When you walk into my Friedrichshain apartment, there’s a room labeled “Kinderwagen-Rollstuhle” next to the elevator. On the door, a paper reads:

“Only for strollers. Do not use this room for bikes!”

This was my first inkling that Friedrichshain was a neighborhood for more than hipsters and its club scene.

When I first moved to Berlin in 2019, stroller rooms and family policies were the last thing on my mind. My husband and I moved here to live in a big city, travel across Europe, and start a new adventure. As we stayed longer though, more of our friends started popping out pandemic babies. We soon decided to start our family here as well.

Americans love praising Scandinavian countries' utopian family policies. The NY Times recently touted Finland for giving all new parents the same leave, following Sweden’s example. Bringing up Bebe, which explores the differences between American and French child rearing, has become standard pregnancy reading. Achtung Baby is the German equivalent. I also read these books during pregnancy in my quest to glean child-rearing wisdom.

This post is my version: a personal story about my 22 months of pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and parental leave in Berlin. This isn’t a how-to guide, and I’m not promising to confer any wisdom. But I’d like to show what it’s like to live in a city built with both physical and social infrastructure for families, during one of life’s most tender junctures.

1. Pregnancy

The Mutterpass

At my first appointment with my Frauenartz (OB/GYN), I received a little book called the Mutterpass (Mother’s pass). All the tests and examinations throughout my pregnancy and birth were recorded in it. Although it may seem archaic to bring a paper booklet with you to every appointment, it actually made a lot of sense in practice. During my pregnancy, I received care from a disparate group of doctors and midwives. Instead of transferring electronic medical records, I simply handed over my Mutterpass at the start of each appointment.

My care team

Holistic medicine is more widely accepted in Germany and supported by the medical establishment. Like in the US, I went to routine OB/GYN checkups where I would do a urinanalysis, blood pressure check, weigh-in, periodic blood tests, and consultation at each appointment. I did ultrasounds and genetic testing at predetermined weeks. Unlike the US, I also went to a Hebammenpraxis, a midwife clinic.

One of the downsides I experienced with public health insurance was that my OG/GYN was often overbooked and rushed—sometimes my appointments started one to two hours late. But at the Hebammenpraxis, the midwives took their time. They explained each test in my Mutterpass, making sure I understood each result. They also recommended acupuncture and acupressure for my debilitating first trimester nausea. This was all covered by my public health insurance.

I split the costs of my public health insurance with my employer—I pay around €‎440 per month. This is calculated based on your income level. Health insurance is mandatory for everyone living in Germany. Some people pay for private health insurance if they don’t qualify for public, or want greater control of their providers. See here for more details.

Picking a hebamme

My favorite part of the German medical system is the hebamme, a personal midwife. Hebammen are trained medical professionals that can perform examinations on the mother and the baby. They also guide parents through this huge life transition. In Berlin they work hyper-locally — usually only in one neighborhood. My other mom friends advised me to start looking for a hebamme as soon as my pregnancy was confirmed.

Unfortunately there is a shortage of hebammen in Berlin. To find one, I posted in facebook groups, registered for search websites, visited Hebammenpraxes, and asked friends of friends. Finally, by the end of the first trimester I found my match: Mandy.

Mandy only worked in my zip code, and took a handful of new mothers each month. She visited homes by biking from apartment to apartment — sometimes up to 8–10 homes a day! After our initial meeting at the end of my first trimester, we signed a contract. We didn’t talk for a while, and then around week 35, she came for a few home visits. She checked out my baby room and recommended a few items I might need postpartum. She was also available on call if I thought I was going into labor, and could advise me on when to go to the hospital.

Picking where to deliver

In Berlin, you have a couple of options on where to give birth: a hospital, a Geburtshaus (birthing center), or Hausgeburt (home birth). All options are mostly covered by insurance. In birthing centers, you are attended to by a 1-on-1 midwife in a more “home-like” environment. Doctors are not on-site and there is not the option for epidurals or other drugs. At home, a Beleghebamme (personal birthing midwife) supervises your delivery.

I chose to deliver in a hospital because I wanted the option to have an epidural, and probably because of my American tendencies. I registered at Charité Mitte, a top teaching hospital 20 minutes away, where most doctors and nurses spoke English.

Preparing for birth

Germans believe that all pregnant women are entitled to not only adequate medical care, but also mental and physical preparations for birth. My public health insurance, Die Techniker, reimbursed me for yoga classes and a Geburtsvorbereitungskurs (birth class). Although most couples take a weekly birth class in their neighborhood, we chose a weekend online course because of COVID. It was also challenging to find one in English.

The German system acknowledges that pregnant mothers not only need a physical break, but also a mental break. They respect the experience of pregnancy and motherhood.

In Germany, your maternal leave starts six weeks before your due date, with the statutory maternity leave, called Mutterschutz. During this time, you receive full pay, and are expected to relax and focus on preparing for the baby. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take that much time off. I felt extreme FOMO — worried that I’d miss out on important moments at work.

However, since I’d be paid the same whether I worked or not, I embraced the German benefits and stopped working. I spent the first few weeks off “nesting” — preparing the baby room, washing and sorting hand-me-down clothes, and stocking our freezer. I also tried to stay active by doing prenatal yoga and going for walks with other moms on leave. One of the benefits of longer maternity leaves is that there is a higher likelihood that your friends are also on leave.

2. Birth

Delivery

After my due date came and went, I went for daily check-ups and CTG (electronic fetal monitor, EFM) scans at my Frauenartz. Five days after my due date, I had a blood test at the hospital and they decided to have me stay to be induced. While I waited for the induction pills to work, I waited in a separate hospital room in the maternity ward.

German hospitals provide a range of equipment to support vaginal deliveries. Charite’s delivery rooms had specialised equipment such as an exercise ball, birthing stools, ropes attached to the ceiling and walls, and adjustable birthing tables. Some even had a bathtub for water delivery. The midwives embrace moving around and changing positions to help the baby “spin” down the birth canal.

I had the fortune of a quiet delivery ward, which allowed a midwife to accompany me the entire time I was in active labor. Oftentimes in a hospital a midwife splits her time between two or three women. One downside of giving birth in a hospital though is that you may need to change midwives mid-delivery. This happened to me 6 hours in. But in the end, I had a positive experience as I liked the different approach of both midwives. I didn’t see a doctor until the very end, just a few minutes before I delivered my baby boy.

Grant was born after 9 hours of labor.

Staying in the hospital

After birth, I stayed in the hospital for 3 days. This allowed us to have Grant’s U2 appointment at the hospital, which needs to happen between the third and tenth day of life in Germany. Similar to US wellness checkups, Germans have a set of preventive medical check-ups from the first day of birth through adolescence.

We were lucky to get a “family room” after birth, where my husband was able to stay with us in his own bed. We were supported by postpartum midwives 24–7, who were just a button press away. Charite doesn’t have that many family rooms though, so most people need to share a room post delivery. Other families choose to leave the hospital as soon as possible, because their hebamme can also support them at home.

The one downside of staying in the hospital was the German food. This was what I was served for dinner on the first night. Yes, that’s a raw tomato in the corner and a large pickled cucumber in the other.

3. Postpartum

I had heard the hardest trimester isn’t the 3rd, it’s actually the “4th trimester”, otherwise known as postpartum. I was worried about sleepless nights and how my body would recover. But after reading the book “The First Forty Days,” I learned it could be a magical time if you’re prepared and have a strong support system.

Wochenbett

The Germans also have a culture of resting after birth called Wochenbett which literally means “weeks in bed.” The new mother is supposed to stay in bed to recover and focus on skin-on-skin and feeding the new baby.

This is actually quite similar to the Chinese tradition of Zuo Yuezi (坐月子), which literally translates to confinement. During this time, new mothers aren’t supposed to leave the house or touch cold water.

My parents came to Berlin for my Zuo Yuezi, and rented an apartment a block from my apartment. My mom made me warm Chinese soups, didn’t let me touch cold water, and helped take care of Grant. I didn’t leave the house for almost 30 days, which wasn’t that hard for me as it was in the middle of winter.

Hebamme visits

As I mentioned before, my favorite German benefit is the hebamme. My midwife Mandy came the first day we got home, and visited every day for the first few weeks. Each visit started by weighing Grant, tracking his progress to regaining his birth weight. She also checked and cleaned his umbilical cord stub, and showed us how to bathe him once it fell off.

At the beginning she also supported me in breastfeeding: teaching me different positions, helping wake Grant up mid-feed (his breastfeeding persona was a “dinner dozer” / “rester”), and teaching me how to use the pump (which I only used before my supply came in). This was invaluable, as it prevented common breastfeeding problems like mastitis and nipple pain. If I had any major issues, Mandy could have also referred me to a lactation consultant.

Each day, my husband and I would write down all our questions to review with her. Are his hands too hot or too cold? How should we dress him at night? Should we start vitamin D drops? When will he get over his jetlag? Are we doing tummy time right? Is this a normal amount of spit up? I think she single-handedly prevented us from having postpartum anxiety. :)

She also checked on my health — both physical and mental. She asked about my bleeding, checked my stitches, and examined my abs for diastasis recti. It was such a blessing to get maternal care without having to leave the house with a newborn. Oftentimes, there is so much focus on the baby, not on the mother’s recovery. I didn’t feel this way.

4. Parental leave

Time off

All German employees (people with a German employment contract) are entitled to parental leave. There are two concepts: Elternzeit (parental time off) and Elterngeld (parental allowance / money).

• Elternzeit: Up to 3 years of unpaid leave for each parent, before your child’s 8th birthday. Employers are required to give you the same or a similar role when you return.
• Elterngeld: To support you in taking Elternzeit, all parents can apply for a stipend that depends on your income level (300–1800 euros / month). Parents apply jointly and decide how they want to split it up. You can apply for 2–12 months of allowance. This is funded by the German social security system, not by your employer.

