Ales Nesetril
UI/UX designer currently working at STRV between Prague and San Francisco
Ales Nesetril is a UI and UX designer with 5 years of experience, currently working at STRV between Prague and San Francisco for various startups and established brands.
When your friends or parents ask you what job you do, how do you answer?
Well, they actually know a lot about what I’m doing. I started with basic “I design websites” some time ago and then talked more specific. Now they even ask me about projects or clients I work for and if they can see my work somewhere on the internet or TV (because some brands I worked with had TV ads as well).
What is your background, and how did you train?
I am self- thought designer. I started on high school, just playing with various tools, experimented with coding and other web stuff. Just like everyone else. Later on I realized that I have a passion for design and the whole “thinking” behind making a website or app.
My first design job I remember was just coloring website templates for a local agency. I basically started from the smallest tasks, but they became bigger and more sophisticated over time. Since I was able to handle the whole project by myself I worked with several U.S. based clients to train language skills and earn experience in designing sites and apps from scratch. Part of my career is also build on top of various side projects that I created in free time.
What can the web do to make this world a better place? How has the web improved your life (if it has)?
Definitely. Look how everything is connected right now. You can order a product or service in seconds. Our laptops and smartphones are remote controls for a real life and also ultimate source of information and knowledge. The only problem I see is that we are too much overloaded with all these information from multiple sources (both trusted and fake) and sometimes it’s hard to guess what is true.
Web (or internet in overall) really improved my life in terms of communication and showing my work. Any tweet or email can find it’s way to someone special and create a new opportunity or start a friendship.
Can you show us three examples of interfaces that in your opinion have improved human life?
One of the first thing that comes to my mind is Macintosh or Win 95. As you know all computers before first GUI were just like basic command line. GUI and operating systems revolutionized the way we started interacting with computers. Maybe the second thing that is similar (and it’s could sound like a cliché) is first iPhone. Look at the smartphones before iPhone and after. And the last thing could be “no-touch interfaces” like Kinnect, Siri or Google Glass. Maybe this is the future of iteration and interfaces.
On quora.com some time ago, there was a long discussion in answer to the question “what is the most intuitive interface ever created?”; according to Felipe Rocha it is the nipple. In your opinion, what is it?
Interesting question. Never actually thought about that before. From technology point of view I think multi-touch display or just touch displays. Every little kit nowadays knows how to use tablet, right? It’s the first generation that knows how to interact with technology sooner than being able to know how to write.
What is your typical workday like?
Morning is for planning or setting up the whole day. What should I do first? What are my 3 most important must-haves for today? What can I skip? Is there anything I could do later in the evening? Anything new happened over night? For me it’s a great kick off and I don’t need to think about it for the rest of the day. I don’t have any regular working hours but I’m trying to keep myself organized and plan everything upfront.
After my lunch I walk to our agency’s office (about 15 min walk in the center of Prague) and I do all my creative work during the afternoon. I prefer the hardest task to come first and then slow down before evening to not feel so stressed or overworked. I don’t want to leave an office with some pending email or unfinished update.
An evening is a typical time to do some personal work or side projects, just to relax and calm down. If I can spare a few hours I’m designing anything that comes on my mind or just read random articles I saved during the day. My evening is basically practice and learning for the next day.
What is the most stimulating and challenging project you have accomplished?
Some of the latest projects I’m working on right now are the biggest challenges I every faced. There is an app for one of the world’s biggest airlines or another project that could be a new way for consuming and sharing news on the internet. I never worked on so detail-oriented projects before and the biggest challenger for me is to communicate every piece of the design right and working closely with developers to try revolutionary things we never tried before.
Among existing digital services, what is the one you wanted to do?
Spotify or SoundCloud. I’m a big electronic music fan and I would really fall in love with any music service out there. One of my biggest dreams is to actually meet some of the DJs and producers in person and have a little chat with them about the similarities in creative process between DJs and designers. What I really miss in design community is some kind of collaboration and “featuring”, same way how musicians work on songs together.
Many designers make the mistake of starting a project directly from Photoshop: is there a perfect design method? What is your approach to the creative process?
I think there is no golden method or something. It’s up to everyone. I tried a few different options and evolved them over time. As you said, I always made the same mistake with being super excited and jumping right into Photoshop. But in the middle I realized I don’t understand what I’m working on or even don’t have content I wanted to use. The more I learned about UX, the more I realized how important it is.
Right now I spend a lot more time on UX, especially doing research and gathering information before I do first sketch. If I do a great research and strategy I’m super fast in creating prototypes and iterating over them. I use the exact sizes for elements or fonts as well, so once client approves prototype I’m basically halfway done with UI as well. The second part of the project is just having fun with visuals.
