Elizabeth Gould, User Experience Designer, Kent State University

What drew you to study User Experience Design?

I was drawn into UX when trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I graduated with my undergraduate degree, at Kent State University, with a BFA in Installation Sculpture. At that time, trying to survive and pay bills with an arts degree was not realistic. So, I spent some time doing odds and ends until I happened to do some digging in Kent State’s School of Information graduate degrees and saw UXD. After doing some research trying to figure out what User Experience Design was, I learned it was a good blend of Technology along with the bits of an artist’s background. 

Tell us about your experience working in the University Library at Kent State. How  does your library experience inform your UX work?

Working at University Libraries prepared me for the difficulties that come with most front-facing service jobs, along with learning how to manage back-end operations simultaneously.I feel like I have been practicing UX during my entire career at University Libraries, just not from the typical digital standpoint that most people associate UXD with.
When Patrons come to the desk, or call over the phone, they have a general idea of what they want, but sometimes have no idea how they need to access what they need. In my various roles, I have had to troubleshoot and problem-solve all these different issues. Sometimes the Patron was not at fault for being unsuccessful, it was the flow of information that was confusing. Those situations sometimes resulted in having to connect with units who oversaw those operations, figure out their point of view, tell them about the Parton experience, and figure out of path forward that worked for all parties involved. 

What’s something you wish more people understood about design in general or about your day-to-day work?

I wish people understood that it is not always about them when it comes to design. I think the heart of the problem they are trying to solve is about making something better, but there are times when it is not presented in that manner. There are so many different threads that feed a final product and for many reasons, not everyone is aware of those threads. We do not need to understand how to do someone else’s job, but we should become more aware of these threads and how a decision could influence another thread.   

What do you wish more designers understood? Or what do you think the dialog in our community of practice is missing?

In some regard, think our community is missing simplicity. UX is constantly evolving, and evolution is great. Things are constantly being re-evaluated and adjusted to keep up with the market and big enterprises, but it feels like some areas of UX are moving too fast. Is UX evolving for the sake of trying to constantly chase enterprises and stay afloat or is it evolving because there is a functional need for it to change?  The hardest thing I am trying to keep up with is the constant shifting of the names of what we call things.  It feels like every year and a half the names are being updated and now I have to play catch up with my own terminology.

What are you working on learning now, or have just heard about that fascinates you? What would like to learn next?

I am currently learning how to lead and direct as a UXD. In some ways, it is the same as a manager role, but in other ways also very different. Depending on the team, the target goal, the day even, there are so many pieces of the puzzle that I am trying to learn how to keep afloat until I need a specific piece. It is very overwhelming, but I am trying to focus on one element at a time. I am very grateful to my mentors who have coached me and were there to just let me talk through things. I would not be where I am without them.  

UX Akron is a 501(c)(3) organization that runs on the generous support of individual donors and sponsors. Your donations allow us to offer in-person events that are free and open to the public. The majority of the money we receive goes directly to these events. A portion is also used to serve day-to-day overhead and operational needs, such as monthly costs for website hosting and development, online meeting software, etc.

It’s been a rough year for tech, so the genuinely positive energy in the room was actually a little jarring at first. More than 200 tech CEOs, tech professionals, and representatives of 28 tech-centric Partner organizations, like UX Akron, mixed and mingled around cocktail tables set up with pamphlets and trinkets and business cards. Everyone seemed to fall into engaging conversations quickly, and it was great to see just how many tech-focused organizations exist in our area, approaching development from various angles.

In the keynote, the Founder of Overdrive, Steve Potash, spoke about the 30-year transition from selling volumes of digitized legal publications on collections of CD-ROMs (the tedium of digital operation in this era was summarized by Potash as “By about the 25th disc, you’d think, do I really need the whole book?”) to developing Overdrive’s beloved flagship e-reading app Libby by way of getting a law degree, following the urging of his librarian wife Loree to branch out into e-books more generally, and partnering with Cleveland Public Library to develop the first iteration of the Overdrive app with librarians for their patrons.

Then came the awards themselves, which did a fantastic job of spotlighting a variety of avenues illuminated by technology and ingenuity in the Greater Cleveland area with categories that celebrated collaboration and creative approaches, as well as taking a moment to highlight the good work of each nominee. Awards were given to the CEOs of startups and the CIOs of more established companies, to Tech Teachers, AI Innovators, and Cybersecurity superstars, and to companies and organizations driving innovation in Cleveland’s manufacturing sector.

