A product designer is a person who first and foremost tries to get to the bottom of a problem

I asked Sasha Pleshko - Senior UX Designer at Pentalog, co-founder of the design community "Yatakviju", lecturer at Tekwill Academy, co-organizer of the annual conference on product design - to talk about what product design is and what skills are needed to master this profession. Product Design Conference.

Sasha, thank you for your time! The topic of design is now more relevant than ever, but not everyone understands the specifics of this profession. Can you tell me, please, who is a UX designer?

A designer is not a person who draws an interface. It's a person who is primarily trying to get to the problem that this digital product is supposed to solve. For example, you need to accomplish some task. How do you do it now, what are the challenges you face in order to solve them in your product. So when I came to Pentalog, I already had a clear understanding of design processes, and the benefits of a healthy approach to design, the right place of design in the product development cycle.

How does product design differ from web and graphic design?

Web design is the ability to design websites. And maybe some web applications. More often than not, it's all just about visual design. UX design encompasses much more than that. It includes research, content strategy, information architecture, and a lot of things that aren't directly part of the interface. We need to understand who our users are and how to present information to them. UX encompasses many specializations. In addition to UX designers, there are UX researchers, UX writers, and even UX engineers.

First steps into design

Even though I know you, I've never heard from you how you became a designer. How did it start?

It's a very interesting story that I tell every time at all kinds of meetups. My way into design was through pain. I was beaten up in the park by gopniks. My classmate and I were going to the sea with his mum. I think I was in eighth grade at the time. It was in the summer. We were walking along the Valley of Roses, it was 5 o'clock in the evening, still light, a lot of people in the area of the beach. And four tipsy guys, maybe they were even on something, decided to ask us for a cigarette. But it was an excuse just to rob us and beat us up. We didn't go to the sea, of course. And his mum decided to do something to distract us and keep us busy, because overall it was quite a traumatic experience. She was teaching Photoshop courses in a public school in Chisinau, and she enrolled us in these courses. That's how I got acquainted with Photoshop, that's how I came to design.

I mean, if it wasn't for the goons, you wouldn't be a designer . What did you do with Photoshop?

I started learning the tools, editing photos. And at first I was generally good at it. I enjoyed doing it. At some point, probably in 2008, one of my classmates asked me to help him with his website. They had a small firm. They still have a company, they grow different seedlings for landscaping, and they wanted to make a little business card website about their services. That was the first moment when I started to get into it all. My first sites were on Flash.

Wow, Flash! It's been a long time 🙂 

Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. I can't even show or prove it to anyone, it's all dead now. Then I did a website for the Moldovan BMW club, very unexpectedly. But it didn't go anywhere either. Then I graduated from a technical university and worked in my speciality for four years. I am an engineer of opto-electronic systems. This is a person who deals with the improvement and application of lasers, LEDs, and the creation of optics for industrial equipment. I worked in my specialty for four years. I reached a salary of 5000 lei and realized that I didn't really want to work in my specialty, because in Moldova there are practically no prospects to work in lasers. So I decided that maybe I should go back to what I wanted to do before. Because I've always liked design, there's a lot of things I can learn and improve my skills, develop my strengths and so on.

Where did you start your journey into UX design?

I started going on job interviews. It was 2017. The first interviews were very painful because, firstly, I didn't know what to expect, and on the other hand, I sometimes came across very inadequate companies who didn't understand who a designer was. And that, you know, gave me a kind of uncertainty about whether I was even going to the right place. They were IT companies. And you know what was different? They were looking for a graphic designer who could design websites, and that designer would work in the marketing department. So, basically, they wanted a "seamstress-guitarist" who would do everything, and it was unclear what to do with her and why they needed her. 

Have you thought about taking a course?

There weren't really any courses back then. There was a course in web design, if I'm not mistaken. I don't remember exactly, but something stopped me from going there. Anyway, I left the company where I was working in my specialty. I was offered a test assignment at a small company. I did it, they hired me. And in the first month my salary as a designer became twice as much as what I had accumulated there for four years. I mean, there I had 5000 lei, and here I had 500 quid. I was like, wow, how can you do that?

