Design x Claudia Haon
Senior UX Designer at Blink
Illustration by Bonnie Kate Wolf
Interview conducted by Victoria Du on September 18, 2020
Tell us a little about yourself.
I am a UX (user experience) designer in Seattle. I work for the design agency Blink. I love food, music, and traveling. I love being out in nature, and that’s where I get a lot of inspiration, when I do spend time out in the mountains or on a lake. My family and friends are very important to me.
How did you become a UX designer?
In college, I studied psychology and studio art. I was interested in painting and photography, and when I got out of school, I was kind of torn as to what direction I wanted to go into. I decided to approach photography first and worked for some photographers, but I realized that I loved it more as an art form than a career. I thought about getting a masters in psychology, but in the meantime I got a temporary job at Adobe. When I started playing with Photoshop and Illustrator, it opened my eyes to this whole world of design.
When I was taking studio art classes in college, there was a bit of a snobbery against commercial art—there was this whole idea that commercial art is not “real” art and not something worthy of doing. But when I was playing around with Photoshop and Illustrator, I thought, “Oh, wait a second, this could be a career. This is really cool!” That’s what brought me to design school the first round.
I went to design school at Seattle Central, which was more of a vocational program. I didn’t want to spend four years going through college again because I’d just done that. I ended up working for an agency as an intern during school and really liked agency work, so I went in that direction after school.
Eventually I worked for myself, doing freelance work. At a certain point, I transitioned into surface design, designing patterns and illustrations. I was really hoping to get into the fabric design business that way. But after about five years, I realized I really missed the thinking part of design.
So I decided it was a good idea to go back to school and to learn some new techniques. The landscape had really changed. Research has become much more important. I decided to go to General Assembly, and, again, it was a super vocational focus. They taught us skills we would actually use in the workplace, and it was great. I kind of fell in love with the UCD (user-centered design) process, which was new to me. After school, I got the job at Blink and have been working there ever since.
Has your background in psychology influenced you as a designer?
What brought me into psychology was really this interest in learning how people think, like what’s going on in their heads. I still love that. In design, that’s a huge part of what we do. It’s trying to figure out not how we think about something, but how someone else thinks. How do we draw that out, and how do we get them to articulate what they’re thinking? A lot of what brought me to psychology is what I now use as a designer.
Do you find it harder to figure out what people think or to have them articulate their thoughts?
Both are difficult. I would say it’s harder to understand what people think because our own thoughts and preconceived notions can get in the way. I might ask questions the wrong way, and that could lead whoever it is to answer something a certain way, or I might interpret it a certain way. But definitely there are times when it’s a lot harder to pull information out of someone.
How did the two rounds of design school compare?
When I started in design, everything was a lot less separated. There was really no such thing as a “visual designer” or an “interaction designer”—that was the same person. Then it was separated by “digital design” and “print design.” The agency I was working for during school was more of a print design agency. They got a job to design a website, but nobody there knew much about that. Because I was in school being trained on it, I was like, “Hey, me! I can do that!” I got to design and actually help build the website because, at the time, there was not a lot of separation between design and code either. That was exciting.
My experiences in school for design were very vocationally focused both times. I didn’t go to a program where there was a lot of philosophical thought about design, so in that sense, my design education was similar both times. It’s just the specific things I learned were quite different.
Do you feel that people are trying to combine the separate aspects of design (research, visual, etc.) again?
In actual practice, things are not as separate as they are when you study them. In studying, and sometimes even when I read job descriptions, it seems like these are very different aspects of design. But in reality and in practice, I don’t think they are so separate. It’s very hard to pull visual design out of interaction design. They rely on each other and are parts of the same thing.
“It’s very hard to pull visual design out of interaction design. They rely on each other and are parts of the same thing.”
What topics in the design industry are particularly interesting to you today?
Ethics in design. I’m definitely thinking about how you can better anticipate the potential impact your designs are going to have down the road on people in society.
Let’s talk about Facebook. I think it’s really interesting that, for a really long time, their message was, “We were just college kids, we didn’t know any better, we just put this together.” But Facebook is a platform that has a huge impact on people all around the world—some ways positive, some ways quite negative.
In the design process, you should be thinking about the future and about the possible impact you might have. I think it’s really interesting, and I love to read and think about this topic.
How do ethics influence your own work?
