Tiffany OH

It’s easy to get caught up in functional ratios and its often a losing battle stuck in idealisms. With that said there’s a real business risk when design and supporting teams aren’t invested in. This video does a great job explaining how efficacy and efficiency across product and development teams drop when this happens.

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Hiring for design system roles differs from hiring for other design or engineering roles. Clarifying what makes the roles unique is essential for screening candidates. Here are some nuances that I've found to be helpful. When asking for a presentation, stop using the word "portfolio" and start using "case studies." They tell similar stories but change the expectations from traditional visual portfolios. Include clear bullet points about expected responsibilities; don't just copy and paste requirements from other similar, existing roles. Just because they have the word "designer" or "engineer" in the title doesn't mean the job is the same. If your org still insists on doing a design exercise, tailor it to reflect what you expect from a design system practitioner. The day-to-day is unique, so don't waste time on an exercise that provides no value for you and sets the candidate up for failure. If hiring a design system team manager, you're not hiring an independent contributor and vice versa. Managing and building design systems is a lot of work. One person can't do both roles well simultaneously, so pick one and focus the interview questions on the expected role. What did I miss?

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Design leaders, the red flags you miss during interviews are setting you up for trouble down the line. 🚩 🚩 🚩 Hiring is rarely easy, but if you want to build a thriving design team (without creating a toxic culture!), it’s so important to know what to screen for in candidates. It’s always easier to avoid bringing on the wrong person in the first place than to have to clean up the mess later. What’s the secret? I’ll give you a hint: Sometimes you have to dig deeper with your questions—including the questions you ask yourself. 👀 In my latest post for the Executive Designer, I discuss red flags, green flags, conflicts, and other hiring pitfalls. Give it a read and let me know your thoughts! https://lnkd.in/gwcYyR_j #ExecutiveDesigner #designteam #hiringtips #redflags

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🎉 News for Product Designers 🎉 While we’re working on some big updates for Mockin, we’re excited to share a small but helpful new feature — Resume/CV Checker. It’s designed to help you polish your resume and get actionable recommendations! 🙌 Want to try it out? 1. Like this post 2. Comment on this post 3. I’ll enable the feature for you Let's try it now https://mockin.work/ P.S. Your feedback is invaluable Let’s build tools together that make life better and easier for the design community. 🚀 P.S.P.S. Yes. it's free!

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🎥 I'm excited to share my latest YouTube video where I delve into the art of crafting compelling UX portfolios. Whether you're an aspiring designer or looking to refine your portfolio, this video is packed with actionable insights to help you stand out. 📋 In this video, I cover: Visual Appeal: How to make your portfolio visually engaging. Content Structure: The importance of organized and concise content. Effective Presentation: Tips on clear CTAs and enhancing readability with visuals. I had the pleasure of critiquing portfolios from two talented designers, Celia Hazard and Chofi Chang, offering a detailed analysis from a hiring manager's point of view. 👀 Why watch? - Valuable Tips: Learn how to improve your portfolio to impress potential employers. - Real Examples: See practical critiques of actual portfolios. Professional Insight: Gain a better understanding of what hiring managers look for. - Don't miss out on these essential tips to elevate your UX portfolio and make a lasting impression! 👉 Watch the full video here and start transforming your portfolio today! #UXDesign #PortfolioReview #HiringManager #DesignTips #CareerAdvice #UserExperience

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I’ve had the privilege of working with designers and engineers so deeply committed to creating exceptional user experiences that they go beyond their defined roles, stretching the boundaries of design and engineering alike. Designers start coding to bring interactions to life exactly as they envision—something hard to achieve with design tools alone. Engineers move beyond just “making it work” to crafting every detail, caring about the nuances that make an experience delightful. In previous roles, to support and amplify these talents, I’ve set up "design prototyping" or "design technology" teams that bridge engineering, product, and design. These teams help close gaps, allowing designers and engineers to collaborate seamlessly and push their boundaries. At Slack, we’ve established the Design Engineering function—a role critical to our mission of elevating craft, accelerating prototyping, and strengthening design-engineering collaboration. This function came to life through an ongoing journey of learning and adapting how best to align design and engineering to unlock product innovation, led by Chris Delbuck. Big thanks to Ethan Eismann for the support. Transformations like this happen only with passionate leaders and doers like Chris, Gleb Denisov, and Naman Kedia, work together to unlock their skills and people superpowers. Their dedication and example drive change. Chris and Naman have documented this journey in a blog post, where they also lay out the career paths and foundational blueprint for Design Engineers. Their insights can serve as a guide for others setting up design engineering teams for success. 🔗 Check it out here:

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My thoughts on what’s happening to the design industry as of lately: - Rise of product designer + product manager hybrids. - Rise of design engineers. Designers who know more front-end. - Return and prominence of Design Agencies. Or large corps hiring agencies to do work instead of full-timers. - Talented UX researchers with data skills. Words of advice: Time to upskill or seek roles with a design agency.

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Designers, it's time to start valuing your time. More top companies have stopped giving take-home assignments to experienced designers, recognizing that whiteboard challenges are enough to assess their skills. While take-home assignments may still be appropriate for entry-level designers, it's important to remember that your time has value. In fact, offering payment for take-home assignments can help attract top talent. Many skilled designers skip candidacy simply because the take home assignment is not interesting to them. Let’s prioritise smart hiring processes that respect both the company’s and the candidate’s time. #design #designhiring #assignment #payment

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Figma's recent blunder with their most recent "Make Design" release is hinting at a larger issue with the design industry that us designers have only ourselves to blame for. Clearly we continue to fall short on tying our work to dollars therefore organizations continue to see us as just a cost on a balance sheet. In a world where designers have latched themselves to a dead set need for a design system where their differentiating factor is they can use a tool to build and manage one, we have proposed our worth as someone who can arrange and construct pre-selected pieces on a screen together with color. Enter "Make Design". This enables any senior stakeholder to easily see what they perceive as significantly less time and effort to do what we do at a speed none of us can compete at. Naturally, this appears bleak because the floor has been lowered to a point where anyone can make an interface. Fortunately, after doing user research any designer will see that the majority of a customers experience occurs outside a screen. In fact, sometimes an overwhelming amount of their experience is spent never looking at a digital interface at all. The design field should be as focused as ever right now on our incredible interest in our fellow humans, their frustrations, and our unique skillsets we have to draw out their experience. From there, extreme cost incursions make themselves painfully evident which we can use to prove opportunity cost. And if we do a good enough job we can prove the cost of taking design seriously will be more worth the companies money than a blunder where the CEO of a $12bn company costs themselves their own personal and brand embarrassment. Now ask yourself, how much value ($$) today and in the future was destroyed because Figma had to walk this back? #uxresearch https://lnkd.in/euQZjyyX

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🚫STOP ASKING DESIGNERS TO DO TAKE-HOME EXERCISES! PERIOD!🚫 Not sure why this is a "spicy" topic. If you require a take-home exercise, you don't know how to assess or hire design talent. Anyone asking designers to do this should be named and shamed. The only time I could *maybe* understand an exercise would be for a junior-level designer with no experience or professional work available. For designers with in-depth case studies, why do you include portfolio presentations as an interview step if you're going to give them a vague prompt to build polished screens around? IMO, this is free work. *Typically* designers have 5-7 methods to showcase that isn't homework: - Portfolios - Case study decks that dive deeper into work (utilized in the portfolio presentation stage) - Whiteboarding challenges that showcase problem-solving in real-time - Resumes that communicate impact and past work. - App critiques that help you understand how they approach IA, content hierarchy, areas of friction, UI considerations, and feature improvements. - Testimonials from colleagues they've worked with in the past. (Eng, product, stakeholders) - References who can speak directly to whatever it is you're seeking. If you combine all of those, what value does the take-home offer that the above didn't cover? People searching for jobs don't have time to do a 1-3 hour exercise for every company they talk with. Can you imagine? In today's job market? If someone is interviewing with five companies, that quickly becomes 15 hours of work. This does not include the notion that most designers don't spend the minimum recommended time and typically spend 4-8 hours rather than 1-3. **edited for the sake of positive conversation rather than ending negatively. There are designers who might not have the luxury of saying no, or worse, they don't know any better. We can't ignore the predatory nature of today's job market, which results from the disadvantages of candidates and the companies that take advantage of them. So, if you get a take-home assignment and don't have the luxury of withdrawing, message me. I'll happily schedule time with you to work through it together.