It was encouraging to hear about all this happening in Cleveland, and not just recently or in a buzzword-laden, hype-forward way. The role of place in how we capture and understand information often gets lost online. The internet as a medium supposedly transcends geography, and therefore development has proceeded from a point of conspicuous lack of interest in how life is lived IRL. This ethos means the internet doesn’t yet handle the nuance of IRL artifacts well (concepts like timezones, dialects, differences in conceptual understanding of a topic even when content is in the “same language,” the role a local economy plays in a user’s wellbeing and even participation in the great project of the internet, weather, etc. which shape our ways of consuming and understanding information.) This event showcased how natural a sense of community can be experienced in person, it was great to meet people really DOING things right here in Northeast Ohio, shake their hand, and hear them talk about their work and genuine interests.

In UX, we used to talk about people being “unicorns” if they could design and code. At this event, they talked about “unicorns” being tech companies that reached $1B in profits. There are 6 such companies in Cleveland. “What do you call a herd of unicorns?” Greater Cleveland Partnership’s CEO Baiju Shah asked the audience. “A blessing.”

Check out more photos from the event, and see a list of winners on Greater Cleveland Partnership’s website.

Interested in hearing about events coming up in Greater Akron and around Ohio? Subscribe to our newsletter!

Blog Posts:

5 Things I Learned About Leadership from the Death & Rebirth of Microsoft by Dare Obasanjo

https://dareobasanjo.medium.com/5-things-i-learned-about-leadership-from-the-death-rebirth-of-microsoft-3eaf42567061

How much influence does a leader really have? A TON, especially over the culture of a workplace, which impacts everything that comes out of it. In this post, Obasanjo talks about what Microsoft’s Lost Decade was like from the inside, and what it was like after. An illuminating read.

Don’t make “data-driven product decisions”—build a data-driven semantic environment by Pavel Samsonov

https://uxdesign.cc/dont-make-data-driven-product-decisions-build-a-data-driven-semantic-environment-3220d177b73f

A fantastic look at why it can feel like you’re speaking past coworkers when presenting data insights. Samsonov talks about how companies develop collective mental models, and how no amount of data-points can hope to dislodge these assumptions. To change people’s minds, you’ll need to change the semantic environment of your organization.

“When you over-rule designers’ judgment about users’ needs, you are telling them to spend less energy solving problems and more energy selling you on solutions.” –Jonathan Korman

Podcast:

Rosenfeld Review Podcast

https://rosenfeldmedia.com/podcasts

Influential industry publisher Lou Rosenfeld hosts a variety of guests on topics of import to UX and Product Design. Recent episodes have offered interesting perspectives on both working with AI and working on AI. This show is a treasure trove of names and concepts of import in our field.

Book:

The Art of Explanation: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence by Ros Atkins

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-art-of-explanation-how-to-communicate-with-clarity-and-confidence-ros-atkins/21172586?ean=9781472298416

Clear communication is essential to rallying your team, persuading your boss, and having impact in your role. BBC journalist Ros Atkins shares what’s he’s learned about effective messaging.

In Pop Culture:

Controversy around Crush! Apple’s iPad Pro Commercial

It turns out human being have a deep emotional connection to the physical world and don’t enjoy seeing objects that signify their culture being obliterated by a hydraulic press. Why is that sentiment perpetually surprising to tech people?

This ad was great in a lot of ways, and while its easy to see the elegance of the visual message (“You can do all these things with our tidy, clean, ultra-thin device!”,) and there is value to controversy in advertising (when was the last time anyone cared about an Apple ad?,) the general reaction to its release highlights how the insider nature of the industry leads to big, faulty assumptions. Early Aughts Apple was able to capitalize on the promise of “culture in your pocket”; but now? The optimism is gone, and a reckoning with how absolutely under attack non-tech people feel about the role technology plays in their lives is in order.

Have you read, watched, or listened to something really great and UX-y lately? We’d love to share it!

It’s still true: understanding your users makes you a better designer, better designers make better products, and better products result in bigger companies (among other things).

When you work with printmaking ink, or oil paint, you must learn to work with solvents. Solvents are the eraser mechanism for oil-based media, just as water is for water-based media. To control a mark, you need to be able to remove it. Creation is entwined with destruction.

