Denys Nevozhai
UI/UX Designer from Ukraine
I’m a self-taught multidisciplinary designer born and raised in Ukraine and currently living in Shanghai. I’m focused on interaction and visual design for mobile apps and wearables. I establish creative direction and leads the design efforts for the next generation of Alcatel Onetouch products. Earlier I built user experience for the Alcatel Watch, designed UX for StikeAd (acquired by Sizmek), led design at Paymentwall, designed at Powerlytix (acquired by Barclays Capital), helped startups such as Zeetl (acquired by Hootsuite), Knozen and others. In my free of design time I’m a cool daddy, roofer, photographer and athlete.
When your friends or parents ask you what job you do, how do you answer?
My friends and parents more or less know what I do, but if we talk about new people, I usually say I do user experience design, after which there is an awkward pause and I continue “I make what you see on your mobile phone, design applications and stuff”. And then they say “Oh! Got it! That’s so cool!”.
What is your background, and how did you train?
I don’t have any arts education, actually I would have been a software/hardware engineer if I followed my major, but I followed my heart. I used to draw non-stop when I was a kid and wanted to become a car designer one day. This hobby is the basis for what I do now.
What can the web do to make this world a better place? How has the web improved your life (if it has)?
The Web is a powerful tool in countless ways. The Web is the greatest library and knowledge database, it’s the chance for kids from poor families to improve their lives and lives of their families. The Web is millions of jobs on all levels. The Web is the way for companies to listen to their customers and improve their services or products. The Web is the way for people to explore the world even if they’re disabled or can’t afford it. The Web distracts people from their every day problems and look wider, become better. Thanks to the Web people around the world prey and donate to earthquake victims in Chile, refugees from Syria found their way out.
I started designing back when I had no access to the internet, so I can’t say the Web started my career, computers did. But I can say that I learn a lot from the Web on a daily basis and I get my inspiration there. I personally witnessed how the Web united thousands or even millions of people and made them stronger in a fight with a regime in my home country of Ukraine. Facebook and some mobile apps were our secret weapons that helped us win over a corrupted government and dethrone the president.
Thanks to the Web I grow professionally. Design tools evolve with designers’ feedback, we get inspired by each others’ work, we learn from successful products and the smart people’s opinions. Thanks to the Web I have moved to another country where my family has had an amazing life-changing experience, my daughter has learned English and became a much more sociable person. Who knows what’s next?
And the cool part of being a part of the Web industry is a realisation of the fact that you form the Web, you make it more accessible, easy and enjoyable to use. You know your work has an impact on thousands or even millions of people. It’s so rewarding!
Can you show us three examples of interfaces that in your opinion have improved human life?
A door-handle brought more privacy to people’s lives. The computer mouse and keyboard were the first publicly accessible interfaces that helped IT blow up. Later I’d say a mobile phone, ATM, Google Search and online services for booking flight tickets and hotels. I have no idea how people travelled before. Did they call a hotel abroad? Then they had to speak local language or may be English to ask for bank transfer details? How to find the hotel phone number by the way? As for the apps, my favourites are Inbox, Dropbox and Google Maps.
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?
Haha, nipple is definitely a great interface considering congenital knowledge of how to use it.
I think a door-handle in the form of a lever is one of the most intuitive things ever created. There is a wall in front of you with something sticking out of it. You will definitely try to do something with it and first actions would be moving it either in vertical or horizontal direction. Even animals open doors! Well, nowadays we have automatically opened doors which is even easier.
What is your typical workday like?
I wake up, take my phone with one eye open and check my email, bookmark interesting articles from Medium while slowly opening the second eye. Then standard morning activities including shower and light breakfast, feed and comb my daughter and take her to the kindergarten by taxi. Back when we lived in Kiev, we had a car, but in Shanghai after kindergarten I commute to work by subway and read earlier bookmarked Medium articles.
When I arrive to the office I quickly check social networks to know what’s going on in the world and be up to date with tech news, so it’s Facebook and Twitter. Then I check work email and dive in the design routine. This part depends on my tasks, so there is no standard plan. Some part is communication with management and peers on their projects, another part is implementation of my projects. I draw and prototype.
In the lunch time I and some of my colleagues go to gym and work hard. Then quick lunch and back to work.
Most of all I enjoy exploring new things. These days I learn prototyping tools as Principle, Pixate, Origami. If I learned something new and accomplished goals, the day is considered successful.
After work I go home, have dinner with my family, we may watch a movie or do something else, I may spend some time on my hobbies. Then to the bed.
What is the most stimulating and challenging project you have accomplished?
User experience for the Alcatel Watch was definitely the most challenging. I can’t say it was complex in terms of information architecture or visual design. It’s all about technical restrictions and cultural difference. You can read about it in my comprehensive article “Alcatel Watch UX” on Medium.
Among existing digital services, what is the one you wanted to do?
