Rachel Moody

❓ I have a question for product designers ❓ How do you understand that you’ve reached a certain grade or level in your career, such as transitioning to a senior role? Do you rely solely on performance reviews, or are there other ways you evaluate your growth? And what if there’s no formal performance review process? I’m asking because I often get questions about assessing one’s grade or level. So, I’m curious — do you have a similar need or interest in this topic? Let me know your thoughts!

32

30 Comments

DVA is not associated with this job posting Senior Product Designer https://lnkd.in/ghdTwqy4 About the Role As a Senior Product Designer at Circle, your role extends beyond crafting beautiful interfaces; you are a strategic partner influencing our community engagement SaaS platform's future. You'll have a high degree of autonomy and will be entrusted with significant responsibilities, shaping user experiences and design outcomes. Your work will contribute to Circle's growing impact in a sector that is not only culturally significant, but also a major economic driver, generating billions globally. As Circle strives to be the go-to platform for creators looking to scale their communities and monetize their content, your role will be instrumental in turning that vision into a reality. #innovation #management #digitalmarketing #technology #creativity #futurism #startups #marketing #socialmedia #socialnetworking #motivation #personaldevelopment #jobinterviews #sustainability #personalbranding #education #productivity #travel #sales #socialentrepreneurship #fundraising #law #strategy #culture #fashion #business #networking #hiring #health #inspiration

1

My pal Vitaly Friedman is second-to-none when it comes to delivering thorough, thoughtful, and actionable design advice. He's released a few courses that are really valuable for practicing designers and design leads: 🧠 Smart Interface Design Patterns: https://lnkd.in/e-v-jsCG 📏 How to Measure UX Impact: https://measure-ux.com/ #design #ux

129

3 Comments

There’s a subtle difference between “educating” stakeholders and making the impact of your work visible. One of these can help you win promotions, autonomy, and co-conspirators. The other can distract you from your craft at best… or devalue your work at worst. Thought-provoking article from Sara Wachter-Boettcher on how designers can reframe “advocating for design” in a way that avoids burnout and sidesteps the gaslighting.

8

As a VA Lighthouse Alumn, I cannot say enough positive things about Dave and how incredibly impactful this opportunity is. AMA about building the developer experience at the VA. VA’s digital transformation strategy https://lnkd.in/gjPsBBsv

3

Do you want consistency between designers and front-end developers? Use of design tokens. When everyone uses the same terms, it simplifies things for both teams. Here's Google's introduction to design tokens and how you can implement them: https://lnkd.in/gpWMwqVz

7

2 Comments

I just read Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism by Kyle Chayka, and it got me thinking about the power of minimalism—not just in art and architecture that you hear so much about, but in how we experience the world. Chayka's core message is that minimalism isn't just about reducing clutter—it's about creating space for clarity, intentionality, and deeper meaning... principles that really resonate with me and the UX design discipline. Here are some thoughts looking at Minimalism through the lens of user experience design: https://lnkd.in/gnmJGfyM

51

2 Comments

Very insightful about truth in product design. Jake raises several key points to consider as a team. My reflection is that truth is rarely something we have, but rather something we work towards. Truth is what happens when we align around sources that all claim to communicate the truth. When they misalign we make updates, sometimes to code and sometimes to design, to make them more aligned. Thus taking us closer to “the truth” as a whole.

6

Design without reason is like building without a foundation. In my latest newsletter explain what design rationale is.

4

UX/DR should be a job title. I spent a few days last week with dscout and loved the discussions around UX Design and UX Research and their roles. In the current job market, we have seen many talented UX/Researchers laid off or devalued. While they delivered valuable insights, in many cases, they were not actionable or did not structure a team around them to be actionable. This is where we continue to blur the lines on Research and Design and deliver for our customers.    A UX designer is inherently a UX researcher, as effective design hinges on a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors. In this role, the UX designer immerses themselves in research processes, gathering insights through user interviews, usability testing, and data analysis. This research informs design choices, allowing designers to validate ideas and iterate based on real user feedback. A UX researcher can go further as well to inform design, stretch to do some wireframing or other artifacts to support the work - delivering insights is not the end state. #ux #userexperience #userresearch #uxresearch #uxr #colab #amazondesign #designleadership

