Episode 9: Becoming a UX Designer in South-East Asia with Atiqah Khalim, Senior UX Designer at Shopee
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Hi everyone, I'm Dalen, founder and design educator at Curious Core.

Welcome to our Working in UX Design podcast series where we interview a UX design leader in the industry on their experience in this emerging field. We've had UX professionals from Grab, AirAsia, Google and more join us previously and we're bringing you more exciting interviews this year. Stay tuned for this week's interview with our special guest who is working in UX design.

Good evening everyone and welcome to another session of Working in UX Design where we interview practitioners working in user experience design here in this Asia-Pacific region.

With me, I have Atika Kaleem, who is a Senior UX Designer at Shopee, and I am your host, Daylan. So tonight, let me introduce to you Atika's background. She actually started as a visual designer and eventually transitioned into a full-time UX designer in companies like Razer. And today,

She's currently working at one of Asia's largest e-commerce platforms, Shopee, as a senior UX designer in charge of crafting key payment pages and flows to support transactions across the Shopee app and Shopee Pay and other digital products.

As a designer, Artika is also involved in design across the brand's different platforms, including Shopee app, the mobile web design, and we'll have an opportunity to ask a little bit about that from her. She is also an active role model in the Muslim community, where she's one of the co-founders of Malay Designers in SG, which means Malay Designers in Singapore, a group of current and aspiring Malay Muslim designers.

She also used to volunteer for the Kodak Project, a nonprofit ground up initiative that aims to get more minority Muslim women into technology. So we'll have the opportunity to ask her a little bit

about some of these community initiatives that she is on, as well as how she transitioned and got her career into UX design and her interest in gaming in this session itself. So without further ado, let's welcome Atika into our show. Welcome to the show, Atika. I'm glad to be having you here tonight.

Thank you so much Dylan, thanks for the warm introduction. I'm really glad to be able to speak to everyone today and I'm excited to share my experience.

Maybe I'll start with my education background. I know that I worked as a visual designer for a bit, but to be very honest, I majored in political science back in the National University of Singapore. So I don't have any formal degree that is specifically for design. In fact, I was doing social sciences, right? But then I had a bit of, I guess I did a bit of soul searching because I wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue political science professionally.

Part of the reason is also because I didn't do so well academically in my major, so I wanted to pursue something that I was more interested in. So I looked back at my hobbies and I realized, okay, what do I like? I realized that growing up, I like to play around with Adobe Photoshop to design things like block skins, design things like banners for student activities and events, t-shirts and posters.

I realized that this is a hobby that I could turn into a career, right? So I spoke to different professionals around me who worked as graphic designers. I was asking them, should I join like this industry? Should I be a graphic designer? And almost every single one of them said, are you sure you want to do this? Because we are formally trained in this and we can tell you that it's very stressful.

very demanding and we're not sure if you can handle this because you don't come from the same background. So to be honest, it kind of made me feel demotivated a bit but I thought, you know what, I'm just going to give it a go. I'm going to take up an internship in graphic design and see if this is something that I like. So in my final year of university, so that's my fourth year, right? I took this big risk of balancing my final year

with an internship as a graphic designer in a local startup called Popsicle. So it's a startup that creates karaoke products, kind of like Spotify for karaoke. Yeah, it was a huge risk because you know it was my honours year, so I had to write a thesis, I had to do very difficult modules and all that. So the thing is, in that semester I did badly for my grades,

But I thrived a lot in my internship as a graphic designer. So I did really well. And I got a lot of mentorship from my colleagues who also came from a lot of interesting backgrounds as well. Like some of them were...

previously in Grab, some I think attended Harvard Business School before. So I was surrounded by all these very inspiring people who actually, they kept pushing me to pursue graphic design. But then there was one specific senior of mine who was a UX designer. He said, hey, why not you try and explore UX design? Because

Okay, it's great that you're interested in graphic design, but right now UX is booming and tech is also booming in Singapore, in Southeast Asia actually. And also you're doing political science, right? I mean, I was doing political science and there is some...