In my circle of friends, most mothers took at least a year off — usually until their child went to Kita. This also lines up with how long women are recommended to breastfeed for, about one year. Babies can start drinking cow’s milk after one year of age. I noticed that most fathers took a few weeks off at the start with the mother, and then some weeks later when the baby is older. Many took it during the summer holiday so the whole family could vacation together.

In a bit of a tangent, I’m going to compare Germany’s policy to Sweden’s. Unlike Sweden’s equality focused policy, Germany doesn’t have a minimum number of days each parent must take. In Sweden, their 90 days of “use-it-or-lose-it” time for fathers incentivizes men to take their full parental leave. Sweden also has an “equality bonus” of 50 kr each per day if you share your parental leave equally. This has led more Swedish men to take more paternal leave than other countries, and even created a “latte pappa” culture.

While I was pregnant, we visited our friends in Sweden with a 1 year old. The couple took the first month off together. The mom then took the next 6 months on her own, and then the father took the next 6 months on his own. Leaving the baby with the father made it easier for my friend to go back to work, and helped them establish a more equal division of household and child rearing. In the US, studies have shown that when a baby arrives, working couples no longer share their housework equally, even when they did before (study). This was a pattern I didn’t want us to fall into.

So what did we do? My husband and I both took the first month off. Then I became the primary caregiver from months 2–10, though my husband took off 6 weeks of vacation throughout that time. He also works from home, and was able to support me during the day when needed. He will become primary caregiver when Grant is 10 months, and plans to take at least 3 months of paternity leave. We chose this split because I wanted to take about one year off of work, and because by the time Grant is 10 months he’ll be breastfeeding less and less dependent on me. I also wanted us to both experience being primary caregiver to develop our own parenting styles and build empathy for each other.

The thing I appreciate the most about this experience, is that I had the privilege of going back to work when I was ready. I took a total of 12 months off — something I never would be able to take, or even thought I’d want, in the US. Some moms are ready to return to work after 3 months, and others at 3 years. I didn’t have to choose between being a “stay-at-home-mom” or a “working mom” when I wasn’t ready. And throughout my leave, even though my day to day was being a full time caregiver, I considered myself a UX designer. This is an important part of my identity.

So what did I do with my time?

Continued breastfeeding

Not going back to work allowed me to continue breastfeeding on-demand. I didn’t need to pump, though I used the passive Haaka pump to collect extra milk for bottles.

Women in Berlin breastfeed practically everywhere– restaurants, playground, the Ubahn… No one bats an eye!

Rückbildungskurs / Pelvic floor class

Around 6–8 weeks after birth, many German women take a Rückbildungskurs to strengthen their pelvic floor. Pregnancy and childbirth can stress, stretch, and weaken the muscles in your pelvic floor and abdomen, which can cause pain and urinary incontinence. Germans don’t wait for a doctor’s diagnosis. Almost all women sign up for a course after their hebamme clears them. In the class, a physiotherapist walks you through a series of breathing and muscle exercises. This is also covered by health insurance.

This can also be a great way to get out of the house with your baby and meet other new moms in the neighborhood. Unfortunately I was only able to find an English course online.

Social worker visit

A few months after birth, a social worker contacted us for a home visit. I had never met a social worker before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised though! The woman came with a large folder of flyers: lists of pediatricians, local hospitals, family centers, and kitas (day cares). She reassured us that the local town hall could put us on a waitlist for kita (daycare), if we weren’t able to find a spot ourselves. This is a common concern of parents, as kita spots can be notoriously hard to find in Berlin. She also made sure we how to fill out all of the required German paperwork and navigate the bureaucracy.

Family Centers

As Ali Wong said in Hard Knock Wife, “when you’re a new mom on maternity leave it’s like The Walking Dead. You’ve just gotta hook up with a crew to survive.” Neighborhood family centers saved me, and helped me find my survival crew. All around Friedrichshain there are family centers with programming for kids and their parents. Many have free play times and classes such as “baby massage” and “yoga with baby.”

When Grant was around 4 months old, I started going to a “baby time” every Friday. With a facilitator, we went around sharing how each of our weeks went — recounting what’s changed with the baby, and checking in on how we are each doing. We sang some German songs and did some playful activities. It ended with a lovely breakfast and tea. The whole class was donation based.

Although it was tough for me to always understand what was going on in German, I managed to make one good friend from the group. When the class ended, we started going to drop-in “open play times.” Grant loved playing with all the new toys and structures, and I enjoyed some adult socialization. It can be incredibly lonely and isolating to be caring for your baby at home alone all day.

Kita / Daycare

I’m not going to say much about Kita (daycare), because unfortunately we will be leaving Germany before Grant can go to Kita (at one year of age). The most important fact though is that Kita is free. Yes, daycare is free in Berlin. Well, except for a €23 / month lunch fee.

Parents apply for a Kitagutschein voucher that determines the number of hours you qualify for based on their age and the number of hours the parents work. Most kitas don’t take babies under the age of one though. If you’re curious to learn more, this is a great guide.

Leaving Berlin

What?! You’re leaving Berlin? You might be surprised to learn after describing this seeming family utopia, we’ve decided to return to the US — the only rich country without federally mandated paid parental leave.

We miss our family.
I had a really hard time the weeks after my parents left Germany when Grant was three months old. My relationship with my parents, and my in-laws, has completely changed since becoming a parent myself. I call my parents almost every day, and can’t imagine having them only see Grant once or twice a year. I think that one of the best things we can do for Grant, and for our sanity, is to surround him with people that love him — which means moving closer to my family in the Bay Area.

We miss our friends.
Although it was hard to make many friends during the pandemic, we managed to make a few good friends in the past three years. However, almost all of them have now moved away as many were also expats, and went onto their next location. We know how important friendship is to our happiness, and how lonely and isolating parenting can be. Back in the bay area we have friends we’ve known for 10–20 years, and many of them are now having kids too. We’re actually planning to co-live with a friend I’ve known since birth!

We’re tired of speaking bad German.
We had grand plans to learn at least conversational German when we first moved here. We took a month-long intensive course, and then biweekly classes for the first year. But after a year we only made it to A.2, at best. When I got pregnant, I lacked the energy and motivation to continue. In the area we live in, we’re able to use English in our day-to-day encounters, but when we hit bureaucracy, it is all German. And becoming a parent doubled the amount of bureaucracy we’ve hit. I also couldn’t imagine not being able to speak to Grant’s daycare teachers fluently.

We want to continue working with our American employers, but want family friendly hours.
My husband and I continued to work for American companies when we moved to Berlin. He stayed with his previous company, and I started at Google Berlin. This meant we worked somewhat shifted hours, usually 10 am to 7 or 8pm, with a healthy midday break. This is not compatible with a baby’s schedule (3pm kita pickup, 5:30pm dinner, 7pm bedtime). From my experience, most Googlers in leadership positions based in Europe take a break to watch their kids, and then go back online from 8–10pm. This is not the lifestyle we want.

We want to establish a permanent home base.
To my husband’s dismay, the idea of moving back to the bay and staying there for the rest of our lives terrifies me. I’m not ready to stop our adventures! But I do agree that we’d like to establish a home base and permanent community. Maybe we’ll move to Taiwan or Singapore in 5 years though :)

My reflections

I’m extremely thankful for my experience from pregnancy to parental leave in Berlin. I know how lucky we are to be able to move here, have our parents stay with us, and work at well paying jobs. We are extremely privileged to get this new perspective on what having a baby can look like. I’ve had friends in the US who had to fight for time off from their employers or beg their doctors to take their pain seriously to get a PT referral. It would have been hard for me to advocate for myself during this tender and vulnerable time.

I am grateful that Germany welcomed us as a temporary residents (we have EU Blue Cards), and allowed me to qualify and pay for public health insurance. I’ve felt supported by the city and healthcare system, with community spaces and services that I didn’t even know I needed.

After 12 months off, I feel ready to return to work, and step aside to let my husband become the primary caregiver. Love you dear! :)

Thank you Owen and Kalvin for the edits, and Alana Range for the lovely photos.

It’s been over a year since I moved to Berlin. In November of 2019, my partner and I arrived in Tegel airport after 21 hours of travel. As we awkwardly tried to corral our six suitcases to the taxi stand, we were told off by an old German that we were on the wrong side of the sidewalk. Welcome to Germany!

Although 2020 was not the year any of us expected, I still feel incredibly grateful to have started a new chapter in Berlin. I want to share my story about how I moved here, to inspire those of you dreaming about moving to Europe, and show that you can do it too.

Why Europe?

For context, I am an Asian American woman who was born and raised in the Bay Area. In California, I was surrounded by a huge extended family, 15+ year friendships, and a large professional network. Except for going to college in Chicago, studying abroad in the Netherlands, and a brief stint in New York, my life has taken place in California.

In my junior year of college, I studied at TU Eindhoven, located 1.5 hours south of Amsterdam. Eindhoven is known for its technical and design schools, and as the birthplace of Philips electronics. I loved it — perhaps more than college itself. In addition to being immersed in Dutch design culture, I learned to bike, navigated Europe by train, and made friends from different countries. Living in Eindhoven opened my eyes to a new way of living. When I came back to finish college, I vowed to move back in a few years.

After college, I moved back to San Francisco and a few years turned into ten. It was never the right time to move: my boyfriend didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to leave my job, or I was too scared to do it on my own.

Finally in 2018, I was ready to take the leap. I felt financially secure and had a partner equally excited to move with me. Things felt comfortable and familiar in San Francisco, but also stagnant — like I was living the same year over and over again. I was ready for something new. I was also tired of the culture of chasing in the tech industry — chasing the next promotion, looking for the next unicorn startup, and worrying about buying an affordable house. I was afraid that if I didn’t leave now, I would fall into those social norms and never leave.

How did you pick where to move?

My partner and I tried to make a data-informed decision — with qualitative (overall feel, excitement) and quantitative inputs (cost of living, taxes, weather).

1. Told everyone we were moving to Europe

“Hey, what’s new in your life?”

“Oh, we’re moving to Europe next year.”

