Design team of one

Over the past few years of working as a designer, one thing I have learned is that you are always more than just a designer - some days you're also a PM, some days you're making sense of data, and some days you're making icons and illustrations. (Maybe not at a big company). In my opinion, being a good designer is always my first priority, but there are things I have learned over the years that have helped me become more mindful, empathetic, and contributed towards my growth. Here are the learnings, filtered by different disciplines:

Product Management

Being a PM is more than just writing JIRA ticket descriptions - understanding how the business works, how to formulate timelines and roadmaps, how to prioritize different initiatives (using a framework like this), meeting folks cross-disciplines, and understanding engineering resourcing had a direct impact on how I worked a designer.

It was through a great PM that I worked with (find her on LinkedIn here) that I realized I needed a deeper understanding of different disciplines around me - which led to me meeting with teams like Legal, Business Intelligence, Marketing, SMEs, SEOs, Client Success and many more. Soon, collaboration with all of the above-mentioned teams became a natural part of my workflow - there were times when we didn't have a PM, but working with a strong PM and learning from teams over the years made me more confident to fill in for my PM, when needed.

Research

I attribute a large chunk of that learning to my master's program, which was more research focussed than design. At the time, I was annoyed since I felt I needed to do more "design" work - designing interfaces/experiences on Figma and have more case studies for my portfolio. Soon, I realized understanding the user is the whole point - which is knowing who the user is, what the user wants, and how the user uses it.

While at Credible we didn't have a dedicated user research for the first 3 years, conducting my own unmoderated flow tests, concept tests, and exit surveys made me more confident in the end product I handed-off. With tools like UserTesting, if I was stuck in project I would quickly launch an A/B test and get instant feedback on whats working, what's not working, and if nothing it would always add direction to what makes sense to iterate/explore next.

Data/Analytics

Soon after I started meeting the BI team with my PM, I immediately understood the value of knowing the numbers. Evaluating how an A/B test performs at a page level vs funnel level, understanding difference between a one-tail and two tail test, seeing heat maps/journeys (thanks to FullStory) just opened my brain to a whole new world of hypothesis generation and ideation.

Also, as you can sense the running theme here - it made me more confident as well, helped me add structure to design priorities, and make more meaningful design updates that had a direct implication on the numbers like revenue/conversion etc.

Engineering

Being privy to engineering, I had some level of understanding what it takes to bring a design to life. As a result, I would make sure to make my engineer friend's life easier by adding links to codepens/code snippets in a handoff that included something (like a hover effect, etc.) that we had never implemented before. In addition, shadowing engineers and seeing how they use components helped the design team create better components, improve component usage, and scale the system.

All of this may seem like stating the obvious, but the reason I feel I have grown as a designer over the years is not because I have gotten better at using Figma, its because I have had so much to learn from team members around me, and coming to terms with the fact that decision making becomes way more efficient when you collaborate with the right personnel at the right time.

Over the past few years of working as a designer, one thing I have learned is that you are always more than just a designer - some days you're also a PM, some days you're making sense of data, and some days you're making icons and illustrations. (Maybe not at a big company). In my opinion, being a good designer is always my first priority, but there are things I have learned over the years that have helped me become more mindful, empathetic, and contributed towards my growth. Here are the learnings, filtered by different disciplines:

Product Management

Being a PM is more than just writing JIRA ticket descriptions - understanding how the business works, how to formulate timelines and roadmaps, how to prioritize different initiatives (using a framework like this), meeting folks cross-disciplines, and understanding engineering resourcing had a direct impact on how I worked a designer.

It was through a great PM that I worked with (find her on LinkedIn here) that I realized I needed a deeper understanding of different disciplines around me - which led to me meeting with teams like Legal, Business Intelligence, Marketing, SMEs, SEOs, Client Success and many more. Soon, collaboration with all of the above-mentioned teams became a natural part of my workflow - there were times when we didn't have a PM, but working with a strong PM and learning from teams over the years made me more confident to fill in for my PM, when needed.

Research

I attribute a large chunk of that learning to my master's program, which was more research focussed than design. At the time, I was annoyed since I felt I needed to do more "design" work - designing interfaces/experiences on Figma and have more case studies for my portfolio. Soon, I realized understanding the user is the whole point - which is knowing who the user is, what the user wants, and how the user uses it.

