My name is Eriol (ehh-roll) my pronouns are they/them and I’ve been working as a designer for around 10 years now. In and out of commercial, corporate workplaces and more recently non-profit, humanitarian and NGO spaces. I’m very involved in open source from a design perspective. I’m starting a Phd in January 2021 on designers involvement in humanitarian open source projects globally and I do speaking and workshops at various conferences when I can.

Outside of my design related life I love video games (and help organise game jams/hackathons in my local city) growing food and plants, reading SF and horror fiction (including comics) and I’m learning how to look after a canal boat.

Good question and a difficult one...there's a deep, delve into my psyche and a more general answer. They’re both a bit similar. I’m good at solving problems and annoyingly curious about a lot of different things in life, if someone has a problem, I want to hear about that problem and see if better design can fix it (it usually can!) I also love learning about people and how they work, live, survive and thrive and how I can support that with my skills, design and otherwise. Community on a global scale is deeply important to me and I try to actively participate in actions, conversations and with people who are looking to improve and care for the world around us. I want to help those people and be helped in return and assist in building this care-led community of people solving problems.

Deeper? I have some big insecurities around ‘Am I doing enough?’ ‘Am i doing something positive?’ ‘Am I helping others?’ This often drives the above ideas and goals to an extreme which can burn me all the way out. It’s a good driver, to be dedicated and engaged, but when it becomes a source of unease and anxiety is where I’ve struggled with feelings of inadequacy.

Practically speaking, it was teachers and adults as I was growing up encouraging exploration. From old-school computer magazines, to trips to internet cafes and museums and allowing me to play on photoshop 5 with the single new mac in art class (we’re talking the mid 90’s so iMac G3’s!) I was able to pursue art and media studies at college as I was a reasonably good artist and then went into uni where I started to do more artwork on computers.

After not quite knowing what to do after graduation I found my way into design through community based art projects and created maps of local areas. I then went on to several internships (these were hard, hard days where i was working 8-10 hour days and studying for around 4-5 hours 6 days a week) I then got a junior design job that could support me without me working extra jobs on the side and grew my knowledge and expertise from there.

My 20’s were dominated by hard work, sleepless nights, unpaid internships and relentless studying. I hope that this becomes less and less as industries become more supportive of junior and new graduate’s. Y’all are talented at what you do and deserve to be paid, supported and coached through your early years.

Listening. Carefully listening. ‘Detective’ like deduction and inference skills. Empathy and sympathy (which is linked to listening) ethics, justice and responsibility. Persuasion, communication, debate and negotiation skills and curiosity.

How much are they learning? How much are they learning from experiments and mistakes? How often are they pushing themselves out of their comfort zones? How well are they serving our users with their work and are they enjoying their work? And what goals have they set themselves to exceed this quarter/year? What progress has been made?

These are all very hard to measure and require building a relationship with your team that is built and trust, support and honesty. This is how I work with all my direct reports and teammates. It’s less about quantity and the quality of your experiences and ability to learn on and reflect on the growth and learning.

Oh that’s a difficult question! It really depends on what project or workplace you’re in and what they are asking for. I’m biased in that I’ve mostly been a generalist because I’ve been part of small teams or projects where I’ve had to manage various aspects both in terms of design and other functions.

I do think that generalists tend to be more flexible, adaptable and interested in other functions and those functions impact and effect on design. Specialists are like precision functions and I think they are essential for certain projects and workplaces where lack of precision can be a huge mistake or harmful.

The best team would be comprised of people who consider themselves specialists in a single aspect of design and able to do a few other functions. Say an expert in forms or search experiences and able to look at other parts of an overall design alongside an ‘overview’ design lead.

How well they can speak about the project in terms of impact and outcomes. How concise and clear they are about their successes but also where this could go next to improve. Success without a pathway to improvement is a mis-truth. Awareness of yourself is something I look for in a good, competent designer. A curiosity and interest in the other members of the team.

