自学成才翁_以自学成才的设计师的身份在产品表旁导航。

自学成才翁

Two years ago, I switched from medicine and redesigned Instagram.

两年前，我从医学界转而 重新设计了Instagram 。

Three months after, I packed what I could fit into my carry-on and two moving boxes, and flew to Saigon to become Christina’s second product designer. Fast forward to today and I am now their Head of Product.

三个月后，我将装满的东西装进手提包和两个移动箱子，然后飞往西贡，成为克里斯蒂娜的第二位产品设计师。 快进到今天，我现在是他们的产品负责人。

I can still remember my first task on the job: creating color swatches for our tour guide’s awesome new helmets. It might sound like a simple feat, but after trying out hundreds of color combinations and learning a thing or two about color theory, I was pretty proud of the results.

我仍然记得我在工作中的第一个任务：为导游的超赞新头盔制作色板。 这听起来像是一个简单的壮举，但是在尝试了数百种颜色组合并学习了一两次有关颜色理论的知识之后，我为结果感到非常自豪。

As Christina’s grew from 100 to well over 450+ team members spanning all across Vietnam, so did my responsibilities. From tour guide helmets to redesigning the company’s flagship communication app to then launching it for Airbnb hosts all over the world to use, its been a crazy (but fun) ride.

随着克里斯蒂娜(Christina)的团队从100名增加到遍布越南各地的450余名团队成员，我的职责也随之增加。 从导游头盔到重新设计公司的旗舰通讯应用程序，再向全世界的Airbnb主机推出以供使用 ，这是一次疯狂(但有趣)的旅程。

As I look forward to my next journey back to the States, I wanted to reflect on my experiences by sharing what I’ve learned along the way as someone who started with zero knowledge about product design and technology.

当我期待着下一次回到美国的旅程时，我想通过分享我作为一个对产品设计和技术的零知识开始的人所学到的东西来反思自己的经历。

Let’s be clear — I still feel like I know nothing. I just know a little bit less of nothing than the day before.

让我们说清楚-我仍然觉得自己一无所知。 我只知道一点比前一天少 。

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招聘时请放心。 (Trust your gut when it comes to recruitment.)

If you, your team, and your culture are playing to the same tune — you will know whether the candidate is a good fit (or not). As a rule of thumb, my go-to question after assessing a candidate’s technical skill is:

如果您，您的团队和您的文化在发挥相同的作用-您将知道该候选人是否合适。 根据经验，在评估候选人的技术技能后，我要问的问题是：

“How did this person make me feel?”

“这个人让我 感觉 如何？”

My goal for going into any interview is to gain a better understanding of who the candidate is beyond what is on their resume and what their motivations are for arriving in this room with me. If I left the interview feeling more confused and conflicted than I did going in, it’s probably a good sign that this candidate is not the one. If I left the room feeling energized and excited, s/he is most likely a keeper.

我参加任何面试的目的是为了更好地了解候选人是谁，而不是简历上的内容，以及与我一起进入这个房间的动机。 如果我离开面试比进入时更加困惑和矛盾，这可能是一个好信号，表明这位候选人不是那个候选人。 如果我离开房间时充满活力和兴奋，他/她很可能是管理员。

Hire someone you would be excited to work with and most importantly, trust your gut instinct.

雇用一个您会很兴奋的人，最重要的是，相信您的直觉。

在表达自己的价值观时要保持一致。 (Be consistent in expressing your values.)

From creating wireframes to leading a team of developers, I knew it was important to establish our design and engineering principles early. It helps guide us in making product decisions, examining trade-offs during development, and uniting us stronger as a team.

从创建线框到领导开发人员团队，我知道尽早建立我们的设计和工程原理很重要。 它有助于指导我们做出产品决策，在开发过程中进行权衡取舍，并使我们团结一致，成为一个团队。

An example of when we put our principles to the test was when my CTO had fixed a bug only to have it spam our users with hundreds of push notifications within a span of minutes.