I’ve been thinking about solvents and materiality in general, probably because I’ve been spending much more time glued to a screen. This is something I don’t think people working in tech really understand on a gut level: no one else has the relationship to computers that we do. Even people who are working with computers all day are not so immersed in them the way we have to be. They don’t see computers as a medium they’re working through. For most people (Yes, most. Yes, still.), a computer is more like an expensive plate their work is trapped inside, and they are a hostage negotiator.

It matters because I suspect this disconnect between designers’ assumptions and user sentiment around their relationship to computers is part of the puzzle of why many in the UX field feel (according posts I’ve come across in the last 6 months) they aren’t making a good business case for the role true user research plays in creating a better product. UX’ers believe our unique blend of research and design ultimately contributes perhaps the most value of any department in a tech company to that company, so this ought to be a pretty easy case to make. How have we lost the faith?

Let me ask a different question: when was the last time you observed someone using your product IRL?

If you are responsible for the design of a product and you’re relying exclusively on a contrived series of tasks that you dreamed up with no meaningful pushback from your team, and loaded into a website that lets you test small pieces of your designs anonymously and asynchronously to be your only window into how your product is being used, then you may well be de-risking some small element of the design of a product. And you could probably think critically about this information and spin it up into a compelling case that if you had gone with the initial, untested version, usage would have been impacted by X, and over the last quarter the combined impact from not testing would have likely resulted in a decrease of Y & Z, etc.

(Side note: If you don’t have friends in your marketing department, make some. Marketing is a very mature field and they have all sorts of battle-tested ways to justify creative decisions in a corporate space. Messaging is a collaborative process, a two-way street. When I hear people complain about the “design maturity” of a company, I can’t help but wonder how much of our message is lost on leadership due to the fact that the UX field still has some growing up to do.)

Regardless of strides towards better internal marketing of UX, however, you’re never going to have the real impact that truly good design can have by focusing your efforts on hedging your bets and checking a box. You don’t get credit for innovating if you’re not innovating. To put it bluntly: maybe we can’t make the case for real UX research because we haven’t been doing real UX research.

Your customers are not going to love a product they are actively erasing with their behavior. “Good enough” for people who live and breathe computers (you) and those who managed to find a user testing site on their own and voluntarily opt in to participation in such tests (your participants) is not going to tell you anything even remotely meaningful about what will be good enough for “most people” (your actual users). You might be shocked how many of your existing customers are “most people.” And even more shocked how many more customers you could reel in if you were actually designing a product for them.

It’s a scary time to think expansively in a field that is feeling the squeeze. But here’s a secret: it’s never going to feel safe or easy to rethink something. It will only make sense to take the risk of trying something new when you start to recognize that you can’t afford to keep doing what you’ve been doing once it’s stopped working. Don’t stare down that black hole. Instead, get curious about your customers. Like, your career depends on it curious. How are people really using what you’re making? What do they really think of it? What little hacks have they come up with, what do they complain to their colleagues about?

How can you find this information in an organization that wants you to keep your head down as close to your screen as you can physically get it? Customer service is a great place to start. Ask if you can see call logs, or summaries of meetings. Ask if anyone in the department would be willing to hop on a call with you so you can pick their brain. Build relationships with actual coworkers in this space and make these calls a regular check in.

Take a deep dive into the reviews of your product on an App Store or G2. You’ll have to sift through lots of unhelpful feedback, and correct for the unfortunate tone internet communication has coalesced into, but there are kernels of real insights sitting there like free flecks of gold in a stream.

If CS or Sales does customer visits, ask if you can join. See if you can set a time to observe actual users using your product. Prioritize this. I know it’s uncomfortable, but so is getting laid off. Find a customer company that’s geographically near your own home and see if you can’t set up a visit there. See if you can’t buy them lunch. If they’re all working in-person, they will likely be thrilled to see a visitor with donuts and gladly let you watch them work in exchange.

If you secure such a visit, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to have that aha moment, especially if you haven’t done a lot of this kind of work before. Being a physical person with strangers is more uncomfortable for some people than others. Give yourself permission to be uncomfortable, but do it anyway. This is the first of many such meetings you’ll have if you do your job right.

It helps to stop worrying about yourself and start worrying about the customer: are they comfortable? Is this how and where they usually use your product? Do they mind if you take notes? Personally, I prefer not recording video in-person. People who aren’t on Zoom all day are understandably self-conscious when a camera is pointed at them. They’re doing you a favor, do what you can to put them at ease. Think of it as an exercise in being present, and just try to take in the gestalt of the thing. Aha moments will come later, on the drive home, or in a month when you’re debating button styles. Learn to shift your focus from creating a replicable process (science) to honing your skills of observation (art).

