Team Spotlight: Kaitlyn Ho, Product designer
Our ongoing Team Spotlight series introduces our UX designers and product managers.
Get to know Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn is probably best known within StashAway for her funky Google Meet backgrounds, often featuring unsuspecting teammates in freeze frames and compositions. It’s just one of the many ways in which Kaitlyn’s creativity surfaces, and enlivens the Product team at StashAway 😅
Kaitlyn’s earnest and occasionally stoic exterior belies a passionate and whimsical designer who’s always eager to learn. She joined the StashAway product team in August 2020, and since the very beginning, has exemplified openness to feedback, hunger for new challenges, sincerity in talking to users, and a rock-solid work ethic to boot.
As a designer, Kaitlyn’s attention to detail shines through in her process and output: whether it’s fine-tuned animation easing, or just the right illustration to succinctly communicate a complex concept, or the cleanest possible flow 👍 Read on to get to know Kaitlyn better!
How did you get into product design?
To be honest I didn’t know what product design was before I joined StashAway. But I had been fascinated with something related very early on in university (UI/Web), and found different ways to discover more and get closer to it and anything design: interned at a start-up and a design agency, switched my major twice, binge-watched design videos (if you know Chris Do, you know), signed up for design courses and a (strange) design jam, and more… I am thankful for my experiences as they helped me to become the designer that I am today.
Do you have a design philosophy?
I always like to remind myself that my core responsibility as a product designer is to simplify for users. What that means is it shouldn’t be effortful (mentally and physically) for users to use our app and achieve their goal, i.e. invest for their future.
https://fs.blog/the-laws-of-simplicity/
What do you find most challenging about product design?
Balancing user goals and business objectives, and working within constraints.
As product designers, we are in some sense the bridge between users and businesses: we get to solve user problems that contribute to business objectives.
However, these user and business goals don’t always align. For example, I felt that a feature proposed by management wouldn’t improve user’s deposit experience significantly, and in fact could deter them from cultivating the habit of investing.
That’s where communication is key. My product manager and I got business stakeholders to paint a better picture of the deposit landscape before deep-diving into design. Having the business perspective helped me to understand constraints and empathise with users on a deeper level. In the end we were able to come up with innovative workarounds that improves user’s deposit experience.
What’s your favourite question to ask users?
“Is there a reason why?” — instead of asking just “why”, I occasionally use odd phrasing just ’cause talking to users can be nerve-wracking 😆
Jokes aside, I always enjoy asking users to introduce themselves. It’s intriguing to see what people do and what motivates them, and seeing how people are unique but also fundamentally similar: we all want a better future despite our varied definitions of “better future”.
What do you wish you knew one year ago?
Good things do come to those who are patient! I’m glad that I didn’t rush into something that I didn’t like fresh out of school and that led me to find a role and an environment that suited me, even if that took more than a year after graduation. (That’s also how I found like-minded people with the same sense of humour!)
StashAway is hiring! Visit our Careers page for a sense of what it’s like to work with us, or check out open positions.
