UX Designer Antonija Pek: “Go forward with your dreams!”
Last March, during The School of Startups, I had the opportunity to meet Antonija Pek, who was having a workshop about User Experience (UX) Design. She was passionate, self-confident, and dominant over the subject.
She enjoys working with UX-UI design because she likes to detect a problem, solve it, see numbers, change and have happy users
She was born in Croatia, completed a Bachelor’s degree in textile engineering, and later got her first job. Over a year later she moved to Finland with the plan to improve her professional life.
Currently, she works at Singa as a product designer. She told me:
“ This term [product designer] is more accurate for me because it includes a lot of competences like defining the audience, making UX, proceeding to User Interface (UI), selling and marketing…”
Even though designing is one of her main drivers, Antonija manages to fit taekwondo, coding, developing side products and of course spending time with her partner into her schedule. She is also a big animal lover.
“Months ago, when I was in Croatia I talked to the biggest animal association to collaborate with a Finnish organization”.
Eventually, she takes this passion and combines it with digital operation by developing an online service for animal adoption in her home country. She hopes that in the future it can be extended to other countries.
“Gender doesn’t produce any obstacle for me. I know what I am worth, my skill set is worthy, so I do not let my gender push me away from my goals”
Antonija knew that she was going towards changing her career because she was more into design than the previous studies she did. In fact, most of her digital design knowledge was self-study during her free time.
It is believed that men dominate the tech industry. However, statistically speaking, women are driving toward this circle more and more by getting engaged in the design area.
Antonija told me smoothly that so far in Finland she has not experienced any oppression for being a woman.
GETLEZ.COM: a new dating app for lesbians
Antonija is an active person. Months ago, she launched a new app called Getlez, a new dating app for lesbians available on the App Store and soon on Google Play.
“I discovered that this market is never chuck-full and there are a lot of opportunities to develop services and products.”
This startup is in its first phase. She is looking for co-founders, team members, funding and business advisors.
Bits of Advice by Antonija for people who are interested in learning product design
I had an intense and engaging conversation with Antonija. It is my pleasure to conclude this article with some suggestions she gave to everyone who is interested in learning more about UX Design:
· There are a lot of articles, books, videos, and online pages about UX Design.
· Meet and contact UX Designers and exchange ideas about the topic.
· Join Slack groups to connect with other designers.
· IT industry is growing like mushrooms, so there are lots of opportunities all around the globe.
· Being a UX Designer means asking questions and start doing it right away.
· Just believe in yourself and go forward with your dreams.
· Don´t let bad people bring you down, keep focused!
