Designing the user interface of a data platform that shortens the time of building and deploying real-time data models from months to days

‍This project is under NDA.

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What I did

• Worked closely with the founder on defining product visions
• Mapped out product flows
• Sketched wireframes
• Designed high-fidelity prototypes
• Crafted interactions
• Created the initial design system
• Worked with developers on a daily basis to ensure smooth engineering handoff
• Hosted weekly design critique sessions, and improve my work based on feedback from external design consultants
• Presented my design deliverables and rationales to cross-functional teams to get internal buy-ins
• Participated in daily stand-ups, weekly retrospective meetings, and all-hands meetings
• Created deliverables for unplanned, urgent needs. Eg. Quick mockups for a client booth happening in 24 hours

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What I learned

• How to collaborate with cross-disciplinary teams. As the first and only designer in the company, I worked with PM, engineerings, QA, and Customer Success teams every day.
• How to collaborate with cross-time zone teams. Every day in my west coast office, I was working with colleagues based in the east coast and India.
• How to work efficiently with colleagues, remotely. This COVID-19 phenomenon is not something new to me because it was an everyday situation to me. Since I worked at the headquarter (Palo Alto, CA) while most colleagues were based in India, the majority of my work collaborations were handled remotely. It was challenging, but I managed it well.
• How to communicate effectively with colleagues, remotely. I started to realize the importance of effective communication since I was at school, and intentionally practice this soft skill through class projects and campus activities. At Isima, I was able to practice it daily, in remote work cases.
• How to organize and prioritize multiple work tasks, and deliver multiple deliverables with great quality under time pressure.
• How to handle urgent work under tight time pressure. This was out of my comfort zone at first, but quickly became something I was actually excited to deal with because I could see my growth.
• How to effectively get internal buy-in. This was a must-have skill for me, as most of my colleagues were engineers. It was challenging at first, but it quickly became a joyful experience because it made my voice heard as a designer and effectively facilitated collaboration.
• How to keep updated with design trends. As the only designer in the company, it was crucial for me to self-taught, keep gaining professional product design knowledge and skills.
• How to grow and learn in a fast-moving startup environment. I communicate blockers and exchange feedbacks on specific work in the daily standups and the weekly retrospective meetings.
• Design sprint process and methodologies. I led multiple design sprint sessions, presenting to the team and iterating my designs based on feedback.
• Agile development process and methodologies. When handing off my deliverables to engineers, I familiarize myself with the agile process to better facilitate engineering effort.
• Domain knowledges of BI (business intelligence), AI, and ML.