New Role, Unfamiliar Product.

When I was job searching last year part of what I wanted for my next role was to work in an industry that I had experience designing for. My previous roles were in travel tech and I wanted to remain in that industry because I had the experience and I liked the niche. I still applied for roles in other industries of course but if I had to choose, I'd prefer travel tech.

Fast forward to now, I’m designing for a Regtech company that has very unique and innovative products and I have no experience designing for; an unfamiliar product. It was daunting at first, and to be honest, it still is but I'm not the first person designing a product with no prior experience. At the same time, I don't want to belittle my experience or act like it's less significant. Everyone's experiences no matter how similar are different and unique (and so everyone has an interesting story to tell).

So back to designing, how am I handling this and how can you?

1. Firstly and most important thing (in my opinion) is that I’m asking A LOT of questions. I’m asking my PMs, the Engineers, and anyone that can provide clarifications. I ask as many questions as I can think of. When I’m on Figma or testing the live product and there’s something I don’t understand about what I’m doing, I’m going to slack to drop a question for whoever I feel can help me. Asking questions leaves very little room for assumptions, you make informed design decisions when you ask the right questions.

2. I need to research, it's a non-negotiable. I have to know and understand the company, their products, the competition and the industry. I can't deliver quality work if I don't know and understand the business. It's beyond pushing pixels, business and design are not mutually exclusive.

3. I don’t underestimate the time it takes to complete a task. When my PM asks me how long it would take to finish a design task, I won't tell him 1 hour when it would take more especially if I need to do a lot of research. I take my time (not too much of it though) to research and deliver quality.

4. I create prototypes with existing designs to understand the different user flows. So this approach is unique to me because I was assigned to a new product that a designer had already worked on to an extent. My PM and I had to run through the entire design, making a comparison with available documentation to understand the flow; what was missing and what was left to design. At the end of this session, creating a prototype will help us remember how everything is linked.

When you think about it these tips are useful for anyone starting a new role, whether you are working on a familiar or unfamiliar product, it still applies. There are other helpful tips like being very open to accepting critique of your work, and paying close attention to your team when they talk about their tasks during standup or review sessions. Lastly, talk with your colleagues in other departments like sales, and marketing and learn about what they are working on and the challenges they are facing, this ties back to understanding the business.

I hope you can learn from my experience, don't hesitate to add your tips in the comments. Looking forward to reading them.

Have a productive day!