April is here and that means that International Design Day is almost here! In anticipation of the BIG day that’s coming next April 27th, we talked to some of the amazing Klarnauts working within the different design sub-pipelines at Klarna to learn more about their experiences and their thoughts on this year’s International Design Day 2022 theme, “Suspended in Transition.”
Meet Cupi Wong. She’s a passionate Product Designer and one of Klarna’s many globetrotters. Keep reading to learn more about her journey at Klarna and as a designer of our amazing products!
“International Design Day 2022: “Suspended in Transition” asks designers to step out of their comfort zone, to accept moments of not knowing and not designing-yet, to reflect from a place of discomfort and change at the same time.” Tell us about a moment where you have felt this way in Klarna?
This is a very good question and I have been experiencing this feeling recently.
My team has switched our focus to Growth. This is a new scope for us. For me, as a designer, it’s really difficult to start designing anything without fully understanding the problem space. Even if I start exploring ideas right away, I might go too far from the direction intended, and it might not be related to the goals we want to achieve.
That is how I started the discovery process with the team. During the discovery process, not much hands-on design work is needed. It’s much more about understanding and learning about the problem space and the products, and talking to different teams to find out opportunities.
At first, I felt quite uncomfortable for not doing much hands-on design work, as that is what makes me feel productive – when I am delivering some actual ideas and solutions. But understanding the problem and helping the team to define our scope is also important. When I get to learn more about the problem space and products, it helps me develop my design-thinking process; it gives me more information to support me when I am communicating with different teams or presenting my design ideas. I am glad that I have experienced this “not-knowing” and “not designing-yet” period of time. Although it does feel uncomfortable, it is very challenging and fun.
Tell us what made you interested in becoming a Product Designer?
I started my career as a graphic designer. Since I’ve been working in different tech startups in Hong Kong, I’ve had more chances to work on projects that are related to UI/UX, and then to products.
Product is very different from what I’ve done before as a graphic designer. I feel more challenged to focus not only on visuals, but also on solving problems to ultimately bring the highest value to the product and more importantly, the best user-experience to the consumer. I also feel more satisfied to be able to explain my designs based on research and data. This leads me to want to become the best product designer I can be.
What has been the most interesting project you have worked on since joining the Design team at Klarna?
I think one of the most interesting projects I’ve worked on is making the user interviews with merchants happen. I created this initiative because I realized that we are building products for our merchants, but we weren’t really talking to them to ask for their feedback on our product.
I really wanted to talk directly with the merchants to understand their pain points while using our product, and from this we could build a pool of merchants for interviews and testing, and, in the future, to generate a continuous repository of insights.
My group thought this was a very good initiative, and everyone in the team was really supportive in helping so we could achieve this project together. Although it was not easy to make this happen, I am glad that at Klarna I am able to start small and learn fast to do what I believe is meaningful, and how supportive everyone is to help make these things happen.
How do you generate impact with your work?
Being the guardian of the UI and UX of a product is important because this is how we make sure we are providing a consistent experience to our users.
As a designer, I see myself as one of the gear wheels that helps the team move forward smooothly. I am contributing to the team by solving problems with research, getting data and collecting user pain points and feedback in order to validate the problem, so we can then draft ideas that can become solutions.
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