Design x Jaclyn (Jaqi) Lenee
Designer & Founder of Citrine Labs
Illustration by Casey Magnuson
Interviewed on May 10, 2021 by Amanda Guerricabeitia
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I consider myself a creative generalist. I’ve done a lot of different types of art, design, and crafting since I was a little girl. These days I spend a lot of my time on the internet, so my art looks a whole lot different than it did back then.
I spend a lot of time connecting people online and doing design work for different tech companies and organizations. I started my own creative business Citrine Labs, and I love using magical tech tools to help other creatives like me earn money doing the same thing.
Can you tell us how you landed your first tech role at 21?
This was AdRoll, a technology startup making intelligent banner ads. At the time I was working at Starbucks and also working with one of my favorite Starbucks regulars, who happened to be a WordPress web guy. We were working together to make websites for people. I was doing small branding projects with him while putting in my 30 hours a week making coffee. I remember seeing this role and being really excited about it because it was paying more than double what I was making at Starbucks, and thinking about using my design skills in a full-time manner was really exciting. So I started making banner ads for AdRoll. Their startup was like 20 people when I joined, really small.
That experience taught me how to work well in a startup. It taught me how to succeed in a tech company because, in those environments, there are way more things to do than there are people to do them. That’s when I learned how to be really resourceful, Google everything. My manager taught me that if I have a question about something, don’t bother someone else with it until I’ve put in a good amount of time trying to figure it out myself. I also learned how to collect responsibilities, and that’s how I ended up getting to a position where I was leading a team and hiring other designers. When I left there were six or seven designers working within my team. I was 23 when I did that. Totally bananas, but I learned so much through that experience and I feel really lucky to have landed there.
Eventually, you left AdRoll to pursue a UX design immersive program at General Assembly (GA). What about UX excited you?
When I first learned about UX, I was intrigued because it sounded more strategic. There was more problem solving, and it was also emotional and psychological too. It was this deeper layer of design beyond what it looks like. There is this other layer of how someone is actually experiencing that thing I’ve made. I was very intrigued by that. I saw UX as a way that I could blend my love for art and my love for strategy together.
“I saw UX as a way that I could blend my love for art and my love for strategy together.”
Eventually, you left the corporate world to work for yourself. Can you share with us a little bit about how you got to that point?
There’s a lot of layers to this. GA taught me so much about the process of user experience design. I felt very ready to work on a lot of different problems, so I jumped headfirst into Pivotal Labs, thinking, “This is my dream job.” That was the first time I had the opportunity to work on a balanced product team with a product manager, engineers, and other designers. Pivotal Labs was a life-changing opportunity for me in terms of learning the iterative, lean way of building products, but I learned that Pivotal Labs wasn’t a good environment fit for me. I really struggled with overstimulation in that job. Just to set the scene, it’s a big open office space of 250 employees and everyone is pairing. All of the developers are sitting next to each other, talking through what they’re doing, all day long.
I got extremely burnt out, mentally and emotionally. Being 24 and thinking this was my dream job, I turned all of that onto myself. I thought that I wasn’t trying hard enough and something was wrong with me. Eventually, I learned that I’m an introvert and that I’m a highly sensitive person. Too much noise can trigger me and I can get panic attacks in a state of overstimulation. If I hit that point of overstimulation, my whole system shuts down and I have a really bad time. I ended up realizing that the environment was clearly not working for me. I thought, “How can I reimagine the way that I’m working to help myself prevent overstimulation and depression, while also providing value to the companies I’m working for?” After Pivotal Labs, I started up my freelancing hustle.
Over the last six years, I’ve constructed my work-life so that I have my own space and control the levels of noise and stimulation. I can schedule my client meetings and client interfacing hours for times when I know that I’m going to have the most energy and offer the best value. It literally took a mental breakdown for me to learn the things about myself that would help me realize that I can’t fit into the cookie-cutter solution of what being in a career looks like. I had to forge that path for myself.
When I was in my last full-time gig working at Purse, I put into my contract that I needed to be able to work from home at least two days a week. That is a really common workplace modification for people who are neurodivergent, which I’ve recently learned I am.
The other thing I want to mention is that there are organizations that are totally decentralized organizations, where no two people live in the same city. I belong to a decentralized autonomous organization called RaidGuild that is like a dev shop for the Web3 community. Web3 is shorthand for products and services on the internet that utilize cryptocurrency technologies. We have over 100 members working decentralized and totally remotely all the time. We’re adding this layer of decentralization to the internet and using blockchains and cryptocurrencies to transact in new and innovative ways. None of us have a predefined schedule or working hours. People just do the work. If you do good work, you get paid. If you don’t do work, you don’t get paid. It’s as simple as that.
