Jamie Chen
Rice University 
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Jessica Pang, Product Designer, SiteMinder, Sydney (33.8° S, 151.2° E)

Jessica Pang is a product designer at SiteMinder, a leading global hotel industry guest acquisition platform in Sydney, Australia. In 2012, she graduated from Boston University with a bachelor of science in hospitality administration and business administration with a concentration in finance. Since then, she has worked in various roles from marketing to UX (User Experience) design in industries such as retail and travel in Hong Kong and Australia.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica in Sydney through a video conference while I was three hours behind in Taipei. In the interview, we talked about her unique experiences and the booming, yet still comparatively loosely defined field of UX and design.

Jessica never expected herself to be a product designer. A decade ago, terms like UX, UI Design were not as popular as they are today; there were no UX courses or majors. During her time at Boston University, she double majored in hospitality and business hoping that they would provide her with more options after graduation. Jessica knew she was interested in consumer insight and the motivation behind human behavior.

After graduation, her first job was a marketing role at a multinational company, but she wanted to work in the technology industry and moved from retail to travel two years later. After that, she landed her first design role at Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles loyalty rewards program as a data-driven UX designer. Since then, she worked at a consultancy firm and moved back to the travel industry, to her current position, early last year when she realized she wanted to focus on travel.

Jessica talked about the concept of T-shaped generalist — where the top of the T represents the breadth of one’s skillset and the vertical segment represents the specific area one chooses to focus, and be an expert, on — and its significance for a relatively open role such as a designer. Jessica revealed that the role of designers, especially product designers, requires a diverse skill set due to the diverse nature of the work ranging from research to planning to delivery. Hence, all designers should have basic proficiency in the fundamentals, and the real value comes from each designer’s distinct expertise — the “stem” of the T — whether it be an industry focus or skill focus.

Jessica mentions that although studying broad majors may seem disadvantageous in search of a well-defined career path, experiences here and there can accumulate to form one’s own edge. In the area of “design,” this is even more relevant due to its novelty and open nature; hence, designers often come from all backgrounds. Furthermore, each design role can vary greatly for each company.

Jessica also stresses that empathy is key to human-centered design (HCD) — the framework or way of thinking behind UX/UI, product, and service design. Additionally, Jessica remarks that skills such as UX writing, a revamped form of copywriting, and storytelling have become increasingly crucial over the last couple of years and are likely to continue gaining importance in the coming years as the standard for engaging and brand-aligned content continues to rise.

Lastly, for those interested in design, Jessica strongly recommends, in addition to “improving your craft, design, and upskilling,” to get to know the design community. She emphasizes the importance of networking in a small but growing field like design, not only to meet people and learn about others’ experiences, but also to receive advice and discover one’s own interests through others.

Aside from understanding the fundamentals of design thinking, design process, and various design disciplines, aspiring designers from traditional and non-traditional design backgrounds should have a portfolio to highlight their case studies and/or personal projects.

Final takeaways for all:

•   Your experiences make up your own personal edge.
•   Don’t be discouraged by not knowing exactly what you want.
  • Move in a direction that feels right, and carve out your own way.

Highlights from the interview:

When did you first envision yourself working as a product designer, or UX designer in the travel industry?

It wasn’t something I envisioned when I was at school. When I studied at Boston University, I did a double major in hospitality and business. I wanted to study something that gave me more options. I was interested in consumer insights, why people behave the way they do. And that was the only thing I was exposed to at school. Back then, UX wasn’t even part of the curriculum. I worked in marketing at a multinational company, but I really wanted to work in the tech industry. My first design role was at Cathay Pacific’s loyalty program. It wasn’t a conventional product design role. It was more of a general UX design role. My title at the time was data-driven designer, which is different from product designer, but it has the same principles and practices. That’s how I started and then went on to different roles. Then I came back to travel again. The more I worked in the travel industry, the more I realized that that is something I want to do. You might have heard of this concept of T-shaped generalist. If you look at the shape of a T, the horizontal part is all the skills that you have. Designers should maintain a general set of skills because especially in product design, we have to do research, we have to do journey mapping and workshops and then deliver the work. The bottom stem of the T is the area you choose to focus. For example, if you’re really good at research, that could be your specialty. Alternatively, you can also have an industrial specialization. For example, I want to focus on the travel industry. That’s what I want to plan for myself. In short, I just fell into the design and travel industry. The more I was immersed in it, the more I enjoyed it and am hoping to continue down this path.

