- Guntis Rusa
- 26 år
- Ansat siden 2016
- BA Digital Concept Development
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How would you describe your field and main tasks?
I work as a Product Designer and within the tech world that is someone who solves problems, mostly design related. It’s a combination of a few design fields like User Experience, User Interface, Interaction Design, Digital Design and many more. It may sound like a lot of responsibilities, but in general, the main focus of a Product Designer is around User Experience and Interface Design. At least that’s how it is at Peakon.
Some of the main tasks of a Product Designer are researching the problem, whether it is with user research or desk research where both qualitative and quantitative insights gathering are a crucial part of the process. This is followed by prototyping and another round of validation research. Then it continues with making high fidelity designs yet sometimes there’s a need to get back to the drawing board and prototyping. It always varies and depends a lot on what is the task ahead and it’s the scope.
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What are the most exciting and challenging parts of your job?
As mentioned above, it’s solving problems and human needs by design because they can vary a lot. Sometimes it can be a small usability issue or a more complex design update of the big part of the product.
Initially you attack them the same way and sometimes a small change can be more challenging than a larger one. I find it always exciting to work on any change as the design is something I am very passionate about and have a great interest in.
It’s always exciting to try to solve these design issues as the design is constantly evolving and you can learn more ways of solving the problem every day. They say that design is never done, so you work with that mindset that anything can be improved and needs to be improved. It’s challenging to create great user experiences which at the same time need to be aesthetically pleasing with a high visual standard - that’s a product designers greatest challenge.
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How do you use your education in your position?
I have a bachelors degree in Digital Concept Development from the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology. Our programme was a combination of design, communication, technology, and marketing courses. We learned a little from each of them and saw how it’s applied to real-world environments. The programme was designed to solve digital problems and tasks for real clients combining knowledge from each of these fields.
During that time I learned how to deal with and solve a problem from different perspectives. When it comes to using education within my position, it gave me the knowledge about a variety of digital terms and what it means to work within a team and wearing and juggling different hats. Of course, the design is a lot about practice and it’s mostly self-taught. But my education helped me to shape and steer it in the right direction. One can say I learned about the aesthetics and design principles but it mostly helped me to see how it is to work together with others and for others, how it is to combine different skill sets, solve problems and create concepts.
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What are the three most important things for you in your job at Peakon?
The most important things for me in my job are things I consider important in my life. We spend most of our lives working, so that time spent needs to be used wisely. First of all, I am lucky because I have an opportunity to do something I am very passionate about. And with passion comes motivation and with that productivity.
The other things besides that are inclusion, I want to belong in my team and see us working together to achieving goals. Empathetic and friendly working environment helps you to focus on what’s important and you don’t get distracted. You feel support and you know that others have your back whenever you need it.
Besides, diverse teams make you learn from each other and gain knowledge from different perspectives and backgrounds.
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Why is Peakon an attractive company for you?
Peakon is an attractive company for me because it fights for a cause that very resonates with what I mentioned above. Peakons mission is to help everyone in an organization reach their full potential.
The thought that a product you are creating can help millions to reach their full potential and be more passioned, motivated, productive, inclusive, diverse and so on with their jobs is the most attractive thing about Peakon.
Besides that Peakons management practices what they preach and try to apply the tool, they create to their own employees. They are creating a culture where everyone is fighting for the same cause and do so with a great passion. Not everything can always be perfect, but you know that you are being listened to and cared about.
All in all, you want to be part of something that is exciting and you know you have an amazing journey ahead of you.
