DONNA S EO
Senior Director at Yahoo
THE BREAKTHROUGH
FROM STUDIOS TO 450 MILLION USERS
Looking back at your early career, what experiences are most valuable?
Outside of design school, when I interned at the movie company, I learned a sense of what’s the worst that someone could say? It’s no. It’s a four person company, but we were promoting movies like 007 and Pitch Perfect at the time. And to promote a movie, part of my job was to cold call businesses across Seattle to mail them free tickets. And so I had a quota of fifty calls, and I would literally call local businesses, and be like, “Hey, can we email you some pre screening tickets?” I dealt with a swath of personalities, like people who are rude, or people who are trying to stay on the phone and have a conversation, and such. Cold calling is kind of a crazy exercise, but I felt like I learned a lot in confidence; being strategic; speaking on the fly; and making conversation if I needed to.
What project are you most proud of and why?
The project I did at Microsoft, I joke One Outlook— it’s my claim to fame. But at the time, I was 26, really young, and there was a big problem. There were murmurs of doing this work. And I came up with what we should be doing, and it resonated with major stakeholders in the organization, and they put a team around that. We pulled people from different platforms to come together to execute on this idea that I had.
Suddenly, I was in higher-level meetings, with a Bill Gates review. I was a manager at a very young age, and I just remember thinking, I don’t want to be talking, I want to be designing. But anyways, that’s a sidebar. I’m really proud of how far I was able to take that. They started building that, and I think they’re still rolling it out.
PREVIOUSLY
Senior Staff Product Designer at Coinbase
Principal Product Design Manager at Microsoft Outlook
I left after a year into that. That was probably the one thing I wish I could have seen through. But the fact that they’re still working on it, and it’s been more than five years now, is a testament to larger companies. When you have to move 450 million people over to a new piece of tech and make sure things don’t break and are seamless. It’s going to take a really long time to upgrade anything. I think I kind of saw that, felt that, and just left my designs and my vision there on the product team.
THE ESSENTIAL SKILL
FINDING YOUR VOICE, OUTSIDE THE CRAFT
What skill, technical or interpersonal, have you found most essential to develop?
ONE OUTLOOK— IT’S MY CLAIM TO FAME.
Talking. Being able to talk about your work, being able to craft a story based on the audience you’re talking to. If you can’t talk about your work, then you could have a really great design, and no one will listen. Is it a good design? Probably, but it’s not going to go anywhere. Knowing what your strengths are and what you’re not so good at, being able to self reflect and be self aware is really important for anyone in any career because then you know what you’re selling within yourself.
Microsoft allowed people to take a Dale Carnegie class on speaking and leadership. And because my one weakness has always been the one thing I’m always cognizant of is how I speak and how I write. That class taught me to be more mindful of what I’m saying and how.
And the Dale Carnegie book that they teach, which is How to Win Friends and Influence People, is awesome. It’s a great book that I highly recommend if people want to learn more about that. Those experiences added a lot of skills outside of design that have helped me.
DON’T LET AI TAKE AWAY YOUR CRITICAL THINKING, BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR OWNERSHIP.
AI TAKEOVER?
STAYING HUMAN IN A NEW ERA
Do you think Artificial Intelligence can replace high quality design anytime soon?
I don’t think AI can replace really high quality design anytime soon. But the thing I really want to warn people against is don’t let AI take away your critical thinking. You should be telling it things. It should not be telling you things.
It bothers me so much when people I’m leading are running their documents through Chat GPT, because I feel like I can see it now. When I see a portfolio and it’s like AI speak, I question, do you know what you’re saying? Do you know what you’re writing on this thing because you just said it three times in different ways. So don’t let AI take away your critical thinking, because it’s going to take away your ownership. And that’s important.
I just want more things to protect us against AI. I’m really worried about the youth, because I think a lot of youth are lacking critical thinking and interpersonal skills. Maybe it’s COVID, but it is also the idea of being chronically online. You need to truly have your own thought.
MASTERING CRAFT
UNLOCKING
A NEW WAY OF THINKING
What were the most valuables lessons you learned in school?
You guys aren’t learning how to design an app because they’re trying to get you better at craft. Being able to see that should have more lighting and why is going to be your biggest skill. You’re training your visual eye, learning to play with scale, and layouts, to quickly spot when two letters need to be kerned closer together. You learn to iterate, kill your baby, to challenge your first idea. You’re learning to persevere, understand the commitment to delivering high quality work. And that’s what makes this program so great.
Take more visual classes. I remember Chad was in my year. He was the Master’s student in our year, and Catherine was another one, and she’s the one I did the type poster with. They were in all the undergrad visual skill classes. I made a faceted typeface ‘Quartz’ because I didn’t want to deal with curves. I learned so much in that
THIS COULD BE ONE PIXEL LESS... AND THAT MAKES SUCH A DIFFERENCE.
class. It’s such a grueling class. But I actually think about that class a lot as having such an impact, because you really see the little.
When you’re going through critique and Karen (design professor) says this could be one pixel less. And you see it, you change it, and that makes such a difference. You think, why should I care about this? Well, it’s not about that. You can actually see it in other ways now. Two cards are next to each other in a tile, and you’re like, actually, this should have more space. I think it’s things like that that are invaluable.
Are you guys having fun with each other? Because, your class is gonna be your greatest network. You are all going to grow in your careers. I think about the Facebook guys in 2009 who are the fathers of Facebook design. They are a network of really talented designers who are just upleveling each other in the industry. They’re just bringing each other along.
I think about that for our class... my connections to people and how I bring them along or they bring me along. You’re only going get that from your peers and the people you work with.
Interviewed by Juliette Kwak
2021 OUTLOOK
SENIOR PRODUCT DESIGNER MANAGER
SENIOR PRODUCT DESIGNER
PRODUCT DESIGNER
UX INTERN
2015 BING FROG 2014 COGNITION STUDIO
VISUAL DESIGN INTERN
DESIGNER 1