我们测试原则的一个例子是，我的CTO修复了一个错误，但该错误仅在几分钟内使数百名用户推送通知给我们的用户。

I suggested to my CTO that he should write a post to be considerate of our users, take accountability, and explain what had happened so that our users can empathize with us through our immediate transparency. It will also be the kind of leadership that our junior engineers can learn from. And he did.

我向我的CTO建议，他应该写一篇帖子，以体贴我们的用户，承担责任并解释发生的事情，以便我们的用户可以通过我们的直接透明度来同情我们。 这也将是我们初级工程师可以学习的那种领导才能。 而他做到了。

Instead of receiving any backlash, his post was received with likes and heart-eye emojis. Not only did our principles became a model for how we communicated as a team and developed our products, but it also forged the path for building a trusting relationship with our users.

没有收到任何强烈反对，他的帖子收到了喜欢和心眼表情符号。 我们的原则不仅成为我们作为团队进行沟通和开发产品的模型，而且还为与用户建立信任关系开辟了道路。

It goes without saying that leaders lead best through their actions, and not only by what they have to say.

毋庸置疑，领导者最好通过自己的行动来领导，而不只是根据他们必须说的话。

Now whenever there’s a bug (not saying it happens often), our users are much more forgiving and understanding of it. Not only that, but the other engineers on our team started to follow his example and took accountability for their own missteps as well.

现在，只要有错误(不是说它经常发生)， 我们的用户就会更加宽容和理解它 。 不仅如此，我们团队中的其他工程师也开始效法他的榜样，并对自己的失误负责。

不要低估1：1会议的力量，因为它们是如此重要。 (Don’t underestimate the power of 1:1 meetings, because they are so, so important.)

Whether you’re a designer or the CEO of a company, 1:1 meetings will always be the bread and butter for building a personal connection with your team. My engineers and I have weekly 1:1 meetings to QA the state of our product and pending features. To my engineers, it might be just a routine product QA. To me, it’s a perfect window of opportunity for me to get to know them on a personal level, address concerns they might have, and provide insights to help them find more value in their work.

无论您是设计师还是公司的首席执行官，1：1的会议始终是与团队建立个人联系的基础。 我和我的工程师每周举行1：1会议，对产品的状态和尚待解决的功能进行质量检查。 对我的工程师来说，这可能只是常规的产品质量检查。 对我而言，这是一个绝佳的机会之窗，让我可以个人了解他们，解决他们可能遇到的疑虑并提供见解，以帮助他们在工作中找到更多的价值。

If you’re looking for mentorship or growth in your career, I suggest scheduling 1:1 meetings with your team leader. First, it shows initiative. Second, you might also be surprised by the feedback and support you get in return. Before reaching out, make sure you understand what your goal is for the meeting. Is it to understand how you’re doing in your role? Is it to ask for additional remote days? After figuring out what your objective is, make sure to communicate it. This will help give your team leader ample time to prepare and keep the meeting focused.

如果您想在职业生涯中寻求指导或成长，建议您与团队负责人安排1：1会议。 首先，它显示了主动性。 其次，您可能还会为得到的反馈和支持感到惊讶。 伸出手之前，请确保您了解会议的目标。 是否了解您的角色表现如何？ 是否要求额外的偏僻日子？ 在弄清楚你的目标是什么之后，请确保传达它 。 这将帮助您的团队负责人有足够的时间准备和保持会议重点。

创建一个流程很棒，但是保持灵活性更好。 (Creating a process is great, but staying flexible is even better.)

Create processes, but plan for disruption. This can mean one of two things. One, the process you created didn’t work out as intended. Two, the process you created worked, but it ended up being discarded somewhere along the ever-evolving development process. This is especially true for startups during their hyper-growth stage when you have many cross-functional teams working together to build and ship a product. When this happens, you have to be able to quickly switch gears, and adopt new mental models, while pushing the overall product vision forward.