I really try to play out and think about the impact. Right now, I’m working on a risk assessment project for a company that does insurance and banking. One of the things we think about in design here is how to not make it too easy for people to do these assessments. It is kind of counterintuitive, since designers often want to make things as easy for the users as possible. But if you’re assessing risk and it’s too easy and you’re moving too fast, you’re not going to think about those risks enough and really make sure that you’ve considered everything. It’s a very interesting balance of not wanting to make it so easy but also not wanting to make your users jump through hoops at the same time. It goes against our normal instincts as designers.
What do you think are some of the challenges designers face today?
One of the biggest challenges is really just getting buy-in. A lot of companies might give lip service that design is important, or they might not even go that far. It just might not be part of the company’s ethos. It’s definitely a big struggle to get those in charge to really see the importance of design and the impact it can have, to have a more user-centered design approach versus just an ad-hoc approach.
How would you describe your role as a UX designer at Blink?
My role changes a little bit for each project because we get a big variety of projects, which is actually one of the reasons I love working for Blink. The environment is very dynamic and I thrive on that. My role might look quite different in a six-week project than in a large 16-week project with another designer and a director. Generally I get to do some research and design, another reason why I love working for Blink. We have research baked into every project. Because I have the interest and experience, I get to do a lot of the research on my projects, instead of having a separate researcher. Depending on the project type and also depending on where we are in the lifecycle of the project, I might be doing research, envisioning design, or even figuring out a design system.
How does Blink structure its teams?
I’m going to take the example of a medium- to large-sized project. The project would start with someone who already has or is building some sort of relationship with the client, so a business development person who would stay throughout the project to make sure the relationship goes on. There is always a director on the project, and depending on the project the director might be more or less involved. The project I’m on right now has a lead designer, and I am the UX designer. The lead designer also has a lot of research background so there’s no researcher on this project, but the typical project might need a researcher brought in for portions or the whole project. Sometimes the client is grappling with what technology to use, so we would bring in a technical strategist. Sometimes there is a visual designer paired with an interaction designer, again, depending on the specific project. There’s always a project manager, and they are essential and fantastic. I have definitely done that role myself, along with design in the past. It is wonderful to have a project manager there to help keep everything organized. It’s definitely more fun to work on a team versus solo work.
What do you think makes your team work well together? Are there qualities or personalities that you value most in forming the team?
Reliability is important. I expect my teammates to take care of their responsibilities so I don’t have to worry about other parts of the project and I can really focus on the things I need to do. When I am working with a project manager, it’s really nice that they’ll be working on the scheduling of all participants, and I can focus on putting together the plan for running sessions. This kind of sharing of responsibilities is really wonderful.
Communication is key. We have stand-ups everyday. These quick meetings help make sure everybody knows what is going on with the project, and it’s especially important when the team is larger.
How would you describe your team’s design process?
Generally we start with discovery and research. We do a kick-off with the client and try to get as much information as we can out of them. This really is to make sure that we are all on the same page. Then we do stakeholder interviews, or user interviews, depending on the project or what it is that we are designing. We do research in the field to see what other companies are doing that is related. Then we move on to journey mapping, that kind of thing.
Quite often we have a workshop with the client to really flesh out what are the most important things to focus on for everybody. This is really helpful, both to us and to the clients. They’ll get people in the room that normally do not work together, and we really help them clarify strategy, what’s most important, and how we’re going to go about it. Their reaction is quite often, “Wow, this would’ve taken so much time with the way that our company works for these people to all talk about this at the same time and actually make decisions.” These conversations are really powerful.
After all of that discovery and research, we’re ready for concepting, which is a really fun stage. At Blink, we’ll often pull in people that are not on the project to help us brainstorm different concepts.
“At Blink, we’ll often pull in people that are not on the project to help us brainstorm different concepts.”
We do what we call a concept card session, and it gets so many ideas going. It’s a very exciting part of the project. You have six to 10 people in a concept card session, and you’re feeding off of each other’s ideas. When we have all of these concepts, we narrow it down with the clients and with our team. What do we like the most? What makes the most sense? What’s going to get us to our goals?
Then we test the key concepts with potential users and get a sense from them what concepts make sense, not just business-wise but for actual users. What’s important to them? What’s resonating?
