There’s a particular kind of clarity that comes from being told “no.”

Not the sting of it, though that’s real too, but what’s underneath once you’ve sat with it long enough. Specifically, the relief. Because I am human, and like most humans, I carry a deep wish to belong, to be accepted, to be seen as enough. And for a long time, I kept trying to be more of what was expected, hoping that would change things.

At some point, I realized how incredible it is to be told “no,” so I can be redirected towards a life worth living. To be relinquished from the confines and definitions of who I am “supposed to be.”

So this year, I started & luo studio.

The initial plan

I’d had the plan for a long time. When I was 25 and freelancing for the first time, I mapped it out: go back in-house, absorb as much as I could, be out again by 30. Maybe start my own studio.

Then COVID happened. Then heartbreak, health, and healing. Life, basically.

I knew I wanted to leave years before I actually did. I wanted to work on hard problems in environments where collaboration is intentional, where decisions get made because they’re right, not because of who’s in the room. I wanted to design with people, not around them. To move things from ambiguity to clarity, and actually see that happen.

But I stayed. Not because I was afraid, but because I was living my life. I was healing. I was taking care of myself. Certain things needed to happen first, and the job made them possible.

What I’ve had to work through (with therapy, meditation, and intentional practice on my own and with community) is accepting that I wasn’t “behind.” My goals were always flexible based on the information I had at the time. The plan was never lost. I just needed to feel more ready.

And I kept waiting for some external signal that it was time, some moment of obvious clarity. It never came. What came instead was a slow accumulation of knowing that not making a decision was also a decision, and that I’d been making it long enough.

For me, what finally made it feel possible was having enough savings, enough signal that there was demand for what I do, and enough willingness to actually try. When those three things aligned, I chose.

I’m also still unlearning some things. In certain environments, you’re taught to make your work visible for the next review cycle…that influence comes from authority, from being seen in the right rooms. What I’m finding my way back to is the other kind of influence: the kind that’s earned through trust, through curiosity, and the love of real craft.

What happens when you get to step back and just design? When success is whether something actually worked for the person using it? I’m remembering what that feels like. It’s slower in some ways, but exactly what I need.

How it’s all come together, so far

What’s funny is that from the outside, people probably think I left my career in tech entirely to pursue a path of creativity solely through community events. But none of this is new.

The design work is still very much here. I spent the first part of this year embedded with a small team, designing a product from the inside with the kind of close, collaborative work I’d been wanting to get back to. I wrote about what that process actually looked like, if you’re curious: the decisions, the constraints, what it means to design alongside AI intentionally. That, and what it means to build with care in a small team with big ambitions.

The writing has been here too, longer than most people know. I’ve been writing since before west & ease existed. From yearly Tumblr recap posts to private journals to reflections I needed to put somewhere. west & ease started because I had this selfish desire to understand how people made decisions. It was a way to get advice from people I admired, disguised as a long-form post to help others. The conversations were always really for me, a way to think out loud with founders and creatives I was curious about, and in doing so, understand myself a little better, too.

I started painting in 2021, during the pandemic. I studied Design at UC Davis, so I know how to make things, but there’s a particular kind of making I’d always kept at arm’s length: art for its own sake. No brief. No user. No problem to solve. Just the thing itself. For most of my life, I couldn’t quite let myself do that. Painting became the place I finally could. It’s slow and meditative in a way that most of my work isn’t, and I’ve come to need it.

And community events: I’ve been doing these since high school. I was a participant and then an intern at AYPAL with Filipino Advocates for Justice in Oakland, CA. Every week, the structure was the same: learn a topic, collaborate with my intern peers to build a workshop, teach it to others, and then debrief. That rhythm of learning and then turning around to share it, of making space for people to show up and engage with one another, is the foundation of everything I’ve done since. And long before I started sharing my events, I was hosting in my apartment. Partly because I wanted an excuse to get the people I loved doing things together. I’ve written about what that looks like in practice, if you want a feel for it.

& luo studio isn’t a pivot. It’s just the first time everything has a name.

What it means to witness the possibilities

I think about my father a lot. When the sewing factories in the Bay Area closed in the early 2000s, and he lost his job repairing sewing machines, he didn’t just wait. He let people know, and others spread the word by word of mouth, that he would travel to fix sewing machines in factories, stores, and people’s homes. He took on clients who spoke Chinese or other languages, where broken English stitched us all together, and built something from what he knew how to do. I remember initially taking calls from numbers that dialed his pager or from people who left voicemails, and telling my dad where to go. I was his secretary and translator as a kid, fielding calls I barely understood, watching him negotiate, problem-solve, and show up. What I absorbed, without having words for it then, was that you don’t have to wait for someone to hand you the next thing. You can build it.

My mom taught me something different but adjacent. She’s always learned for the love of it: languages, cooking, gardening, and creative hobbies she picked up simply because they brought her joy or scratched her curiosity. She once told me it’s better to experience than to only read about something. She never had a formal roadmap or education, and yet she’s built a life full of curiosity, warmth, and trying.

Neither of my parents had a perfect path. They adapted. They tried. And watching them made it possible for me to imagine doing the same. Because when you witness someone in your own life take a leap that seems impossible, it stops being impossible. And you just do it too.

