My First Year As A Product Designer at Fave
In the past 365 days working as a product designer at Fave, my work has been primarily focused on improving our merchant-facing product — FaveBiz, the platform that allows merchants to monitor their daily operations and manage their business on Fave. Recently, I am also working to improve the internal tool that my co-workers use daily, in order to help them complete their tasks more efficiently.
In celebration of one year at Fave, I have decided to take the time to reflect on the past year and here are some key highlights/takeaways of what I have learnt thus far.
As a product designer
Understand the business direction and how it impacts your work
When I first joined Fave as a product designer (I was a graphic designer before this), I remember feeling overwhelmed by the numbers and data talk because I was not used to it and did not understand how to ‘talk business’.
What I have come to realise is that working in a growing start-up, things can move really quickly. It is essential to keep in mind the business direction whenever we are working on a product/feature. When we would get new product requirements, the first thing we would do is to run an internal design sprint within the product design team. We would first delve into the why and if it works in favour of the business direction. Then, we would identify the problems that we need to solve and build a simple prototype to test out our hypotheses.
Testing with cheap prototypes allows us to validate our designs and any assumptions that we might have. It doesn’t matter if our assumptions are wrong, what matters is that we get to fail fast, learn from our mistakes, iterate and improve.
Learn about your users
There’s nothing worse than building a product that nobody wants to use. In order to build a better product, we need to know what are the needs of our users. In this case, our users are the 30,000+ merchants (and their staff) that we have on our FaveBiz platform.
We went to the commercial part of town and started doing guerilla interviews, we entered any shop that bore our pink logo like door-to-door salespeople, to talk to the staffs who were using our product.
Next, we narrowed down a list of merchants that we want to talk to and scheduled meetings with them with the help of our business development team. Over the course of two weeks, we travelled and met with a total of 17 merchants. We learnt all about their daily business operational needs, the problems they face when performing their day-to-day tasks, their concerns when it comes to growing their businesses, as well as the ways our product impact their businesses.
We gained insightful information that would have been otherwise unknown to us. We were also able to empathise and be better advocates for our users when designing a feature/product.
Collaborate effectively to solve problems together
For three quarters of the year, we focused most of our time and energy in building and improving the consumer and merchant-facing apps. There was a product which has taken a back seat during that time, it was the internal tool that our colleagues use. The tool allows us to onboard merchants, edit merchant details, upload images and product information and more.
However, it was a classic case of an invisible problem. Users have gotten so used to using the tool, they adapted their workflow to suit the broken UX. The back end of the tool was also not built to scale, and as the business grew, so did the tech debt.
When trying to figure out how to make our internal tool work better, we gathered individuals across different teams (business development, product, product design, operations, editorial and engineering) and conducted a Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) to help identify the existing problems and potential solutions.
After the session, we would prioritise the highest voted problems and work on the solutions. During these times, it was not uncommon to find myself working in isolation, trying to figure it all out on my own. At times I was so entranced by the problem, it became difficult to find solutions for it.
I have realised that by talking to others, asking them for their opinions, or simply bouncing ideas off of each other can help tremendously. So many great solutions have been a collaborative effort with others, teamwork really does make the dream work.
As a person
Get to know people
When we first started working at Fave, my fellow teammate Rachel How and I invited our co-workers from different teams to lunch dates, it not only helped us to put names to faces, the informal setting also allowed us to get to know the people we work with better. I think it is important to point out that nobody was out of reach, and that included our co-founders who have incredibly hectic schedules.
Not only were we able to learn from the talented individuals we work with, but it also helped by breaking the ice and facilitated communication at work across teams. That proved to be helpful when my former design lead moved on to another company and I found myself having huge shoes to fill.
Thanks to the lunch date initiative, it was easier for me to talk to people from different teams and less daunting as I learnt to work with product managers and engineers in the company.
Let go of your ego
I remember being frustrated when one of my designs got an immense amount of feedback and required quite a few changes. That was not a pleasant experience because I have worked on the design for a long period of time and thought that the next step was to handover to the engineering team to start development.
When I expressed my frustrations to my design lead Archie, he said: “don’t get married to your design/idea.” I felt a sense of relief as soon as I processed those words, it was the realisation that I was feeling annoyed because I took the rejection of my designs too personally.
As designers, we should always advocate for our users and dedicate our time to solving problems for our users. When we push for our designs, we have to know that we are doing it to improve the user experience. The decoupling of attachment and sentiment towards an idea/design, allowed me to be more objective and rational when it comes to designing solutions that benefit users. It ultimately allowed me to be a better person and designer.
Switch it up
For most of 2020, my team and I have joined millions of others around the world in practising self-isolation by working from home, the working dynamics changed and so we had to also evolve in the way we worked.
As creatives who were stuck at home, the product design team had to be a bit more creative in finding ways to be inspired. Thus PD day was born, it was a one-hour session every Friday where the team gathered virtually, to share something (it could be anything) that has inspired us during the week.
From sharing about useful books to building 3D models online, personality tests, art assignments and more, it provided a creative solace I didn’t know I needed.
As I begin my next year at Fave, reflecting on the things that I have learnt and accomplished with my teammates and the company, it is a self-reminder to celebrate the small wins, the checkpoints leading towards an eventual milestone.
While it may not feel like much has been achieved when you are caught in the midst of everything, you will realise how far you have come by looking back at where you started. With that said, I am truly grateful to everyone who had played a part in shaping my journey along the way.