79

10 Comments

Research is a function of strategy.  "According to CB Insights, over 90% of all products fail, most commonly due to no market need." Leave yourself time to ask big questions about whether any actually needs your product or service before you decide to launch it. #UXstrategy #UXresearch #Marketresearch

3

1 Comment

Just attended a UXR session where we discussed the state of UX Research. While it's been around for a few years, it's still in its infancy. Early adopters of the practice are already seeing a significant competitive advantage. In fact, in the next 10 years, it's likely that every company will have a UX Research team. Don't be left behind - invest in UX Research now to stay ahead of the game! #UXResearch #UserExperience #CompetitiveAdvantage

3

"For increased readability, we’ve rewritten sections of our privacy statement with simpler, more consistent language." Is there a better summary of the benefit of UX Writing for privacy related work? Well done, Amber and Heather.

45

6 Comments

🎉 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!

160

84 Comments

So immensely proud of such an amazing group of people who've been working so hard on this big set of launches at Figma for #Config2024. ICYMI what we launched today, this blog post recap covers it well: https://lnkd.in/gX3KSWj3 I wanted to share a couple fun tweets from a few of the fantastic designers/leaders that worked on some of the things you may have seen in our keynote this morning. * This is not even close to an exhaustive list of those who worked on today's launches, but just a quick lil glimpse showcasing a few who happened to post about them today (also linkedin obscures the links for some reason, but they're all just fun behind the scenes tweets not shady sites I promise lol): Figma Slides - Keeyen Y.: https://lnkd.in/gmxBH3wq - Mihika Kapoor: https://lnkd.in/gr54Upnu - Natasha T. / Ryan Reid: https://lnkd.in/gd-v9gE3 Redesigned Figma (UI3) - Ryhan Hassan: https://lnkd.in/g868XAze (can't wait to watch the behind the scenes talk with him and Joel Miller and KC Oh as well as Wayne Sun's when they come online later) - Tim Van Damme: https://lnkd.in/gQyvqzYr - Nikolas Klein: https://lnkd.in/ge_kKyvD Figma AI - Jordan Singer: https://lnkd.in/gXmFeXTM - Oscar Dumlao: https://lnkd.in/gkACVY_c - Marco Cornacchia: https://lnkd.in/gMt3BvVY - Vincent van der Meulen: https://lnkd.in/gCrHvcVu - Jediah Katz: https://lnkd.in/gMxEu7i8 - Giorgio Caviglia: https://lnkd.in/gCNVQrKC And more: - Jenny Wen (pages design by rocky chen ✌️): https://lnkd.in/gd_6RHAv - Soundharya Muthukrishnan: https://lnkd.in/gsnibt-j - Daniel Destefanis: https://lnkd.in/gu6mYBe6 - Becca Ramos: https://lnkd.in/gqM7RGKQ We hope you enjoy these updates, and excited to meet more of the amazing community at Config for Day 2 tomorrow! I'm particularly excited for Marcin Wichary's talk tomorrow at 3:40 https://lnkd.in/gvJNNerg

87

5 Comments

I liked this observation from Linn Vizard's latest newsletter: "At the object and artefact layers, designers have tangible outputs of their work to point to. Service designers find it much harder to point at something tangible and visible." The outcomes of service design sound a lot like the outcomes of business leadership. (CX and e2e service improvement, backstage operations, org structure, the way people think and behave). Where is the chorus of people asking business leaders to "show their value," as so many service designers are asked to do? Oh right! that chorus is called the shareholders. 🙃 So why can't service designers' value be measured against revenue growth, (as we already do for any business leader working towards the same outcomes) and be done with it? The question of measuring the impact of design is such a common topic of discussion in The Circle.. it comes up pretty much every time we meet. ( cc Marc Fonteijn ) #servicedesign #outcomesoveroutputs #metrics #okrs