Now

Some mornings I’m deep in a product review, working through design decisions with a founder on something that ships next week (or the same day). Some afternoons, I’m on a coaching call with a designer navigating a moment of transition as they figure out their next move or what they actually want their work to feel like. On weekends, I’m often setting up a room for a small gathering, laying out supplies, thinking about how to make a stranger feel welcome the moment they walk in. I might spend a morning painting and an afternoon writing.

It’s a lot. Some days, the uncertainty is loud. But I’m learning to grow from a place of investment rather than fear. To trust that the work is good, that the demand is there, that thoughtful, sustainable, and a little bit slow is actually okay.

This year isn’t about proof. It’s about experimentation. It’s about finally giving myself the time to say, "I want to try.”

Let’s try together.

If you’re a founder or product leader looking for a fractional product design partner to help you build with more clarity and intention, I’d love to hear what you’re working on.

If you’re a designer navigating a transition, figuring out what’s next, or trying to make work actually feel like what you want, I offer one-on-one coaching.

And if you just want to be in a room with curious, creative people, come to something I host in Brooklyn.

You can find all of it at andluo.studio and @lxluo and say hello at leslie@andluo.studio.

Music by lsaudio from Pixabay

If you’ve followed along here for a while, you probably know me more for the creative side of my life including the gatherings I host and the creatives I love featuring. But lately I’ve been wanting to open up to share the projects I’m diving into. So I’m trying something new with this one: a bit of behind-the-scenes.

For a while now I’ve been embedded with the team building Postcards. Jared, the founder, and a friend, recently wrote about why we made it and what it means to him: his case for social media in its purest form, sharing with the people you actually know. I want to share the other side: what it was like to actually design it (so far).

None of us really knew what AI could do yet when we started but were curious about the possibilities. That sounds a bit silly now, but at the time it felt like a whole thing worth exploring. There were new tools every week (and still), everyone online had a take, and it would have been so easy to freeze up trying to figure out the “right” way to build something. Instead we kept saying the same thing to each other: let’s just try. Try the tool, try the idea, try the version that probably won’t work. That ended up being the most important thing we did.

The starting point

What most people see when they open Postcards today is a social app for your close friends. That’s not what we set out to build initially.

When I started designing the first version, it was actually a mobile version of an AI memoir experience called The Biographer. You could speak or type about a memory, a photo, or whatever was on your mind. We had an LLM companion called Boswell, and the idea was that you’d talk to it, have a back and forth conversation like with a real human, and immediately afterward it would turn that into a beautiful narrative you could read, share, and add different perspectives with people who were part of the story.

I genuinely thought of this as a storytelling tool, not social media and there was so much space for personal narratives, where someone could just talk and watch their story come to life. This idea still excites me.

What didn’t work

But when we put it in front of friends and family, the long-form narrative didn’t quite land. The output was verbose. It sometimes didn’t capture the essence of what someone was actually saying. The writing shifted from person to person, and I kept wanting to go back and edit except I hadn’t designed the editing experience yet either. It just felt cumbersome. Plus, Boswell’s conversation was just a bit awkward or we’d lose the audio which was the core of the story.

Jared had this hunch early on that people weren’t going to read long-form. I resisted it for a while because I really believed in the long-form style. It was personal to me and then I had to sit with the fact that he could be right. That’s the part of trying nobody really warns you about: sometimes you try, and the thing you believed in doesn’t work, and you have to let it go. It helped that the team made that feel okay.

What actually resonated was the idea of “beats.” Boswell would listen to someone’s raw story and pull out the key moments, like a synopsis. We had initially designed cards you could swipe through to follow the beats of the storyline right above where we displayed the long-form narrative. Think of it as the bullet points of someone’s story, but visual.

People loved those.

The one-week bet

So we had a really candid conversation. Jared and his co-founder Avi still believed in The Biographer. Plummer, our engineer, and I believed there was something in the cards, and we wanted one week to figure it out while we simultaneously built both products. My biggest push was to not call them “beat cards” because if you have no idea what a beat is, it makes no sense. After a quick iteration we landed on “Postcards”, because they were cards, and something you’d actually want to send to a friend.

We stripped everything out. I redesigned the whole input from an interactive voice experience into something that feels like opening a blank page. Drop in a voice note, type some stuff, upload a photo. Don’t edit it. Don’t overthink it. Then the LLM helps you make something beautiful including both the words and the visuals.

The illustrations surprised all of us. When someone didn’t have photos, the LLM would generate these really lovely drawings relevant to their story. It was like someone sketching out your story for you, phrase by phrase. We just knew something magical was happening, something that could make storytelling so much more visual.

For Jared, the hook was always the social part, specifically sharing with your friends. For me, the hook was making storytelling itself feel visual and alive. Bringing a story to life, through sketches and through someone’s own voice and words.

How AI fit into the process

Throughout all of this, AI was a brainstorming partner, and part of the process, but never the only way I designed.

For the initial look and feel from the illustrations, the colors, the typography, I started by pulling real-world inspiration. A lot of the illustration style was actually inspired by Heytea; I’d go once in a while, and I remember being so in love with their menu illustrations from their hand-drawn and minimal style. For colors I kept coming back to Osulloc tea, because their packaging has these really beautiful jewel tones.

