What is UX?

Natalia is a design leader from La Paz, Bolivia and now works in Dallas, Texas as Director of Product Design for Cariloop, a caregiver support company focused on relieving the stress and anxiety felt by all caregivers. After interning at advertising agencies she fell in love with the interaction design portions of campaigns and quickly transitioned into the world of user experience. She’s had the great fortune of working with some exciting brands, most notably Verizon, 7-Eleven, Animal Supply Company, Coca-Cola and Qdoba, before ultimately adopting the mission of helping caregivers. Natalia is a strong believer in thoughtful design, and intentional storytelling, and works hard to bring empathy, emotion and quality to products.

In this episode, we talked about:

• What is Cariloop?
• Natalia’s role at Cariloop
• How Cariloop serves people
• Transforming customer’s journey
• Natalia’s background and how did she get into design
• Natalia’s advice on people who are struggling to become a better designer
• Natalia as an artist
• What do expect if you will try Cariloop’s services

Links:

https://cariloop.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cariloop/

Connect with Natalia

Meesh Lin began designing and launching websites at age eight by learning from her self-taught web designer mother. She's had an unconventional path to design—having freelanced, contracted, and designed-in house for start-ups and public companies over the last 6+ years. Today, Meesh is designing Okta's first consumer product.

Inspired by her design journey, she discovered a deep passion for mentorship and helping aspiring designers and technologists break into tech. Also, having worked alongside so many different people and personalities on global remote teams, Meesh has mastered the art of leveraging soft skills to build authentic relationships at work, which lead to effective cross-functional collaboration and happier teams.

Meesh mentors for ADPList, Co.Lab, and First Round Fast Track. She also provides design advice for early-stage start-ups. Prior to Okta, Meesh designed at Lilt, 15Five, Reddit, eBay, and Gigster.

In this episode, we talked about:

• What is Okta?
• How did Meesh learn design from her mom
• How to find opportunities as new designers
• Pay gaps
• How to advocate for yourself
• How to get people to engage more in a meeting
• Meesh’s first job and her challenges
• From archaeologist to designer

Links:

https://meesh.design/

https://twitter.com/meesh_lin

https://www.instagram.com/meesh.lin/

Peter Szalontay is the DataGoat/CEO at DataMilk, it is a team of data science and UX experts on a mission to empower eCommerce brands to build AI-powered UX on the level of Big Tech. DataMilk’s Smart UX suite enables fast, fluid, and predictive digital experiences that boost user engagement and gross profit.

In this episode, we talked about:

• How Artificial Intelligence will impact UX Design
• What is AI software called “DALL-E”
• Peter’s career at Google
• Peter on creating businesses out of AI applications
• What UX means to “DataMilk”

Links:

Connect with Peter

https://www.datamilk.ai/

Alicia is a Product Design Director for IT Products at Rippling - the platform that frees smart people to work on hard problems! She has been a designer across industries, including higher education, academia, insurance, pharmacy, e-commerce, and technology, and is an Adjunct Instructor at Columbia College, where she focuses on how to prepare for moving from college to what your life as a designer will be like. She co-organizes the Ladies that UX Chicago meetup, where she brings conversations like accessibility, ethics in design, and emotional intelligence to the community.

In this episode, we talked about:

• How to get a job after being unemployed for a year
• How to see if a company is a good fit for you using organizational design
• Tips on career struggles
• UX driven transformation
• How did Alicia get into design
• Alicia’s role at Rippling
• What is Rippling and how does it serve people?

Links: 

Connect with Alicia

https://twitter.com/mika_jo

https://www.rippling.com/

https://adplist.org/mentors/alicia-joy-warren 

Hiring:

Product Designer: https://www.rippling.com/careers/5035370003?gh_jid=5035370003

Lead Product Designer: https://www.rippling.com/careers/5201191003?gh_jid=5201191003

UX Researcher: https://www.rippling.com/careers/5035351003?gh_jid=5035351003

Erick Arias is an Experienced Product Designer with a demonstrated history of transforming the way enterprises build software. He is currently the Sr. Product Designer at Meta (formerly known as Facebook, Inc.)

In this episode, we talked about:

• Erick’s advice and tips with portfolio reviews
• How did Erick get into design
• Where did Erick grow up and the story of his upbringing 
• Erick’s first job as a designer
• Erick’s mentorship at ADPlist

Links:

erickarias.com

https://adplist.org/mentors/erick-arias

https://twitter.com/erickarias

https://medium.com/@earias1

Nima H. K. graduated from York/Sheridan Program in Design, and is a passionate storyteller obsessed with user experience and telling the right story at the right time. Currently a design director in San Francisco, and just recently designed and built a SaaS product from scratch. He has 16+ years of experience working as a freelancer, at design agencies, and startups. He is happy to share his findings throughout this journey to inspire other designers.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Building team for design org
• Mentoring at ADP list
• Learning from people in regards to passion and leadership
• Lessons, advice and principles on building great teams
• Career struggles
• Opinion on consulting vs full-time employee debate
• And MUCH MORE!