What sparked that interest? How did you get involved?
I got really lucky. After my time at Pivotal Labs, I threw myself into the freelance game. That’s when I met Andrew Lee, the founder of Purse, and the rest of the crew. The original prompt was they wanted me to take their app, which was desktop, and make it mobile-responsive. Everything was good, and then Andrew said, “Oh yeah, we are going to pay in Bitcoin.” I had heard of Bitcoin, but I had never used it. At the time, I was very skeptical about cryptocurrency.
Sitting in the room with these guys, I started absorbing all of this information about the technology. I learned about other cryptocurrency technologies, and I started collecting tokens from projects that I thought were doing interesting work. I thought it was kind of a gamble, that I could lose this money at any point. I wasn’t in a position to invest a lot. It was a very small sliver of my paycheck back then.
But since then, obviously crypto has exploded in popularity, and the technology has become extremely advanced. Now I’m really involved with the Ethereum development community and the types of projects they’re working with. I have been learning how to adjust my design process and style to incorporate these new interaction patterns that we’re seeing in Web3.
Can you briefly explain the difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin?
Bitcoin and Ethereum are both cryptocurrencies, and they both run on a blockchain. A blockchain is basically like a database that anyone, anywhere in the world, can audit or view. Anyone in the world can participate in maintaining this public record, so it’s basically impossible for bad guys to manipulate. How does this all work? Well, it all has to do with really sophisticated math and cryptography.
The Bitcoin development team has been very focused on maintaining Bitcoin as a solid store of value. Their main concern is security and not introducing any changes to the code which could threaten people’s digital gold store.
On the other hand, Ethereum is a programmable cryptocurrency, and it’s optimized to be used in transactions using smart contract technology that is built into the protocol.
What’s incredible and what’s important about cryptocurrency is that it takes the control and power over money away from the traditional monetary systems. There are a lot of people who feel financial insecurity because their funds are being controlled by an entity that is not themselves. We’ve set up a system to be able to fully trust each other. We trust the math, really. It’s the math that is enabling us to fully trust each other.
I think there are going to be people in the future who never touch fiat currency, only cryptocurrencies.
“I think there are going to be people in the future who never touch fiat currency, only cryptocurrencies.”
What are the design challenges that you’ve faced in Web3 development? Where can designers create value?
We need more designers in the Web3 space. We really do. This space is driven by mind-blowing technical innovations. Vitalik Buterin created Ethereum, and I think he’s going to be written about in history books for this invention. Tech is driving all of this interesting functionality, but the learning curve for starting to interact with a Web3 app is really steep. The biggest user experience challenge right now is onboarding someone from the point of being curious about crypto to actually setting up a wallet, getting some, and learning how to use it in a decentralized app.
The second biggest usability challenge is transaction fees. Back in 2017, Bitcoin started to become really popular and a lot of people were using the blockchain to transact and it clogged up the network. Suddenly, transaction fees were extremely expensive. We’re talking $50 to send money from one place to another. Purse was really affected by this because we were selling Amazon goods for Bitcoin. We had customers complaining that they spent $20 on a book from Amazon, and had to pay $50 in Bitcoin transaction fees to do it.
We’re seeing the same thing with Ethereum happening right now. Projects are working on this problem from many different angles, from protocol improvements to second-layer blockchains. Currently, we’re seeing many apps switch off of the main Ethereum network to alternatives such as XDAI and Polygon, which require users to bridge funds. This new interaction pattern is tricky for new users to navigate.
A designer’s real value is translating all of this stuff. User experience designers are the best suited for making a big impact in the space by simply running usability tests on apps that already exist. That alone will add tremendous value to these teams. These projects forget how much they know about this stuff, and someone with a user experience background, or even an empathic researcher, can take a really cool product and test it with 10 people who know nothing about Web3, then surface those insights to the team. I think in 20 years everyone is going to be using Ethereum, but in order for us to get there, we need to make these apps really understandable and accessible to people outside of the tech bubble.
What is it like to be a woman in crypto right now?
I was gonna make a joke and say it’s very lonely. When I started working in the Bitcoin community in 2015 I encountered misogyny. The team I was working with was awesome, empowering women to do good work. Obviously, they hired me. But I also had experiences at crypto conferences where I was the only woman attendee and all of the other women there were models in bikinis.
In my experience, there are a lot more women in the Web3 Ethereum realm than there are in Bitcoin. The Ethereum space is very friendly to women. I’ve met a lot of badass women who are doing product design, strategy work, and protocol development, and there are some really cool organizations that I’ve become a part of. Meta Gamma Delta is a Web3, female-forward sorority doing awesome work. Their whole shtick is connecting women who are working in the space and supporting women-led projects. So we exist, but there are not very many of us and I would like to see that change.