What I did was drop all of that inspiration into ChatGPT: here’s the style I want, can you suggest some palettes and typography to match, give me a few options to narrow down. Then I’d take those options and pressure-test everything myself in Figma, because I’m a visual person and I need to see how things actually pair together. I just needed a partner to pull a few directions for me so I wasn’t combing through everything alone.

The illustrations evolved in a way I didn’t expect. I tried photography and styled photos first, but somehow these black-and-white outline drawings came out and really resonated with the team. At first we thought we’d pre-generate a whole library so everything stayed consistent. Then we realized…why not use the same prompt and generate in real time for each postcard? That’s where the magic happened. Every time someone creates a postcard, the LLM draws something just for it. The sketch-like, rounded softness gave everything a human touch, which felt important when the whole thing runs on an LLM.

The filters followed a similar rhythm each time: I used cosmos to moodboard and pull real-life examples, Claude to write the prompts and define the illustration style, Figma AI to generate and iterate. I picked up Cursor and Claude Design for prototyping too. But at the end of the day I’m still the designer. I can be handed every option in the world and I still want control, because for filters, we were creating a brand new look and feel for every set.

And there’s a flip side I want to be honest about. There were moments when AI just got in my way when I needed to sit and think, and the tools kept nudging me toward iterating instead. There were times it was genuinely more work to use AI than to just build the thing myself. I remember trying to get Claude Design to build a prototype I had in my head, and it couldn’t figure it out (to be fair, this was the first week the tool had launched). I went back to Cursor, and even then, part of me just wanted to open Figma and do it the “old-fashioned way”.

I tell other people this, and I remind myself: it’s worth picking up the tools to learn them. But not at the cost of doing something simple that’s right in front of you.

I don’t actually believe in always being efficient. One of the things I love most in my practice, whether painting or hands-on hobbies, is doing the work, going through the process, and enjoying the craft. When you get too lost in the tooling, it gets rough. I’m not someone who thinks AI is going to be the only tool I reach for. I love the design process itself. AI is one part of it, and I don’t want it taking up too much of my brainpower, because I still need to make something I’m proud of at the end of the day. That can be from using an AI tool, or simply from my own brain.

What surprised me

If I think about what surprised me most, it’s the speed. This is the same team I had worked together with over ten years ago at Fundera. In the time we’ve been apart there’s been a lot of growing up across all of us, and the way we build now is just tremendously different and fast.

None of us came in knowing what AI could really do and I think that’s exactly why “let’s just try” worked. We trusted each other enough to experiment and get it wrong in front of each other and keep going.

What I realized is that you have to have the candid, hard conversations and you have to have them kindly. Because it sucks when you work on something as hard as you can, and then the team decides we’re not doing this anymore. It’s so easy to crumple that up and throw it away…metaphorically, and even more so now with AI.

Jared always asked us: are we having fun? Because if it’s something we genuinely don’t believe in, it’s not worth it. But if it’s fun, if we’re learning, if we’re excited to build something and see what happens. That’s the whole point.

The people you work with matter more than anything. Being collaborative, willing to let go of your ego, willing to ask the hard questions, willing to push each other a little outside your comfort zones. We’ve all had to accept that roles look different now. But we still respect each other’s expertise.

I remember Avi reminding me: “We hired you for your taste. You will not be replaced by [insert any “design-killing AI tool”]. And in turn, I encourage the team and arm them with our UI kits and guidance to build things and to just start. I think it’s great that more people can build. I can always come back and layer in my expertise. That layer, the one that makes it feel human, that’s still mine.

Making storytelling, magical

What makes Postcards special to me is a little different from what Jared wrote about. For him it’s the social layer and connecting with people you actually know. For me, it’s the storytelling.

And honestly, the same thing we kept telling each other while building it, is what we share with someone trying out the app: don’t overthink it. Just try. Drop in a voice note, type some stuff, upload a photo, and let it make something beautiful back. You can share it, or not.

I think about this even now, writing this that there are so many drafts before I feel okay putting something into the world. There’s something really nice about a product that doesn’t ask you to be perfect. You can always go back and edit. LLMs aren’t perfect either. But that first postcard that comes back feels like magic.

That’s the crux of it for me. Helping people be themselves and share something without the weight of overthinking it. To create something short and sweet for the people they love, because they trust we can capture their essence. That’s what makes Postcards magical. At least, that’s what we’re going for.

Postcards is live on iOS. Try it out and send us your feedback. We’d love to hear what you think.

And if you’re a founder or a small team building something meaningful, looking for an embedded design partner who works like this: intentional, fast-moving, comfortable with AI as part of the process but not the whole thing, I’d love to hear from you. I run & luo studio, and you can reach me at leslie@andluo.studio.

We’ve all been there: you’ve built up projects, clients, and team experience, and you’re eager for your next role. But as you apply for jobs, you don’t hear back…especially from the companies you’re most excited about.

One of the first things I tell design coaching clients is that how you present yourself in your portfolio can work against you. That’s because many portfolios unintentionally hide a designer’s real talent by forgetting the core purpose: to show, not tell, why you should be hired.