First work experience

Yes, the increase in salary is substantial 🙂 What was your first work experience like?

The first challenge was calls with clients and documentation in English. It was difficult. The clients all spoke Russian and Romanian. There wasn't any difficulty here. They were our emigrants in the States, because one of our bosses was in the States, he was looking for them there. That company doesn't exist anymore. Anyway, that was the first workplace where I realized that I was not yet a UX designer. Then at some point a friend of mine from Russia threw a freelance project at me. He introduced me to a businessman who worked at Skolkovo. And that was another moment when I realized that I knew nothing about UX at all. Because I got on the phone with him, he used such words: Metrics, KPIs, interaction patterns, cognitive load. That is something that I know now, but it was new to me then. I realized that if I didn't do something about it now, I was dead as a specialist. This was probably the first moment when I awoke in me an independent desire to move forward.

What was the next step? How did you decide to develop in this field?

And then I went to another company where I was faced with a bunch of new Challenges. I was learning on the go. We had a startup that failed. We actively worked on it. It taught me a lot of things, primarily communication. I now know how not to communicate with developers or clients.

What helped develop in design?

What has helped you continue your journey into the world of UX?

At that time, I was already actively participating in all sorts of hackathons. It helped me a lot. I knew the people I was going to interview. That is, there were managers with whom I was already familiar. I felt more comfortable asking them for feedback after I didn't get an interview. I can even name these people because they helped me a lot. They were some of my first mentors. Ramona Tsiman and Vova Hadjioglo are people I still have good communication with. We continue to co-operate with them in terms of community and not only.

Oh, hackathons are useful after all 🙂 Was there anything else that helped you develop your skills?

What gave me a lot of growth was the very mentors I had: our UX director Elisa. She helped me and my colleague Keito too. She helped us to develop and grow as experts, helping us solve blockers, giving us tips on how we could have a much more effective approach. Also, I had a lot of help from Ramona and Vova. They were not my managers formally, they did it more out of their own volition.

What project allowed you to grow as a professional and what was memorable about it?

I was lucky in that my first project at Pentalog was for a company that is the biggest sportswear manufacturer in Europe. Firstly, it lasted two years, secondly, it was a very unrealistic challenge. And for them, they had to make the most of one of the most advanced platforms for B2B. And so it turned out that for the first four months on the project I was on my own because of the pandemic - another challenge. Because everyone was working remotely from home. That also imposed a certain pattern and some influences on communication. There you had to be on calls all the time, and it's exhausting. But there I learnt to communicate with stakeholders at a different level.

About YaTakViju Design Community

I know you run a design community. How did it all start?

"Yatakviju"? It's about seven years old. It started in 2016. At first it was a Facebook group. A few guys there decided to just gather designers, because it seemed like it was growing, like there was a need for people not just to communicate in groups, but to get together somehow. They started with offline meetings in someone's studio, in the office with a beer. Then they had this type of event, they called it not a conference, a very interesting format. We would like to revive it. It's a micro conference in the evening after work in the office of some company where there are designers. The 50% speakers are from that company, and the other 50% speakers are from other design industries, completely unrelated to it. But as you can imagine it was mostly in IT companies, in their offices, because who else can afford to organise such things at their own expense. They didn't sell tickets, you could just turn up. You just had to sign up. A lot of people came. In 2023, "I see it this way" is more about something to do with product design than with graphic design and other artcore. 

Last year the first conference on product design was held in Moldova. I saw that you are organising another one this year.

Yes, there will be a second one on the 7th of October annual product design conference. We invited 15 experts from 6 countries. These are product designers, architects, UX researchers, managers and other specialists from such companies as TikTok, Semrush, Malmö University, Simpals and other product companies. The conference will be supported by Startup City Cahul, Tekwill, EU, Swedish Government, Simpals and Afisha.md. Also, there will be an opportunity to participate in a mentoring session on the 8th of October, which is very helpful for professional development.

Teaching experience in design courses

I wish you the best of luck with your organization! Now please tell us how you came to teaching?