Then we start bringing whatever comes to the top into fruition. We’ll start designing the actual designs and build prototypes. Once we iterate on those with the clients, we start bringing those prototypes into user testing. That’s where we learn all sorts of things. Of course, iterate again and again until we have what we feel is the best solution.
Then we go into more documentation and communication for a handoff, so that we can hand the right materials off to developers, especially if we are not working with them right then. We love to involve the developers all along so that we know what we’re handing off will be super useful to them and viable to build. They’re on board, they’re bought-in, they’ve been part of the process and been able to make smart decisions with us all along, so we can just hand it off. There are times where I stay on throughout some or all of the development phase too. That’s always fantastic because you’re making those changes as it is built because there are always things to change.
It’s exciting. It’s almost like if you were to build a sculpture. You start here, and it’s very amorphous at first, and then you’re refining and refining and refining. And then, in the end, you have this wonderful feeling, like “Okay, we’ve been through all of this, and now we have this beautiful finished product!”
Is there any particularly interesting project that you have done that you want to share?
The one nearest to my heart involved helping a company conceive and design a product for scientists to better visualize and work with complicated brain-science data. The company has built up all of this wonderful information over the years, and our goal was to help scientists actually use that better and make connections. Brain science as a topic was fascinating to me, and the client was really involved. I love when the client is really interested in what you’re doing and is actually participating. During user tests with the scientists, they were really excited about the ideas. It was really rewarding when they kept asking us, “When can we get our hands on this?”
We felt that what we were doing was important and was wanted. I feel like we also came up with some really great ideas—there was a big “aha” moment at one point about how we might structure the system. It was exciting when we got to, “Oh my gosh, this idea could be a total breakthrough!” and the client said, “That’s totally what we are looking for!” It just all came together. Our clients loved the product and they actually came back a year later. We got to help them build a design system, which was also fun in a really different way.
What are some of the hardest parts of your job?
Towards the beginning of each project, you just are in this uncomfortable phase where you don’t really know enough about the project, the space, and what you’re going to do. It’s just part of the process. It feels messy and uncomfortable to be brought in as an expert in UX design but not in whatever it is I’m being brought in to help with. It can be tiring both mentally and emotionally. The good news is that this uncomfortable feeling always goes away as you figure out everything along the way.
Other than the dynamic working environment, what else do you enjoy in your job?
I love the people that I work with. Blink has so many interesting, diverse, and super smart people who are really supportive of each other. I feel like I am constantly learning from them. The feeling of always learning new things is wonderful, and I love it.
What advice would you give to fellow designers? Any recommended study materials?
I love podcasts, specifically Design Matters. Debbie Millman does an amazing job in interviewing people, getting their stories, getting to what’s important to them. I also read a lot on Medium, all different types of things. Nielsen Norman Group has an amazing website that I use all the time. Just stay super inquisitive.
For advice, one thing that I always talk to people about is the importance of communication. As a designer, you need to learn not just those design skills like research or how to make wireframes—you also need to learn how to communicate to different people on your team, and, if you’re working in an agency, certainly how to communicate with clients. Communication is a very large part of the job. It’s the basis of everything we do.
“Communication is a very large part of the job. It’s the basis of everything we do.”
Work on presentation skills—not just the presenting part, but putting together a good slide deck that concisely says what you need it to say. Edit yourself down in terms of not saying everything, but rather figuring out what the most important things are is quite important. I’ve seen work from some other agencies where the research summaries were so dense that it was hard to even understand what the findings were. We work really hard to analyze all the information and pull out just the most important themes. If you are not communicating those, giving all that information doesn’t really do anybody good.
Rapid Fire Questions
What is your favorite thing to do in your free time?
Eating great food. I love to travel, and part of that is eating foods from different places. So probably my favorite thing is just to try something new.
What is your favorite drama or movie?
What is your favorite style of music?
Indie rock is one of my favorites. I love all kinds of music.
Are you a dog person or cat person?
I used to be a cat person, but now I’m becoming more and more of a dog person. I have both and I really love them.
What or who inspires you?
In terms of design, I would say my colleagues. Just seeing all the amazing work they do everyday completely inspires me.
If you could live anywhere, where would that be?
Can I live in multiple places? I hope to have a little place in Italy on the water, and then a place in Seattle in August because that is the most beautiful month here, and a place on the East Coast where I can be close to my family.
How would you describe yourself in three words?
Curious, calm, and creative—the three Cs.
