Cabel Sasser of Panic did [this wonderful talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df_K7pIsfvg) at XOXO Festival '24 about... well I'm not sure what it was about exactly. What I took away from it was to dwell on the work that has an impact on you, to go down the rabbit hole a little. But one part stood out the most:

> *"Send the nice email! Now, when people can hear you. You find something beautiful... you listen to something you love... it's so easy, but it's so easy to forget!"*

I love this! I've been a long-time advocate of sharing positivity. The guideline is pretty simple:

## If you see, hear, use or experience something you **really** enjoy — make an effort to find the creator of that thing, and let them know!

**Why?** Because the best creators you know have imposter syndrome. In creating beauty, they are plagued by self-doubt and the idea that perhaps they could have done better, somehow. Shipped sooner, released later, researched more, ideated longer. This is compounded by quick critique, bug reports and hot-takes that quickly come from all directions when work hits the mainstream. 

Well-meaning but constant and exhausting.

Those same creators rarely see thanks or praise... yet it means so much and is an unusual but important counter to the criticism they inevitably receive, or impose upon themselves.

So I encourage you to drop a nice email and tell someone they've produced something worthwhile — you won't know the impact of that message, but I guarantee it'll be good.

## Proof that it's worth it!

Saying thanks should be a gift, never about the responses you may or may not receive. That said, in practicing this over the years I have received some feedback that serve to highlight the importance of this small gesture: 

1. I fell instantly in love with [Graphy](https://graphy.app/) — it makes me feel so smart, so I told them. *"Wow — what lovely feedback! I have shared this with the team too and you've made us all very happy! Thanks so much!"*

2. I'm a fan of [Russ Chimes](https://open.spotify.com/artist/5L1ueznqwXIHAimfnhfftF?si=afAVFN4zRLmmI71Y7bEyoA), and in 2022 he released the track '[Energy Surge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKGKg4cvG4Y&ab_channel=OPENERS)' after a bit of a quiet period. So I sent an email to say how much I loved the track, glad he's back at it, and that both my kids have grown up on his music. His response *"Well you almost made me cry."* 

3. I learned that one of my favorite musical artists [Lyrah](https://open.spotify.com/artist/5JyKQ4MQ2HkU1n1BYiKMWW?si=vWRK2pGtSuisvMSDdQ6TYQ) had quit her job as a product designer to pursue her passion in music. So I tweeted to say how proud I was of her, and she responded so say how much peer support meant to her. Starstruck!

4. When challenged by a difficult contract job I found myself referencing [Untitled UI](https://www.untitledui.com/) a lot — a huge body of incredibly detailed work. So I emailed Jordan Hughes, the designer behind it, who replied *"You've made my week"*. His week!

5. Finally, I read [this case-study](https://www.alexhollender.info/projects/wiki-2023) by Alex Hollender about his redesign of Wikipedia. Yeah, big job. I emailed to say how impressed I was with his resolve and humility, and he responded that almost nobody had ever given praise. Out of 4.3 **billion** unique visitors!

It doesn't have to be for every product you use, or every song you love — but when you get *that feeling*... I'd encourage you to share the love. You never know the impact! ✨

Send the nice email

### I was immediately drawn to [Buildkite](https://buildkite.com/) because of the opportunity it presented. A profitable and well-loved product, but one that hadn't seen much involvement from designers until very recently. It's a familiar story, in order to scale and innovate — the tools, practices and cultural understanding of Design had to be established.

As Design Lead I've had the opportunity to affect that change at a foundational level — from the bottom up — by introducing the tools and remote-first processes that enable progress. I aim to demonstrate good practice by serving as an example, by coaching and writing, by being an unblocking function to teams and by establishing effective customer-first practices. I’m a friendly face in design.