As soon as my partner and I were aligned on our desire to move abroad, we started telling people. Stating it as a fact, “we’re moving to Europe next year,” created a form of accountability — even if we had no idea when or how to do it. Our friends shared tales of their own dream cities and introduced us to their friends who had made a similar move. Making it public was a commitment device, but it also surfaced advice and support from others.

2. Made a list of English-speaking cities with tech hubs

Since we’re only fluent in English, we limited our search to cities where English was the workplace lingua franca, at least amongst tech companies. I scoured LinkedIn, European VC funds, and job sites for UX jobs, and my partner did the same for software engineering jobs. In general, we found the most jobs in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Munich, London, Stockholm, and Zurich.

3. Narrowed down to three cities

We decided to take a two week vacation to explore our options and get a real sense of what it would be like to live there. We wanted to spend quality time in each place, which meant that we could only visit 3-4 places on our trip.

My partner, the engineer in this relationship, created a spreadsheet and tried to compare every quantifiable variable. Cost of living, average salaries, high/low temperatures, hours of daylight, approximate taxation rates…there was at least 10 columns. Meanwhile, I went back to our original goals and aspirations for moving abroad in the first place, and re-examined our list through that lens.

We eliminated the cities that felt more culturally similar to the US (Dublin and London) and places that were too cold for me (Stockholm). I was also drawn to cities with a vibrant creative culture. Ultimately we narrowed our list down to Copenhagen, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

4. Went on 2-week “scouting trip”

On our scouting trip, we spent 4 days in each city. Staying in Airbnbs and avoiding touristy areas, we explored neighborhoods and met up with the friends of friends living there. Our goal was to live like a local and get a sense of what life might be like.

I also set up some informational interviews in each city to get a sense of the job market and start my search. Through word of mouth and our network, I heard which companies were growing and identified ones I might want to work at. I also preemptively changed my location on LinkedIn so recruiters could find me. I was surprised by the number of companies that responded to my online applications — I seemed to get a higher response rate than in the Bay Area.

• In Copenhagen, I spoke with design firms and advertising firms. There were large global firms (e.g. Fjord), as well as more local, boutique agencies (e.g. DesignIt). There was also a vibrant international community built around the design school CIID.
• Berlin had the liveliest startup scene, with some more mature startups such as Zalando and SoundCloud. There were several startups in fintech (SumUp, N26, Taxfix, Revolut, Klarna), travel (Omio, GetYourGuide), and language learning (Babbel, Lingoda). Google and Amazon also had small offices there.
• Amsterdam had a mix of design firms, startups, and larger tech companies. Booking.com had a large presence in the center of the city. Several American companies such as Netflix, Uber, and Tesla picked Amsterdam as their European hub.

5. Weighed our options

After some reflection back in San Francisco, we picked Berlin. Here’s why:

• Largest city After living in San Francisco, with a population of ~900k, we were interested in trying out a bigger city. Berlin’s population was 3.5 million, Amsterdam’s was 1.1 million, and Copenhagen was 800k. We also felt this difference when we were in the cities. In Berlin, we could bike for 45 minutes and still be in the inner ring. In Copenhagen or Amsterdam, we pretty much covered the whole city in that time.
• High potential to make friends Having a larger population with a lot of expats led to a lot more loose connections. We were introduced to several friends of friends who had moved to Berlin from San Francisco or New York. There were more seeds we could imagine growing into a community.
• Lowest cost of living Berlin also had a significantly lower cost of living. We could comfortably afford a 2-bedroom in Berlin’s city center, but perhaps only a 1-bedroom in Amsterdam or Copenhagen. And we wanted the luxury of a second room for a home office / guest room.
• Diverse population As an Asian American woman, I can’t help but notice the diversity, or lack of diversity, around me. On our scouting trip, I innately felt more comfortable with Berlin, which has large Turkish, Vietnamese, and Thai communities. On the day to day level, this means I didn’t feel like I stuck out as much. It was also easier to find Asian groceries and restaurants, though it is still a far cry from the Bay Area.
• Potential to find an interesting job After watching the job market for 3 months, we were both optimistic that we could find a job in Amsterdam or Berlin. Copenhagen seemed to have less options, especially for software engineers. We were also pleasantly surprised that working in Silicon Valley helped us stand out to recruiters. Although Amsterdam’s and Berlin’s tech scenes are definitely growing hubs for Europe, they both felt much smaller than the Bay Area’s, New York’s, or Seattle’s. Anecdotally, it feels more like the size of Denver’s or Chicago’s tech scene.
• Vibrant creative culture Berlin has always been known as a place to live the Bohemian dream — where artists can revel in the city’s grittiness. This wasn’t my Berlin dream; however, I was drawn to how culture and creativity seeped into daily life. Accessible art galleries were sprinkled across neighborhoods, and it was commonplace to go to the philharmonic or indie movie theater (at least pre-COVID).

How did you get a visa?

There were a few ways to get a visa in Germany. I ended up signing a job offer while in San Francisco, and getting a temporary visa before we moved. After completing mountains of paperwork, I now have a Blue Card that allows me to stay in the EU for up to four years, as long as I am employed in the same industry I applied with.

Since moving here though, we’ve met Americans with a diverse range of visas. There are product managers on freelance visas, masters students on student visas (masters degrees are free if you get in!), and others who came on their 3 month Schengen travel visa and found a job when they got here.

In retrospect, we were pretty conservative and took the least risky route. There are lots of ways to make it work. The visa process took much longer (~4 months) than we expected because of a backup of appointments at the German embassy. I wish we had started earlier so we didn’t have to move to Berlin at the start of winter.

So, how’s it going?

Overall, it has been great! When we originally moved, we decided to stay for a minimum of two years. One and a half years in, we don’t have any plans to leave in the near future. We’ve settled into an apartment, and even bought and installed a full kitchen. Most apartments here don’t come with a kitchen when you first move in — not even a sink!

I enjoy how accessible everything is in our neighborhood (Friedrichshain). Within 10 minutes I can walk to 3 grocery stores, multiple pharmacies, my doctor and dentist, and best of all, my weekly farmer’s market. Although Berlin’s neighborhoods are quite spread out, the S and U-bahn make most places within a 40 min train ride.

We’re also slowly making progress on our German, though people say Berlin is the worst place in Germany to learn German. In most places in the city center, people can speak perfect English. Lingoda has been a convenient and affordable way to take online classes during the pandemic.

The hardest part is definitely being away from our friends and family. With the pandemic we haven’t felt safe going home and haven’t had any visitors. It has also been challenging to make new friends since the lockdown started. I am hopeful for the future though, and have great trust in Angela Merkel to lead us out of this situation.

In conclusion

If you are reading this, and wondering how to turn this dream into reality, here are a few pieces of advice:

• Make it public and tell everyone It might be scary to publicly share your aspirations, especially if you don’t know how to reach them. However I’ve found that after I told people where I want to get to, my friends supported me by checking in and holding me accountable.
• Set small milestones Planning a big move like this can feel daunting- a lot of people don’t know where to start! My partner and I have a practice called “Quarterly life planning” to set goals like “Plan a scouting trip” and “Apply to 5 jobs in Europe.” Breaking such a big project into smaller goals helped us make incremental progress.
• Be patient, and don’t lose hope If it feels forced right now to make a move, consider waiting. It took me 10 years to find the right time to move, but I always kept it in the back of my mind.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t find moving from San Francisco to Berlin that much harder than moving from San Francisco to New York. The toughest part was getting through all the paperwork and bureaucracy, which took about 2–3 months pre-move (visa application, packing, finding temporary housing) and 2–3 months post-move (finding an apartment, registering your apartment, opening a bank account).

More questions?

I’m happy to answer more questions about our move through the weekly office hours I host here.

From San Francisco to Berlin, moving to Europe as a UX Designer was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A two-hour exercise to begin prototyping your life

If writing New Year’s resolutions feels futile during the pandemic, you are not alone. With the rollercoaster of 2020 behind us, it can feel strange to set goals for the next 12 months, when you can’t even predict what will happen next month. As someone who finds value in self-reflection and setting intentions, there’s a happy medium that has served me well: Quarterly Life Planning.

I started Quarterly Life Planning when a close friend introduced me to “The Wheel of Life” exercise, created by Paul Meyer. We used it to create New Year’s resolutions for 2016. Little did I know that 2016 would be one of those years where nothing goes according to plan; it included the breakup of an important romantic relationship, the end of my dream job, and the gut-wrenching experience of working on Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Life was changing too quickly. To take stock and ground myself through all these ups and downs, I started doing the Wheel of Life exercise every three months.

Five years later, I have completed this exercise twenty times. I prefer the shorter time period because I have a clearer picture of the next three months than the whole year, and it allows me to set smaller, more realistic goals. In addition to the Wheel of Life, I’ve added some “behavioral hacks” to help turn my intentions into actions.

For those in the tech industry, this may sound like OKRs for your personal life. I’ll be the first to admit there are similarities in setting goals within a set timeframe. Unlike OKRS, the primary purpose for me is not achieving goals. Rather, the value comes from the process of trying things out (prototyping) and evaluating how they affect my overall wellbeing. Quarterly Life Planning also shares similarities with retrospectives — reflecting on what worked, what didn’t, and why, in order to highlight opportunities for change. Ultimately, these incremental changes allow me to make larger improvements in my life.

For me, the purpose for Quarterly Life Planning is to:

1. Reflect on each area of my life to identify what needs more focus, and what needs less.

2. Develop habits and start new projects.

3. Repeat to continue “prototyping” my life.

So if that appeals to you and you have 2 hours, let’s get started!

