HOW THE LEAD PRODUCT DESIGNER AT SKOOT STAYS MOTIVATED AND DEDICATED TO DESIGNING A GREAT APP

This week we spoke to SKOOT’s Lead Product Designer, Angelika, on what motivates her during work while isolating in Poland!

At SKOOT, Angelika is in charge of the entire process of creating usable features and experiences on the app. This starts with defining the real problems with the app and then providing solutions based on data. The data helps Angelika to understand the user journey and provides key insights that help us create a better app.

Finding motivation when isolating can be quite difficult! Angelika told us that she is motivated by a mixture of things like passion, creativity, autonomy, and competence. Passion is a term the designers use to describe the association between themselves and their work. This means their jobs, is not just a job, it’s who they are! Creativity is a need when creating screens to provide the SKOOT users with a valuable experience. Autonomy is such an important ingredient in Angelika’s motivation! Especially because her work is who she is, so she wants to be proud and take ownership and responsibility of her work. Angelika describes competence as the magic moment when she executes her task, contributing to something with real value, that makes her feel proud of her performance.

Angelika finds she is most motivated from Tuesday to Thursday, and she tries to plan her week, so she has set tasks for each day. On a Friday she will spend most of her time planning out sessions, other meetings, and establishing her to-dos for next week. Thursday, she spends most of her day testing the product with internal and external users. This helps Angelika structure her week so that she can allow for time to also focus on any unexpected tasks that arise.

In the middle of the day, Angelika likes to switch to fewer complex activities, like meetings eg stand-up calls, design reviews, and virtual coffees. Angelika has tried to create an office life at home to help her stay motivated so when she is doing her complex tasks, she will sit at her desk but when things are slightly easier, she will sit on her sofa for a more relaxed environment and enjoy a cup of matcha tea!

Some tasks require more motivation than others if they are challenging or perhaps a bit monotonous. When Angelika is going through the XD stages empathise, define, ideate, and validate, is when she needs more willpower! This is when Angelika needs to acquire an empathic understanding of the problem she is going to solve. She then has to analyse and synthesis her observation based on the core problems that she and her team have identified. Finally, based on the above stages she is ready to start generating ideas! Angelika has to make sure she is thinking out the box and identify new solutions to the problem statement she created before. When Angelika has done all of this, she had to put her reality check cap on to make sure she is validating, via various UX-testing methods, with real users that the proposed concept makes sense for the user journey!

Getting in a routine can help you increase your motivation especially as you can start to focus on the smaller thing even when you’re feeling a little under the weather! Angelika starts her day with a to-do list, she does these at the end of each day and the end of the week! This helps her in the morning as she knows what she has to do and can just get on with it.

Another one of Angelika’s habits to keep herself motivated is jumping between different creative activities like designing digital products and experiences but also designing sounds, and mappings on events or cooking delicious dinners for friends! Sometimes the best ideas come to mind when you’re not working. Lastly, Angelika has a “Sparkling playlist” for any scenario or situation! This helps her stay focused as she will play a certain playlist to help her focus depending on what mood she is in! Angelika wouldn’t be Head of Product Design without having 324 playlists!

Next week we will be talking to Summer SKOOT’s Software Engineer on how to stay motivated and keep a balance between your work and personal life!