*Specifically, when I refer to portfolios, this means public portfolios that product designers share and submit for consideration as opposed to case study presentations during live interviews and/or final rounds.

Since 2014, I’ve been on both sides of the hiring table: as an applicant, hiring manager, and fractional design lead. I’ve reviewed hundreds of portfolios and coached designers through the same question: “Why can’t I land a role when I think my portfolio is enough?”

If you’re interested in having a partner on your side to figure this out together, book a 1-on-1 design coaching session. I’m here to help.

Book a 1-on-1 design coaching session

The “75% rule”

Just like your résumé, your portfolio should quickly clarify your experience for recruiters and hiring managers. Both make snap decisions on applications often after a brief scan and comparison to dozens of others.

Instead of documenting every detail and decision, treat your portfolio as a tool to spark interest and open the door for conversations.

The direct link to your portfolio is likely not the main way you’re discovered, either. Like any user flow, consider how one finds your information: through word of mouth, LinkedIn, or by posting your work. It doesn’t usually start because someone found your portfolio website organically.

With that in mind, public portfolios can be used in several ways to enhance your résumé and overall application. In your public portfolio, you should show at most 75% of your best work in each case study, and save the rest of your detailed case studies for live portfolio reviews.

The 75% rule is a framework I developed from pattern-matching what actually prompts a recruiter or hiring manager to lean in, ask questions, and want to talk. Plus, it helps give a “stopping” point for ourselves to say, this is good enough and start applying rather than fixating on the perfect portfolio (because that simply doesn’t exist).

What is too much or too little

Here are a few examples of where portfolios can fall short.

Folks who work in really complicated fields or products often want to highlight all the difficulties or complexities they faced. But these types of case studies can be bogged down in detail, causing hiring managers to skip over key points or miss the value entirely.

Another common mistake is overloading portfolios with personality: too much motion, blurs, or flourishes can distract from the work. If it’s unclear whether a design decision was project-driven or just for show, the portfolio loses impact.

Striking the right balance between content and visuals is also crucial. Too much text can overshadow the “show”; too many visuals can lack story. Tailor your portfolio to your audience so hiring managers see your fit and want to learn more.

The list can go on; instead, let’s focus on how we can get to the right balance, based on the type of role you want.

Putting the 75% rule to work

After doing an initial audit, I often collaborate with my clients to do the following:

Read more

Adapted from a live presentation to the Uber Delivery Design team in January 2025, I’ve spent over a decade designing and facilitating workshops, reviews, and brainstorming with teams ranging from peers to C-level executives.

By the way, I offer 1:1 design coaching for early- and mid- career designers and those navigating their next step. Sessions are practical and hands-on, with focus areas that include:

• Resume, case study, portfolio, and interview prep

• Leveling up craft and strategy through critiques

• Navigating startup and corporate environments as a woman of color

With over 6 years of coaching experience and a decade in the design industry, I provide grounded, practical guidance tailored to your specific goals.

Book a 1-on-1 Design Coaching Session

Intro

You don’t have to be an expert in every topic, but knowing how to guide discussions, elevate ideas, and create an engaging space makes a facilitator invaluable. A great facilitator enables others to shine.

This guide covers practical skills for leading brainstorming sessions, design critiques, team discussions, and more. While my experience is rooted in product design, these techniques apply to any role that requires collaboration.

The four pillars of confident facilitation

1. Preparation – Set yourself and your participants up for success

2. Setting the tone – Build energy and engagement from the start

3. Leading the workshop* – Keep discussions focused and dynamic

4. Guiding conversations to outcomes – Drive clarity and next steps

*"Workshop" and "session" will be used interchangeably throughout this guide, but the tips and tactics apply to events, design reviews, critiques, and more.

1. Preparation

The best workshops feel effortless, but behind the scenes, strong preparation makes that possible. Think of it like great design—when done well, it’s nearly invisible.

Start with a clear objective. What’s the outcome you want? Whether it’s generating roadmap ideas or introducing a new concept, structure the session around that goal. If participants know what success looks like, they can engage more effectively.

Set your participants up for success by providing context in advance. Participants can feel confident joining, learning, and collaborating if you help them know what’s expected of them. When possible, send agendas, pre-reads, and any required tools in advance. A simple reminder email can boost attendance and engagement.

Give participants clear roles if they need them. If you want someone to present, let them know ahead of time. If you need folks to volunteer to co-facilitate breakout sessions, give them a heads-up so they can prepare.

Equip participants with what they need. If you expect them to brainstorm, have pens and sticky notes ready. If a presentation is required, ensure slides are preloaded or cables are accessible. Minimizing friction keeps the session flowing.

Most of all, amongst all the tools one can prepare, selecting the right tools comes down to where you’re most confident and can be most efficient. Learning a new tool to run a workshop is already double the work you need—and potentially more work for your participants. So if you can, stick with familiar tools especially ones where your participants already have access and that you’ll reuse later.