I personally am confused when a designer does not talk about how the team worked together (or if it’s a solo project how you would have worked with a team or worked with the client) design is a relational, person based profession and to omit those details is alarming for me.

I look for an interest in current technology with a critical and assessing eye. I want to know why you chose to investigate or work with a particular type of tech (app, game, IoT, PWA, machine learning) . How does this technology ultimately benefit the purpose and the people/users?

Finally, show me what you had the most fun with and you can’t wait to tell me. I want to know what excites you and keeps you energised as a professional to see if we as an organisation hiring you can facilitate that and offer projects that give that feeling. The last thing you want is a bored and unmotivated designer!

Haha! Absolutely not essential! Though the PhD academic candidate in me is afraid of that statement, the functional, practicing designer in me fully believes that a process is only as useful as it is adaptable to given circumstances.

There’s 1001 methodologies, frameworks and processes to use and all of them have value at different times. Sticking to anything religiously can grow a zealot for a process and move focus away from the problem you’re trying to solve and the people involved.

I picture it this way: When you approach a project, imagine you’re at an amazing buffet dinner of different processes, tasks, workshops, materials and methods. Sometimes you’ll go for the salad bar, sometimes you’ll go for the rich sauces and other times the dessert section! Have fun with the options at your fingers and try new things when you can.

Control is a tricky word, one of the most empowering things you can do is to share control and bring in a collaborative and sometimes, ‘messy’ process. Humans are inherently messy and we’re trying to design things that help them all to understand and work with that messiness better, not to control the messiness (that doesn’t tend to work!) but better understand where the mess flows and guide it as best you can.

Another question might be how can designers guide design sprints? That is largely achieved by knowing, respecting and understanding your teammates and responding well to their needs and advocating for your own (design led) ones. The more you build a basis for respect the better you can be at having design respected and understood.

Research is rarely valued when it is first done in organisations and companies. It’s scary to have people who use what you make tell you through research that you aren’t perfectly understanding all their needs (how could you? You’re only human and that's a lot of information!) What does grow is how you treat that research and view it in non-hostile terms. When people, organisations and companies can look at research with the fascination and opportunity for growth that it really is when it is becoming a valued aspect of how you do your work.

More often than not, I’ve found that point to be researching with a critical user group and getting some really, detailed and honest feedback from them that cannot be ignored by everyone. Research often ‘wins’ over people on a one by one basis and not as a group and there will always be jerks that ignore real people’s testimony and robust research in favour of their own opinion and to that I say you’ll look back eventually and kick yourself!

Confidence and taking up space. Getting invited to meetings and making yourself heard. Repeating yourself as much as you need to to be heard. The problem isn’t with designers here, the problem is not being in the room when the decisions happen and for that we need to talk about that room and why we’re not in it!

This is a difficult question because it's a systemic and business problem more than an individual question. Websites like fivver, people ‘working for free/exposure’ unpaid internships and manipulative clients have made this the problem we see today, where someone asking for a living wage so they can pay their rent, food and bills with their skills is almost impossible.

The way we’ll see change is when everybody can ask for a living wage globally and nobody is taken advantage of with unpaid work, internships and we don’t ‘undercut’ each other’s value and prices. I don’t have a solution but this is something that all freelancers, especially designers should be thinking about. The question of “If I charge super low how does it affect those that come after me?” should be on your mind.

This is hard! I get burnt out a lot because I’m still learning where those lines are for me, even as a senior designer it can be difficult. I think one key piece of advice is saying no at any point of a project and challenge is 100% ok. Asking for help is 100% ok and required! It’s a great skill to develop how to ask for help in a way that is clear. “I need help with X, Y and Z. Team member A, I know you’re good at X and Z. Can you take one of these?” being able to do that in both your paid work and your challenge, volunteer and passion-projects is critical.

Taking time to recover from mild burnout is better than full on, making yourself unwell burnout. Also, know you’re not alone, there are so many people who struggle with this and we’re here to listen, understand and advise.