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Have a look at my latest article "User Interviews Made Simple". A comprehensive user interview guide for designers who want to do it all! 😉

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"Any tips for presenting design case studies in an interview?" a friend recently asked. Most certainly. ✦ Don't bury the outcome with a big reveal. Many times I've watched patiently as designers wait until the end to share the final outcome of their labors, first sharing their process (which is typically the same as every other candidate), sketches, post-its, and so forth. INSTEAD: Lead with a few screens that best represent the outcome. You can do this in 10 seconds. And then avoid the next mistake... ✦ Don't jump straight into your process. See note above. Your process is probably identical to every other candidate. This does little to set you apart. INSTEAD: State the problem clearly you were trying to solve. Clarity about the problem is a designer after my own heart. It shows clear intention to solve user/business needs. ✦ Don't show me personas. Some will disagree with this advice. But as a seasoned design leader, few things leave me more concerned about the inputs to your design work than fictitious avatars, names, and bios. INSTEAD: State the target audience you were designing for. If necessary describe the inputs to identifying this audience. Then follow up with how your work met or exceeded the needs of this audience. (Even better, stop using personas altogether and use archetypes or JTBDs instead.) BONUS TIPS ✨ ✦ If multiple designers worked on the same screen, be upfront about this and clarify what your role was. Personally I find it to be a bit of a letdown when something looks/functions great, only to find out later in our discussion that another designer did part of the work. ✦ Proactively share what you would have done differently if given the chance to do this work all over again. No work is ever perfect. But if you *could* get one step closer to perfection, what would it be. This shows me you're capable of critiquing yourself, which honestly not all designers are adept at. ✦ Provide me with a link to what you're presenting (slide deck, figma). I may want to jump around while you're presenting to find areas that are most likely to help me — and therefore you — discuss the right things relevant to this role. I realize this may be problematic to grant me access, so make a copy and then delete the copy after our interview. Hope this helps.

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Isn't it strange how the types of process materials in portfolios is different than how real work is done in UX? I talk about what materials we commonly see in portfolios that are never used in real work, then I talk about some that we really do use. https://lnkd.in/g45JT7Qk

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This d.MBA episode shares a ton of great nuggets on advocating for design functions and how to have more impact as a designer? #UX #ProductDesign https://buff.ly/47VixoZ

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🚀 Streamlining Complexity: From 408 Button Variants to 1 🚀 We faced a challenge with our legacy Design System—408 button variants, each covering various sizes, states, and purposes. Managing this complexity was no small feat. 🌟 The Solution: We are rebuilding our Design System from the ground up. By leveraging Figma variables, we created a new, streamlined system. 🔧 The Result: As an example, we have a single, highly customizable button component with auto layout, covering all states and types. This new system not only simplifies our design process but also replaces the 408 variants with just one component! Swipe through to see how we achieved this and the impact it has on our design consistency and efficiency. 💡 👉 What do you think? Did you find this useful? Drop a comment below—I’d love to hear your thoughts! #DesignSystem #Figma #ProductDesign #FigmaVariables

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Great visualisation of the things UX researchers do throughout the research process. Often I've had stakeholders say "I have a list of interview questions already" but as shown below, it's not that easy or simple to craft good questions, and how to ask good follow-up questions during interviews. It takes skill and practice. #uxresearch #invisibleprocess #userinterviews

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A designer's true seniority is not determined by their title, but by their proficiency in both execution and strategic thinking. The trait of a truly senior designer lies in their ability to seamlessly navigate between these two critical roles. 😊

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I flag brand integration as a critical skill for product designers to develop–it’s a versatile ability to add to your skill set. I’m not talking about learning how to create a brand (logo, color palette, typography, etc.). The skill I advocate designers to cultivate involves the ability to assess and understand all attributes of an existing brand–visual identity, voice/personality–and skillfully integrate those elements into the product experience. Do this, and you add tremendous marketability to yourself because you will know how to ensure that marketing's brand-led first impression will make a seamless handoff to the product experience. We’re in a state where, like Moore’s Law, there is exponential growth in the importance of branding for all businesses, not just corporations. If you know how to wield it in the design of the product experience, you will distinguish yourself.

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What Is Neurodesign? Designers can create more effective and engaging products by working synergistically with users’ brains. #UX #productDesign #Neurodesign https://buff.ly/3Wf9xXe

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