“Design” is an important part of our analogic life. What is the role of the designer in our digital life?
Our main goal is to organize and present the right information or features in the right moment and form for other people across all media channels.
Do you believe it is important for a designer to have a deep knowledge of matters such as User Experience, Interaction Design, Product Design, and Front-end Development?
Absolutely. Being a generalist is great for designers. I prefer to be focused just on one thing I can do the best, but also explore more and more similar skills that could be useful for me or shape my future path. The best way to learn it is a real experience or request from client’s side. Then it comes to exploring and learning new things that could expand your knowledge.
How do you make a difference between User Interface and user experience?
For me user experience is the most important part of the project. As Anton&Irene said “If you do UX before design it will be boring, if you do design before UX it will be disaster”.
More information you get = the more you understand the project and can choose the right approach and strategy. I do a lot of research and exploration to fully get into what I’m actually building. Prototype is worth of thousand screenshots and I personally do a lot of video presentations instead of writing long specs for clients to make sure they understand every decisions I made and why.
A lot of people think that UX are just wireframes, but that’s not true. If I’m doing UX I’m working on every single part of the project from sitemap, framework, information architecture, usage patterns, usability to content, interactions, animations or even the right language in copywriting. Everything is part of the entire experience.
User interface for me means just visual layer applied over UX. Playing with colors, fonts, styles, just simply being creative and work with all information you gathered and prototyped before.
What is your relationship with developers? There are people that have a relationship of continuous confrontation and others of deep friendship: where do you fall with respect to this question?
I work with developers on daily (sometimes hourly) basis. We have a team of 60 developers in our agency and I can’t say a bad word about our cooperation. If you share the same vision, you don’t need to do compromises or fight about stuff. We just strive for the best solution together and for me it means to be developer’s best friend.
It’s not just about keeping your source files organized, help with exports or animations but also involve them in the process from the start. It’s better to discuss problematic parts before you start designing them or do an UX overview when the first prototype is done. Sometimes they can notice something I forgot about or implemented in a bad way and we as a designers do the same thing in the development process later. Just constantly checking each other to make sure everything goes well.
How do you think that your career and job will evolve over the next 5 years?
It evolved pretty fast for the last 3 years. I was more visual-oriented designer first, but I realized I’m actually not so good at visuals. I have a big passion for simplicity and minimalism and it turned out most of the clients don’t share it. That’s why I got interested more in user experience and interaction design. I love building projects from the scratch, turn all my ideas into working prototypes to test functionality or set up the right experience strategy for an upcoming project. I feel more interested in the “thinking” behind the projects rather than executing pixels. I just want to make sure it will work perfectly. Not just be pretty.
What do you think about Dribbble? Is it a good way to get a job? What’s the best way to find a job as a designer?
It used to be a good way to get a job. Now it slowed down a little bit. I don’t see anything bad on Dribbble at all. It always was a great source of inspiration, promotion or job offers for me and it just evolves like other things do. I think Behance is now more trending, because you can show more than just one shot and a lot of clients discovered they can actually see more of the process behind the project. I’m receiving more job offers from there now. For me it’s just about being seen. Anyone can talk bullshit. It’s better to have an experience and an example to show.
Otherwise the best way to get a job for me are recommendations. If you really care and do a great project, the clients come back with another. That’s the best reward. I have a lot of client/friend relationships lately and it’s truly a great way to get the most exciting projects. I realized it’s not about money, fame or awards, but about the people and fun.
Btw. I never had a portfolio website. Every project I worked on was via social networks or recommendations.
What book would you recommend to a Junior Designer?
I do read a lot of motivation books rather than skill-oriented books or advices. I prefer to be inspired by people. But for junior designers I would recommend the classics like Steal Like An Artists and Show Your Work from Austin Kleon. Maybe one more book that really surprised me — Insanely Simple by Ken Segall. It’s basically about Apple, but it really inspired me to simplify me whole life, not just design.
Sticking with the advice: how about tools for design? What about tools for project management?
Nothing special actually. Default OS X Reminders and Notes works best for me. I don’t have time to change my management or to-do app every month. I use Mailbox as a to-do a lot, always striving for zero inbox every day. And Ember app for collecting all my inspiration, bookmarks or longer notes (it automatically backups to Dropbox as well).
A famous quotation of David Carson (noted American graphic designer) says: “Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does”. Will User Interface Design save the world, before, at the same time, or after graphic design?
I think graphic design and user interface design are saving the world together. We are facing both in our everyday life more and more.
Dribbble : https://dribbble.com/alesnesetril
Website : www.strv.com