parts of political science that's actually quite relevant to UX design as well, which is mostly on human behavior and psychology, decision making and stuff like that. So I thought, yeah, UX design sounds like the perfect intersection between all my different interests because I do like to do a bit of graphic design and I do like gaming and tech and UX is actually quite important in gaming. I think we'll talk about that later. And yeah, it's true. I do enjoy some of the

human behavior stuff in social sciences. So all of these three things can actually be really helpful in UX design. So I thought, why not? Why not give UX design a go? So in my internship in that startup, I received some on-the-job training and they also sponsored me

They actually sponsored me for this class, UX class, which Dylan was the instructor. So that's how I got to know him. And that was the beginning of my journey, eventually getting into Razor and then eventually getting into Shopee. Thanks for sharing your journey. I was just wondering, you know, what's the toughest part of first transitioning to visual design from...

political science. We'll talk a little bit more about that from visual design to UX design. For me, one of the challenges that I faced was my portfolio was not strong enough. The quality of my portfolio is not as great as the quality of those who actually went to schools like LaSalle, who actually did graphic design or visual design as their degree.

I would say all of the things inside my portfolio were my own projects for student activities or just things I designed for fun. So because of that,

it was quite difficult to secure an internship or a job in a bigger company. So I had to be more realistic and be open to joining a startup. And honestly, joining a startup is great because they are more open to giving you a lot of responsibilities and they also encourage you to do things beyond your role. So you learn a lot in a short period of time. So I would say that at first,

It felt like I was disadvantaged because I didn't have the formal background for graphic design. But afterwards, it kind of became a blessing because it allowed me to explore so many other roles and allowed me to hone on my UX skills as well.

Well, I think you really hit the right notes over there because we have so many live audience joining us tonight. Tell us a little bit about your transition from visual design or graphic design to UX design. What were some of the more challenging moments? Some of the more challenging moments

how do you decide whether something is good visually and whether something is good in terms of UX? I think they both have different sets of challenges, right? So in visual design, it's more subjective. It's more about, does this look good? Does it meet the branding? Does it deliver the message that we want to say, for example? Whereas for UX design, I had to support it more with data.

Is it something that the user genuinely feels is easy to use? Or is it something that I design because I feel it looks good? Like it's based on my hypothesis that's not validated by any user. So I would say that that's one of the challenges. Because also working in a startup, you don't necessarily get the resource for access to the users.

This being an important part of UX, sometimes I had to take shortcuts, right? So whereas when I was designing for visual design, there wasn't really a lot of shortcuts taken because I didn't have to talk to users. I just had to design based on the requirements given to me. Yeah, and it's okay that we didn't have the resources also because all I needed was the software. All I needed was the computer. But when I did UX, sometimes I don't have the resources needed.

to properly go through the whole UX process, which was quite difficult for me also because I know what was the ideal UX process. This is what my senior UX designer was telling me. He was saying, okay, you need to do this. You need to do research. You need to talk to your users. You need to validate your hypothesis with testing and all that. You need to collect data afterwards to make sure that your design solution is actually fixing the problem, right? And then when I attended the course with Daylern,

he reiterated the same stuff, like you have to go through this whole process. So I guess the challenge was knowing that there's an ideal process and then working in an environment that doesn't really, that doesn't always support that ideal process because of limitations in terms of resources. So it's something that I didn't face in graphic design because what I needed was the tool. But in UX, there's a lot more other things that I didn't have access to.

Yeah, and I think you faced similar challenges when we were both at Razor and

And maybe let's talk a little bit more about your gaming interests, right? Because you mentioned you're a gamer. I'm a gamer as well. And that's why we somehow ended up in one of the companies actually let their employees game during lunch hours, which is Razer. I was studying game design back in school. They also mentioned about how important onboarding is because if you don't do it right for the first 15 minutes,

you lose interest of the gamer, which is the user, right? So super, super important to make sure that people understand the game mechanics, but also get the first reward or the dopamine hit in the first 15 minutes of them playing the game itself. That's really fascinating. I know you're still a gamer and you still continue to play games, as you mentioned, like Baloran.