If you really cannot find a way to scare up any actual customers, dust off that resume (thinking you’re going to be able to ride things out with a company that is completely disconnected from their customer base is a bad long-term plan). But then also consider just going to any public place (a library is a great option, but even coffee shops where people brought their own device and should therefore theoretically be comfortable with it will work) to people-watch for an hour. Set your timer, don’t let yourself off the hook early. Watch people use these things we are designing out in the wild.

The designer Naoto Fukasawa said “Design dissolves in behavior.” I came across this quote in Fabricio Teixeira’s Lessons of Design post on Medium. Destruction makes space for something new, absence draws the eye to presence.

We aren’t going to change the world if we play it safe and hide behind a screen. We can’t fix something we won’t acknowledge is broken. If we keep designing for ourselves, then businesses are right to assume we have no impact on their bottom line. Maybe for a while it got comfortable to just focus on the little details of your own tasks, on turn-around time, on everything but zooming out to consider your real impact.

Maybe it’s okay to get a little uncomfortable, and to use that discomfort to refocus on empathizing with users’ discomfort. Because, truly, did you become a designer focused on the experience of users simply to make yourself more comfortable?

Further Reading

• Hypothesis-Based Approaches by Debbie Levitt in R before D
  • On starting with a problem, not a solution.
• No, AI User Research Isn’t “Better Than Nothing,” It’s A Lot Worse by Pavel Samsonov in UX Collective
  • Why cutting corners on research is a sure path to commodification, a.k.a. devaluation, of your product.
• Designers, We Have A “Figmaism” Problem by Artiom Dashinsky in Prototypr
  • Tools are great! But we need to be talking about and prioritizing strategy, leadership, making connections, and advocacy.

UX Akron is looking for more thought leaders to guest author blog posts. Interested in sharing your perspective? Reach out!

Allison Nowak, Instructional Designer at OUCCAS (Ohio’s University Consortium for Child and Adult Services)

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?

I just moved to the greater Akron area.

Outside of work I sew, listen to multiple podcasts, hike, and take care of my houseplants and three cats. I’m working on training my cats to go hiking with me. 

Tell us about your path to becoming an Instructional Designer. How did you end up in this role?

It took a few other jobs and lots of research for me to discover Instructional Design. It’s not a widely known career for people working outside of Learning & Development.

But, as I researched Instructional Design and analyzed my current & potential skillset, I discovered I already had a lot of the skills needed. So, I spent four months of full-time, self-directed study to fill the gap in my knowledge and skills. I took a few classes and consumed all the books/blogs/podcasts my mind could absorb. (Shoutout to Luis Malbas & the TLDC—your content has been indispensable!)

I landed my first ID contract in that 4^th month. That job and all work since as an Instructional Designer & eLearning Developer has been so rewarding, and downright fun. I finally feel like I’m able to use my whole brain at work and be valued for it!

What’s your favorite part of your workday or week?

When my Teams is on do not disturb, or it’s after typical business hours, and I know I have 4-6 uninterrupted hours to build something beautiful that will solve a problem.

Do you use anything in your work now that you learned in school or in the past that surprises you, that you thought you’d never use “in real life”?

Growing up with parents who struggled to use computers meant I did things like handwrite a “How to Print” guide for my mother. I was maybe 11 or 12. It was a click-by-click guide with numbers, headings, and icons. I then coached her through the steps along with the guide until she was able to successfully print on her own. She kept that guide by her printer for many years. 

Understanding the barriers to a work task, coming up with a solution that will help that person successfully do that work task, and presenting said solution in a way that can be used by that person—that’s a lot of what Instructional Design is. It was natural for me to create solutions like this. It showed up in all my previous jobs—tutoring music, caring for an elderly family friend, teaching English to adults. But it wasn’t until later in life that I made the connection that it was a valuable work skill.

Also, playing with fonts in Word ’95 when I was a kid. Selecting the most ridiculous of fonts—Jokerman ITC, Goudy Stout, Curlz MT—just to see how that would change the document. Obviously, those would be terrible choices for most products today, but I still think a lot about fonts: is it readable by my users in all formats (print, digital, up close & far away); will it display in all software (PPT, Adobe Acrobat, Articulate); and does it convey the correct tone for the product?  

