Designers at Clio: Andrew Rose, Senior Product Designer
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This interview is part of a series of conversations with the design team at Clio. Every week, we’ll dig into how designers at Clio solve problems, and have fun doing it.
When you’re stuck on a problem, how do you tend to get yourself unstuck?
I often get in this state when I start to solve little parts of a problem I’m working on, and this branching effect occurs, where new problems that I hadn’t considered arise and the scope (and my anxiety) starts to increase exponentially.
When I think about how I fight this, what jumps to mind is this idea of simplifying my understanding of the problem by zooming out until I’ve reached a level of simplicity that helps me move forward. For example, I could be spending a ton of cycles working on the UI components necessary to enable the user of a calendar app to configure really complex recurring events (like a series that repeats every second month on the third Tuesday until a set date.) Zooming out can remind me that maybe that level of complexity is not really necessary, and that the user maybe just needs a few smart presets based on user research, like repeat daily, weekly, monthly or annually.
When I’m trying to zoom out like this, I find that writing or talking about a problem with others helps to reframe that problem for me. It helps me to understand what to really focus on, and to see more clearly what is most important. It’s really about changing gears: moving away from working in Sketch or in code, towards writing, discussing or white-boarding.
I find that writing or talking about a problem with others helps to reframe that problem for me. It helps me to understand what to really focus on, and to see more clearly what is most important.
On my desk, I have this dot-pad that I might draw an interface roughly on. Adjacent to this sketch, I’ll start writing down questions. “How do I get from here to there?”, or “when I’m on this screen, what stands between me and my goal?”. When I look back through the pages of my dot-pad, there are actually far more questions and words than there are sketched images. It’s actually far more ‘big picture thinking’ than it is detail oriented.
Zooming out helps me to think critically and gain more clarity around the problem I’m working on, and also helps me to more easily discuss problems with my development team, my product manager and the users of my product. There are definitely times when the problem I feel stuck on just really isn’t that big of a deal to anyone but me, I just need to back up a bit to see that.
How do you recharge daily?
I’m very lucky that I really like my job, and I find I don’t need to actually recharge much. But I do need to regularly spend enough time outside of the world of design or product. It’s important for me to exit the sometimes homogeneous or overbearing culture of tech. I’m not always successful, but I try to be careful about spending too much time on design Twitter, and when I listen to podcasts, I tend to favour those unrelated to design.
I’m currently really into watching (and listening to podcasts about) basketball. Actually, I’ll watch just about any sport. I’m mostly into basketball right now because the Toronto Raptors are doing so well (at the time of this interview) and it’s so easy to stay engaged as a fan when your team is relevant. Sports podcasts are interesting to me because I enjoy learning about the strategic aspects of both the game itself and the business surrounding it. I also have a few little hobbies like drumming in a (very bad) band, and taking advantage of the beautiful place I live by camping, swimming and hiking.
What inspires you?
Thinking about my team’s ownership and autonomy over our product or feature is inspiring, in that our collective success is tied in turn to how successful we make our customers. Designers at Clio are empowered to advocate for the user, and it’s inspiring to know that we have an equal say in our triads (a triad at Clio is made up of a product manager, product designer, and engineering manager).
I find I don’t really follow specific websites or blogs, however I do tend to follow some people on social media. I also pretty regularly check out Hey Designer, which is a website that aggregates trending articles on product design and development.
Luke Wroblewski is one person I tend to pay attention to, because I don’t think there is anyone else who delivers as much insight in such a condensed format. I have a specific interest in mobile design and development, and he gives an annual talk for Google that I might watch 10 or 15 times in the year until the next one comes out. I’ll even play that talk (or others) while I’m working. Sometimes it will just refresh my thinking around a particular facet of what I’m doing, which may benefit even the smallest part of the project I’m currently working on.
I get inspired about the change that designers can affect. Going to our annual conference, ClioCon, is inspiring because it’s an opportunity to see so many different people use our product — and hear them talk about how our work has helped them become better at their job (or sometimes prevented that). Talking to customers, trying to understand their problems, and seeing them get excited about concepts that could help them are all keys to getting me inspired regularly.
Andrew Rose is a Senior Product Designer from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
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