Did you have any design experience before your first design job?

No, I was not officially trained. In high school, I took a few multimedia classes and had some experience with Photoshop, video editing, and HTML coding. When I got the design job, I had to learn most things either from scratch or learn them again. I think it’s more of a matter of practice and  it takes more time to train to become really skilled.

What were your goals right out of college? How does your current path align with your expectations?

I didn’t know what to do after college. I had no goals. I’m really glad I found this career path because it gives me satisfaction and fulfillment. I think many people who study broad majors like business are not really sure what their career path will look like or what kind of roles they want to take right out of college because there is no well-defined path. But, the good thing about it is that you get to try a little bit of everything. All these experiences add up and give you your own edge. I can tell you that a lot of designers don’t come from traditional design backgrounds, and it’s actually something that’s valued. It’s very common for user researchers to come from a psychology background because they have a natural understanding of people. There are many architects who are also UX designers. It’s actually an advantage in a way because if you’ve only been exposed to design for a long time, you lose other kinds of thinking that could really help. Design is not just about making beautiful screens. You should first understand who you’re designing for. The users you’re designing for may come from a very particular industry. For example, you could be designing a platform for health professionals; so, you have to understand the day-to-day experience of a doctor or a nurse. Having exposure to a broad range of things helps you understand the user quicker and better.

Are there any misconceptions about your job, whether it’s product design or UX/UI?

Design has been around for a long time. Now it’s really become a whole practice of its own, where we start defining things differently, which is why all these terms came about. Every company defines UX quite differently. Some companies might not fully understand the concept of UX or the designer’s role. They just know that they need one. They may advertise the job as a UX designer position, but what they’re probably looking for is a UI designer. That’s a very common thing that happens, depending on the company’s design maturity. UX focuses on the experience itself, and UI stands for user interface, which is more like the actual design of screens and flows and animation. There are also other disciplines of design such as the human-centered design (HCD), which is more of a framework or a way of thinking. The word HCD itself is self-explanatory; whenever you’re designing an experience or product or service, you are centering it  around humans, their motivations, goals, and behavior.

Today, as we define product designers, we mean designing digital products. It involves some UX, some UI, and some research. They all stem from the same line, which is being empathetic. Empathy means that you’re fully able to understand your users; you walk in their shoes. If you have that understanding, then you can design whatever you want. Service design is another discipline, which has the same roots of thinking, but the approach is slightly different in a way where it’s about services such as going to a restaurant, or going to a hospital clinic to see a doctor. Service design involves physical human interactions, the process and the design approach is slightly different. But at the end of the day, the fundamentals are still rooted in the human-centered concept. 

Between UX and UI, user experience is at a higher level and more abstract whereas user interface is more technical. Is that the difference between these terms?

Broadly, yes. You described it quite closely, but I wouldn’t say UX is more of an abstract thing. It focuses more on how users think by understanding their behavior, goals, and motivation. The goal is to design for a better experience.

What experiences have led you to your current position? What suggestions do you have for people who want to go into user experience product design? What skills should they have to be successful in such roles?

It really depends on what part of design you want to focus on. If you want to focus on UI, you should have strong visual design skills. If you want to focus on UX, study HCD or psychology to understand how people think because there are some common denominators to how human beings behave in general. You should be able understand what motivates them. If you’re interested in working at tech companies, as a product designer, both UX and UI are very valuable because product designers tend to work on designs from start to end, in the entire design process. Product designers lead the process of doing user research with customers to understand what’s currently happening and the challenges they’re facing and then work on a solution, do testing, and implement the design. Alternatively, if service design is something you’re aiming for, then definitely focus on the HCD side of things, and also get really good at workshop facilitation, which is organizing workshops to identify problems and getting the team to align on something. That’s a key skill for service designers because service designers spend a lot of time aligning with different people. They’re always talking to customers to immerse themselves in the service experience, and workshops help achieve that.

