M
Meghan Martin
Product Designer at italki
"Keep the design simple and stupid."
Last updated on 26 Feb, 2025
What books do you recommend?
Career clarity for designers in 5 minutes
See how real designers actually get started and the challenges they face, distilled from 47 experienced designers and counting.
How did you get started in your role?
I have always been a problem solver and loved designing, but it took me some time to discover UX. Before that, I did a lot of things unrelated to design, but once I found UX, I never looked back. Now, I am close to earning a Master's degree in Informatics with a specialization in UX, along with two years of work experience running my own UX consulting firm.
What are the responsibilities of your role?
As a UX and service designer, I take on multiple roles. Primarily, I am responsible for user engagement, conducting research, and contributing to product development. My main interest lies in research, I truly enjoy diving deep to understand how users interact with a product and uncovering insights that drive better design decisions.
What difficulties do you encounter in your role?
The greatest challenge I face, as do many UX designers, is quantifying our impact. We constantly need to prove the value of our work, but it can be difficult since the effectiveness of a redesign often takes time to become evident. Moreover, we must be able to demonstrate its potential value beforehand to justify implementation costs.
How do you incorporate the apps in your design process?
For design, I use Figma, as I haven’t found any other software that is equally intuitive. For identifying patterns, I use SPSS, though not extensively. The biggest time-saver for me is Otter AI, which helps transcribe all the interviews I conduct.
What advice would you give to your younger self trying to get into the field of design?
Save and provide more details on the steps I’ve taken. This will help track what has been done and make the process easier in the long run.
Do you have any regrets in your journey in becoming a designer?
Don't have any regrets.
As a designer how do you stay inspired?
Learning new ways to view a problem is what make me stay inspired and how to solve it. Every new project comes with its own set of challenges, so staying ahead means continuously studying and reading.
