Meet Jenna, UI/UX designer at Orange Digital
Jenna is a passionate UI/UX designer working at one of the best agencies in Brisbane, Orange Digital. I initially came across their website by coincidence, and was impressed by their stunning work and finely polished designs. I thought it would be lovely if I had the chance to chat with their designers so I reached out to Jenna and dropped her a really long message on Linkedin :) She said YES to this interview and even invited me to their AMAZING office to have a tour.
I had a great latte and a lovely chat with Jenna.
What’s your background and how did you get into design?
Through primary and high school I was always interested in art and loved to draw and paint. My parents were both creatives — Dad was a Furniture Maker/Restorer and Mum taught and practiced Graphic Design at a local university. When it came time to choose what I wanted to study, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be an artist, so I looked into other digital forms of creative expression. I studied Film and Television for a year at QUT before realising digital design was my calling, transferring to a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Interactive & Visual Design.
What’s the process like for a new project coming in and your role as a designer?
Businesses generally reach out to us, starting off with a face-to-face meeting with our sales or technical leads in marketing, design or development.
Let’s say the client is looking to engage us for a web project — we often begin with a Discovery Workshop to define approach, strategy and uncover the business’ short and long term goals. Once the scope of work is agreed upon, they’re allocated to a ‘Circle’ within the agency — a multidisciplinary team made up of a project manager, designers, developers and/or marketing managers.
How does the design team collaborate with each other?
Most of the team collaboration happens cross functionally within the ‘Circle’ as it’s designed to run like mini agencies within the larger company. We also use a ‘design’ slack channel to share inspiration, ask questions and bounce ideas off one another.
What is Askable? And how do you think working in an agency is different from a product company?
Askable is a platform that helps UX designers recruit and manage participants for in-person user testing. Originally born out of Orange Digital’s Innovation program ‘ThinkDo,’ our employees spent two half-days a week to brainstorm and develop new product ideas which eventually lead to Askable. They’re now independent from Orange with their own employees and office!
Within agencies like Orange Digital, you’re working alongside a larger team, servicing and collaborating with clients. Whereas at a startup/product company like Askable, all of your time is invested in developing a product that the team has ownership over. Like anything, there are pros and cons to both!
Working in-house is a whole other story. A few years ago, I spent 12 months working as a Data Journalist/Designer within the Analytics team at Queensland Rail. When compared with an agency, it’s very different when you’re the only specialist in your field, working with only one brand/style guide and managing internal stakeholders rather than external brands and clients.
How do you present design work or communicate design with non-designers?
Avoid design jargon at all costs!
For example, as designers we’re familiar with terms like ‘UX’ and ‘UI’ (user experience and user interface) design, but it’s important to avoid assuming the client is across this too. The definition of ‘UX’ could also mean different things to different people, so I often keep this in the forefront of my mind when presenting and discussing design problems and solutions.
Another tip would be to ensure your design is presented in the right context.
This could involve creating interactive prototypes with a tool like InVision (examples on my website) or a print design mockup of a brochure or billboard in Photoshop. It’s easy for clients and stakeholders to make assumptions around how something works, especially in the early/conceptual stages of design. So the more realistic the ‘vessel’ you present your work in the better! Providing others with a prototype or mockup of your designs and user flows in context allows for a smoother transition between wireframing, prototyping, testing and development.
What’s the most interesting or challenging project you’ve done so far?
One of the larger web projects I’ve led the design for is Aveo Retirement — due to launch this month (July 2019). With over 93 retirement and aged-care communities across Australia, the redesign has been equally challenging and rewarding! I’ve had heavy involvement from the beginning; the initial sales meetings all the way to delivery of the wireframes, design prototypes, usability testing and general project management.
One of the biggest tasks was recrafting the site’s information architecture to vastly improve the user’s experience. With over 150 community microsites sitting externally to their main website, I used a human-centered approach to consolidate and streamline the experience of searching, finding and booking community tours through Aveo. I’ll be publishing a full case study to my portfolio website soon :)
Where do you see your design career 5 years from now?
Well, I’m actually moving to Toronto, Canada on a 2 year working holiday visa in August! I intend on spending the next few years of my career learning and growing as a UI/UX or Product Designer, absorbing as much international knowledge as possible! Who knows where I’ll be by 2024, but I’d love to have transitioned from a digital design specialist to a product manager or leadership role. As long as I’m inspired and collaborating with other creative and passionate individuals, I’m happy!
Where can people contact and follow you?
Portfolio website: www.jennacoles.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jennacoles/
📢 📢 📢 Know anyone hiring in Canada? Send me an email at jennavcoles@gmail.com!
🔥 🔥 🔥Wanna share your design stories or interested in the “Meeting the Designers at Brisbane”? Don’t be shy and drop me a line on Linkedin.
👩🏻 👩🏻 👩🏻 Who’s behind “Meeting the Designers at Brisbane”?
Hey, My name is Chelsea. The person behind “Meeting the designer at Brisbane”. I came to Australia one and a half year ago. I landed at Canberra first and stayed there for about 5 months. Later on, I got a UI/UX design gig from NetEngine at Brisbane. Hooray!
While I’m staying at Brisbane, I’m always as keen as mustard to attend different design meetups and chat with other like-minded people in the community. I also want to dive into the cool design stories behind different industries. Within the limited networking time, I found it’s tricky to systemically know more about those amazing designers.
So that’s sort of why I came to start reaching out to some great and nice designers with different disciplines across the various industries at Brisbane.