Can you give me an example of some of your favorite projects in your current role or during your career?

It would probably be my first project at the Cathay Pacific loyalty program. When I joined, I was hired as a designer under the data science team. It wasn’t a traditional design job in the design team. At the time, they were building a data science team, and they wanted to have a designer to be able to design a more personalized experience for customers, or what they called the loyalty program members. That was an interesting role because I got to define what I wanted to work on. I was able to do experiments in collaboration with data scientists on what works and what doesn’t. It was quite challenging for someone like me who was not experienced in design, but at the same time, it was probably my steepest learning curve out of everything that I’ve done. I was trying to understand two things at the same time, design and data science.

How do you see your field or the general field of design and user experience interface and these types of roles developing in the future?

It depends on what you want to prepare yourself for. Some of the skills that have become increasingly more important are going to be transferable to evolving experiences. One thing that really came through in the last couple years is UX writing, which was initially more like copywriting. Designers have realized that if you write good copy, it’s more engaging for users and customers. Now, there are proper roles in companies where you’re hired as a UX writer, which means you collaborate with UX and UI designers to fill in the content and make sure that it makes sense and is engaging, and fits with the brand of the company. The other thing is storytelling; it is an emerging field of design around VR and AR experiences. In design, you’re taking users on a journey where you’re telling the story about whatever product they’re using.

How has it been working in the travel industry over the past years? Where do you see it going?

Travel is always fun. Instead of designing for travelers like you and me, today I am designing for hotels; they use our software to manage their pricing and availability. With COVID, no one was traveling [initially], and some hotels shut down or have decided to temporarily take a step back. That was a bit of a challenge for us because of very low engagement from customers. We went through a quiet period. Some travel organizations have had to downsize. It’s been rough. I think the worst part is over, at least for domestic travel. I believe that once international travel is open again, travel will come back stronger than it was because everyone really wants to travel.

Are there any interesting experiences you would like to share?

For anyone interested in design, aside from improving your craft, design, and upskilling, also make sure that you get to know the design community better. All the jobs that I’ve gotten have not been through recruiters or direct job applications but from networking. I went to a lot of design meetups. I wanted to see what’s out there. The more you talk to different designers, the more you discover what you are interested in. Most of the time, people are really nice about giving you great advice.

Coming from a non-design background, what would you say are the key skills or background you should have when you apply to an entry level design job?

Make sure that you understand the fundamentals. Understand design thinking, the design process, design disciplines that I’ve mentioned, and the main difference between UX and UI. Then do a bit of research on other types of design disciplines. The second thing is having a portfolio of case studies or projects you’ve worked on. This is very important. If you’re going to structure a case study, you should always start with “what’s the problem you’re trying to solve”? Once you have established that understanding, then show the whole process of how you went from defining the problem to designing the final solution, and then what you learned.

If people are looking to go into design right out of college, should they just be looking at design roles, or some other roles that would be beneficial in their future design career?

It depends on how determined you are to want to become a designer. If that is something that you know you want to do right out of college, definitely aim for it as a first job. If it’s something you fall into, there are many opportunities to look internally and externally. For example, in tech organizations, there are always stories about engineers or product managers who switched to working in design because of the exposure to working with designers.

How important are the artistic or graphical skills in the realm of design?

I would say it’s relatively important, but it also depends on how much you want to specialize. If you’re more interested in UX, as you go deeper in your career, you probably don’t need to do as much screen work. Whereas if you really want to specialize more in the interface side of things, I recommend up-skilling on the visual design skills and animation. As a basis, it’s definitely important to have both tiers. Otherwise, I would suggest you spend your efforts on whatever you want to specialize in.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee. This article only aims to share personal opinions and learnings and does not constitute the interviewee’s current or former employer(s)’ position on any of the topics discussed.