For example, during planning cycles at Uber Eats, I’ve worked with teams and leveraged tools like Trello, Google Sheets, Mural, and more. While Trello and Mural were great for generating ideas, and included a built-in timer and voting functionality, our teams rarely used it daily. It meant getting every teammate onto a new platform. It turns out, that the most efficient was to brainstorm in Google Sheets which would then allow us to easily transfer once prioritized into our tracking documentation which already existed in Sheets. All in all, leverage tools for your long-term needs, where folks spend the most time, and you’re most confident in can help take the burden of choosing tools out of the way.

2. Setting the tone

A strong start fosters engagement. Simple actions—like playing music as people join or encouraging small talk—can make the physical or virtual room feel welcoming.

Icebreakers help establish energy and participation. Setting aside dedicated time to introduce a new group of people to one another is a helpful and intentional way to build familiarity before diving into topics. In virtual settings, encourage video participation—it boosts engagement. Leading by example (having your camera on) invites others to do the same.

A few icebreaker ideas include:

Read more

Adapted from a live presentation to my fellow peers in the Uber Delivery Design team in July 2024. I’ve been designing full-time in-house and freelance since 2014, when I started my career in small to medium-sized startups as a design team of a few or the only designer on the team. I joined Uber’s Delivery Design organization in 2019 and have had the pleasure of being a part of several teams, including Merchant, Ads, Membership, and, most recently, leading the Consumer Growth design team. 

By the way, I offer 1:1 design coaching for early- and mid-career designers and those navigating their next step. Sessions are practical and hands-on, with focus areas that include:

• Resume, case study, portfolio, and interview prep

• Leveling up craft and strategy through critiques

• Navigating startup and corporate environments as a woman of color

With over 6 years of coaching experience and a decade in the design industry, I provide grounded, practical guidance tailored to your specific goals.

Book a 1-on-1 Design Coaching Session

Often, we talk about wanting a seat at the table, but what is the table? Once you get there, what does it mean to have the space, and how do you continue to ensure it is valued? I aim to walk through a few ways to understand what influence means and tangible tools you can adapt, apply, and iterate into your workflow so that we shift the conversation from “I want a seat at the table.” to “Here’s what I bring to the table, and what we’ll build together.”

Influence requires trust

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to have influence is to have the capacity or power to cause an effect in an intangible or indirect way. To me, influence in the context of our careers is about our soft skills. While those technical craft skills are just as important as a designer, being able to effectively collaborate is an endeavor that requires more than being incredible as a team of one. Because your deliverables are ultimately only one part of the process, getting to the right direction or solution requires teamwork and influence.

So, to have influence, you must have a foundation of trust between yourself and the people you want to influence or build influence with. 

Gaining trust requires effort

01. Establishing trust

Establishing trust is important, whether it's your first day on the job, starting a new project, or joining a new team. From my experience across each area I've worked in within Uber (and across many jobs and clients), establishing a relationship helps set the tone of the relationship across all parties.

Take the time to understand your collaborators and their motivations. It's not only about you and what you need as a designer to do your job well. It's also about ensuring that you understand your collaborators and their goals while helping them understand yours. 

Specifically, ask and learn about working styles. Are your collaborators more efficient via Slack? Do they like to jump on a call or walk over to your desk to jam? Then, figure out how that fits your style better. You can always iterate as you go. When you try to meet someone where they are and feel seen, they are more likely to be able to easily work with you since you’re already tapped into their process seamlessly. Ultimately, it's about finding a middle ground to make the process more effective for all parties.

Across different organizations, each team and role also has different priorities. Understanding these priorities, along with an individual’s motivations, can help you better understand why someone prioritizes an idea or decision that may not be immediately obvious to you. Over time, building this muscle to understand motivations can also help you with negotiation and trade-off conversations.

For example, across different organizations at Uber and other tech startups I’ve worked with, teams have different OKRs (Objective and Key Results) and goals to hit. And oftentimes, it’s not simply to “deliver the best user experience.” 

Product Managers, for example, focus on OKRs and business goals and ensure alignment across many areas. Just like designers, product managers all have their own styles of working but ultimately need to hit their goals and metrics (hopefully with you). So, it’s important to take the time to understand the language (key metrics, technical foundation, and tradeoffs) and the “whys” behind them to understand if something is important or isn’t to get on the same page. 

Engineering, for example, often considers code efficiency, whether in the actual development process (handoff, engineering requirements documentation, etc…) or the outcome (reducing latency, load times, high code quality, etc…). They often also care about using the best methods and technologies to build effectively and scale without being bogged down by old systems or arbitrary processes. So, it's important to take the time to understand what drives your engineering counterparts to feel empowered to do their work and what they find most impactful.

Whenever you start on a new team or project, level set via informal 1:1s and formal kick-offs:

• For informal 1:1s, ask about your collaborator's experiences and personal goals. This can help you understand why they might place a stronger emphasis on values like in-person communication over Slack or that they ultimately might want to strive for a particular career goal that you can align with.

• For formal kick-offs, get the team together and ensure alignment in project/team/individual goals, who is accountable for what, and why. This is a great way to identify OKRs, goals, metrics, and constraints and gather initial ideas from the team.

Read more

You can read the original post directly at https://www.getversive.com/blog/resourceful-research-leslie-luo or continue reading below.

