23rd November 2021

Me and UI: Alex’s Experience

A woman smiling wearing glasses
A woman smiling wearing glasses
Alex
Mid-weight UI/UX designer

Why did you choose to join Vodafone’s Design System team?
I think Design System is a natural direction for any Digital organisation that wants to reduce inconsistencies, optimise internal processes and deliver a better, more exciting experience to the user. Seeing that this is a priority for the business helps you to understand how progressive your workplace is or wants to be. Creating a Design System for a company of Vodafone’s caliber is one of a kind opportunity, which I believe will help me to mature professionally even more. I was very excited to join my team from day one.

How is Vodafone’s Design System team different from other places you used to work at in the past?
Coming from another large organisation, I know how sometimes hard it can be to push for a change or improvement due to the scale of the business.

And as a growing designer with an appetite for big-impact projects, I was positively surprised to find out how much of the autonomy my team has to make decisions and implement the design solutions regardless of their scale. You can surely see that the team is responsive to new ideas and proposals. The workplace where you can make a positive impact regardless of your seniority is the most exciting place to be, isn’t it?

"The list of things for me to learn and explore is too long to fit on this page, but I am confident I can find this knowledge at Vodafone and ensure it will serve a good purpose to me, my team, and our users."

What were your expectations and first impression?
Joining the team remotely is a completely different experience. You can’t see your new team in real life and all communication is limited by “meeting format”. However, I was very pleased with how friendly the team and seniors were from day one, trying their best to break the ice even within such extreme circumstances. Worth to add the situation seems to improve now as more and more people are back in the office, which definitely helps to bond with the team more.

Another important thing for me as a designer was to ensure the work environment is not too corporate and has somewhat relaxed communication in the team. Vodafone didn’t disappoint - even during the interview process there was room for little jokes and laughter - always a good sign to me.

A work from home set up with a laptop on a stand, lamp, mug notepad and candle

What are you looking forward to next?
Design system product has a long journey ahead and I’m very looking forward to seeing how this will scale up further. Apart from a detailed inspection of UI components, there is also an ambition to iterate on some core design principles, which is a topic I am personally very interested in. 

Interested in joining our digital journey?