I would like to design UX for a car because it’s something new and extremely challenging, much more challenging than designing a web site or a mobile app. First of all, the industry is strictly regulated and slow. Between the moment when the design is finalized and the car is on the market a couple of years have passed. Stakeholders in the industry care about industrial design, they either neglect HMI or tell designers what to do. I’m not sure what exactly is happening there, as the industry is also under NDA. There are several agencies that design HMI for most of major car brands. One of these agencies tried to hire me. What I found out during the interview is I will never be able to disclose projects and companies I worked for. This is something that needs to be changed. The more designers talk about problems, the better solutions they discover. And it’s vital for automotive industry as in many occasions peoples’ lives depend on car UX.
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?
It depends. If the client is a startup open to exploration and I start a project from the ground up, the process would be like this:
- understand the problem and goal
- define target audience
- storyboarding
- sketching
- prototyping
- testing
- iterations
- visual design
- design documentation for engineers
- control of design implementation
- research after release
- iterations
If you work for established companies, most likely they will tell you exactly what to do, they know the problem, goal, target audience and probably use cases. It doesn’t mean they’re right of course.
“Design” is an important part of our analogic life. What is the role of the designer in our digital life?
I see two roles.
- Help people to solve their problems as fast as possible.
- Entertain people, or at least make their problem solving process enjoyable.
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?
I don’t believe in “you have to”. If you want to grow and develop new skills, you will learn. If you want to get a job where front-end is required, you’ll learn front-end. Some companies require designers to code. Personally I would pass such companies, as I prefer to design and grow as a designer, there’s always so much room for improvement in design. And even if you mastered interaction and visual, I doubt you’re an expert in motion.
How do you make a difference between User Interface and user experience?
User interface is just a visual part, while user experience is a broader term which includes interaction design, UI design, motion design, use of text. If it’s a hardware, it’s also hardware controls, in perfect case participation in components selection and industrial design, packaging, quick guide or manual, even the product stand in the store and store interior design.
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?
Again, it depends on the developers I work with. If they are design oriented guys, the process will be smooth. They will implement the design as it is and if they think something is wrong or can be improved, they will tell me and I will thank them. Such engineers are golden!
On the other hand, we have guys who can’t see the difference between red square button without shadows and blue round button with shadows. This kind of attention to detail wakes up the worst part of me :) These devs need as thorough documentation as possible, and often even this doesn’t help. Constant pushing developers to their limit is the real challenge in design.
How do you think that your career and job will evolve over the next 5 years?
I plan to move to the Bay Area and lead product design at a company everyone will know soon. I look forward to working with the detail oriented engineers and the best designers in the industry. One day I’d like to launch my own product and see what I’m capable of as a CEO.
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?
I don’t know if Dribbble is a good way to find a job as UX designer, as it’s not made to showcase design processes and thoughts behind decisions. But it’s really cool for visual inspiration especially if you start your design career. I would recommend look closer to the best designs and try to repeat them. You’ll learn a lot.
What is good for getting a job is Behance in my experience. I got many freelance requests and my two last full time jobs thanks to concept projects I published on my Behance portfolio. Another good way to find a job is to network with designers and IT crowd, attend events, participate in design competitions. That’s what I failed doing and now regret and try to catch up. Also don’t forget to keep your LinkedIn profile fresh, a clean CV (check mine on my LinkedIn profile for reference), personal web site showcasing your best work. I recommend to post only that kind of projects you’d like to work on again.
What book would you recommend to a Junior Designer?
To be honest I didn’t finish a single book about design as all of them seemed boring and obvious. In books authors tend to repeat themselves many times to justify the book volume. I prefer to read design resources and designers’ blogs.
I highly recommend to read Google Ventures design blog, just every single article. These guys rock! Also Medium became a place for designers to express themselves. One designer I adore to read is Tobias van Schneider, you can subscribe to his newsletter on his web site.
Sticking with the advice: how about tools for design? What about tools for project management?
I’m slowly trying to migrate to Sketch, it solves many problems UI designers face in Photoshop. For rapid prototyping I use Keynote, it’s the fastest way to test interaction design. For animations many people still use After Effects, but this tool is not made for UI, it’s very complex and advanced and the output is not interactive. So don’t waste your time and try tools such as Principle for Mac if you design for iOS and your team is on Macs, Pixate (more difficult to use, but more universal and better for sharing), Origami, Form or Framer if you like coding animations. All my work is stored in Dropbox, I use Google Inbox, Skype for chatting (Hangout is unusable in China) and Slack for communication with the team. As for task trackers, I tried many, but still prefer to have the list of what’s on my plate in the Notes app.
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?
May be David Carson didn’t know about user experience design when he said that? The definition of graphic design has changed with rise of UI design. Now bad UX makes people pushing the wrong button or understand a sign or text in a wrong way.
Website : http://dnevozhai.com/
Dribbble : https://dribbble.com/dnevozhai