While at Credible we didn't have a dedicated user research for the first 3 years, conducting my own unmoderated flow tests, concept tests, and exit surveys made me more confident in the end product I handed-off. With tools like UserTesting, if I was stuck in project I would quickly launch an A/B test and get instant feedback on whats working, what's not working, and if nothing it would always add direction to what makes sense to iterate/explore next.

Data/Analytics

Soon after I started meeting the BI team with my PM, I immediately understood the value of knowing the numbers. Evaluating how an A/B test performs at a page level vs funnel level, understanding difference between a one-tail and two tail test, seeing heat maps/journeys (thanks to FullStory) just opened my brain to a whole new world of hypothesis generation and ideation.

Also, as you can sense the running theme here - it made me more confident as well, helped me add structure to design priorities, and make more meaningful design updates that had a direct implication on the numbers like revenue/conversion etc.

Engineering

Being privy to engineering, I had some level of understanding what it takes to bring a design to life. As a result, I would make sure to make my engineer friend's life easier by adding links to codepens/code snippets in a handoff that included something (like a hover effect, etc.) that we had never implemented before. In addition, shadowing engineers and seeing how they use components helped the design team create better components, improve component usage, and scale the system.

All of this may seem like stating the obvious, but the reason I feel I have grown as a designer over the years is not because I have gotten better at using Figma, its because I have had so much to learn from team members around me, and coming to terms with the fact that decision making becomes way more efficient when you collaborate with the right personnel at the right time.

Over the past few years of working as a designer, one thing I have learned is that you are always more than just a designer - some days you're also a PM, some days you're making sense of data, and some days you're making icons and illustrations. (Maybe not at a big company). In my opinion, being a good designer is always my first priority, but there are things I have learned over the years that have helped me become more mindful, empathetic, and contributed towards my growth. Here are the learnings, filtered by different disciplines:

Product Management

Being a PM is more than just writing JIRA ticket descriptions - understanding how the business works, how to formulate timelines and roadmaps, how to prioritize different initiatives (using a framework like this), meeting folks cross-disciplines, and understanding engineering resourcing had a direct impact on how I worked a designer.

It was through a great PM that I worked with (find her on LinkedIn here) that I realized I needed a deeper understanding of different disciplines around me - which led to me meeting with teams like Legal, Business Intelligence, Marketing, SMEs, SEOs, Client Success and many more. Soon, collaboration with all of the above-mentioned teams became a natural part of my workflow - there were times when we didn't have a PM, but working with a strong PM and learning from teams over the years made me more confident to fill in for my PM, when needed.

Research

I attribute a large chunk of that learning to my master's program, which was more research focussed than design. At the time, I was annoyed since I felt I needed to do more "design" work - designing interfaces/experiences on Figma and have more case studies for my portfolio. Soon, I realized understanding the user is the whole point - which is knowing who the user is, what the user wants, and how the user uses it.

While at Credible we didn't have a dedicated user research for the first 3 years, conducting my own unmoderated flow tests, concept tests, and exit surveys made me more confident in the end product I handed-off. With tools like UserTesting, if I was stuck in project I would quickly launch an A/B test and get instant feedback on whats working, what's not working, and if nothing it would always add direction to what makes sense to iterate/explore next.

Data/Analytics

Soon after I started meeting the BI team with my PM, I immediately understood the value of knowing the numbers. Evaluating how an A/B test performs at a page level vs funnel level, understanding difference between a one-tail and two tail test, seeing heat maps/journeys (thanks to FullStory) just opened my brain to a whole new world of hypothesis generation and ideation.

Also, as you can sense the running theme here - it made me more confident as well, helped me add structure to design priorities, and make more meaningful design updates that had a direct implication on the numbers like revenue/conversion etc.

Engineering

Being privy to engineering, I had some level of understanding what it takes to bring a design to life. As a result, I would make sure to make my engineer friend's life easier by adding links to codepens/code snippets in a handoff that included something (like a hover effect, etc.) that we had never implemented before. In addition, shadowing engineers and seeing how they use components helped the design team create better components, improve component usage, and scale the system.

All of this may seem like stating the obvious, but the reason I feel I have grown as a designer over the years is not because I have gotten better at using Figma, its because I have had so much to learn from team members around me, and coming to terms with the fact that decision making becomes way more efficient when you collaborate with the right personnel at the right time.

Design team of one

Design team of one

Product Management

Research

Data/Analytics

Engineering

Product Management

Research

Data/Analytics

Engineering

Product Management

Research

Data/Analytics

Engineering

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