创建流程，但要计划中断 。 这可能意味着两件事之一。 第一，您创建的过程无法按预期进行。 第二，您创建的过程可以正常工作，但最终在不断发展的开发过程中被丢弃了。 对于初创公司处于超增长阶段的情况尤其如此，当您有许多跨职能团队共同合作来构建和交付产品时。 发生这种情况时，您必须能够快速切换齿轮并采用新的思维模式 ，同时推动整体产品愿景向前发展。

So instead of looking for an evergreen process, make your process of implementing and iterating evergreen.

因此，不要寻找一个常青的过程，而要使您的实现和迭代常青的过程成为可能。

Figma是国王。 (Figma is king.)

This article is not sponsored by Figma, but I figured this would be a great chance for me to give this amazing team (and product) a shoutout. Before Figma, our design team at Christina’s was getting around with using Sketch for design, Zeplin for hand-off, and Abstract for version control. It was a lot of tools but we had figured out a process that worked for us. Intrigued by Figma’s approach to design and collaboration, I decided to test out the tool to see for myself.

本文不是由Figma赞助的，但是我认为这对我来说是一个极好的机会，向这个了不起的团队(和产品)大喊大叫。 在Figma之前，我们在Christina's的设计团队开始使用Sketch进行设计，使用Zeplin进行传递，使用Abstract进行版本控制。 这是很多工具，但是我们已经找到了适合我们的流程。 对Figma的设计和协作方法感兴趣，我决定测试一下该工具，以供自己查看。

With Figma, design to developer handoff became almost instantaneous. In addition to the speed and efficiency, we also saved a lot of money in not having to use multiple software to maintain our design system, version control, and hand-offs. Since then, our entire product team has switched over to using Figma, and we haven’t looked back since.

借助Figma，从设计人员到开发人员的交接几乎是即时的。 除了速度和效率外，我们还节省了很多钱，无需使用多个软件来维护我们的设计系统，版本控制和交接。 从那时起，我们的整个产品团队都转而使用Figma，此后我们再也没有回头。

“工作政治永远都是一回事，但这并不意味着您必须参与其中。” (“Work politics will always be a thing, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a part of it.”)

My COO said this to me during one of our lunch conversations after I had told him my reason for not wanting to accept the promotion to Head of Product.

在我告诉他我不想接受产品负责人晋升的原因后，我的首席运营官在我们的一次午餐对话中对我说了这一点。

With my previous role as a product designer/owner, I was able to influence business decisions, resolve problems, and focus on building products from behind the shadows, politics-free. However, when he said this to me, it made me realize that it’s not about the situation or the environment, but rather how I choose to react (or not react) to it.

担任产品设计师/所有者之前，我能够影响业务决策，解决问题，并专注于从阴影中构建产品，并且不受政治影响。 但是，当他对我说这句话时，使我意识到，这与局势或环境无关，而与我选择对(或不对)React的方式有关。

More importantly, he made me realize that my new role will only put me in a better position to squash any office politics (with my killer resting face), reinforce our core values, and further protect the positive and empowering culture we have built together.

更重要的是，他让我意识到，我的新角色只会使我处于一个更好的位置，以压制任何办公室政治(以我的杀手resting的面Kong)，强化我们的核心价值观，并进一步保护我们共同建立的积极和授权文化。

尽早开始建立您的角色资本。 (Start building your persona capital early.)

A persona is in short — a representation of a target audience or a person. Research shows it takes about 3 seconds for people to form a perception of you upon the initial meeting. Sometimes even before you’ve even spoken a word. Now consider this in terms of all the micro-interactions you might have with your colleagues, clients, and business partners day-to-day. Add in impromptu slack messages, random hallway exchanges, desk drop-ins, meetings, and company events — now you have given every person you’ve interacted with countless seconds to form their opinion of you.