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be?

“Do what you love” is bad career advice. And practicality isn’t everything. You can and should find a middle ground between following your passion and pursuing a strictly-practical field. 

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!

Derek Tholt, Digital Product Manager at Huntington Bank

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?  

Professionally, I am a (brand-new) Digital Product Manager for Huntington Bank. After going to work for a small, San Francisco-based FinTech in 2021, I am back at Huntington in the digital space as of November 2023. I held various roles at Huntington from 2013 to 2021 – anything from branch banking to sales support for our large team of Mortgage Loan Officers to running a large team during an acquisition. I truly consider the last ten years of work as a paid internship having learned so much about banking, home lending, and the FinTech space.   

Outside of work, you can find me in one of three places: an airplane, a car, or the left side of my couch. I love to travel domestically and try to get on a plane every eight weeks or so to visit family and friends. I joke that I keep Frontier Airlines in business. I am also a car fanatic. I am a member of a few local car clubs one of which I have a fabulous group of friends that get together often. Each April, a national club, famously known as The Car Gays, meets at the famous Tail of the Dragon at Fontana Dam in North Carolina. We rent cabins and spend all day out on the roads and all night by the bonfire.   

At home, we have a few rules: have a healthy salad for dinner every Monday, never show up to a special event in a dirty car, always lead with kindness and an open mind, and never miss Jeopardy. I have been with my husband, Tristan, since 2007.   

Tell us about your path to become a Product Manager. How did you end up in this role?  

This new role fell into my lap after being notified of a layoff at my last gig. When I left Huntington in 2021, I went to work for Blend Labs, which provides point-of-sale lending solutions for hundreds of banks (including Huntington.) At Blend, I worked with the banks and credit unions on understanding their product roadmaps for large deployments and ongoing projects. I also managed numerous sales tools. My experience at Blend was invaluable to bring back with me to manage digital lending products at Huntington which includes mortgage, home equity, automotive, and unsecured loans.   

I am taking this new opportunity to try to poke some holes in the way the teams at Huntington do things. My manager told me to be a fly on the wall for a while and try to ask Why as much as possible. I’ hope to add a passion project to my book of work and encourage teams to use the modern tools provided to make navigating our workload easier, faster, and more transparent. Gone are the days of saving a file to your computer and attaching it to an email!   

What’s something you wish more people understood about your role or trends you’re seeing in the industry?  

Industry-wide, traditional banks are now competing with the Venmo and Chimes of the world. Large banks are often held to different regulatory standards than small, digital companies, so they need to be very deliberate in how new features are launched to customers. Think about how you do your banking today and ask yourself, “Would I consider using a bank that doesn’t have a great app, the ability to send money immediately, and provide real-time alerts for privacy and security?” Most would say no, so banks must always stay abreast of the latest digital banking trends and evaluate and prioritize ongoing enhancements. I’m excited to be a part of the life cycle of these initiatives and ultimately see them go live for customers and colleagues.   

What is something you’re most known for at work, and how do you use that as part of your professional identity?  

I have always been known for asking a ton of questions. It’s hard for me to understand my expectations if I’m not fully immersed in the product or tool I manage. I love to find a beta environment and try to break things. I also try to understand one basic concept: how are end-users consuming our product, and are we working to make it better? Once I understand this concept better, I love to be a helpful resource to anyone working alongside our team.   

If my colleagues remember one thing about me, it’s that I never claim to know everything. One of the most under-utilized phrases in life is “I don’t know” – as long as it’s followed by “but I will find out for you,” makes for the most transparent, honest, and trust-building experience one can have at work.   

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be?  

Listen to learn. Don’t listen to speak next.   

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!

Podcast:

The Design Systems Podcast

https://www.designsystemspodcast.com

The Design Systems Podcast features fantastic conversations with great guests, with new episodes every week.

In a recent episode, “From Consistency to Contribution: How Design Systems Grow Trees with Jay Smith at REI,” host Chris Strahl and guest Jay Smith discuss the goal of “creating models that encourage flexibility of use while slowing down the rate of change.”

Book:

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

https://bookshop.org/p/books/paved-paradise-how-parking-explains-the-world-henry-grabar/18727296

The impact of design decisions is far-reaching, and in Paved Paradise, the author discusses the myriad ways 20th Century Infrastructural design decisions continue to shape our world in surprising, heartbreaking, and comical ways.

