In June 2022 I joined [ADPList](https://adplist.org/mentors/jasmin-wong) as a design mentor.

A few things preceeded this decision: I‘d been more actively involved in diversity, equity, inclusivity and belonging (DEIB) initiatives at Buildkite and wanted to extend my experience beyond organizational walls; my own design coach had encouraged mentoring others as a way to build confidence, that I had built up enough experience of my own to understand most problems; lastly, I wanted to meet with designers early in their design careers and give some support.

The focus on my profile is still the same: to make space for designers with a couple years’ experience to talk about career progression, to clarify UI and UX processes or tooling, and to find confidence in storytelling and in designing for impact.

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Here are some things I‘ve learned in the last 10 months. If anything, talking to designers has strengthened my own belief in designers being the glue between technical craft and empathy.

### At all levels of being a designer, from 2 years to 10+ years, myself included, there is no sure way to feel 100% confident.

In my own journey as a recovering perfectionist and somewhat socially-averse individual, I‘ve learned that the way to navigate this uncertainty is to instead talk about the journey so far and use my own personal experience to support why I am a designer. There is no right way to do this but it helps people learn a lot about someone and how they make decisions.

### To tell a good story is to edit relentlessly.

The more we edit the story of how we got here, the easier it is for our story to become memorable, for a stranger at an interview to understand our North Star, and to develop our own points of view. The minute details within an artboard or research piece are important if they contribute to the story, like a major turning point, but it is best to lead with broad strokes and to talk about the the impact and lessons from having done the work.

### Working with people is the most important aspect of shipping excellence.

This includes building relationships by sharing work early, involving others in the process even if it doesn‘t cover their technical areas, and generally sharing the story of why and how we got here.

### Sharing the why is at the heart of what we do as designers.

When people have described themselves as being the only champion of UX/UI improvements in an org where most people don‘t seem to care, we have to get them on board by sharing why it is important even if minor, like a button colour. For example, to reflect our company‘s values of empathy and to lessen frustration, it is necessary for the empty states in our interface to explain clearly why something is not working and to project a feeling of ease via comfortable illustrations and even-keeled copy. Sharing our why helps our ideas to spread and for non-designers to champion those values and messages.

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I personally believe that there is no greater power than sharing stories and in celebrating our full selves, wherever we are at, not as a projection of the shape of a role.

What I learned from 10 months of being a design mentor

Product designer

How we created Buildkite's product design principles

A reflection on my volunteer work as a mentor for designers early in their career

Third-wave tea culture × contemporary design

Endeavour Tea was a small business I co-founded in 2015. It was an Australian specialty tea company with a contemporary view of tea culture, also known as third-wave tea.

Our aims were to engage tea drinkers with delicious, direct-from-source loose leaf tea on our e-commerce store, provide brewing styles and guides, and organise cupping sessions with our local community.

It was really fun to take on print and packaging design, and learn how to create content for a retail brand.

I was responsible for:
* Art direction and content strategy
* Brand, web and content design
* Product development
* Lifestyle and product photography

Endeavour Tea

Mentoring designers on career progression, collaboration and craft.

Design mentor

I was the lead designer across three cross-functional teams for Tyro’s web channels, working on research, concepts and design for 
* a next-generation app UI for business insights and reports
* an internal UI for frontline staff; and
* digital onboarding

I also created Tyro’s internal design system and UI library, advocated for and organized patterns and standards with a team of engineers and designers across marketing and UX.

Product Designer

I joined Buildkite as their second product designer when the company went from single to multi-product, and in the first year delivered the end-to-end MVP for the second product, Test Analytics.

As the product design practice evolved, I created the product design principles to align product practice, and created a systems UI library to support growth across the platform.

Responsibilities:

* Lead end-to-end product design and user research using lean UX methodologies in the Test Analytics team
* Facilitate ideation, co-design and critique workshops with the design team and with cross-functional partners
* Manage and contribute to BKUI, Buildkite’s design system
* Contributor to cross-product initiatives in brand and product

Senior Product Designer

Design Intern

Visual Designer

I was the lead designer for ecommerce websites, interactives and apps for clients like National Museum of Australia, Triple-R FM, Parks Australia, Wheeler Centre, University of Melbourne, Five Good Friends and Melbourne University Publishing.

Jasmin Wong

2023