角色简而言之-目标受众或个人的代表。 研究表明，初次见面时，人们对您的看法大约需要3秒钟。 有时甚至在你说一句话之前 。 现在，考虑到您与同事，客户和业务伙伴日常可能发生的所有微交互。 添加即兴的闲暇消息，随意的走廊交换，办公桌插拔，会议和公司活动-现在，您已经给与您互动的每个人提供了无数秒钟的时间，以形成他们对您的看法。

What kind of team member would you like to be? What kind of leader do you want to be perceived as? What do you want to be known for? Have these questions answered before you join any team or company — or someone else will answer them for you.

您想成为什么样的团队成员？ 您想被视为什么样的领导者？ 您想以什么闻名？ 加入任何团队或公司之前，请先回答以下问题，否则其他人将为您解答。

If you want to be perceived as a competent, reliable, and self-sufficient person — show it and own it every opportunity you get.

如果您想被认为是一个有能力，可靠和自给自足的人，请抓住机会，展现并拥有它。

Once you build your persona capital, it’ll be one of your most valuable assets when communicating with stakeholders, influencing key decisions, and working with cross-functional teams.

建立角色资本后，当与利益相关者进行交流，影响关键决策以及与跨职能团队合作时，它将成为您最有价值的资产之一。

冒名顶替综合症永远不会真正消失，但确实会变得更容易。 (Imposter syndrome never truly goes away, but it does get easier.)

Several months after joining Christina’s, I had a heart-to-heart with my CTO. I told him how I felt like an imposter. I told him how I felt like everything I’ve achieved up to this point had all been attributed to luck. It also didn’t help that I’ve never had any formal design education. I’m afraid that I was going to be exposed as a fraud one day. I was upfront about my personal assessment, and honestly, it felt good to finally say it out loud.

加入Christina's几个月后，我对CTO充满了真情。 我告诉他我感觉像个冒名顶替者 。 我告诉他我感觉到现在为止我所取得的一切都归功于运气。 我从未接受过任何正规的设计教育也无济于事。 恐怕有一天我会被暴露为欺诈。 我的个人评估很坦率，老实说，终于大声说出来真是太好了。

What he said next shocked me:

他接下来说的话震惊了我：

he told me he felt the same.

他告诉我他也有同感。

I was in disbelief and all I could muster was… really? This made me realized that this so-called imposter syndrome is perfectly normal, and it can happen to anyone regardless of age, sex, and experience. If anything, it just means you’re a humble person with really high expectations of yourself.

我难以置信，我所能鼓舞的是……真的吗？ 这使我意识到，所谓的冒名顶替综合症是完全正常的，任何年龄，性别和经验的人都可能发生。 如果有的话，它只是意味着你是一个谦虚的人用自己的真很高的期望。

It’s been a couple of years since that exchange, and since then, I’ve felt less and less like an imposter. If you’re feeling these insecurities, share it with someone you trust. It’ll help relieve some of the burden and guilt.

这次交流已经过去了两年，从那以后，我越来越像冒名顶替者了。 如果您感到这些不安全感，请与您信任的人分享。 这将有助于减轻一些负担和内。

One reassuring thing I’ll add is this — it will only get easier with time as long as you show up, put in the work, and commit to continuously learn.

我要添加的一件令人放心的事情是–只要您露面，投入工作并致力于不断学习，它就会随着时间的推移而变得更加容易。

Remember, you’ve earned your spot at the table. The only person that you need to convince now is yourself.

记住，您已经在桌子上赢得了席位。 现在您唯一需要说服的人就是您自己 。

“您最严厉的批评家永远都是自己。 不要忽略那个批评家，但不要给予它应有的关注。
— 迈克尔·伊恩·布莱克 ” (“Your harshest critic is always going to be yourself. Don’t ignore that critic but don’t give it more attention than it deserves. 
— Michael Ian Black”)

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/navigating-my-seat-at-the-product-table-as-a-self-taught-designer/

自学成才翁