Links and Resources

Five Love Languages

https://adplist.org/mentors/nima-h-k

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimahk/

Hiring!

Director of Product Design: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3126648593

Senior Product Designer-Strong UI: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3141175010

User Experience Research Lead: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3060459257

Senior Product Designer-Design System: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3141169643

Glen Lipka is a product leader who has created innovative products for B2B companies since 1995.

Previously, he was the first employee at Marketo, best in class marketing automation software acquired by Adobe and helped guide the company through IPO up to 1000 employees in 9 years. He holds several patents in design innovations.

In this episode, we talked about:

• What is the definition of design for Glen? How does Glen think about design?
• Glen on being the first employee at Marketo
• His job and learning in the pre-internet era
• Designers and their role in society
• The one rule of design for Glen
• What’s needed for a successful company
• And more of his personal design journey and the role that design has played in his life, the insights and knowledge, how he got in where he is now and the inspiring lessons he’d learned along the way!

Links and Resources:

The Power Broker https://amzn.to/3aj0Ypa

https://commadot.com

https://adplist.org/mentors/glen-lipka

https://twitter.com/glenlipka

https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenlipka/

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/

Ari Krzyzek is the Co-founder and chief creative officer of Chykalophia (read: see-ka-lo-fia), she helps Femtech DTC and women-led companies craft a brand that delights their customers beyond a pretty design, delivers no-brainer user experience, and gets them the clarity they need to for their business to thrive online.

She has over 10 years of branding and design experience, a certified brand strategist, and UX expert. She has transformed businesses' visions into a tangible form that helps set their business apart from their competitors. As her diverse client roster attests, the one constant in her work is spot-on design for major impact every time. She’s the co-host of Halo Femtech Podcast, a podcast that honors disruptive innovators and change-makers advancing women’s health.

Furthermore, she serves as a design consultant, mentor and professional peer in support of fellow female entrepreneurs through the #1 ranked private business incubator in the world, 1871 Chicago, Interaction Design Foundation, Ms.Tech, and ADPlist.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Winning Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program Women of Color Grant
• Starting Chykalophia design agency with her husband
• More tips from Ari about increasing sales and web conversions without coding
• Ari’s story of growing up as a Southeast Asian and her humble beginnings
• Ideal customers for her company

Links and Resources:

https://arikrzyzek.com/

https://chykalophia.com/

Connect with Ari

Erik Kennedy is the creator of Learn UI Design and Learn UX Design. He’s also a freelance UX/UI designer based in Seattle, WA. He has also spoken in the US and abroad at businesses, meetups, and universities (like UC Berkeley, Yale, and UW). His design writing has been read by over a million people.

In this episode, we talked about:

• How Erik got into teaching design
• Erik’s design tips
• Erik enumerates and explains 7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI
• Erik’s UI and UX courses for students
• Erik talks about his teaching style and the types of students he has
• Design Hacks newsletter
• His course, Learn UI Design and its vision
• And MUCH MORE!

Links and Resources

Erik’s Design Hacks Newsletter FREE!

Learn UI Design Website: https://app.learnui.design/a/aff_3n5bydnn/external?affcode=70335_ndhyzl7p

https://erikdkennedy.com/

Jeany Ngo is the co-founder at Kairos, which provides the tools for anyone to create, publish and sell NFTs without touching a single line of code. She blends her love of visual storytelling with thoughtful understanding of user behavior. 10+ years in product, UX/UI, and visual design comes from working at Brex, Airbnb, LinkedIn and consulting for design agencies and startups. Clients include Figma, Ueno, TM, Crunchyroll, Tempo Fitness, Handshake, Safari Riot, Yembo Inc, GoInsurance, Eleven Inc, Mira, Osmo Systems, Proven.

In this episode, we talked about:

• Jeany’s career journey at Airbnb, Linkedin and Brex
• How did Jeany get into design?
• Life as a designer-entrepreneur and its challenges
• Jeany talks about her startup: Kairos
• Kairos’ team and system structure
• Why Kairos and the NFT space
• Kairos mission
• Jeany’s creative system
• Jeany’s awards
• And much MORE!

Links:

https://kairos.art/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanyngo/

https://www.jeanyngo.com/

https://twitter.com/gojeanyn