0. Get yourself ready

1. Find an accountabilibuddy.
   You can do this alone, but I like doing it with 1–2 people. This can be a vulnerable activity, so I recommend doing it people you feel safe opening up to. I’ve done this with roommates, close friends, and my romantic partner.
2. Block off 2 hours.
   I like to do this in the morning or early afternoon on a day off.
3. Print out a copy for each person.
   If you don’t have a printer, feel free to draw it out yourself. Here is a template you can download.
4. Find a comfortable, quiet place to write and talk.
   It can be nice to do this outside of your home so you are free from distractions, and get some distance from your daily life. Make a cup of tea, bring snacks, and put on some relaxing music. You are going to be here for 1–2 hours. Make yourself comfortable.
5. Pick categories for your Wheel of Life.
   You will be reflecting on and setting intentions around these areas of your life. Here are the eight I use, but feel free to adapt them to your values. There are more examples here.

Friends & family e.g. parents, siblings, close friends, long-distance friends

Significant other / romance e.g. intimacy, sexuality, love

Work e.g. career, profession, studies

Fun & recreation e.g. play, relaxation, adventure, hobbies, sports

Health e.g. physical & mental, energy, exercise, nutrition, sleep

Money e.g. personal finances, financial planning, investing, debt management

Physical environment e.g. home, workspace, neighborhood

Personal growth e.g. learning, challenge, self-development

Other categories to consider: spirituality, religion, community, mindfulness

1. Reflect back on the previous quarter

• For each area, reflect on what you’ve done in the past 3 months.
  Write down 3–5 bullets on what happened for each area. If you use a calendar or planner, it can help to look back at how you’ve spent your time. If you take a lot of photos, review your recent photos to remind yourself of your picture-worthy occasions. If you’re someone who can spend hours reflecting, consider setting a 20 minute timer for this part.
• Rate each area on a scale of 1–10.
  This scale is intentionally ambiguous and subjective — it’s only purpose is to aid you in reflecting and comparing across areas and over time. Personally, I use this scale to answer the question “How satisfied am I in this area of my life?” (with a 1 being completely empty, 10 being over the top, and 6 being the midpoint, satisfied). However, my partner uses this as a measure of where he has been spending his time and energy, and likes to set a “budget” for his total score. Pick what resonates most to you.

• Take turns sharing your reflections and ratings with your accountabilibuddy.
  After you’ve taken time to capture your thoughts, it’s time to share. Practice active listening by giving the speaker your undivided attention and avoiding judgement. Take extra care when sharing friendship ratings with friends and romance ratings with significant others. You may want to “parking-lot” difficult conversations for later.
• Update your ratings and map them on the wheel.
  After verbally processing you may want to change some of your ratings. When you are ready, draw them on the wheel.

2. Plan for next quarter

• Write down everything you want to do.
This should be an exhaustive list. Get all those nagging “should-do’s” out of your head; I find this very cathartic. Here are some examples I’ve written over the years:

Health e.g. Find a primary care doctor. Establish a workout routine 3x/week. Do a sugar detox.

Friends & Family e.g. Visit two long distance friends. Spend more quality time with my brother. Invest in making new friends.

Significant other / Romance e.g. Plan quality date nights 2x a month. Listen to John Gottman’s book together.

Work e.g. Kick ass in the first three months of my new job. Write reflections about being a PM. Apply to 3 artist residencies.

Fun & Recreation e.g. Plan two vacations with friends. Read two books for fun. Prepare for Burning Man. Find a volleyball team.

Money e.g. Create a monthly budget. Consolidate 401k accounts. Create a long term financial plan.

Physical environment e.g. Nest in the new apartment. Fix broken things. Improve my work from home setup.

Personal growth e.g. Develop painting practice in Berlin. Explore getting a dog. Continue steady progress learning German.

• Rate from 1–10 where you want to be in 3 months
  Consider your target score for each area. Finding balance doesn’t mean having a six on every section — some areas need more attention than others at different times of your life. You can decide to dedicate some time and energy to increasing your lower ratings, or accept their current state. You may choose to focus less on areas with high ratings, or try to maintain their current level.

• Take turns sharing your goals and ratings.
  This can also be a time to brainstorm more goals. If your accountabilibuddy knows you well, they can remind you of things you may have forgotten.
• Map your ratings on the wheel.
  Notice which areas you want to invest more, the same, or less time and energy into.

• Pick 3 goals for the next 3 months.
  Look at your wheel, and identify the areas that need the most attention. Based on that, pick three goals that will help you start filling those gaps.

Tips to pick your goals

Create goals that improve at least two aspects of your life.
e.g. Health + Friends -> Go on a weekly run with a close friend.
Personal growth + Career -> Talk to 3 mentors about a potential career transition.

Give yourself credit for the big projects you have to do.
e.g. Significant other + Recreation -> Plan a fun and meaningful wedding.
Physical environment + Finance -> Find a new, affordable apartment.

Pick goals that need that extra motivation.
e.g. Finance + Significant other -> Make a 5-year financial plan with partner.

Be as specific as you can.
In three months, you should be clearly able to say if you did it or not.

Understand your limits.
I try to pick 3 goals that stretch me a little out of my comfort zone, but don’t feel overwhelming. Focusing on 3 helps me accept that I can’t do everything.

• Take turns sharing your top 3 goals.
  Some questions to discuss: Are these too ambitious? How can I make them more tangible or realistic? How can we support each other in achieving each other’s goals?

3. Turn your goals into actions

• Put them in a public space.
  I write mine on a post-it note and put it on my fridge so I can see it every day. This also builds in some accountability — people who come over can read them and ask how I’m tracking.

• Categorize your goals as habits or projects.
  I’ve found that most goals are either an ongoing habit (a daily or weekly routine) or a one-time project that needs dedicated time to make progress.

• Map out your “ideal week” and build habit loops.
  Start by mapping out what your typical week looks like. Sometimes you need to move things around to find time for a new habit. For example, “read 3 books” required moving my bedtime routine an hour earlier. “Cook dinner with brother” meant scheduling time to pick up groceries on Sunday morning, so I could cook with my brother in the evening.
  
  Try building a habit loop with a cue (triggers your brain to do it), routine (the behavior you want to do) and reward (the prize that follows). For example, I scheduled my daily walk (routine) after my late morning standup meeting (cue), and rewarded myself with a yummy lunch afterwards (reward).
  
  I developed this Google sheets template to get a bird’s eye view of how I spend my time and design my “ideal week.” Make a copy and try it yourself.

• Schedule time to start your projects.
  To make progress on projects, the hardest part for me is finding the activation energy to get started. Social accountability can help here. Oftentimes I’ll recruit someone to join my project; just make it clear who is driving it. For example, for my goals to “plan a trip to decide where to move to Europe,” I asked my partner to support me, but made it clear I could push it forward this quarter. I immediately blocked off a few Sunday afternoons to work on it. You have momentum right now– capitalize on that!

4. Get ready to do it again

• Schedule another time in 3 months with your accountabilibuddy.
  I literally send a calendar invite for three months from now. At the start of the next session, bring the paper from the previous quarter and start by discussing how you did.

In conclusion

Quarterly Life Planning has helped me develop lasting habits and accomplish big life goals. After the unexpected break up, it helped me invent a new life plan and learn that I was more resilient than I thought. It helped me map out career goals like transitioning to product management, as well as recognize that I didn’t like being a product manager after three quarters of low career satisfaction ratings. It even helped my now partner and I breakdown our lofty ambition to move to Europe by making progress over several quarters.

Quarterly Life Planning has also taught me which areas of my life I need to pay constant attention to. It has not magically made me into a workout junkie — I still have to have an exercise goal every quarter if I want to stay in shape. And even if I do put effort into an area, I’ve learned to accept that there are always things out of my control. Visit three new countries? That didn’t happen in a pandemic.

There are some quarters I accomplish all three goals, and others none at all. That’s not the point though. Experimenting with small, incremental changes allows me to iteratively refine myself — adapting to new challenges and focusing on areas for self-improvement. I will continue Quarterly Life Planning because it helps me intentionally move my life into a more meaningful, fulfilling, and joyful direction — three months at a time.

Still want a longer year-end reflection activity?

While I find Quarterly Life Planning to be a more actionable activity, I also enjoy stepping back to take a higher level perspective at the end of the year. Here are some tools that put less focus on setting goals, and more on taking stock and reflecting.

• The Year Ahead by Year Compass
  I’ve done this for two years. It is very comprehensive, but can feel a bit long, so I skip a few parts.
• The Ultimate Annual Review by Steve Schlafman
  I haven’t tried this yet, but it was recommended by a friend.
• Designing your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
  I generally subscribe to this overall approach to actively designing a meaningful life.

Thank you to Monica Lee, Kalvin Wang, and Owen Derby for editing help and being my accountabillabuddies! And to Cecelia Lau for first introducing me to the Wheel of Life.

Forget New Year’s resolutions, start quarterly life planning was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve always found “why” we’re building something as interesting as “how.” To put it another way, the problem-setting was as important to me as the problem-solving. This part of the product development process was often owned by PMs, not designers.

Prior to the transition, I didn’t find any tactical advice from other designer-turned-PMs. Now having pursued both, though admittedly design for much longer, I’d like to share my reflections on how the two roles feel different on a day-to-day basis.

6 differences between being a designer and PM

1. Typical week

As a designer, the majority of my week was unscheduled. With the help of my PM and design manager, I could protect my “maker’s schedule.” Almost every day, I had a 2–4 hour chunk for “deep work”, as Cal Newport defines it, time “to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.” I also had the flexibility for midday walks to noodle on a problem and spontaneous lunches with coworkers. On an average week, about 80% of my calendar was unscheduled, and 20% was scheduled.

I had the opposite as a product manager — 80% was scheduled and 20% was unscheduled. As a front-line PM, I went to all the product-delivery meetings that come with the agile software engineering process: stand-up, sprint planning, sprint kickoff, and retrospective. To stay on top of client requests, I also met biweekly with customer success and sales. Additionally, one-off events like client presentations and planning workshops would appear on my calendar throughout the month. To attend all these meetings while also getting my own work done, I needed to ruthlessly manage my time.

One benefit of having the title of “product manager” is that you can invite yourself to any meeting and “have a seat at the table” — something designers often yearn for. But you lose your uninterrupted time by going to all those important (and some unimportant) meetings. It’s much harder to get into the flow states needed to solve gnarly problems.

