Inês João, Product Designer | Spotify Design

Ever since I can bear in mind, I’ve spent most of my time drawing and exploring completely different inventive supplies. The happiest time of the yr for me was the beginning of the varsity yr after I received to decide on new stationery. All my faculty assignments have been rigorously designed with supporting graphics, intentionally chosen typography and alignment of parts. Without noticing, I’ve at all times regarded for various methods of designing the world round me.

At the beginning of my profession, I wished to change into an illustrator and ended up finding out graphic design. Although I loved the creativity and visible points of being a graphic designer, I quickly realised that I wanted some extra construction and goal in my every day work. My mom at all times taught me and my sister to assist everybody round us and my father at all times made certain we did issues in a structured and exact method. Unconsciously, I took this on and made it the core of my work and private life: creating higher consumer experiences.

As a designer, your life is stuffed with problem-solving, establishing relationships, and ensuring you’re offering probably the most pleasurable journey to folks. Every day I discover myself attempting to resolve issues for family members, developing with companies that repair a society subject, or sharing the life hacks I collected throughout all these years I’ve been dwelling overseas. I imagine in design as a service able to fixing each world drawback with goal, construction and sweetness.

I assist Spotify staff ship the very best expertise for Spotify followers and creators by optimizing the instruments they use of their every day work. My crew communicates the “soul” of a Spotify consumer to Spotify Engineers and Product Managers to allow them to customise, check, and ship app options. It is a really complicated area and my day is typically stuffed with extra unknowns than instructions. However, the fantastic thing about inner tooling is that you’ve your customers one Slack message away, and you may simply profit from co-creation, fast suggestions loops and quick incremental enhancements.

I’ll quickly be transferring to a different location, because of Spotify’s nice versatile Work From Anywhere program however that is what my desk seems like in Stockholm.

1. Laptop stand: I’m a giant fan of laptop computer stands as they assist keep away from neck ache. I normally use my laptop computer for music or as a help for displays.

2. Monitor and webcam: I wish to design on a display screen sufficiently big to show a number of home windows or see a full movement. I additionally suggest utilizing an exterior webcam on prime of it to assist others see you from a very good angle when in video calls.

3. iPad and Apple pen: I exploit them to sketch concepts or flows that I can simply switch to my pc.

4. Pen holder: The first slab piece that I made again in Portugal with my sister. I like to preserve many various pens at hand for stunning handwritten notes.

5. Spotify Notebook, MUJI pens & Post-its: Although I’ve been attempting to maneuver to extra digital note-taking I nonetheless use a pocket book to construction my ideas, particularly after I want to grasp a posh movement or Slack dialog. MUJI are my favourite pens to write down and sketch and Post-its are good for fast notes so I don’t neglect an essential to-do!

6. Logitech MX Master 3: I’ve been utilizing such a mouse for a really very long time, it’s my favourite to keep away from any wrist ache.

7. Apple Magic Keyboard: It is the primary time I received a numeric keyboard however I’m very glad to have more room to maneuver my arms. And the numeric half is tremendous useful for resizing parts.

8. Noise-canceling headphones: They are tremendous helpful to focus when working from dwelling, particularly when there may be building work occurring.

I’ve labored in lots of several types of corporations and encountered many challenges — from turning paper recordsdata right into a digital product, to rising a sportfishing app community. However, I have to say that my largest problem is from my time at Spotify. When I began I knew I used to be hopping on a journey I didn’t know a lot about, however that was the problem I used to be lacking in my profession. 

Unlike what I did earlier than, I’m now designing for complicated merchandise I’ll most likely by no means use. When I began, there was no interface to work on, solely a product imaginative and prescient that wanted a number of discovery work to change into one thing tangible. I needed to carry again my sleeping consumer researcher hat and design pondering instruments to start out making sense of the large quantity of paperwork and displays. Adding to that, I joined a really technical crew, which had no thought why I used to be there. There have been moments I felt caught, misplaced and not sure about what assets to make use of to face this problem.

There have been three issues that helped me set up a design tradition and switch a product imaginative and prescient into an interface: 

1. Ask for assist and co-create: more often than not your friends and clients would be the ones that know finest in regards to the area and may help you design the product. Other designers may also face comparable challenges, so share assets and learnings amongst one another.

2. Be user-centered and experiment: non-designers are glad to be taught different instruments that may assist them perceive issues extra effectively. Some instruments work higher than others however solely by trial-error, you’ll discover what works finest.

3. Build relationships throughout completely different groups: when working in a big group you’ll probably rely on many individuals so spend a part of your time constructing relationships and understanding how one can assist and be helped. Everyone is in the identical boat and glad to collaborate.

Le Corbusier

The method he makes use of easy shapes and colours to design stunning and useful buildings and objects influences the best way I take into consideration user-friendly interfaces.

James Blake

The feelings triggered by his music could make one really feel so many issues that I want design interfaces had the identical impression.

Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

For making economics and conduct science matters accessible to everybody and remind me that designing for folks means fixing issues for a lot of completely different profiles.

One e book that influenced me was “Design your life” by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. This e book was given to me after I determined to stop my job and transfer to a different nation with no outlined plan. It modified my mindset in the direction of design and its potential to create higher experiences for myself and the folks round me.

I get my creativity enhance from the @ohhdeer Instagram account, which showcases curated work from completely different illustrators (in addition they have a stationery subscription field!). Parallel to that, I additionally imagine nature offers you all of the power and concepts you typically desperately attempt to discover in entrance of a display screen, so exit and luxuriate in it!

My design story wouldn’t be full with out a few thank yous to people who formed my journey.

• My household — for at all times being there for me, supporting my fixed modifications, even when they nonetheless don’t know precisely what I do for a dwelling. 

• All of you that I met within the completely different nations I’ve lived in — for opening up my horizons about completely different cultures, methods of working and experiencing life.

• Simon Raess (founder at Ginetta) — for seeing the potential in me after I was a younger designer and being the primary to show me about human-centered design.

• Monospace (inner instruments centralized design crew at Spotify) — for making a protected house to share, fail and find out about design, a part of why I take pleasure in working at Spotify a lot.