, date, month, day of the week, and also what phase the moon is in. I find it quite fascinating that so many features can be fit into one tiny object, which is not even an electronic watch.
What is your favorite part about Figma?
When I first joined PALO IT, we were using Sketch and I was the first person to use Figma. I pushed for Figma as I saw difficulties in collaborating with non-designers while using Sketch or other design apps at that time.
Being able to easily share designs to non-designers via a link and having them comment on the designs directly is very powerful. Within my projects, I encourage my fellow designers to use and leverage the comment function as much as they can because it’s a very quick and easy way to get feedback.
How did you introduce Figma to your team? Have you faced any challenges?
It was surprisingly smooth, probably because the design team was really small by then. One challenge would be introducing Figma to someone who has never used any design software. If you are a Figma user, I would suggest you have a Figma tutorial always ready in your files.
What is your favorite afternoon snack? Or midnight snack?
Afternoon: French toast
Midnight: Red Rock Deli chips
What is a book you read recently? Or what is your favorite book?
Recent: The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten
This book is a very light read on philosophy — I’ve always been interested in philosophy. The book has 100 short stories, and each of them is one or two pages long. Each one explores a different philosophical question in a very digestible bite-size. If you are interested in philosophy, it’s a fun book to read.
Favorite: Kane and Abel
It’s a period piece about two very different people becoming rivals as fate somehow brought their paths together. It’s a very intriguing story and the writing is very captivating. It’s one of those books that you pick up and suddenly read for three hours.
What’s something in Hong Kong that inspires you? Could be a person, a place, an object, or anything in HK!
The diversity — there are so many things happening all the time. It’s a place that you never get bored of. The duality of this place is also very inspiring, especially when I was younger, this place has been a clash of eastern and western cultures. As I grew up, I was very conscious of not just going into or choosing one side. I try to keep both the eastern and western sides of things close to me.
Share three pieces of advice for fellow design community members.
- A great designer is not someone who knows everything about design, but someone who knows something about everything
I received this advice when I started my career in design. Designers should not ignore or neglect the importance of other knowledge fields whether you’re specialized or not. As a designer, no matter what you’re working on, knowing more about different things gives you the ability to see things from a wider perspective. As designers, we are dealing with people, who are extremely complex. To deal with this complexity, we need to be used to jumping from one perspective to another. - Learn about Imposter Syndrome
Read about it, find YouTube videos about it, because it will happen to you. It usually happens to people in the creative industry. So find someone who you can talk to about it, and know that it happens even to the best of us. It doesn’t matter how much experience you have, it doesn’t matter how skilled you are, it will happen. - You have to understand that the quality of your work does not equal your value.
Sometimes projects don’t go as planned and it is often due to external factors. You don’t need to take failures personally. That goes the same for success. You may have a very successful project, but there are a lot of factors that go into that success. So you shouldn’t be too full of yourself as well.
What are three topics people can chat about with you?
Design, Philosophy, Watches
How can people reach out to connect with you?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlycheng
Instagram : @yinoc
We hope you enjoyed this interview with our featured designer! This is part of a series and we’ll be talking to more designers from our community. Stay tuned and reach out if you wish to be featured.
About Us:
We are Friends of Figma Hong Kong 🇭🇰, a design community based in Hong Kong. Join us in our Discord server and check out our website.
我們是 Friends of Figma Hong Kong 🇭🇰，一個由設計主導的社群，立即加入我們的網上 Discord 群組及瀏覽我們的網頁，留意最新Figma的最新動向。