2. To-do list

As a designer, I started my day with a short to-do list of 3–5 items. This might include “review sign up flow with Ben” and “create prototype for Thursday’s user testing.” On most days, I simply went down the list and got things done as planned. Sometimes tasks took longer than expected, but my list didn’t change much throughout the day.

As a PM, I had an ever-growing to-do list with changing priorities. The challenge was choosing the most impactful thing to focus on. For example, one day I had planned to write a product brief for a new initiative, to unblock my designer. At standup, I heard that last night’s deployment broke our sales demo. Fixing the demo before the next client presentation was now my top priority.

As a “firefighter”, PMs are subject to a lot of context switching. You’ll often leave a product strategy meeting, where you’re discussing projects for the next quarter, and head straight to a developer’s desk to help QA a feature that’s ready to ship. For some people, wearing so many hats is refreshing and keeps things interesting. But for me, I found it challenging and exhausting.

To keep my daily stress-levels under control, I needed to do a better job managing my to-do list. I started to use the framework Eliminate, Automate, Delegate:

• Eliminate: Are there any unnecessary tasks that can be completely eliminated?
• Automate: Which repetitive tasks can I automate to save me time in the future?
• Delegate: What tasks can I delegate to someone else who can do it better, or to save me time?

3. Chores

Every job has chores. I define chores as those routine tasks that you might find unpleasant, but know are necessary.

As a designer, my main chore was making design specs. This involved creating mocks, figuring out each state, and documenting functionality for engineers. This can take a lot of time because you need to be a stickler for details — not just aesthetically, but also in terms of functionality. I spent a lot of time sweating over choices, like using the word “Cancel” vs.“Close.”

As a PM, I had a much longer list of chores. Every other week I wrote up release notes for the company, product updates for the founders, and sprint goals for the engineers. I also regularly groomed the backlog — reviewing and prioritizing a list of client escalations, bugs, and old tickets.

Teams divide up chores in different ways. Some companies have product specialists or program managers who take things off the PM’s plate. Sometimes engineering managers share the load. From my experience though, PMs do more chores to protect their designers’ and engineers’ time.

In general, a designer’s chores require more focus to go into design details. A PM’s chores require communication and project management finesse to hold together a high performing team. To get a gut reaction of whether you should be a designer or PM, I like to ask “What feels like a chore to you?” Ideally, your chores don’t feel like chores.

4. Team

As a designer, I considered myself part of two teams. The first was my product team: my PM and engineers. This trio is often called the three-legged stool because product, engineering, and design need to work together to stand up a great product strategy. I’ve always felt a close camaraderie with this type of team — a camaraderie that only comes from the ups and downs of building a product together.

My second team was my design team, the peers I sat next to on a day-to-day basis. This allowed us to bounce ideas off each other even if we were working on different projects. I felt a close kinship to designers through our shared ethos and way of thinking — design was my tribe.

As a PM, I was still part of that same product team — just a different leg of the stool. However, I learned that as a PM, your product team is larger. It includes other cross-functional groups such as customer success, marketing, support, and sales. As a PM, I was responsible for not only the user’s experience, but also the business performance of the product, and this required working with a lot more stakeholders.

A PM’s “team” varies by the size of the company. At larger companies, PMs may work with peers when there are multiple PMs in a business unit. At smaller startups, PMs may work closely with the founders. However, PMs are usually the only PM on their team, which can feel isolating and lonely at times. They spend the majority of their day working with different functions, whereas designers spend most of their day working with like-minded designers.

5. Process

I was first introduced to design through innovation design consultancies. At IDEO I learned the 5-step design process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. At frog design, there were three types of projects: discover, design, and deliver. Through these experiences, I’ve cobbled together my own point of view on the design process. As a designer, I was always focused on understanding the problem, defining the scope, exploring ideas, testing hypotheses, and delivering prototypes. My project ended after I delivered the specs to engineers, and I was promptly whisked away to a new one.

It wasn’t until I became a PM that I saw how the “design process” was only a small part of the product development process. Discovering and prioritizing which problem to solve happens before the team even brings on a designer. Handing off design specs to engineering is only the start of building something. And although often overlooked, measuring the impact after a release is one of the most important parts.

As a PM, I juggled multiple projects at a time — usually in different phases of product development. For example, I might have been exploring ideas with my designer for one project, while QA-ing another with my engineers, in addition to monitoring analytics for the last three we shipped. Keeping multiple projects running in parallel required jumping between different product development phases throughout the day. This differed from design, where I was able to focus on one phase at a time, a consequence of working on 1–2 projects.

6. Communication

When I was a design intern at IDEO, I learned one of the rules for effective brainstorming was to “build on the ideas of others.” Borrowing a principle from improv, we used the phrase “Yes, and…” followed by something that builds on someone else’s idea. As a designer, I was often looked to as the “creative” or “ideas person.” I don’t believe in the idea of a“Lone Genius Innovator” though. Great ideas come from anywhere, and it’s a designer’s job to create a positive, open environment for ideas to come out. Designers look for opportunities to say “yes” — to turn a good idea into a great one. This doesn’t mean there isn’t room for critique though. Providing useful feedback is equally important to saying “Yes, and…”.

As a PM, I quickly learned to replace “Yes, and…” with “Yes, but…” or “No, because…”. Within my first month, I had to say “no” to a client asking for a competitor’s feature, “no” to an engineer wanting to rewrite part of the codebase, and “no” my designer trying to increase scope. Saying no was necessary to maintain the team’s focus on the goal at hand. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to ship the features we agreed would deliver the most value.

The most effective product managers say “no” 10 times more often than they say “yes”. Personally, I found saying “no” that often draining. I spent a lot of energy finding the most persuasive way to say “no” to each stakeholder, while hoping that wouldn’t damage our relationship. Sometimes that meant saying “not now”; other times it meant pitching why we’re doing something else instead. It was important for me to maintain the respect and trust of my stakeholders because I knew I would need to work with them in the future.

Both designers and PMs need to encourage other people to bring up ideas and requests to them, while also being able share contrary opinions. The key difference is that PMs have to say “no” by default. The essence of executing a product strategy is choosing what not to do. Designers, on the other hand, are expected to say “yes,” and approach problem solving with a positive can-do attitude.

Conclusion

A common reason designers consider switching to product management is to “get a seat at the table” to have more control over product strategy. I myself was one of those designers. And honestly as a PM, I did have more control and a larger scope of influence. I got access to more information, worked with more people, and managed the end-to-end product development process.

But with that came tradeoffs. I no longer had the time to work in flow states, focus on detailed designs, or enjoy a flexible schedule. Self-managing my calendar and to-do list became essential, as well as working in mode of constant context switching. What was hardest for me though, was shifting from saying “yes” by default, to saying “no”.

Although designer and PMs may work on overlapping tasks and with similar people, their day-to-day feels very different. In the end, whether or not you want to be a designer or product manager is a very personal decision. Only you can answer, “Which job do I do well, get paid for, and want to do?”

Before answering those questions, I needed to look inside myself to understand why I felt incredibly energized and fulfilled on some days, but stressed and drained on others. I believe that finding your “happy place” comes down to understanding your personality traits, because the truth is many designers could be great product managers with some training and skill acquisition. Here are some questions that might be helpful to answer before picking a role:

• What’s your ideal work environment? What’s your non-ideal?
• What’s your communication style?
• How do you like to be managed?
• What gives you energy? What drains you?
• How do you want to bring value to a team?

Regardless, I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to experience both. Although it was stressful at times, I think spending 1.5 years as a PM instead of 1.5 more years as a designer have made me a better designer in the long run. And who knows, for the right role or the right company, I might try being a PM again.

Want another point of view?

• What People Don’t Tell You About Product Management
• Is it better to be a Product Designer or Product Manager? I have multiple offers for both roles on the table, what's the better career ch...

Reflections from a designer turned product manager: 6 unexpected differences was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I joined Informed K12 as their first and sole product manager, my first directive was:

Build relationships with customers.

Up to that point, my CEO Sarah had the best product intuition. She understood our users better than anyone else. It helped that before starting the company, she was a district administrator, our target user. But it was also because in the early days of the company, Sarah built deep relationships.

My first customer visit was to Chaffey Union High School District. Our client, the head of HR, welcomed Sarah in with a huge hug and a gift for her baby. Sarah had returned from maternity leave, and the client remembered this even though it was only informally mentioned to her. Mental note: You know you have a genuine relationship when your client is the one giving you gifts!

Since the company was growing, Sarah need to shift her focus from product to go-to-market strategy. It wasn’t scalable or good practice for the CEO to stay the only customer expert. She made it a priority to onboard me into that role as fast as possible. To trust me to take the product reins, the company needed me to become the customer expert.

We started by building a customer council.

1. Who?

The first question to ask is: who would be the most useful people in your customer council? If you’re like most B2B companies, your product has many archetypes or personas. Your end-user may not be your buyer, and you may have other roles like system admins or basic users.

Here are some questions to consider:

• Whose problems are you solving next year?
  At Informed K12, we build our roadmap by picking 1–2 top problems a quarter. This involves prioritizing one user group over other another. Your customer council should help you discover and design solutions for these problems.
• Who uses and understands your product the best?
  These are usually the people with the most product requests. My support and customer success colleagues were able to identify these people. I also used Heap analytics to look at the most active users.
• Who understands the needs of other roles?
  Like many education companies, we follow a model of “train the trainer”. We work with the implementer at the district office, who trains the users at school sites to use our product. A good trainer understands the unmet needs and pain points of their trainees.
• Who holds the pursestrings?
  Getting invited to the customer council is part of our “white-glove service tier.” These people get more 1–on-1 time and can have greater influence on our product strategy. Thus, we invited the buyers or influencers of buyers of our top accounts.
• How many people?
  There isn’t one right answer for this. But like focus groups, most people recommend 8–10 people. It’s hard to moderate a conversation with more than 10 people. When it is smaller than 8 people, you get less varied feedback. I invite 20–25 people to get 8–10 participants. Our user base is quite busy and can often have last minute conflicts.