Who would you say do game UX or UI very well? And maybe for the benefit of those who don't know the difference between UX and UI, perhaps just also explain like what's the difference between game UX and game UI? Okay sure. I think one example of a game that does it quite well

Maybe I won't take games like Valorant or Overwatch and all that because I think there's a specific type of people who play those games. But I think maybe more casual games like Among Us, for example, it's quite a simple game, right? And then it's available on mobile, on PC. And I think a lot of people were able to hop onto that game quite easily and figure out how to play it.

even though there's not a very like the visuals are not great it's very simple right and the controls are also simple but somehow you just know how to use it without so much onboarding as well like on the phone okay i've never tried it on the phone but then um on the pc like it was quite straightforward to know how to move and from the game you can figure out like which parts

like what needs to be interacted with because there's a map for example so it's very simple and easy to use and you don't have to be an avid gamer to understand how it works but then again like i'm not sure how the mobile version works i've heard that it can be a little bit tricky to navigate around the map

So I'm only speaking from the PC perspective. So in terms of difference between UI and UX design, so maybe if I talk about it more generally rather than specific to games, I would say that UI design is more visual. So it includes things like typography, icons,

Some of the things that you see in branding are also in UI design. Things like button colors, button sizes, style guidelines, these are more UI design. Whereas UX design would be more, I would say it takes more into consideration user behavior and flows and also things like error messages and all that. So UI is more visual, UX has more to do with the flows and design.

happy flows and error flows and it's more holistic, I would say. Okay, that's really good. And have you actually applied UX outside of your work or your job? Okay, have I applied UX outside of my job? I have actually. So I think this was back when I was doing some tutoring for students in math, actually. I realized that

What I was doing is that I was teaching them from a way that made sense to me. Like I wasn't lesson planning basically, but I realized that if I take UX principles into consideration, I need to understand that my students are like the users and I need to design a lesson across their needs and understand like what makes sense to them, use the vocabulary that makes sense to them and also teach in a way that makes sense to them, not necessarily what makes sense to me. Yeah, I think that's like one of the things that come to mind.

So you purposely sort of tweaked your approach. Yeah. And what was it sort of like based on? Like, was there a particular thing you learned from them or insight or something like that? What I did was actually ask them questions specifically. Like, okay, basically what I didn't do in the past was I didn't take feedback from them. I just taught them. And then, you know, students, right? Like, especially young students, sometimes they don't

tell you if they don't understand something, right? Especially if it's tuition, like the tired from school, they just want to get it done and over with. They wouldn't actively tell you that this is something that they don't understand. So I guess if you consider...

user interview and survey as part of the methodology, I took a more active approach and asked them, okay, what exactly with this class that you're confused with and what can be done better and what do you enjoy from the class? What can I continue? What I realized is that sometimes when you're teaching, you kind of feel pressured to complete so many topics in one go because there's a test, deadline and all that, right? But then when you do that, right, the students end up

not understanding maybe 80% of it, perhaps because they're tired from school, so they don't pay attention as much. So it's still okay to reduce the amount of content that you teach in a class, but maybe they understand a higher percentage of it and then they feel more prepared and also more confident.

So that's what I learned. That makes a lot of sense. And it's good to hear your teaching experience. And now let's speak a little bit about your current job at Shopee. You've been there for a couple of years. You work on different parts.

of the app itself. Like, you want to tell us what you go through on a day-to-day basis or on a weekly basis? Okay, sure. So I think that there's a bit of a difference now though, because in the past, before the pandemic, we would go to the office, right? So these days, it's work from home. Hopefully, we can go back to the office once the restrictions are lifted, but maybe I'll share my experience working from home the past year.

Usually what I'll do is at the start, I mean, there's always a weekly meeting for different features and different product groups. So I would attend those and we would share like our progress for projects with each other and with the managers. And I think it's also a great way for us to understand what projects other people are working on in case there's a way for you to collaborate if there's some overlap. And then I also...

do like a checkup with the project managers and the developers because in Shopee is actually it's quite collaborative. So you do have the opportunity to work very closely with PMs and developers to check on the progress of different projects. Yeah.

Sometimes, I would say a lot of my job involves the UI part of the process. So definitely, I use a lot of Figma and then I make sure that all my designs are following the design guidelines and it's following the product requirement documents.

I don't really do a lot of research because my job is focused more on UI. So I would say that's mostly what I do in Shopee. Would that be like a project you're particularly proud of that we can actually see on the current Shopee app if we're Shopee users?