As product designers, identifying the right problems to solve and how to solve them requires not just intuition but also insight. Insights can come in various forms, such as quantitative data about product usage or qualitative findings from customer interviews.

Whether you're a design team of one or many, gathering insights can be intimidating and time-consuming. It's easy to understand why teams decide not to incorporate research into their design process.

Instead of forgoing it, let's chat about a few ways we can get creative to make insight-informed decisions throughout the product development cycle.

Research as a strategic shift in perspective

Teams often skip research for a few common reasons: it can be expensive, require specific expertise, and eat up precious time. It can be tough to balance these factors, especially when deadlines are looming.

But here's the thing: looking at research as a smart investment changes the game. When we gather both qualitative and quantitative data, we're not just guessing. We're building stronger hypotheses and making decisions based on solid insights, not just gut feelings.

Investing in research upfront also pays off big time. It saves us from building things that miss the mark with users, saving us headaches and rework later on. So let's dive into research with confidence, knowing it's our not-so-secret weapon for creating products that users love.

Let's take a look at a couple of case studies that illustrate how research can level-up your product design.

Case study: Fundera

How an up-front investment in leveraging existing customer insight via shadowing cross-functional colleagues, understanding customer data, and validating prototype concepts helps teams like Fundera execute more efficiently and understand the "why"s behind user interaction

At Fundera, while we didn't have a dedicated research team, we dove headfirst into understanding our users' needs. My days were filled with shadowing our sales teammates and absorbing valuable insights from their customer interactions. This hands-on approach fueled our initial development of a customized onboarding workflow that hit the mark with our users and their needs.

To back up our instincts, we delved into metrics using MixPanel and conducted user tests via UserTesting. These tests were game-changers, validating our hypotheses and guiding our product and design decisions in the right direction. This upfront investment of gathering insights allowed us to understand the "why" behind user interactions. This allowed us to more quickly refine our hypotheses, iterate on our product, and ship features that solved actual user needs.

This approach to research wasn't about following a flawless process. It was about using every tool in our toolbox to make informed decisions and create products that truly resonated with our users. By being resourceful and understanding our customers and data, we were able to more effectively experiment, learn, and craft experiences that made a real impact.

Case study: U.S. Federal Government

How the U.S. Federal Government leveraged hallway testing and A/B testing to update the highest stakes moment when someone calls the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: the hold music

Don't just take it from me. One of my favorite stories about research comes from Radiolab's "Hold On" episode. In the episode, hosts Lulu Miller and Simon Adler delve into a crucial issue: many callers to the National Suicide Hotline hang up due to the time it takes to connect with a qualified counselor.

During this waiting period, callers are subjected to hold music. The team wanted to understand whether this hold music had an impact on callers hanging up. So, they turned to research and testing.

Despite the constraints of a small sample size and regulatory limitations like the Paperwork Reduction Act, the team utilized hallway testing with around 8-9 participants, where they went around the National Mall in Washington D.C. and stopping bystanders to get their feedback. This scrappy yet impactful approach provided enough information to lead the team to run a countrywide A/B test. This test found a statistically significant increase in callers staying on the line, when the hold music was improved.

The example illustrates the power of using testing and research, even in resource-constrained situations, to uncover insights and drive actionable outcomes. It underscores the importance of starting small and applying creative methodologies even the largest issues.

Some actionable takeaways

Considering running your own research for your teams? Here are a few parting ideas that I would recommend:

• Leverage Internal Teams: Your sales, operations, business development, and other internal teams can be a goldmine of knowledge about user needs and pain points. Tap into their insights to inform your research efforts.

• Explore Third-Party Tools: Look into third-party tools that align with your team's needs and budget. Unmoderated research tools can help you start collecting insights faster. Start with something simple that meets your initial requirements and evolve and automate as you progress.

• Utilize Website/App Tracking Metrics: Make use of website or app tracking metrics to develop stronger hypotheses. Data-driven insights from user behavior can guide your research direction and validate your assumptions.

• Hallway Testing: Don't underestimate the power of hallway testing. Whether you're testing general usability with your own teammates or testing new concepts with external users, hallway testing can provide quick and valuable feedback to refine your designs.

By embracing these strategies and taking a hands-on approach to research, product designers can gain valuable insights, validate assumptions, and ultimately create products that better meet user needs and expectations. Keep experimenting, learning, and iterating to drive continuous improvement in your design process.

You can find more resources on incorporating user research into your product development process via AI and much more on the Versive Blog.

I also offer 1:1 design coaching for early-career designers and those navigating their next step. Sessions are practical and hands-on, with focus areas that include:

• Resume, case study, portfolio, and interview prep

• Leveling up craft and strategy through critiques

• Navigating startup and corporate environments as a woman of color

With over 6 years of coaching experience and a decade in the design industry, I provide grounded, practical guidance tailored to your specific goals.

Book a 1-on-1 Design Coaching Session

I recently had the pleasure of giving a guest lecture at the University of Califonia, Davis Design 40C course on Design for Aesthetics, taught by Professor James (Jim) Housefield. 

During the lecture, I shared insights from my career path…

Read more

You can read the original post directly at https://blog.get-merit.com/office-hours-with-leslie-luo or continue reading below.

