Interview Me!

If you need to get to know me before interviewing, this page will help you out.

My Story

My story is one that is not done yet. I am still searching for what I truly want to do in life. It begins with an idea that I wanted to become a teacher. I go through college and university to becoming a teacher. Learning how to teach reading, writing, math, science, etc. to students of all ages. During my time as a student teacher, I learned time management, pacing, and the art of presentation every day.

When it came time to graduation, I struggled to find a school that would take me in and mentor me. So I took jobs such as a substitute teacher and then a teacher assistant. It took about a pandemic later that I was able to find that school who would take me in and I moved to the Austin area in 2 weeks.

From my time at Hernandez, I was hit with reality of teaching and what the struggles that teachers currently face. My first year was unlike any other. I struggled with classroom management of 25-35 students per class, student accountability, and overall school culture. At the end of my time here, I start to question if I want to become a teacher. I started seeing posts about UX/UI Design and made steps to become one. I took a bootcamp course through University of Texas at Austin and learned and develop skills to becoming a UX Designer.

During the UX/UI bootcamp, I moved schools to Benold. It really solidify that teaching was not the career for me. I confided in my AP and has been very supportive and to me, the best thing that I gained from the school.

So I am here, a new junior UX Designer, ready to take on a new career and the challenges and rewards that comes with it.

What are the soft skills you need as a UX designer?

I think all designers need to have good communication, problem-solving, and time management. Having good communication with either clients, developers, or in interviews, creates a sense of trust and that you are listening, understanding, and responding to what their needs and wants. It is also important to have problem-solving skills because it shows that you can be dependable and can manage conflicts in projects. Lastly, having good time management is one of the most important soft skill. Making sure that you are meeting clients time table and utilizing your time to have all parts ready for clients is imperative.

What has been your biggest challenge when designing, and how did you overcome it?

My biggest challenge was time management and teamwork. In my last project, Plant Buddies, we had a strong start but later became over ambitious. As we got further into the project, we had to redesign our site map and user flow from the feed back we received and it set us back. For the rest of the project, we were playing catch up and did not get enough user testing for our high-fi prototype. I stayed up late for multiple days, along with a couple of other teammates, to work on the prototypes and got us back on track. Also, our teamwork was lacking in some areas. We had a strong start with everyone dividing work and helping each other out. As time went on, I noticed that one of our members became less involved and barely contributed in crucial sections of our project. We were meeting online, so it was difficult to reach out to them so we had to soldier on and were able to reach our goal and got good marks.

As a UX designer, what process do you follow when designing?

I do not have one process for designing. I use different methods of UX Design such as: user research, stakeholder interviews, user interviews, competitive analysis, user personas, user journey maps, empathy maps, affinity maps, storyboards, mood boards, UI style guide/tile, sketches, wireframes, and user testing. I incorporate a combination of these in my design process.

What do you consider when deciding the final features of an application?

I consider what the users and the stakeholder view as high importance for features. Sometimes, we want to add more features to better the product but to keep time management in mind, there are features that can wait for a later update. It is smarter to focus on the high priority than to be over ambitious and not being able to deliver the best product.

How do you react if a client doesn't like the design you created for them?

I would be understanding and listen as to what they want because ultimately it is their product. There is a process that we go through and to keep the stakeholder in the loop can prevent dissatisfaction and catch issues earlier in the process instead at presentation.

How do you collaborate with other developers and designers on the same project?

Collaboration and teamwork are the 2 important skills to work with developers. As part of my job, it is to help the stakeholder visualize their work or redesign, and working with front-end or back-end developers and keeping with clear communication can ensure that high priority features make it to the live product.