Okay, so one project that I'm quite proud of is the login process for Shopee on the web. So before this, the login process was a bit not the best experience. So for example, right? Okay, you have one form and in that one form, you have to fill in your name, your email, your username, your phone number, and the OTP verification, right? And you also have to fill in your password.

two times in that one form. So can you imagine like you fill in everything already and then use hit like send for the OTP, right? And then the moment you key in the OTP and you press next, oh, something's wrong. Maybe your email is invalid. So now you change your email. Then you press next again. Oh, you forgot to re-enter your password because sometimes the forms, they will clear the password when you have to fill in something, right? Okay. So now you re-enter your password.

Once you press next, oh, now your OTP has expired. So it's like one form for everything and it wasn't really the best experience and it caused a lot of issues because...

I think it caused quite a bit of drop-offs also because if you can't sign up, then what's the point? There's all these issues going on. So what we ended up doing was changing the login and the sign-up flow to something that is more step-by-step, mostly because the OTP was getting in the way and all the different errors were getting in the way. So once you do it step-by-step, it reduces the drop-out. And if the OTP is expired, at least...

all your other information that you've inputted is not expired. Whereas in the past, when you have one error message, then it all affects the entire form. I think that makes a lot of sense. We've all gone through really bad forms and at some point we might have given up on registering or actually signing in because the experience is so poor. And so thank you for saving us from that. And in case those who are not familiar with Shopee, Shopee is a marketplace

place where you can buy all sorts of goods and actually procure them. Usually they run a lot of sales and they do a lot of heavy advertising and they are a competitor of Lazada, which is these are the two apps in Southeast Asia that are quite dominant in e-commerce. So I was just wondering how would you sort of like describe the design culture in Shopee itself?

I think the design culture in Shopee is always evolving because I've been in Shopee for around three years now. So what it was like in the past is quite different from what it's like now. I think in the past, we functioned in a more lean group across the entire Shopee, not just design team. So it felt, it was like go, go, go. Like you just had to complete everything really, really fast, right? And like sometimes we do take a little bit of shortcuts, yeah. But these days, I would say that

We focus a lot on optimizing processes. So for example, we prioritize design guidelines. We prioritize having illustrations that are consistent across the app, the web, so that the branding is very consistent, right? I would say that we also take learning as a very important component

part of the work as well. Like in the past, I think we didn't really have enough time because we were focused more on like delivering projects. But these days we have things like Shopee Design Talk every month, which all of us would attend and different people would have the opportunity to share projects that they are proud of so that we could inspire other designers and motivate them to also participate in projects that are fulfilling to them. Yeah. So something that we are quite mindful of is also like the diversity and

I think at the start I was one of the few minorities, but now it's getting more and more diverse. So it's great we have members from Korea, from of course Malaysia, Singapore, China and Indonesia. In the past we had some from India as well, but they've already left. So yeah, it's quite diverse.

And thanks for sharing that. I've got two questions related to joining Shopee and someone in the audience is asking what does Shopee look out for in a UI/UX designer's portfolio? Maybe not so recent, but maybe a couple of months ago, Shopee held like a design challenge to recruit providers. And I know you were sort of part of that process as well. So what does Shopee look out for?

I think what Shopee looks out for is quite similar to what other companies look out for in the UI/UX designer's portfolio. I think the reality in Singapore is that in general, you do have to make sure your portfolio is quite visual, right? You should have some UI in it and it should be quite visually pleasing as well. I think quite a few of the Shopee designers do have a visual background, so it does put them at an advantage. But at the same time, I think we are also shifting towards

trying to get more research inside. So if you could supplement your case studies with your process, that would definitely help you a lot as well. That makes a lot of sense. And with regards to being promoted from, say, a junior UX designer to a senior UX designer, someone is asking what is the requisites or what are the requirements for someone to be promoted from junior to senior? We do have a guideline in terms of

what skills you need to have to be considered junior, senior and so on. So I don't think I'm allowed to share too detailed, but I can say that generally seniors should be able to do things on their own without much guidance and they're able to initiate things and also initiate, let's say, improvements, not just to

your own work, but also towards optimizing processes so that it helps other designers. Yeah. And a lot of self-initiative as well. Yeah, so it's like definitely being more independent contributors of their own, but also possibly, I hear you say before, being able to actually direct their journeys. That's true. Yeah. Okay, that sounds good. And

Someone's asking, as part of your design process, do you rely on any platforms or websites to get design ideas and inspiration? Oh, definitely. So I think as a UX designer, one of the important things that you need to do is competitive analysis. So the apps that I refer to are competitor apps.