2. What?

Now that you know who you’re talking to, the next step is setting a useful agenda for you and your council. Here are my regular topics:

• New feature announcements
  After introductions, I start with a demo of recently released features. In the education, in-person walk throughs can drive more adoption than in-product or email marketing. The trainers can filter relevant information to downstream users.
• Feedback on current projects
  This is the time for me to question my assumptions on current projects.

1) Do I understand the problem?

2) Does our solution actually solves the problem?

By showing design prototypes, I can get early feedback and learning. If I’m spec-ing out a project, I often have detailed implementation questions top of mind. Who should have this permission to this feature? Does this need to be configurable? Webinar polls and chat features are quick ways to get the input of 8–10 people. I have also gotten feedback on user guides or marketing materials for sales and customer success.

Note: this is not a replacement for 1-on-1 user testing.

• Input into roadmap prioritization
  This is the most useful part for me– getting qualitative customer input on:

Why one problem is more important than another problem.

I ask them to rank the problems with card sorting exercises, followed by a discussion on why they ranked problems in that order. This also shows clients that their top problem, may not be the top problem of another client.

• Q/A
  While I’m giving the webinar, a customer success manager fields chat questions. At the end of the webinar, I’ll recap the answers with everyone. Q/A gives me a general pulse on what people are interested and confused by. It’s also a chance to respond to client requests.

3. Where?

• Remote vs. in-person
  I use zoom video conferencing because we serve school districts across the country. This also allows us to have meetings more frequently and with less planning. At Opower, I hosted in-person meetings at our yearly customer conference and regional meetings. Our utility clients enjoyed in-person meetings because it was also a networking opportunity to meet with their peers.

4. When?

• Ask your users
  This may seem like a minute detail, but can make a big impact on your attendance rate. Before our first council meeting, I surveyed the group on topics and timing. Fridays at 9am PST was the winner, because school district staff work from 7am — 3pm. The also have holidays and staff development days earlier in the week, potential conflicts I would not have considered if I hadn’t sent a survey.

5. Why?

If you’ve made it this far into the article you probably don’t need to be convinced why… but these reasons might help convince other members of your team why you should have a customer council.

• Keeps you accountable to regular user feedback
  When I first became as a PM, mentors told me to “spend 30% of your time with your customers.” That’s easier said than done, especially at start-ups that don’t have a dedicated user researcher or recruiter. Having a low-effort monthly cadence creates a ritual of keeping the product team accountable.
• Provides the “why?” in validating problems and solutions
  I believe the most important part of my job of a product manager is to

1. Validate problems

2. Validate solutions

There are lots of convenient ways to gather data within your company walls. PM’s can look up analytics, talk to sales, or track support tickets. Nothing that can replace talking to your users though.

Why?

Why is this problem painful for you?

Why is this solution better for you?

• Sets up relationships with key clients
  After just one product council, I felt more comfortable picking up a phone to call eight customers. I know what my different members care and don’t care about. For example, when I wanted to test out a new “bulk approval” feature, I immediately knew three large districts that would be interested.
• Gets users excited about what’s to come
  Product councils are a great way to get clients excited about your roadmap. My CS team has invited “squeaky wheel” clients to the council to give them space to air their pain points, which used to distract and slow implementation. When I’ve pitched them on the problems we’re going the solve, they can often be convinced why those problems are more important than their own product requests. Bringing them along the journey makes them feel more bought in, and less likely to churn.

Logistical tips

• If your customer success managers have personal relationships with your users, ask them to send personal invites.
• Invite your designers or engineers to listen in to develop customer empathy.
• Record meetings and send out presentations after the meeting to your customer council.

Other reading

What we learnt from building a User Council

How to set-up a B2B Customer Council was originally published in Informed K12 Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Who works on what, and why?

Note: This this an article I wrote a year ago while working at Opower, but didn’t get a chance to publish.

One of the responsibilities of a design manager is to decide what projects your designers work on. To be as collaborative and transparent as possible, I chose to share my staffing principles with my team, and now publicly as well.

I am currently the UX Design Manager at Opower, where we use behavioral science and user-centered design to nudge people to use less energy. I manage a team of 6 UX designers and 2 contractors. The experience level ranges from interns in school, to designers with 10+ years of experience.

At Opower, UX designers work through the entire design process. This means going from the initial product definition, to delivering specs to engineers, to launching the product. Every quarter I get a list of design project requests after quarterly roadmap planning. To request a designer, product managers write a project brief with business goals, success metrics, and technical constraints. That’s how I get a sense of the size and scope of the project, and how to staff it.

5 principles for staffing designers

1. Define one clear lead

• Each project has one lead designer responsible for the end-to-end design process.
• The lead is responsible for driving the process, and pulling in specialists (researchers, content strategists, etc) when needed.

2. Pair designers together

• Most designers prefer to work with other designers. I also believe that collaboration leads to better designs. No one should work alone.
• When pairing designers I try to find commonalties between their projects. For example, I paired the designer creating billing experience for CSRs with the designer creating the web billing experience.
• When we restaff, I break pairs up so people get a chance to work and learn from different designers.
• Pairing designers also helps the team when people go on vacation or leave the company–there’s always another designer up to speed on each project.

3. Help people follow-through and get results

• I try to keep the same designer on project from initial product vision to launching the MVP. Designers learn the most by seeing projects through; its important for people to see how their assumptions played out. Understanding where and how their designs breaks helps them learn what to differently next time.
• Staying on a project for a longer period of time also allows designers to build an expertise. This can help people refine their craft or user insight in a particular area, and become an expert on the team.
• It’s also important to keep designers on projects long enough to establish a partnership with their product manager and engineers. Continuity and execution build trust. Designers are also more likely to influence product strategy when they’ve built a relationship with the team.

4. Give designers a variety of work to help them grow.

• At Opower, we have a combination of client work and core product work, so I try to rotate people through both. We also design for a variety of mediums (web, mobile, print, and email). I try to make sure people don’t stay on one medium for too long.
• I also tie these choices to each designer’s personal development goals. For example, if one designer wants to learn more about behavioral science, I’ll put them on an email project. If someone else wants to improve their presentation skills, I’ll put them on a client project.

5. Understand your logistical and timing constraints

• At the start of the quarter, I put all the start dates, milestones, and vacation schedules on a team calendar. Part of staffing is making sure the train runs on time, while minimizing down time.
• If possible, I try to allow one project to “end” before another one ramps up. Oftentimes this means going back to the product manager to push a start date up or back a few weeks.

I hope I illuminated this sometimes cryptic and ambiguous process to designers and design managers. When I was an individual contributor designer, staffing felt like a black hole. Out of it, came important decisions, like what I would be working on, and who I would be working with for the next 6 months. As a design manager, I try my best to put myself in the shoes of my designers, while also balancing the overall business and team needs. It can be a tricky process, but it doesn’t need to be mysterious.

“71% of millennials report that meaningful work is among the three most important factors defining career success, while 30% believe it is the most critical factor.” *

If the most important thing is doing meaningful work, how does one go about finding that?

That’s one question I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about these past 12 months in my 2 job searches. The first started when my company Opower was bought by Oracle. After a multi-month job search I joined the Hillary campaign, which ended 4 months later in less than ideal circumstances. A few months later, I started my search again.

To look for organizations doing meaningful work, I first needed to answer two personal questions:

1. What matters most to you, and why?

This is Stanford Business School’s famous deceptively simple, but deeply revealing, essay question. The key is in the second question: Why? Julie Zhuo made a great flow chart to walk designers through how to think about this question.

For me, my family’s background lead me to care deeply about distributing resources equitably across the world. My parents both grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and immigrated to the US to find a better life. My dad tells us stories about going to the fields, and ploughing rice until his fingernails fell off. Although I cringe at glimpses of his former life, it also motivates me make use of the privilege they have given me.

The second question I considered comes from the world of design. A wise mentor told me, “Design is in the choices we make, for the future world we want to live in.”

2. What type of future world do you want to live in?

Every person has a different answer to this question, which means every person can find different work meaningful. For example, someone who wants to see a future world that’s more open and connected may find great meaning working at Facebook. But someone who wants a future with more in-person relationships and communities may not.

Yet the reality is that most tech jobs don’t positively or negatively impact our future’s biggest problems. Many great writers, such as Anil Dash, have challenged the tech community to reflect on our impact and act with more intention. I recommend listening to his On Being interview on tech’s moral reckoning.

The tech community has the opportunity to change the status quo though. We can advocate for people who can’t advocate for themselves. We have desirable skills to design and build solutions for big, meaty problems. And there isn’t a good reason for us not to.

For myself, I’d like to see a future world where more people have basic rights and resources. I’ve considered addressing many problems, such as access to healthcare, clean water, and education. But when I heard Al Gore’s “The Inconvenient Truth” presentation in high school, I was convinced that one issue trumps them all: climate change. Al Gore persuaded me to join the fight to reduce our carbon emissions, because if we don’t, our basic resources–food, water, and shelter–will become our undoing. Impending droughts, food shortages, and rising sea levels will have a disproportionate impact on the poor. I believe that it is the greatest threat to increasing global inequality. That’s what lead me Opower and the Hillary campaign, where I found extremely meaningful work.

However during this latest job search, I wasn’t able to find many clean tech companies hiring for my role, a product manager/designer. This lead me to broaden my job search to three areas:

1. Clean tech

2. Ed tech

3. Civic tech

Vetting organizations: how to avoid “mission-washed” companies

For the past 12 months, I have had the privilege to think deeply about these questions to look for meaningful work. I want to point out that it is an extreme privilege to be able to (1) choose a job and (2) prioritize finding meaning over the dozens of other factors (providing for a family, location, skill-acquisition, etc). Not everyone has the time and flexibility to go on an intentional job search.