Can you share a quick word of advice for women wanting to enter this space?
I’m on Twitter. Find me, find other women doing awesome work in the space and become friends with them. It feels like we’re building a sisterhood in a way. There’s so much to learn and so much that’s confusing about this space, so having someone that you connect with and can help answer a lot of your beginner questions is extremely valuable.
“Find me, find other women doing awesome work in the space and become friends with them.”
(You heard it here, sisters. Connect with Jaqi.)
And what would you say is the designer’s role in creating community in this Web3 environment?
I would encourage anyone who wants to dip a toe into the Ethereum realm or cryptocurrency in general, to find a project that resonates with you. Make friends with the people building it and offer to add value in whatever way you can. It could be creating a series of memes that you retweet on Twitter. It could be helping a project design their logo, or doing usability testing or user research for a project.
Any favorite resources for folks wanting to get started with crypto?
I invite you all to join the Web3Designers Discord to find community and learn from other designers in the space.
If you live in the US, Coinbase is probably the easiest exchange to get started with. They have a lot of training resources on their website, and you can earn tokens by learning how it works. That could be one way that you could start to learn and also build up your treasure chest.
The third thing I would recommend is following Andreas Antonopoulos on Twitter and on YouTube. Andreas has been doing the good work of educating and enlightening people on crypto since the very early days of Bitcoin. He wrote a series of books called the Internet of Money, where he dives deep into what money is and how money has its value. It really goes in-depth explaining the details of how all of these things work but in very human language.
I hear you have a tale to share about Satoshi, the legendary inventor of Bitcoin. Care to share with Design x Us?
I’d love to share this story. When Bitcoin was published, there was a white paper authored by someone named Satoshi Nakamoto. There have been a lot of rumors about who Satoshi is, but they have never come out publicly. Is it one person or is it more than one person? Obviously, we want to know who this brilliant genius is who figured out how to use math to completely rewrite our financial infrastructure.
One person who came out and claimed that he is Satoshi Nakamoto was Dr. Craig Wright. Immediately when Dr. Craig Wright came out claiming to be Satoshi, everyone in the Bitcoin community said, “Yeah right, you’re not the guy. We don’t believe you, show us proof that you are Satoshi.”
Some people I’ve talked to are very convinced that Dr. Craig Wright is Satoshi or was one of the people who created Bitcoin. But in recent years, there’s been a lot of controversy because he’s had lawyers try to patent various parts of the Bitcoin technology which is shocking and against the original purpose of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is digital cash for everyone in the world and it belongs to all of us.
I had the opportunity to travel to Hong Kong a few years ago to attend a conference about Bitcoin Cash. Dr. Craig Wright was very involved in Bitcoin Cash, leading the charge to split away from Bitcoin. The other person who was a part of that was Roger Ver, who is known as Bitcoin Jesus. I learned that I would get to meet these guys at this conference, and this was really exciting.
There was this party at the end of the conference. I remember walking up to the party and there were girls dressed up in space-aged outfits. They offered you a red pill or blue pill, and depending on which pill you chose they would blindfold you and take you somewhere. I took the red pill, and I was blindfolded and I was taken into this room. My blindfold came off and I was standing next to Roger Ver. So cool to meet him.
Shortly after that, I noticed Dr. Craig Wright across the room. I had my favorite golden dress on, and I brought with me a pack of tarot cards because that is one of my party tricks I like to pull out, especially when I’m meeting new people. I saw Dr. Craig Wright walking over, so I went up to him and asked, “Do you believe in magic?” He kind of looked at me in a puzzled way. I said, “Here, take a card, any card.” So he pulled a card. He pulled the Sun card, and the Sun is all about creative insight and creating a new world. At the time I thought, “Wow, this guy is actually Satoshi.” But now that I no longer believe he is Satoshi, I believe that I should have been reading the card in reverse.
“I saw Dr. Craig Wright walking over, so I went up to him and asked, ‘Do you believe in magic?’”
That was the time I read tarot for the supposed creator of Bitcoin. He probably thought I was a weirdo, but for me, that was a really fun, exciting moment because it was my test.
Later that night I was sitting down at the bar, and I was ordering another glass of Veuve Clicquot and this very nerdy older dude sat down next to me. He asked, “Do you know who Satoshi is?” I said, “No I don’t, and I actually suspect that it’s not just one person but it’s multiple people.” He just looked at me and said, “Yes, three.”
(Oh, an insider’s secret! That’s a really fun story.)
Rapid Fire Questions
What time of day do you do your best work?
10 AM into the afternoon. Those are my golden hours.
What question do you want to be asked more?
How has my design process changed? From the beginning of my career to now, it’s very different.
What’s your hidden talent?
Identifying mushroom species.