Listen to Terry Gross interview the author on Fresh Air here: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1174962751/paved-paradise-examines-how-parking-has-changed-the-american-landscape

  Blog Post:

Expressing Ideas Through Mind Maps by Tasha Markovich, UX Matters https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2022/12/expressing-ideas-through-mind-maps.php

Local UX Researcher Tasha Markovich highlights the under-utilized visualization tool “mind maps,” fleshing out best practices culled from her experience creating them for a variety of contexts, and reviewing some of her favorite digital tools for hosting collaborative mapping events.

Article:

New Yorker – “What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?” by David Owen https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/21/the-hidden-cost-of-free-returns

This thought provoking article about the reverse logisitics industry provides a window into the world of physical product development, where many of the same concerns digital product designers face also pop up. The author discusses how snags can lead to design innovation when someone takes the time to really look at the process. “You can’t beat the information you get from a product once a customer has touched it.”

In Pop Culture:

Dennis Takes a Mental Health Day – It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, S16 E8

The longest running live action sitcom in American history ended their latest season with a deep dive into tech hell, where every device Dennis encounters seems to be conspiring against him. You can stream the episode on Hulu.

Have you read, watched, or listened to something really great and UX-y lately? We’d love to share it! 

Pearl Greene, Senior UX Designer at Sherwin Williams

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?

 I’m Pearl Greene, a senior user experience designer at Sherwin Williams, originally from Ghana, and now proud to call Akron, Ohio my home.

Beyond the office, I cherish moments spent with my husband, friends, and in-laws, while also staying closely connected with my family in Ghana through frequent FaceTime sessions. I’m enthusiastically diving into disc golf, enjoying the company of my beloved cats, Alfie and Moose, nurturing my garden, and rekindling my passion for reading novels. 

Exploring the globe with my husband and savoring new culinary experiences ranks high on my list of favorite pastimes.

Tell us about your path to becoming an UX Designer. How did you end up in this role?

My journey began when Ashesi University introduced robotics to my high school, diverting me from a medical career into the world of computers. Pursuing a computer science degree at Ghana’s sole liberal arts institution expanded my horizons, nurturing my interest in entrepreneurship and design. I developed a passion for problem-solving, mentoring numerous high school students in design thinking.

In my final year, I naturally gravitated towards human-computer interaction, realizing my forte in software engineering was identifying problems, redesigning, and documenting solutions. Following graduation, I worked as a user experience designer in Accra, bridging the tech gap for small-scale entrepreneurs.

Over four years, I wore various hats, including UI development and product management, culminating in my role as Head of Product before relocating to the United States. A UX Akron meet and greet facilitated my introduction to the American job market, where I worked as a user experience designer for Landi Industries.  

Subsequently, I joined Sherwin Williams in the Store Operations group, focused on modernizing their systems and facilitating the transition from outdated technology to user-friendly solutions.

What’s your favorite part of your workday or week?

The highlight of my workday is the exhilarating collaboration with my exceptional team, where we embark on crafting revolutionary user experiences. At Sherwin Williams, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside a team I genuinely adore. They’ve not only fostered my professional growth but also accelerated it, propelling me to new heights in record time.

Tell us about Ghana! What do you miss most?

What I miss most about Ghana? Well, it boils down to the three Fs: Family, Food, and Friends. Particularly, I yearn for my mother’s cooking and her doting care. While Asian and Mexican cuisine have helped fill that void to some extent, I’ve even stumbled upon Ghanaian-inspired dishes in unexpected places!

Improving my own cooking skills has provided quick fixes when nostalgia strikes. Through this journey, I’ve come to realize that, despite our diverse cultures, we all share a common human experience. It’s a reminder that we’re more alike than different, transcending accents and appearances to appreciate our shared humanity.

Do you use anything in your work now that you learned in school or in previous roles that surprises you, that you thought you’d never use now?

Surprisingly, my education, both in college and from previous roles, continues to astound me with its relevance in my day-to-day work. From entrepreneurial insights to social theory, human-computer interaction, and programming skills, I find myself drawing upon a rich reservoir of knowledge.

In Ghana, I crafted inventory and point-of-sale systems tailored for the local market, and it’s intriguing how these experiences still resonate here. Dealing with challenges like low internet access, prioritizing accessibility, and navigating the unpredictable timelines of product development, even with large teams, has given me a unique perspective that fosters empathy with leadership and their requests.

