Ethan
Chng

What led you into design?

I've always been someone interested in art and design from a young age. I'd constantly be drawing out random creative ideas in my head and building toys to play with. I also remember at my 6th birthday party mentioning that I wanted to be an architect. I tried pursuing that dream throughout school and even graduated with a degree in architecture, but it wasn't meant to be. As I was surrounded by the tech scene going to Berkeley for college, it sparked a new interest in software and I've never looked back ever since then.

Craft has always been at the heart of my practice as a designer and those skills have transferred nicely from discipline to discipline and it's what keeps me motivated to do my best work in design.

What does a typical day look like?

A typical day for me is starting by taking a morning walk with coffee, giving me time to think about the work I'm planning on doing for the day and any goals I have. Throughout the day, I work on systems, tinker with prototypes, and meet with teams/partners on the different projects I'm working on. I consider myself to be a night person so sometimes I'll spend extra time working on things in a better flow state, and I enjoy the flexibility that I have between work and personal life.

What's your workstation setup?

I don't have an aesthetic Pinterest-looking setup as it's pretty much just my Macbook and iPhone for prototypes. I also prefer to work on a laptop over a monitor and keyboard.

Where do you go to get inspired?

I get inspired by the real world and its many qualities: nature, culture, language, architecture, etc. I also think drawing or taking notes helps me formulate thoughts and push them forward to create new ideas.

What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?

I'm always impressed by things that feel so natural that you don't even think it's 'designed'. Coming back from Singapore recently, I now really appreciate the amazing public transportation system and the signage that accompanies it which makes navigating public spaces so seamless. Also been interested in furniture nowadays and it's amazing to see all the unique ways designers craft pieces to adapt to humans instead of it being the other way around.

In terms of software, I think MIST by @naoenomoto is one of the coolest toys that I've ever seen and so well-crafted from its skeuomorphic visuals to some crazy metal shaders. I also really admire the work done by [untitled] building a world-class app for music creatives and getting to work with the team for a short while was one of the best experiences of my career so far.

What pieces of work are you most proud of?

A lot of the things I'm proud to have worked on are still confidential, but public-facing ones would probably be my old website which I spent a ton of time working on, and some previous watercolor artworks. Hopefully, I'll be able to share more soon about what I've been working on!

What design challenges do you face at your company?

One of the biggest challenges I face on a daily basis, in particular working on a systems team, is thinking about how certain designs/interactions can scale to all surfaces of the product which comes with a lot of complexity. This forces me to be a cross-functional partner for other teams to understand how they are approaching the system so that I can iterate and constantly evolve the system to meet new needs daily.

Another challenge which I think isn't talked about enough is the tension between craft, time, and business goals/metrics. Craft is often difficult to execute well and requires a lot of time/effort among many people, and sometimes it can be hard to prove that it is worth that effort as metrics may not improve drastically. However, I think people at the company do realize that craft is incremental and that it has a compounding effect towards better user experiences. There have been many instances in the past where craft has proven to be the differentiating factor, in particular when put side by side with the old experience.

What music do you listen to while designing?

Any advice for ambitious designers?

I'd tell my younger self to always be acting on ideas/curiosities and be open to new cultures, spaces, people, etc. I'd also probably tell myself to work with tools/mediums that allow for the kind of ideas/products that I want to craft and to try to get as close to working with the materials of software (code). For example, complex interactions probably shouldn't be done in Figma but rather code or Origami to allow for higher fidelity of control/tuning, but rapid visual design iteration also probably be done in Figma over mediums like Origami where it's tedious to make quick changes to the design.

Anything you want to promote or plug?

You can follow me on X and if you want to reach out to learn more about what I'm working on here's my email.