25

3 Comments

I’m hiring a Mid-level Product Designer! 🎉 Here are some of the details: 👇 💼 Company: nCino, Inc. 📍 Location: Lehi, Utah 🏢 Office requirement: Onsite, Monday – Thursday. 👥 Design Team: Nearly 30 designers, mostly in Utah 🤝 Product Team: The PM and tech lead for this role are on site in Lehi, UT, and several engineers are remote 🏭 Industry: Banking, Analytics, B2B, SaaS ⚒️ Tools: Figma, User Interviews, Dovetail, Slack, Jira, etc… 💬 Manager: You'll report to me ➡️ Start date: We’re ready to go when you are! Here's what we'll offer you: ✨ 100% paid premiums for medical, dental and vision, as well as disability insurance and life insurance. ✨ 39 paid days off each year (including volunteer days and holidays). ✨ Company-funded HSA account and 401K with employee match. ✨ Employee stock purchase plan with 15% discount and look back period. ✨ 4-12 weeks of childbirth parental leave. ✨ Career growth opportunities, frequent design team trainings, design critiques, collaboration sessions, team summits, etc... ✨ A manager and team who really care about you as a person. The product space and what you’ll do: 👉 nCino is broken into several business units, including the Portfolio Analytics business unit. The Portfolio Analytics product hasn’t had a dedicated designer before, so you will work with me to lead a transformation in this product space. 👉 This transformation will include auditing a product with a legacy interface, understanding who the users are, helping redefine the information architecture and product vision, and moving it towards our “One nCino” vision, design system, and UX team best practices. 👉 Since this is an analytics product, you’ll be designing several dashboards, charts, reports, tables, navigation menus, and dense data interfaces. Here is who is not a match: ❌ Lives outside the U.S. Unfortunately, this role is only setup to hire within the U.S at this time. ❌ Unable to live or relocate near one of our headquarters in Lehi, UT ❌ Unable to come onsite Monday – Thursday. This is our company’s most recent policy. ❌ Someone who passively waits to be told what to do or needs micromanaging. ❌ Agencies, freelancers, consultants, or recruiters. Now is not the time. ⚠️ Disclaimer: Because of the overwhelming response I typically get for our open roles, I won’t have the capacity to respond to every direct message. But if you apply, I will make sure our hiring team reviews every application! If this role sounds right for you or someone you know, then tag them below or apply! Application link is in the comments 👀 #ux #design #productdesign #userexperience #hiring

127

13 Comments

Tl;dr update: Still looking for work. Looking for Senior, Principal, Manager, Associate Director UX and Product Design roles. I have Product Management and Product Owner experience as well. The long of it: This morning I got the email that the position I’d gone through six rounds of interviews for was canceled. In response to market volatility, they’re pivoting. I’ve made it to final consideration 4 times since I was laid off in May. Twice the position was closed. Twice another candidate won out (we’re arch-nemeses now 👀… just kidding… 👀👀👀). My fiancée and I’ve still been planning and paying for our wedding, I’ve been homeschooling our youngest who has ADHD, is suspected to be on the spectrum, and who is an overall incredible kid. I’ve loved the time I’ve had with him… and I’ve found new levels of patience. Two hours to write a sentence is very 😳. We’ve had tickle fights, Spider-Man photo shoots, singing breaks, some tears and frustration, and a lot of hugs and “good jobs!” It’s all working out. I’m blessed, truly, to have my family and friends, to be getting interviews fairly steadily, to be consistently considered for senior or lead roles. But I’m also pretty exhausted. For the first time in my life I had an anxiety attack on an interview and couldn’t answer the question “describe your design process.” The interviewers graciously progressed through the next forty-five minutes of the call with me — but we all knew it wasn’t a good look. It was my fourth interview in two days, during moving an hour across the valley, around parenting and teaching and working a temporary full-time job as a security guard (Arizona unemployment caps at ~10% of what my monthly salary was, so a temp job pays a good deal more.) I rebalanced and have done just fine on the interviews since, but it paints a picture of the pressure. I’m an excellent team player, a capable professional, I love complex systems — generally seeing them as a chain of simple processes tying into one another, I learn quickly, lead well, and overall bring a lot to the table. Without equivocation, I’ve elevated and delivered in every role and on every project I’ve been in. I’ve had clients, co-workers, leaders and people I’ve mentored leave LinkedIn references. I think there are consistent trends they speak to. I know I bring a lot to the table — I’d love to do that for a place ready to leverage the most out of it! If anyone in my network knows of roles, or can like/repost for exposure, please spread the good stuff! I appreciate you all and I can’t wait to give a positive update!

23

7 Comments