But if you do have the privilege, here are some questions to consider when evaluating organizations:

• Do you find their mission honest and compelling?
• Does their primary product address their mission? Or is the company “mission-washing” to try to attract talent?
• Is this a problem that can and should be solved by technology?
• What happens if this company is overwhelmingly successful? What will the world look like? Who are the winners? Who are the losers?
• Who is the end-user? Is the end-user part of a population that you feel passionate about helping?
• Does the organization have a measurable way to track their impact? How do they report on that metric? How does it relate to their revenue or funding source?
• Have they considered becoming a public benefit corporation? Why or why not?
• If they have donors or investors, what are their success metrics? How quickly do they need to see results?
• What motivates the founders? Do they have high-integrity?

Suelyn’s List

After hundreds of hours of researching companies, reaching out to friends, and interviewing, I was happy to find there were lots of places I‘d be excited to work at. Here are my personally vetted top ten. I’d be happy to live in future world where these organizations are wildly successful :)

1. InformedK12 (formerly Chalk Schools)

Disclaimer: I’ll be joining InformedK12 as their first Product Manager in March 2017, so I’m quite biased :)

• InformedK12 was founded by two graduate students who met at Stanford’s Learning, Design and Technology program. One of their founders, Sarah, worked in the Rhode Island public school district on teacher training, but wasn’t able to improve teacher training because she was drowning in paperwork. InformedK12 is creating software for mainly public school districts to operate more efficiently with their schools. By improving how schools function, school districts will be able to empower teachers and drive better student outcomes.
• If InformedK12 succeeds… K-12 schools and their managing districts will be able operate more effectively and efficiently.
• Fun fact: One of their holiday party traditions is reading out of their founder Qian’s middle school diary.
• End-user: K-12 school administrators (secretaries, principals, assistant-superintendents)
• Size: 20–30 people
• Location: San Francisco

2. Nava

• Nava emerged from the team brought in to help fix HealthCare.gov in the winter of 2013. Since then they have won a few more government contracts for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Medicare. They are not only building scalable, performant, and reliable digital infrastructure, but also helping the government solve systemic problems, such as how to vet government contractors.
• If Nava succeeds… government will be able to provide more clear and reliable services.
• Fun fact: They are the first public benefit corporation to be a prime government contractor.
• End-user: Currently anyone signing up for health insurance, medicare recipients, veterans
• Size: ~30 people
• Location: Washington DC, San Francisco, and New York

3. Remix Transit

• Remix was founded by four Code for America fellows. One of their projects became Remix Transit, a collection of tools to help city-planners create better transit. Remix allows planners to design routes with data such as expected costs and demographics so they can see the effect of their proposed changes.
• If Remix succeeds… cities will be able to design and iterate to create better public transit.
• Fun fact: Two of the founders, Sam and Tiffany, are designers!
• End-user: City-transit planners
• Size: 80–100 people
• Location: San Francisco

4. Cardiogram (job site)

• Cardiogram organizes your mobile health data by making it meaningful, useful, and actionable. Starting with heart rate data from Apple watches, the small but mighty team has been doing ambitious studies with UCSF to detect common chronic diseases such as atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is treatable, but many people don’t feel symptoms, so it often goes undiagnosed.
• If Cardiogram succeeds… people will be able to detect preventable diseases much earlier which will allow people to have healthier and happier lives.
• Fun fact: If you have an Apple watch, you can join their mRhythm Study by contributing your data to potentially save lives.
• End user: Currently, anyone with an Apple watch. It is especially useful for people with chronic heart conditions or other preventable chronic diseases (the median Cardiogram user is 41 years old, the oldest is 94).
• Size: 4 people
• Location: San Francisco

5. Propel

• Propel is a startup that came out of the the Blue Ridge Labs fellowship that focuses on building software for low-income Americans. Their first product is FRESHEBT, a mobile app that allows Americans on food-stamps to track and effectively stretch their EBT dollars. Fresh EBT is available in all 50 states with nearly 400,000 downloads as of the end of 2016. New features include showing Summer Meals sites (places where kids under 18 can get free meals during the summer months when school isn’t in session).
• If Propel succeeds… low-income Americans will have a more user-friendly safety net.
• Fun fact: Propel was named Brooklyn’s Civic Tech Startup of the Year by Technically Brooklyn.
• End user: Currently, Americans on food stamps with a smartphone
• Size: 5–10 people
• Location: Brooklyn

6. Planned Parenthood Digital Product Lab

• Planned Parenthood’s Digital Product Lab is a small team focused to helping Planned Parenthood serve its mission, “A Reason for Being,” more effectively in the digital age. The Lab launched its first product, Spot On, a free period and birth control tracking app in March 2016. They also launched responsive websites in Ecuador and Nigeria as part of Global Mobile, an initiative to bring culturally, geographically, and linguistically relevant sexual and reproductive health information and service referrals to young people around the world.
• If Planned Parenthood’s Digital Product Lab succeeds… women will be more educated about their bodies and empowered about their reproductive choices.
• Fun Fact: You’ll get see the legendary Cecile Richards around the office. I hear she always wins the thanksgiving pie competition.
• End user: Women
• Location: New York

7. Code for America

• Code for America is a 501(c)3 non-profit that brings together technologists and local cities to solve local government priorities. They started primarily a fellowship program that paired up fellows with cities across the country. To make their work more scalable and sustainable, they are focusing more on long term digital projects in three focus areas: providing food security, reducing incarceration jobs, and helping people get good jobs.
• If Code for America succeeds… government will deliver better digital services, and more people will be dedicated to spreading best practices in technology in the government.
• Fun fact: The Code for America community has spread far and wide–from the USDS to 18F, to city innovation groups, to startups. Jennifer Pahlka is one of the founders of the civic tech movement.
• End user: Underserved Americans
• Size: 80–100 people
• Location: San Francisco

8. San Francisco Digital Services

• There are two digital innovation groups within the city of San Francisco, the San Francisco Digital Services and SF Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation. Both groups work, often together, to improve SF city services. Past projects include creating an affordable housing portal and opening up city data.
• If the San Francisco Digital Services succeeds… San Francisco residents, visitors, and the businesses will have better digital services.
• Fun fact: Several employees came from Code for America.
• End user: San Francisco residents
• Location: San Francisco

9. Solar Mosaic

• Solar Mosaic is a solar finance company that provides financing for residential solar systems. It is the nation’s leading residential solar lending platform. Their Mosaic PowerSwitch loan allows homeowners and solar installers to quickly and easily estimate how much it would cost to go solar.
• If Solar Mosaic succeeds… we’ll be moving toward a 100% clean energy future.
• Fun fact: Solar Mosaic is a B-corp, which holds them accountable to a rigorous standard of environmental and social accountability, performance, and transparency.
• End user: Homeowners considering solar and solar installers.
• Size: 80–100 people
• Location: Oakland

10. Sighten

• Sighten creates an integrated toolset for small to medium sized solar developers and financiers. Their platform spans the entire lifecycle of a solar asset, from tools that streamline origination and system design, to features that automate ongoing reporting and analytics. They give powerful software tools that the large solar installers, like SolarCity has, to the smaller solar developers. The founders and many of its employees came from Clean Power Finance, a residential PV financing platform.
• If Sighten succeeds… we’ll have more players in the solar market and lower installation costs to drive more solar adoption.
• Fun fact: Ev Williams’ VC Obvious Ventures lead their Series A round.
• End user: Small-medium sized solar installers and financiers
• Size: 20–30 people
• Location: San Francisco

Another list

My old manager and good friend Deena Rosen made her own list in 2015. I didn’t include companies in her list to avoid overlap, but most of them are still around and actively hiring.

I’m a designer and I want to help the world. Now what?

Additional resources

The list of organizations doing meaningful work is ever growing. Here are some of the resources I found when making my list:

Design gigs for good

A new job board created by Molly Ruskin and Sarah Fathallah with job postings at the intersection of design and social impact.

Social Enterprise Jobs google group

This is a very active google group that posts job announcements related to social enterprise and social innovation. Only about 10–20% are tech jobs. I recommend subscribing to their daily or weekly email digest.

EdSurge job board

EdSurge helps schools find, select and use the right technology and has a great edtech job board.

Code for America Government job board

Code for America just launched a wonderful job board with vetted government jobs for developers, designers, data analysts, and product managers. I discovered many innovation groups sprouting up in city and state governments, like the New York City’s Mayor’s office of operations.

Blue Ridge Labs portfolio companies and fellowship

Blue Ridge Labs is part of Robin Hood — New York’s largest poverty-fighting organization. They have a yearly fellowship and grants to fund technology projects aimed at aimed at the challenges faced by low-income Americans. Check out their list of portfolio companies.

Tumml’s portfolio companies

Tumml is a startup hub for urban technology with a portfolio of urban innovation startups.

Cleantekker job website

Cleantekker is a well-run and comprehensive job site solely focused on clean tech jobs.

Young professionals in energy email list

YPE is a great professional organization for people working in sustainability and clean tech. They have a great email list with upcoming events and job listings.

Tech Jobs for Good Twitter account

A relatively new twitter account that posts jobs in engineering, product, marketing, and more at progressive orgs. They also maintain this google spreadsheet.

Double Bottom Line Partner’s portfolio companies

DBL is one of the top impact investing firms. They invest in companies that can deliver venture capital returns (First Bottom Line), while working with our companies to enable social, environmental and economic improvement (Second Bottom Line). Check out their growing list of portfolio companies.

Additional reading

• In 2017, Pursue Meaning Instead of Happiness
• Why It's So Hard to Find Fulfilling Work (and How to Look for It)

Many thanks to Deena Rosen, jonathan chan, and John Davidson for your help editing, and the countless friends who have helped me in my job search.

• Source: How the Recession Shaped Millennial and Hiring Manager Attitudes about Millennials’ Future Careers By Alexandra Levit with Dr. Sanja Licina Commissioned by the Career Advisory Board

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Written by David Royer and Suelyn Yu

Have you ever left a design critique feeling defeated and less excited about your work? Or frustrated because you didn’t get the type of feedback you were looking for?