By the way, I offer 1:1 design coaching for early- and mid-career designers and those navigating their next step. Sessions are practical and hands-on, with focus areas that include:

• Resume, case study, portfolio, and interview prep

• Leveling up craft and strategy through critiques

• Navigating startup and corporate environments as a woman of color

With over 6 years of coaching experience and a decade in the design industry, I provide grounded, practical guidance tailored to your specific goals.

Book a 1-on-1 Design Coaching Session

Welcome to Merit Office Hours! This March, we're commemorating Women's History Month by celebrating the amazing women in the Merit community. We chatted with mentor and Merit advocate Leslie Luo about the role of mentorship in her career.

Leslie Luo is a Senior Product Designer who collaborates with teams to strategize and execute user-centered research and design by identifying and creating solutions for the right problems to solve. She’s currently focused on elevating the membership experience with Uber Eats.

She hosts Conversations on her blog, west & ease, where with her guests, she explores themes such as the creative process and identity. She also shares Voice Notes, a series of personal thoughts and anecdotes where she shares questions and answers that she hopes to explore with herself and others.

Rachel Spurrier: What role has mentorship (either giving or receiving) played in your career journey?

Leslie Luo: Mentorship has allowed me to reflect and problem solve with someone else who has gone through a similar trajectory and is open to providing or receiving guidance to navigate it together.

One of the most powerful aspects of having a great mentor is someone who can help guide you in the various directions you want to head towards and arm you with the knowledge you need to make confident decisions for yourself. In all the small and big moments, my various mentors have acted as my support system as I navigated my life and career. A few of those moments included life-changing decisions like deciding to move across the country for a new role to small but mighty moments of learning how to meet more people intentionally or what to say in conversations with my managers and peers.

As a mentor, being able to reflect those insights back to them, even as simple as saying, "I'm hearing X, is that right?" helps mentees clarify their thoughts.

Becoming a mentor has allowed me to continue to grow and refine my skills as an active listener, problem solver, and coach. In addition, I find a lot of joy in helping others realize their potential. There's nothing more rewarding than seeing someone understand what may have initially seemed impossible become possible through a reframe or simply by feeling heard.

As a mentor with Merit, I've met many talented folks eager to figure out what to do next in their journey. Before providing solutions, I spend my sessions understanding context and holding space for folks to voice what they seek help with and, more importantly, why. Mentees will often feel lost in the details or overwhelmed when recounting all the micro-decisions or information they've been holding on to. But, in that process, folks are usually pretty clear on what they want and don't want. As a mentor, being able to reflect those insights back to them, even as simple as saying, "I'm hearing X, is that right?" helps mentees clarify their thoughts. It goes from "It's all in my head" to "Oh wait, this is a valid experience, and I can figure it out."

RS: You're a mentor with Merit. What led you to become a mentor? What has providing mentorship looked like for you?

LL: I owe much of the success of my career to the mentors who took the time out of their days to truly listen and arm me with ideas and tools to empower me to figure out whatever I wanted.

As I grew into a more senior role in my career, I started seeing the switch and desire from myself to practice learning through teaching—specifically through mentorship.

I've intentionally continued the individual contributor path in my full-time role because, currently, the skills I’m practicing give me more energy day-to-day. However, with this decision, I focus less on coaching and mentorship formally, which people managers usually do. That said, I still wanted to continue growing those skills for myself. After all, many folks in design careers can go back and forth between management and IC work. In addition, the strongest leaders I know can tap into a wide range of skills to amplify their roles—no matter their core responsibilities or titles. Thus, practicing mentorship is a no-brainer for me to continue my growth on my own terms.

With Merit, I joined because I was looking for a platform to help me focus on the core parts of what I loved most about mentorship: the 1:1 conversations that allow for fluid sessions to brainstorm and take action together. I was also looking specifically to connect more closely with underrepresented and under-networked communities so that I could do my part in bridging the gap and elevating others as those who have done so before me.

In general, I also find a lot of joy in being able to help someone grow and build their confidence. So if I could help at least one other person feel seen and heard, that's everything.

With Merit...I was also looking specifically to connect more closely with underrepresented and under-networked communities so that I could do my part in bridging the gap and elevating others as those who have done so before me.

RS: What is the importance of having a mentor when you're earlier in your career?

LL: As a woman of color who grew up in an immigrant family and raised in a socio-economically disadvantaged community, mentorship, in its many forms, helped lift me from where I was to help me expand my worldview and access to people, places, and experiences that would not otherwise be available for me.

Thus, mentorship can be an incredible experience throughout your career—whether you're early, transitioning, or trying to figure out what's next.

For example, I wanted to pursue a law degree before my design career. One of my first mentors opened up access to the process of preparing for law school and gave me clarity through his experience and shared considerations to help me make my own decisions. He connected me to opportunities, including working at a local law clinic, introducing me to his professor leading to a summer internship, participating as a witness for mock trials for the courtroom experience, and eventually coaching me to apply and receiving an acceptance to a program that focused on elevating underrepresented students to prepare for law school.

