Who works on the UI/UX design of your platforms (i.e. the Forum, EA Funds, Giving What We Can)?
Has CEA ever considered hiring a UI/UX designer (even just for a short period of time) to improve the interface and user experience of any of your platforms?
How open would you be to hiring one within the next year? Why or why not?
I’m not saying that the UI/UX design of any of the platforms are bad—they’re pretty alright in my view. But I could imagine that a UI/UX designer, even a contractual one, can do good user research and testing to uncover more pain points or opportunities, and figure out how best to solve them, or help design useful, usable, and delightful future features/platforms that the engineers would build.
So I wonder if CEA might benefit from a contractual one, especially if you’re building new features/platforms. I have UI/UX design experience, although I’m not currently available to apply for a UI/UX design position at CEA, but others might be interested to apply!
First: definitely, yes we’ve considered contracting with a designer. But before I say more about what situations it works for, first a word about specialization. There’s currently one developer working on the EA Forum (not counting LW) and one developer for all of GWWC and EA Funds. With such a small team, everyone’s very generalist. Just like there’s no one specialized in DevOps, there’s no one specialized in design either. Hiring for such a role without capacity to build support for their work would be a mistake. See thesesurveys (epistemic status: quick google search) for some evidence that few places have a 1:2 designer:engineer ratio. So you end up with developers doing design. Both Sam and I have spent a lot of time on skilling up our design, learning tools like Figma, and stealing from people who are better than us.
All of the above about specialization doesn’t really address the point about contractors, hence why we’re more open to that. Also note that this is JP writing his personal opinion, but hiring strategy is set by Ben West and CEA broadly.
Yup it makes sense that CEA is mainly considering contracting a UI/UX designer rather than hiring one. I’m glad to hear that you and Sam have spent a lot of time skilling up your design and learning tools like Figma!
For GWWC I’m very interested in speaking to people with UX experience and capacity who have a deep understanding of what we’re trying to do. At this stage it isn’t in our budget for a full time role but likely something we could find for a contract role (and would love any input from UX people who don’t have capacity for contract role or full time work).
I don’t think I have enough time to meaningfully help out, but here are 3 user researchers and 2 designers in the EA movement who I’ve spoken to that you can consider reaching out to:
Maryann Slama, a design researcher at IBM in Germany
For EA Funds this is something that we’re planning to do very soon. It’s something that’s always on the backburner (as shipping features always tends to take priority), but now that there’s a new website that has much better global control of component styling, this is something where I think we can get some easy wins.
Who works on the UI/UX design of your platforms (i.e. the Forum, EA Funds, Giving What We Can)?
Has CEA ever considered hiring a UI/UX designer (even just for a short period of time) to improve the interface and user experience of any of your platforms?
How open would you be to hiring one within the next year? Why or why not?
I’m not saying that the UI/UX design of any of the platforms are bad—they’re pretty alright in my view. But I could imagine that a UI/UX designer, even a contractual one, can do good user research and testing to uncover more pain points or opportunities, and figure out how best to solve them, or help design useful, usable, and delightful future features/platforms that the engineers would build.
So I wonder if CEA might benefit from a contractual one, especially if you’re building new features/platforms. I have UI/UX design experience, although I’m not currently available to apply for a UI/UX design position at CEA, but others might be interested to apply!
First: definitely, yes we’ve considered contracting with a designer. But before I say more about what situations it works for, first a word about specialization. There’s currently one developer working on the EA Forum (not counting LW) and one developer for all of GWWC and EA Funds. With such a small team, everyone’s very generalist. Just like there’s no one specialized in DevOps, there’s no one specialized in design either. Hiring for such a role without capacity to build support for their work would be a mistake. See these surveys (epistemic status: quick google search) for some evidence that few places have a 1:2 designer:engineer ratio. So you end up with developers doing design. Both Sam and I have spent a lot of time on skilling up our design, learning tools like Figma, and stealing from people who are better than us.
All of the above about specialization doesn’t really address the point about contractors, hence why we’re more open to that. Also note that this is JP writing his personal opinion, but hiring strategy is set by Ben West and CEA broadly.
Yup it makes sense that CEA is mainly considering contracting a UI/UX designer rather than hiring one. I’m glad to hear that you and Sam have spent a lot of time skilling up your design and learning tools like Figma!
For GWWC I’m very interested in speaking to people with UX experience and capacity who have a deep understanding of what we’re trying to do. At this stage it isn’t in our budget for a full time role but likely something we could find for a contract role (and would love any input from UX people who don’t have capacity for contract role or full time work).
If anyone fits the bill please get in touch 🙇♂️
I don’t think I have enough time to meaningfully help out, but here are 3 user researchers and 2 designers in the EA movement who I’ve spoken to that you can consider reaching out to:
Maryann Slama, a design researcher at IBM in Germany
Maria Baekkelie, a service designer from Norway
Jah Ying Chung , a user and market researcher from Hong Kong
Laura Pomarius, assistant director at Forethought Foundation and freelance graphic/web designer
Nicoleta Faina, a freelance designer I’ve worked with, who made the FB DP frames for GWWC I think!
For EA Funds this is something that we’re planning to do very soon. It’s something that’s always on the backburner (as shipping features always tends to take priority), but now that there’s a new website that has much better global control of component styling, this is something where I think we can get some easy wins.
Glad to hear!