With the tech industry continuing to evolve, Product Designers are more crucial than ever. This is especially true for UX/UI designers who are on the cutting edge of their field eg. blockchain or crypto. If you want to know what the role entails and what the key responsibilities are, read our interview with Klara, a Product Designer at Ulam Labs.
When did you realize you want to be a Product Designer?
In some sense I was always into design, and I was more of a “thinker” trying to solve every problem I’ve met. Professionally, I started thinking about it in high school. Although I was attending Biology and Chemistry profile, which may seem like it has nothing in common with design, I think that it gave me solid ground on understanding how people behave and react.
What do you do here and what are your responsibilities?
I’m a Product Designer and I’m responsible for defining product specifications and designing fully-functional products for our global clients.
What skills are the most important for your role?
Among technical skills are: research, wireframing, creating user flows and mockups. But there are other skills that may not be that obvious, yet still crucial, like communication or analytical thinking. Communication is essential not only for your teamwork, but also for doing effective user research and presenting your findings to the client. Critical thinking and analytical thinking would be also important. UX/UI is not only about designing a product but a huge part of our work is also monitoring and finding ways to improve it with user data.
What was your development path?
I started as a Product Designer working for a product company dealing with e-commerce. Then I moved to a fully e-commerce company. The last stop so far is Ulam Labs where I focus on the crypto branch.
What do you enjoy most about working at UL?
I would count two things in: people and projects. That may sound a bit cliché but that’s actually the truth. People here are open and willing to share knowledge but the company supports these qualities being a place where relations matter. Integration parties and occasional celebrations additionally build a great atmosphere for everybody to grow.
I also enjoy crypto projects which are still partially unknown fields for me, but very satisfying and challenging. I’m probably at the very beginning of my journey in designing crypto products but my curiosity to master this field is only growing.
What has been the most interesting project for you so far?
That's a difficult question because I actually have two favorites. The first project here was fully crypto related. For me, that one was very important because those were my first steps in this industry. The next one is a medical app giving me a lot of satisfaction because its development is greatly led by customers' needs. I have an opportunity to work on user’s feedback which is perfect for my further development.
What challenges do you face when working on projects?
Opposite to regular financial services, where we have some patterns for users behavior in general and we know how they use products, crypto can be a total mix of financial services making it really complex to design. A Designer has to build interest, build trust and lead a user through a flow with numerous dependences.
Such projects are very engaging and require cooperation of a trio: Project Manager, Developer and Product Designer.
What advice would you give others interested in working at Ulam Labs?
If the only thing that is holding you back from applying here is crypto, don’t you worry because we have a very talented team which is ready to share knowledge and guide you. I’m the best example to prove it!