Moreover, my entrepreneurship classes have ingrained the significance of harmonizing user needs with business objectives to ensure efficiency and profitability. I must extend a heartfelt shoutout to my college for equipping me with these invaluable tools for navigating the professional world.

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be?

It’s all gonna work out. Breathe! You don’t need to be first in class to make it in life 

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!

Zoë Wrisley, UXer and Community Advocate

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?

I’m Zoë Wrisley, I love animals, music, and creativity; and I like to travel and see new places. I most recently visited Toronto for the first time to see a Beyonce concert with my friends. It was a dream of a lifetime experience for me, and the city is huge! This summer I’m growing a garden of fruits and vegetables, my first time trying to grow corn, okra, and watermelon- wish us luck!  

Tell us about your path to becoming a User Experience Designer (or whatever title or label you’re comfortable with.) How did you end up in this field? 

While pursuing my undergraduate degree with a focus on political science, I had an internship that introduced me to the tech side of a government relations software company.  Following the internship, I joined the IT department as a permanent employee and graduated from Kent State.  

Having graduated in May of 2020, I felt swept into the uncertainty of the 2020 pandemic. I liked the work I was doing and enjoyed learning more about Information Tech and how to support web applications. Upon hearing about Kent State’s User Experience Design program, it seemed like a perfect fit considering my career path, and to be able to learn in a 100% online setting.  

I call myself a UXer (I sort of made it up) because I have applied my UX knowledge, research strategy, and the design process in many different settings. After graduating from the program, I wanted to become a UX researcher, that being my strongest interest (but titles are not as important as vision and strategy within the work.) I worked on projects in a corporate setting with Fortune 500 clients to improve online services, and conducted research for designing technology and advocating for the needs of public schools and their supporting orgs. I recently took an entrepreneurial route with the goal of launching a desirable-to-user, problem-solving application. 

What’s your favorite part of your workday, week, or the work you’re doing?  

My favorite part about doing the work I do is having the power to be able to advocate for others and make a real difference in their lives; specifically, to be able to make their experiences easier.  

Easier can mean many different things depending on the values of the user; such as clearer, faster, safer, or simply more pleasant. The world we live and operate in is becoming more and more reliant on digital processes that can be enhanced through the focus of UX practices. Everyone deserves to be heard and accommodated so they can achieve the same outcomes as other users. In UX this can be shown by encompassing user values, providing accessibility features, and incorporating guidance for success within the design of websites and applications. 

I am currently working on a project to support our public schools’ work with organizations that seek to improve local education. There are many voices to hear from and accommodate when designing a digital process like this one. I must listen to all user parties to collect their concerns and pain points, then work to design a system and journey that is feasible and can support their tasks in an agreeable way- so the user will want to use it. Even though this field pertains to digital experiences, the ideas and strategies can overlap with other practices of design and advocacy. 

What was getting an MS in User Experience like? What areas do you wish you had learned more about?  

I had a great time during the MS program at Kent State University. The online aspect not only made it more convenient to complete my projects and classes, but it concurrently reminded me of the importance of seamless digital experiences and inspired me to think of supportive designs. We had the opportunity to work in groups as a team, and even simulate work environments with assignments where we had to communicate with and present to ‘stakeholders,’ (our professor.) This program prepared me for vast opportunities, or to be what we call a UX unicorn & do it all! 

I like that the staff and faculty encouraged us to pursue areas of UX that we felt most passionate about. The variety of classes offered us the chance to go deeper into different routes, for instance design, research, accessibility, and more. The culminating requirement could have been a project or portfolio, really putting everything we learned and worked on into practice before graduating. The one thing I wish we could have learned is popularly used UX software and practicing with it. I feel that could give us more experience essential for landing a User Experience role post-grad. 

Do you use anything you learned for your undergraduate degrees in International Relations,  Political Science, and French that surprises you?  

Surprisingly, there are similarities and crossovers in ideas and problem-solving techniques found throughout my studies. While the approaches to learning in each program were very different, I find that for me, user research and advocacy is comparable to the idea of diplomacy, a role found in the field of International Relations. UX is sort of like the middleman between users and developers, such as a diplomat would be the communicator/advocate between foreign parties.  

Another subject that piqued my interest in undergrad was foreign language and translation studies. The use of language is very prominent in UX and ultimately is what guides users to have a successful journey within a digital process or product. We must ensure that any user can use the platform successfully, so research should be conducted to support many languages and ensure that translations are accurate, intuitive, and equal when guiding users through a platform.  