I have also been hands-on designing high-impact work, with a primary focus on evolving the visual language and setting UX standards that will scale. I've also taken the opportunity to pursue my own personal agenda — to create a more human-first and inclusive product — something that is at odds with the 'tech standard'.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FM04gmc6JRCTMijSnmHzQaR5JjFW2%2Fz6kBFIlU7RgFxmijUFU2%2Ff09c72d3-45c5-41ba-a1f7-ab0481fe3d50.png?alt=media&token=c1a628e3-f00e-47e0-97df-9a7d40470046","id":"f09c72d3-45c5-41ba-a1f7-ab0481fe3d50","width":3200,"height":2108,"filename":"main.png","type":"image/png","caption":"Setting a visual standard for our complex product suite","border":false}]}
```

## How it's Going

Here are some of the landmark achievements in my inaugural year — implemented in parallel to the company tripling in size. I'm proud of what I've done, not least because the domain is so technically challenging!

## **Leadership**

I'm an advocate for design, working across all teams to ensure we are creative, collaborative and customer-obsessed in our approach.

* Established collaborative design practices — both within product and the wider design org — to encourage creativity and consistency of output. Including the habit of regularly sharing work in progress and involving engineers early — a practice now used by all designers and contractors

* Created the visual structures and processes of a well-documented design system, integrated design as a part of the frontend working group and worked with front end engineers to implement the foundational elements of a Buildkite Design System

* Undertaken research to better understand our customers and product strategy — resulting in terminology, which has been widely adopted across the business and a standard we hold all feature development to

* Set up regular coaching with designers, PMs and Leadership — with the intention of elevating craft, supporting people through a challenging period of company growth and furthering career paths

* Created the first design-specific Career Growth Framework for the business, which both helps elevate the current team, but also sets a industry-standard foundation for future hires

* Built relations across Product, Leadership, Sales and Customer teams to better understand cross-functional work and to influence design thinking outside of the feature teams — such as how/when to involve customers, how to research and process feedback and seeing design as an enabler not a blocker

* Affected design strategy across teams by advocating for human-centered design practices — such as challenging visual density and embracing simplicity — strategies that have been particularly instrumental in the upcoming pipeline of work

### **Craft**

I strive to lead by example and aim to set a high bar of creative excellence. In that capacity I've been working cross-functionally to encourage consistency, customer-focus and the confidence to pursue unique and defensible design decisions to set us apart.

* Set the visual standard for the future of the product — from colours, typography and iconography, to the high-level principles and documentation. A full-app redesign in small and measurable increments

* Designed and implemented the first visual refresh of the core product in recent memory — using the project as a baseline for accessibility and a step towards visual consistency across the app. [Read the blog post](https://buildkite.com/blog/build-header-redesign)

* Created a new navigation structure, colour system and custom iconography used across the entire suite of products. Including the creation, documentation and maintenance of the design system, BKUI

* Worked with Marketing and Brand to elevate the visual tone of the product through a new illustrative style in 2023 — setting the foundations for a visually unique product

* Worked closely with Foundations and Sales teams to produce usage reporting tooling — which has already seen great reception from customers

* Designed various features and "North star" products to set an appetite for future work — such as a collaborative tools announced by the CEO at the 2022 [Unblock Conference](https://unblockconf.dev/22) — a lot of which has gone into the roadmap, or has already been shipped

> **"You've had SO MUCH impact on the design culture at Buildkite, it feels like we are a proper team now. And you've influenced processes so that design actually feels like a proper thing we do in Product" — Designer**

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FM04gmc6JRCTMijSnmHzQaR5JjFW2%2Fz6kBFIlU7RgFxmijUFU2%2Fa20d51de-5553-4bc0-b294-1d3818d352ee.mp4?alt=media&token=e235f5e2-e454-44da-b251-2587a9c8c0dd","id":"a20d51de-5553-4bc0-b294-1d3818d352ee","width":3056,"height":1278,"filename":"before-after.mp4","type":"video/mp4","caption":"","border":false}]}
```