Learn how to run more effective design critiques that:

1. Provide useful feedback to improve the design
2. Leaves you feeling revitalized and excited to improve the design

3 critique roles

1. Presenter

The presenter is the primary designer who created the work. Her job is to provide the necessary context and content for the critique. Mike Monteiro has great books, articles, and workshops on effectively presenting work.

• Share your goals for the critique session
  “My goal for the critique session is to get feedback on the overall flow so I can make improvements before user testing on Friday.”
• Share design goals
  “The primary goal of my new design is to encourage more users to save their payment information so they can easily donate more in the future.”
• Provide context
  “The user will be coming to this page from either an email or a home page. 80% of users will be seeing this for the first time.”
• Walk through the designs and explain rationale
  “I placed account creation right below payment information because users will be in the mindset of automatically filling out all the fields.”
• Take notes while receiving feedback

2. Facilitator

The facilitator enables the presenter to have a successful critique by enforcing the guidelines below. If there aren’t enough people to have a dedicated facilitator, the presenter can play the role of the facilitator after they present.

• Focus people on the critique and design goals
  “Let’s remember now that Alice is looking for feedback on the overall flow before user testing, not detailed visual feedback right now.”
• Suggest moving not-relevant discussions to the parking lot
  “That’s great feedback on the navigation, but the presenter isn’t looking for feedback on that right now so let’s put that in the parking lot.”
• Keep an eye on time
  “Since we only have 30 minutes left, let’s move onto giving feedback for the next concept.”
• Promote equal participation
  To someone who hasn’t spoken up: “Alex, do you have any feedback or thoughts?”

3. Critiquers

The critiquers are 3–4 people (other designers, engineers, product managers) that provide feedback on the design to help the presenter achieve her design goal.

• Ask clarifying questions
  “What were you trying to achieve with the placement of this line of copy above the button?”
  “I’m curious how many people pay with Paypal vs. a credit card?”
• Talk in terms of tradeoffs
  “By adding in extra fields to save your information, it might be harder for users to make one-time donations.”
• Empathize with the presenter
  “I understand you used that button to be consistent with other pages, but on this page, I’m concerned that it doesn’t feel like the primary call to action.”
• Be specific about what’s working and not working
  Whats’ working: “Defaulting the checkbox seems like a great solution to get people to save their payment information.”
  What’s not working: “When you place the fields side by side users might miss the second field in a mobile view.”
• Speak in term of the user’s point of view & project goals
  “If the goal of the project is to encourage more people to save their credit card information, you may want to move that earlier in the flow so more users can save their information.”
• Provide directional suggestions, but avoid problem solving
  “You may want to explore moving it earlier in the flow, or adding copy to explain the benefits. Let’s sketch out options later today.”
• If you have any feedback or ideas beyond the scope of feedback requested, write it down and discuss after the critique.

Critique formats

Here are two different critique formats that maximize the time people can provide feedback and minimize the time spent on tangents.

Format 1: Presentation

How it works: The presenter starts by setting context, then walks the group through her designs, ideally pinned up on a board. When the presenter is talking, the critiquers write feedback on stickies and hold comments (unless they have clarifying questions). Afterward, cluster the stickies on the designs and discuss the feedback.

When to use this: Anytime during the design process, but especially on early concepts. Good for complicated designs that need more context and explanation.

Format 2: Go in blind

How it works: Critiquers start by reviewing the designs, printed copies or usable prototypes, and writing feedback on stickies without listening to the presenter’s design rationale. Afterwards, they can ask the presenter questions and discuss their feedback with the presenter.

When to use this: Good for remote teams, when the concept is further developed, when the concept is better explained with a prototype.

Critique poster

We put this poster up in our critique area to share with new team members and remind ourselves of the guidelines.

Want to learn more?

Here are some more articles about design critiques:

• Stop Dancing Around Criticism and Put It to Use with These Tips from Airbnb's Head of Experience Design
• How do you teach a non-designer to effectively critique a design?
• Design Criticism and the Creative Process
• How To Run a Design Critique
• Critiquing Design With Designers | Viget
• People Skills for Web Workers

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A checklist for UX designers, recruiters, and hiring managers

A lot of people have written helpful articles on how make a great UX portfolio. Like this, this, and this.

It’s good to read sage advice from designers, but I think the most important thing to remember is this:

You have less than 2 minutes to make your impression.

Most hiring managers and recruiters fly through portfolios–spending less than 2 minutes per candidate. They glance through images, read a few paragraphs, and then jump to your Linkedin profile or resume. The best portfolios find a balance between thoroughness and scanability.

To optimize for this, I encourage using a classic design process: user-testing.

Put your portfolio through user testing.

Ask some friendly UX designers who interview designers to review your portfolio. Start by watching them silently and asking them to think out loud. Then follow-up with some probing questions.

• What draws their attention?
• Do they navigate through your work the way you expect? Or focus on less important areas?
• What are they most impressed by?
• Does anything make them question your abilities?
• What’s missing?

I’ve done this for my CCA students where I teach Sustainability Design. Also as a hiring manager for Opower’s UX design team, I’ve reviewed hundreds of portfolios, from interns to senior designers. From that, I’ve developed a mental checklist to evaluate the qualities we hire for in UX designers.

I wanted to share my mental checklist for a couple of audiences:

1. UX designers
   To review your portfolio before submitting it. If you can’t find a professional UX designer, you can test it yourself. Can you find all these things in less than 2 minutes?
2. Design recruiters
   To filter through portfolios before passing them to a hiring manager. You don’t need to find everything listed. The more you do though, the more likely the hiring manager will find the portfolio thorough.
3. UX design hiring managers
   To screen portfolios with a consistent method and articulate why one is stronger than another. I’ve also used this to build alignment with my hiring team to define what we’re looking for.

This checklist includes quick cues I look for, common things people forget, and red flags to be wary of.

UX Portfolio Checklist

The Basics

• Full name
• What type of designer you are
• Current position and organization (school or company)
• What you’re looking for (full-time, contract, internship)
• Location
• Linkedin profile or resume
• Where to find you online (Medium, Dribbble, Twitter, Instagram)
• How to contact you

Your work

• 3–5 case studies of your work that includes:
• At least 1 project that shipped
• At least 1 mobile and/or 1 web project
• At least 1 project with user research
• Projects from different industries or different end-users

Your process

• Sketches or early wireframes
• User research artifacts: photos, personas, quotes, and stimuli
• Customer journey diagram / blueprints
• Information architecture diagrams
• Large images of your final designs
• Project results / success metrics
• Links to where you can use your live product
• References to who you worked with
• Your role and primary contributions to the project
• Some long form writing explaining your thinking

Red flags

• Glaring typos
• Projects without final, polished designs
• Projects unrelated to the type of work you’re looking for
• Any work you aren’t proud of

Nice to haves

• About me / Personal statement
• Passion projects and hobbies
• Blog posts

In conclusion

From this list, you might think that you can collect your content and throw it up on a website. However it’s important to remember that your portfolio is your chance to tell a story about who you are and how you work. How the story is told, which can’t captured in a checklist, is what separates the good portfolios from the great portfolios.

Want more advice?

Check out these other articles I’ve written about UX design:

• So you want to be a UX designer…
• Hiring UX designers: 11 qualities to look for

And great articles from other designers:

• Tips for Building a World Class Design Portfolio
• An Inside Look at Facebook's Method for Hiring Designers
• Great Design Portfolios Are Great Stories
• Building your design portfolio? Here are 8 things I wish I’d known.

Kudos

Thanks to Aaron Otani for the support and commitment contract.

Artist Statement

There was something mesmerizing about the Water in Lake Malawi and sitting in our little rocky boat, I got sucked into it. I wanted to capture the Water, and to keep at the top of my pile of memories. I had my iPhone and I knew this wouldn’t be enough. That’s when I knew I wanted to paint again.

The Water has endless depth, but is also transparent and doesn’t have any color of its own. The Water reflects all the colors around it–the expansive sky, the land in the distance, and my own reflection looking down. I think I see some fish gliding by. But mostly there’s just the shadows of Lake Malawi below–one of the deepest lakes in the world.

It took me over a year to start the paintings, but it ended my six-year hiatus from art. In the past, I painted realistically and with a clear subject matter, but now I find I’m moving into abstraction too. As a User Experience/ UX designer by day, I spend my time fussing over tiny details, considering what’s “right” for the user. Now, returning to painting, I push myself to work on 2–3 paintings at once–one real and planned out, and one empty and unplanned. Together they create a series.

A Series: The Water

What’s next?

I’ll be starting a new series titled “The Glow” this summer.

I’m trying out Patreon for the first time to help cover the costs– materials (paints, canvases, frames), time, and classes/space. If you are so inclined, you can support me here: https://www.patreon.com/suelynyu?ty=h&alert=1

Links

Personal Portfolio
http://www.suelynyu.com/artwork/

My artwork for sale
http://www.suelynyu.com/artwork-for-sale/

My teacher: Mel Prest
http://www.melprest.com/

Painting Classes
​California College of the Arts has continuing education courses. Classes may not yet listed but you can sign up here. I took “The Series” painting class, which is a open studio class with just the right amount of critique, inspirational lectures, and camaraderie.

Here are some additional classes Mel will be teaching. Comment below if you are interested in joining me for any of them.

• The Series July 12- August 11, 10 sessions, Tuesdays and Thursdays 6:30–9:30pm. California college of Art’s continuing education courses
• Mediums & Markmaking June 13- July 18 (no class meeting July 4), 5 sessions, Mondays 6:30–9:30pm, City college of SF: summer continuing education courses
• The Nexus: Painting within a Theme July 9–23, 3 sessions, Saturdays 10–4pm, City college of SF: summer continuing education courses
• Understanding and Exploring Color June 11- July 2, 4 sessions, Saturdays 10–4pm, SF art institute: summer continuing education courses

Photographer: Dana Davis
If you are looking to get your art photographed, I highly recommend working with Dana Davis in Oakland.
http://www.danadavisphoto.com