In the UX design and research process, it is vital that research participants are diverse to sufficiently discover the needs and preferences of all potential users and not overlook groups. In my future studies, I would like to look more into how we can incorporate practices of equity and inclusion to promote social justice when designing technologies and organization developments. 

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be? 

People tend to think that they are not successful until they reach their goal, or get their dream job, etc. I’ve learned that you can still be very successful while working towards your goal. Even though it may not be accomplished yet, or you have not seen your dream come to fruition, every day is an opportunity to take one step closer to that dream, and in that alone there is success. I have realized that I will consistently be working towards a new goal, so success has become a redefined term to me. As long as I can stay true to myself, take advantage of good opportunities, and be focused on what matters, I will be able to keep climbing to redefined heights of success.  

I am currently pursuing a Doctorate degree in the field of Interprofessional Leadership with a concentration in Educational Technology while simultaneously working on my own UX projects. Although I do not currently have a UX title, the MS program and professional work I have done is supporting my continuing education, and providing crucial components for my research and understanding, as well as the opportunity for real world application in my experiences careerwise. 

I would like to tell my past self to not lose hope due to not achieving the ‘role’ that I set out to become. I understand that everything I am learning will be useful for my journey, even if I don’t get to practice it right away or in the anticipated capacity. I am and have been accumulating skills and knowledge that will support my future roles. I have faith that as I start to step into new forms of leadership and more opportunities for growth come my way, everything I have practiced and learned will come out to support my goal of improving lives and add to my own personal growth. 

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!

Michael Rucktaschel, Product Owner at Top Echelon

Tell us a little about yourself! What do you enjoy outside of work?

I have an active and outdoorsy lifestyle. Outside of work, I really enjoy spending time on anything with two wheels; mountain biking, dirt biking, and motorcycles. My wife and I also enjoy snowboarding, sand volleyball, and hiking with our dog! 

Tell us about your path to becoming a Product Owner. How did you end up in this role?

As a freshman in college, I saw myself working with product improvements of physical goods but I wasn’t familiar with what the position was or what the path to that career looked like. Leveraging on a general business interest, I earned my Bachelor’s in business management at Kent State University and spent time in product adjacent roles such as Operations Management, Pricing Analysis, and Brand Management.

However, none of these positions clicked as far as long-term career fulfillment. Three years after obtaining my bachelor’s and additional real-world job experience, I went back for my MBA and began to extensively network in search of a career that was right for me. Software Product Management aligned with my strengths and lifestyle goals. It truly felt like a perfect fit with my skills and experience of previous roles paving a transferable path forward. Highlighting the importance of networking, a connection of mine who had previously worked with Top Echelon Software connected me to a hiring manager and what started as a simple conversation turned into a rewarding career move as a Product Owner! 

What’s your favorite part of your workday or week?

Another appeal of this role is that no two days or weeks are the same. As an organization, we are constantly working to learn quickly from our users and continuously improve upon our products. I look forward to the opportunity to analyze an existing product and focus our attention on improving it… sometimes reimagining it all together, other times making only minor changes that can still generate immense value. A highlight of the day is collaborating on these solutions in a small group environment where we can play to everyone’s strengths and experience. 

What was getting an MBA like? Do you use anything you learned that surprises you?

I’m honestly surprised with how smoothly the MBA program went. I took my program 100% online and found it interesting to adapt to virtual connections opposed to in person courses like much of my undergrad. As most people probably know, an MBA is notoriously general and offers career advancement in a variety of positions and industries. This was perfect for me since I was still discovering my ideal career path. The program consisted of a breadth of business principles and decision making through practice case studies; most of these principles can be applied to product. What surprised me were the intangibles that the program indirectly taught such as the importance of reflection, collaboration, and empathy. 

If you could give yourself 10 years ago advice from yourself today, what would it be?

If you’re not empowered or happy with where you are in your career, don’t remain stagnant. That’s probably good life advice too! To clarify, don’t just go find “another” new role, but constantly network, research, and work to continuously discover what’s out there. The skill sets you have developed from a variety of past experiences have given you knowledge to build upon as you search for long term fulfillment. Embrace this and take the time to reflect on your experiences; what moments or activities felt inspiring and which were draining? Then, ask yourself “why,” so that you can learn where to focus your energy next.

Do you know a stellar UX, UI, Product, or Software Designer or Researcher who has joined the field in the last five years that we should feature? Let us know!