What led you into design?
I was pursuing my Master of Cybersecurity when a lot of my classmates got their first jobs in tech. At that time I was focusing on dev. position, but realized I wasn’t fulfilled enough while learning it. After a year I realized that I won't be successful enough in the field I'm not passionate about, and thanks to my English lang. skills I've got a customer support position as my first job.
It was the company where I met UX/UI designer and got familiar with the position closely. The existence of such a role made me really excited because I couldn't imagine that there are people getting paid to think about what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved. In about a few months of reading and redesigning different shots from Dribbble and Behance, I've landed my first design job :)
What does a typical day look like?
I'm not sure what is the proper name of personality in eng., but here in Ukraine, I can be called an "owl" type of person. It means that it's really hard for me to get up in the morning, but I'm super productive at the end of the day. For example, I'm writing this text when it's 01:30 AM.
So now it won't be too shocking that I get up at 9 AM, 1 hour before the first meeting. No worries, I'm working remotely and I don't need to take time for the road to the office. This hour is more than enough to take shower and get a warm cup of coffee.
The first part of the day is about cleaning email and attending meetings. Design team sync., product team standups, and more. After I'm sure that each team member knows what to do and all the requirements are clear, I can start picking tasks that are waiting for my design review. It's really important to finish with them while assignees are online, so we can clarify all changes on the same day. At about 5 PM I can proceed with my own design tasks. It's a perfect time for me because there is a small chance that I'll be interrupted by a sudden call/message.
The end of my workday is really flexible: today I can finish at 9 PM, and tomorrow I can be offline at 7 PM because my friends are waiting for me at the bar :)
What's your workstation setup?
During the pandemic, I’ve been consistently working from home. Sometimes my cat (Luna)🐱 shows up and tries to help with design decisions :)
There are cases when I need to travel to Kyiv to our main office (about 540 km) for offline workshop facilitation. Long trip but totally worth it :)
Where do you go to get inspired?
Usually, I receive a portion of "fresh air" after changing decorations. Spending time out of the PC is really important.
It could be a trip to the mountains or a small walk for a tasty coffee to go. Plus, I live in a city founded in 1256, so there's a lot of old and beautiful architecture that can be really inspirable.
I found a video of our streets views so you can check it too, and if you'll happen to be here - I'll be glad to share a cup of coffee ;)
What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?
I really enjoy Poolsuite 🤿 playing on a background (desktop or smartphone).
What pieces of work are you most proud of?
I'm proud of our last redesign and all the product metrics it improved 📈
Our main job was to introduce more products to the average user and boost their conversion.
We began with 2-3 totally different concepts, and they just went to the trashcan through all the iterations :)
As a result, we stayed on a familiar but a bit tuned horizontal scroll.
There are so much more things I'd love to share, but all the sexy features are in the development, so stay tuned 😉
What design challenges do you face at your company?
Our product design team at Uklon has been growing really fast this year, so I’ve been improving the process of our team to ensure that we’re working in an efficient and coordinated manner. Systems and processes that worked when the team was smaller don’t always scale to meet the needs of a larger team.
Besides that I'm in charge of design review, performence review, secondary and primary researches, workshop facilitations, usability testing, etc.
What music do you listen to while designing?
Any advice for ambitious designers?
Try to ignore all the noise like fast food posts "which UI is better" and different 10-pages books from agencies.
Work hard and focus on what matters and what you feel is yours. Everyone’s path is completely different, and it doesn’t really matter what anyone else is doing, so don't try to copy other's experiences.
Anything you want to promote or plug?
You can say "Hi!" on any social media. Would love to chat 😉
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