Most pivotally, because of our multi-year relationship, when it came time for me to decide whether to commit to pursuing a law degree, he helped me make a firm decision on what to do next. In this case, I decided that I was not certain law was my path forward, and I would rather spend my time learning more about design. And his reassurance and support, which came from a place of rooting for me and genuine care, allowed me the confidence to make the switch.

So whether it's one person or multiple people who become your mentors, and no matter where you are in your career, having someone in your corner can be game-changing. Having someone on your side makes making tough decisions for yourself become more achievable and accessible.

As a woman of color who grew up in an immigrant family and raised in a socio-economically disadvantaged community, mentorship, in its many forms, helped lift me from where I was to help me expand my worldview and access to people, places, and experiences that would not otherwise be available for me.

RS: What advice would you give to someone earlier in their career when seeking out mentorship?

LL: When seeking a mentor, remember that a mentor can be someone who comes into your life once or is a recurring character in your career or life journey. I've had a few people in my life that have fundamentally changed the course of my career, whom I've only spoken with once, and that's perfectly fine! On the other hand, some mentors are more open to an ongoing relationship. As a mentee, how receptive and proactive you are to engaging in the mentorship gives cues for the type of relationship you want, and a great mentor can establish the right setup for you together.

When you start a mentorship conversation, get context to better understand why your mentor may provide specific types of feedback. This can be doing research on your mentor or topic beforehand or spending time to do proper intros before jumping into questions. A great mentor will take the time to listen to where you're coming from and then contextualize relevant experience to guide you based on where you are in your journey.

In addition to context setting, I encourage folks to ask questions early and often. And specifically, to craft your questions to be more specific to get more valuable answers. For example, if you’re reaching out through a cold email and want to learn more about someone’s career trajectory, instead of starting off asking “How did you become a designer?”, it could be more specific, such as, “What motivates you to continue designing today? And is that the same answer you had when you first started in your career?” This helps you get the same answer but contextualize where your mentor’s journey might be and connect it back to where you might be.

Throughout your mentorship journey, be open because another perspective can lead to a reframe. A great mentor can help you think of other ways to tackle a problem or thought that might be different or something you've been avoiding. Sit in that feeling and push on it to better understand whether it's a good choice for yourself.

Most recently, as a mentee, I had my first conversation with a new mentor where I came in feeling stuck and worried about whether or not I could go up for a promotion in the upcoming performance cycle at work. I initially expressed that maybe it’s not the right time or I’m not feeling really set up for success at the moment. And the mentor asked me directly, “Well, why not?” Once we talked through my actual fears underneath my initial questions, it made me realize that I had much more control over my future. That, and, I’ve got work to do and know what I could try next. In this case, I went into our conversation with concerns but also with openness to hearing what and how my mentor would approach an experience they’ve also gone through before, thus allowing me to really hear myself and their suggestions to make a decision moving forward.

At the end of the day, no matter what the conversations lead to, use those answers to help guide your decisions, but ultimately remember that you're living your life. The decisions you make are for yourself, and you have to live with them. Mentorship is a lifelong journey for those who genuinely value it. So this advice is a firm reminder for myself and others on their way to continue trying and iterating as you go.

A great mentor can help you think of other ways to tackle a problem or thought that might be different or something you've been avoiding. Sit in that feeling and push on it to better understand whether it's a good choice for yourself.

RS: Beyond your work as a senior product designer, you also freelance as a consultant and run west & ease. How do you think about career paths and roles beyond your full-time gig?

LL: I'm inspired by folks who have multifaceted careers because, at the end of the day, we're multifaceted people. We all hold multiple roles and identities for ourselves and those around us.

As a recovering people pleaser, early in my career, I was often given the advice to consider saying "no" to more things so that I could focus 100% on one thing and get really good at it. But, I resonated more with the idea of being able to try a bunch of stuff so that I can figure out what I'm really into and could grow into not just a career but an integral part of my identity. And I've found that I'm into multiple things and want to learn and grow each at a different pace based on the different seasons of my life.

A few years back, I was hyper-focused on achieving the "senior" title as a product designer to prove to myself that I really could do this thing called design. However, after accomplishing that, I started to feel a bit lost and was languishing because I had spent all these years trying to be one thing that came at the cost of my whole self.

When I took a step back to re-evaluate my values, I realized that being creative just for fun and learning purely through curiosity to better understand the world got lost because I stopped prioritizing it for myself. I also love collaborating with others and encouraging more ways for myself to be able to root for others. And so, when I became more intentional about trying and incorporating activities that re-enable those parts of my identity to flourish again, outside of just being a product designer, I could begin to fulfill my whole self rather than just being what I was in my full-time role.

All-in-all, I'm also wholly inspired by multi-hyphenate people and lives. So I hope to live a long life and explore all the variations of myself in multiple careers, identities, and plain old hobbies that honor my values—instead of just being defined by my full-time role.

I'm inspired by folks who have multifaceted careers because, at the end of the day, we're multifaceted people. We all hold multiple roles and identities for ourselves and those around us.

You can find more advice on mentorship, breaking into the tech industry, interviewing tips, and much more on the Merit Blog.

If you’re an early- or mid- career product designer looking to elevate your career in tech, you can also book a time directly with me for a mentorship session.

Book a 1-on-1 Design Coaching Session