Very accidental. I was not ready for it. I think I am still not ready, although a year and a half has passed, and the third stream of the course is about to start. My good friend Elena Putina once wrote to me that she was offered to run the course, but she had to go on a business trip on those dates. She asked me if it would be interesting for me to try it. And if so, she would put me in touch with them. That's how I met Tekwill Academy.

A new challenge 🙂! What did you have to deal with in the process?

On the one hand, it was not easy for me to shape the programme. I knew the design process, I understood how, at what point and what to do. But it is one thing when you know and understand it yourself, and another thing when it has to be explained to people who are encountering it for the first time. Practically 90% of my work takes place in English. And the course is in Russian. I need to digest it in Russian first. And I have to do it in such a way that the meaning is not affected by the translation. It's like when films are dubbed: the actor says one thing, but in Russian no one will understand it. So I decided that I would translate, but I would also use Anglicism to make it easier for them. 

Can you share what you teach in the course?

Design thinking as the main methodology on which I built the whole course. It's the foundation for any healthy digital product design process, and the main tools are of course now Figma. But design doesn't start in Figma. Beginning designers often start by drawing screens in Figma. This is wrong. Because it's a process that has nothing to do with the user. A proper design process starts with communication, with finding out the cause of the very problem that the product will solve. So I would advise aspiring designers not to start their work in Figma. Yes, Figma is a basic tool, but the whole design process does not start with it. 

Is there any way you select people for the course?

You know, after the first year, I decided that I was going to do a screening, because people came in completely different. There were those who had never done design at all. There were those who were already working as designers at Junior or unsure Middle level, but they lacked some knowledge. In general, I decided that I didn't want to do a course to fully prepare for the profession from scratch and guarantee to find a job or an internship. Unfortunately, there are no good internships in Moldova. It is mostly slavery.

Tips for aspiring designers

What advice do you have for aspiring UX designers?

A course is a good thing when you don't have a clearly constructed understanding of what the design process should look like, or you don't fully understand how your work impacts the product as a whole. Why do we have insecurity? Because often on our way we come across projects that solve tactical problems, but do not solve strategic problems in any way. Design, it's more about strategy than tactics. Especially what's about UX design. This is what helps you to see the whole product as a whole, and to understand how to develop it in the long term, not just to close some hole now. 

What else can help you develop as a designer?

In design in general, it is common to say that diversity is very useful, because you see pictures from a different perspective, from a different angle. In design, in addition to users, there are also experts from whom we can get useful data: sales representatives and helpdesk representatives, depending on the product. And so it's very important for us, as product designers, to understand how they work. Firstly, we need to understand the challenges they face in their work. Because from that comes their KPIs, metrics, and motivation of how they do their job. Secondly, what customers tell them, what users tell them, how they whine to them and about what. We need to know this so that we can solve these problems in our product.

What other ideas do you have?

I decided to launch a course for product managers on UX, which would maybe give more insight into the right design processes, the value that a designer and that right process can bring to a product, what the ROI would be from that. I'm going to talk more about qualitative research there. Everybody knows how to count metrics and put KPIs for them. But when it comes to communicating with the customer to get to the heart of the problem, there are challenges. You need to know how to ask the right questions, how to handle feedback correctly. 

Awesome! Good luck with your launch! 🙂 How do you realize you need to try your hand at UX design?

You can become a designer from scratch. I think that design is something that can be done by people who are curious. People who do not perceive any problem as an insurmountable obstacle, but try to figure it out. Design would suit humanities, say anthropologists - people who study people; people who have some understanding of psychology - but it can be learnt. There's a bunch of resources you can learn that from as you go along. However, it would be a good entry point when you want to go into IT but, logarithms and programming scare you. Also, the design would be good for caliper reps if you're sick of taking calls all day long. Overall, if you like watching your neighbors and figuring out that at such and such a time they're home and at such and such a time they're not, you'd do well in design 🙂 Because there's a huge part of the process where we just need to observe and draw conclusions from it. 

Thank you very much for the nice talk and valuable information. I am sure many people will now think about this interesting profession as a product designer!