Whether it was through sketch, music performance, composition, theater, photo, or graphic design, I was always finding new ways to create.
Through college I spent a lot of time learning about every facet of technology that I could, from programming to networking and everything in between. I worked a campus job as well as an internship where I got to work closely with multiple teams from IBM.
I had been exposed to interface design from a technical standpoint during my degree as well as graphic design through school and personal exploration. In my last semester as an undergrad, I started working on an open-source project with a professor and really got the chance to explore UI and UX design as well as product management. It was here that I managed to really find the intersection of my two major passions (technology and creativity) as well as some other general interests (business and finance).
You may take a look at my resume and wonder “with all of this experience in a different field, why are you applying to a job like this?” which is completely valid. I do have quite a bit of experience in other roles, but I feel design is where I am most content and the field that I will enjoy the most.
With that being said, all of that experience in other fields is not useless or being wasted in a design role. Like a developer who knows both frontend and backend development is considered a “full-stack developer,” I consider myself a “full-stack designer” or one who understands both the design and engineering.
With my previous experience managing development projects and as a systems administrator I have gained experience across the entire tech stack from an understanding of APIs to networking to datacenter design. I can communicate effectively with those I interact with outside of my own team and I can design with the engineering in mind. I understand what it takes to bring the design from a few frames in Figma to a real, working product and can facilitate a two-way communication flow between engineering and design.
I’ve got a particular ability to understand how people understand. If someone is not understanding a topic, I can figure out a new way to explain it and make sure that they understand what is going on. This allows me to work as a facilitator to more effectively open communication between teams by “translating” design speak to engineering speak.
The fact that you are seeing this website is proof positive that I can apply the knowledge I have gained throughout these experiences to a design role. This entire website was prototyped in Figma, then I wrote the code for the entire website in React and Next.js using Typescript, I am hosting it myself on Vercel and my DNS is managed on Cloudflare. From start to finish, this website is my own.
I spent quite a bit of time working with many different IBM teams and I had the opportunity to meet with many other managers and directors. One principle I was introduced to was the idea of “design thinking” which is the principle IBM has used throughout all aspects of design (and engineering) within the company.
I had the opportunity to sit in on many design thinking sessions and got to see how the whole process works from gathering requirements to coming up with solutions for the product. Design thinking has always been explained to me with this anecdote: A client says “I need an alarm clock” and then the team goes through the whole process of information and requirements gathering to come up with a solution that is “a way to wake you up in the morning;” not necessarily an alarm clock.
There needs to be a balance between revolution and evolution and an empathetic connection with the client through more than just design thinking: design empathy. Sometimes people just want an alarm clock, so make the best damn alarm clock you can.
It would be the height of hubris to say that, as technologists and designers, we always know what clients want better than they know what they want. There needs to be more consideration into who the client is and figuring what is going to fit them the best. We can’t say that our revolutionary new way of getting people up in the morning is better than the tried and true alarm clock if it’s not natural to use.
This isn’t to say that we should never innovate again, we just have to pick the right time and place for that to happen. As the world depends more and more on technology, there are precedents set that can be hard to break down and they take time to do so. The iPhone wasn’t the most popular phone the day it came out, it took time to get there, but because the new interaction method was something people could understand, the touchscreen dominated the smartphone market from then on.