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FM04gmc6JRCTMijSnmHzQaR5JjFW2%2Fz6kBFIlU7RgFxmijUFU2%2F1c4d73a1-bfb3-4fdb-990a-12dfcf922dab.png?alt=media&token=45362252-e0da-454a-98c6-e897aa97b825","id":"1c4d73a1-bfb3-4fdb-990a-12dfcf922dab","width":7500,"height":3915,"filename":"new-sidebar.png","type":"image/png","caption":"","border":false}]}
```

*Above: Before/after accessibility improvements and a navigation refresh*

↑

I draw professional satisfaction from enabling creative success — by providing the tools and services to help individuals and teams produce effective design solutions. I look for opportunities to affect long-lasting impact on a company... consider this a work in progress.

Year One

Product Design Lead

Tips for designing remotely

Moving From Sketch To Figma

Where to Find Design Inspiration

Navigating Negative Feedback: Product Launches

IAAP Web Accessibility Certification

Designing Without Whiteboards: The Remote Guide to Product Design

Top 22 UX Designer Portfolio Websites in 2022

Moving your Team to Figma

Establishing Help Scout Design Systems

The Digital Revolution

Adapt and Grow

The Truth About Design Leadership

Course Instructor

I provide no-cost coaching and guidance to not-for-profit organizations, students and under-represented groups. Diversity and inclusive practices are incredibly important to me — and through this I ensure my coaching base is at least 80% women and representative of a global audience.

Design Coach

Saving lives... but mostly towing boats back to harbour

Crew

Mentor

Providing the occasional mentoring session and portfolio review to students and emerging talent

Graphic Designer

Senior Designer

My primary role at Atlassian was to help progress the visual craft standard of the globally distributed design team. This involved mentoring, education, facilitating design discovery and helping designers develop and sell conceptual improvements at a company scale. 

I was also responsible for helping large projects find clarity in moments of indecision. In this capacity I was able to produce process, UI and visual direction for a re-launched version of Jira and provide design strategy to Bitbucket, the design systems team and a host of smaller initiatives.

It was my time at Atlassian where my love for coaching, creativity and establishing remote-first practices grew.

Lead Designer

Product Designer

In 2007 as a freelance designer, I found there was no great way to share design work, collaborate and gather client feedback. I had a need, so I learned how to code and built my own solution — Prevue.

Through constant progression, iteration, reinvention and plenty of late nights — I took Prevue from an idea to a profitable concept sharing and feedback platform used by over 30,000 designers and agencies worldwide, to share millions of images with their own clients.

In 2018, Prevue was acquired ✨

Founder

Junior Designer

Design Lead

I joined Sendle — a logistics startup — during their formation to be the voice of design, and establish the systems and visual tools necessary for scale. As a small team, I was also very hands-on in producing the work — operating at the breakneck pace of a startup.

My biggest impact was in creating products and features that had a direct and measurable impact on revenue, volume and reduced churn — whilst also building a more customer-centric focus to the business, and proving that by helping customers be successful, we'd be successful.

VP Design

Through my advisory practice I have coached hundreds of high-performing designers and creative individuals — helping them navigate tricky spots in their career and find clarity and purpose in moments of opportunity. I lead with honesty and humility, and aim to help designers uncover success on their own terms.

In this capacity I’ve had the privilege of coaching design leaders from the likes of Canva, Atlassian, Facebook, Webflow, Shopify, Wordpress and some amazing high-performing startups!

I also facilitate design reviews for small tech teams — collaborating with designers on concepts, ideas and coaching individuals towards producing their best work. I also advise portfolio companies of one of Australia’s largest VC firms — helping CEOs create effective design organizations.

Design Coach & Startup Advisor

For a whirlwind 8 months I mixed visual design with coaching, running workshops, talking at events and advising companies on their creative strategies. I worked with a range of interesting tech companies to solve tough UX and UI challenges — building out design systems, evolving existing platforms and creating entirely new products.

Contract Product Design

After a brief hiatus I'm back helping the Help Scout team bring AI, automation and a whole new Inbox experience to their customers. Bringing some fresh eyes and a bit of lived experience back to the mix, I've come back swinging... launching a new version of their design system, a re-designed core product, and some fresh new visual styles. Back in my element.

Principal Designer

Over the course of 5 years at Campaign Monitor I held a number of titles on both the Marketing and Product sides of the business. But my first and most significant role was as Head of Design, where I was tasked with building the brand and creating a design team — a dream opportunity for me.

I created and managed a team of high-performing designers, front-end engineers and design-adjacent roles to deliver world-class user experiences to millions of customers. I designed the brand, design strategy, and worked directly with the CEO in guiding the company through its acquisition and billion dollar valuation.

Head of Design

During a prolonged period of sponsorship by the Royal Navy (UK), I competed professionally in British sailing events and taught in both the UK and Mediterranean. I've competed with various successes in national competitions, and was featured in a number of industry publications. During this period I also worked as a senior sailing coach — teaching basic to advanced skills and racing to all age ranges and abilities.

In addition to a full set of RYA accreditations, powerboat and instructor certificates, in 2005 I earned RYA 'Advanced Racing Coach' qualifications, making me one of the most qualified dinghy coaches in the UK.

Sailing Coach

My time at Help Scout — US-based customer support tool — was spent as Principal Designer; producing design work for high-impact features, while also producing processes and guidance to help facilitate great work in others. 

As a designer, I created a whole new chat product and revenue stream, designed their embeddable suite of tools from the ground-up and produced a number of features aimed at helping support teams operate more effectively at scale. I collaborated remotely with engineers, customers and product leadership to see problems from concept to completion.

Working closely with the founders, I was also responsible for building the ways the fully-remote team collaborate and communicate as a team to design effectively at scale and across borders. In addition to creating the design system and ensuring its company-wide adoption, I worked directly with designers to encourage effective and creative approaches to the work.

Reporting directly to the CEO, my core responsibilities were to enable design success throughout the business — teaching customer-centered tactics and best practice to an engineering-bias organization.

In a leadership capacity I created cross-functional processes for designers to operate in a collaborative and effective way — and support individuals in their craft and professional development. I created career growth frameworks, coaching structures and processes necessary to help designers operate at their best.

On the tools, I created the design system and established the principals and visual direction for strategically important projects. I was also responsible for modernizing the UI and creating the UX and UI foundations for future product growth.

Buzz Usborne

2024

2023