Ali is a designer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She previously worked at Robinhood as an early product designer, leading design for education and working across varying product areas – from news and discovery, premium products, information architecture, communications, and more. Ali has also designed at Visa and FabFitFun, was a Kleiner Perkins Fellow, and helped run a startup incubator. In her free time, she enjoys crafting physical goods and helping companies with design challenges.
Norman shares his principles of user-centered design in The Design of Everyday Things, which is considered a foundation book by many in the design field. He covers an expanse of products, from doors to ovens, providing a helpful framework of the choices that go into designed products and their potential consequences – combating the notion that when something is complicated to figure out, it’s your fault.
The popular 99% Invisible podcast explores the often unnoticed aspects of everyday life, unraveling the fascinating stories behind their design decisions. Though there are many podcast series that cover more specific elements of product design (from UX Research to interviewing for roles), 99% Invisible provides an entertaining and informative examination of the intricate relationship between form and function. The design-enthusiast will appreciate its breadth of episodes (over 500 have been produced since 2010).
This documentary clocks in at under an hour and features Ian Spalter and his work as Head of Design at Instagram. The film provides a high level look into the origins and considerations of digital product design for those curious about the domain. Spalter discusses everything from why product designers get their title (because they consider product strategy, not just user experience) to the necessity of iteration – demonstrating tests for the edges of design concepts and embracing bad ideas as part of the process. The other films in the Abstract series also offer fun insight into different mediums of design.