The problem with Shopee is that a lot of the competitor apps are in other countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, even China. So I might not have access to it. When it comes to those kind of apps, what I like to do is either I Google, sometimes you can Google for screens, but they tend to be outdated. So I'll get help from people from each country like

We have this team called CX, Customer Experience Team. So they are the ones who do most of the research. Sometimes I would request from them the screens of these apps so that I can have some benchmarking and also some inspiration in terms of what we can do better. And I also refer to websites like Dribbble. So Dribbble with three Bs, right? And also Behance.

The thing about these two websites, though, is that the kind of examples you see there, they do look visually pleasing, but they might not have the best UX. So you should take it with a pinch of salt. You shouldn't assume it's the best design.

But you could refer to it as something that looks visually pleasing. And then on your own, you have to decide, is the UX for this good? If not, how do you adjust it to your app's requirements so that it works well? And also using a lot of popular apps, I think that also helps in understanding good UX, like

You know, apps like Facebook, maybe even TikTok, Instagram, these are the apps that a lot of people are using, right? So the kind of interactions, the kind of flows, and the kind of wording that they use is what people are used to. And the thing about UX is it's not always about being...

so unique and like to completely recreate something, right? The point about UX is that it makes sense to the user. So there is no harm in getting inspiration from popular apps and trying to recreate some of the design patterns so that it makes sense for the users. Yeah, I certainly second that point. I mean, if we look at an app like Tinder, there's so many apps that copy that swiping left and right mechanism.

mechanic, including games as well. There's some really interesting combination. And I was just wondering, in doing your design for Shopee and through the CX team where they do the research, someone's asking if there's a shelf life to the research. Are you conscious about the shelf life or if there is a shelf life? I'm not sure if there's a shelf life, actually. So unfortunately, I can't answer that question. But I do know that they do collect

We do get updated about new data, like weekly. Sometimes it's from the CX team. Sometimes it's from other teams that collect user feedback. So yeah. In that case, someone's also asking if you have a favorite UX or UI designer. Do I have a favorite UX or UI designer? Yeah. I think that I don't have a specific favorite UI or UX designer, but I really like Apple products.

I just think that they are designed really well. Like the attention to detail is great, it feels premium and it's not just the hardware but it's also the software. Like the operating system is so easy to use and it's very seamless across all the products, right? I know I'm a gamer and I use PC for gaming but

But when it comes to like a really good design, I much prefer Apple products. Because we use that for work. So we do spend more time at work than maybe in front of the computer or gaming.

That's true. Someone's asking about your login success story. Can you share another significant success related to any UX metrics achieved? You know, like where you actually have to measure and make a visible improvement. Yeah. Maybe I can share about something related to...

internal products in Shopee. So it's something that's not consumer facing, but it's used by people internally in Shopee. So I can't really reveal too much about what the product helps with, but I would say that

It's a success story because it really helped to optimize the process for Shopee staff. So something that previously took perhaps maybe one or two weeks to get the task done, with this product, right, with this internal system, they were able to complete it much faster in maybe one or two days because it cuts down a lot of the hierarchy that they have to go through to get certain information. Like this is like a software where they can get

all the necessary information with filters and all that, rather than having to email someone to get data about something. Really glad that you use it outside of the standard scope of serving consumers.

And just to maybe ask a little bit about the education piece on UX design, is degree, someone asked is degree like an important factor to becoming a UX designer? Like do you need to have a degree in UX design or design? Okay, so I think there is no specific degree for UX design.

But if you do look at job openings for UX design, you might see things like human-computer interaction preferred, or some form of computing, programming degree, maybe even psychology and all that. But I would say that, I would say typically the more established companies, they might see that as a requirement. But if you don't have it, you could supplement it with

relevant years of experience, work of experience. Whereas I think for other companies, they might have it in the job description, but it's not something that's set in stone. Let's say you have some portfolio that's

you have a lot of case studies inside, like your own personal case studies, you could use that to actually apply for companies like startups. So I would say that if you don't have the necessary formal education, it's still okay, but you need to be, you have to be quite realistic with the kind of companies that you apply for. Yeah, you can't just go straight for Facebook, for example.

because I think they're more stringent in terms of that. Yeah, I mean, definitely, like, I tell everyone, don't apply for Grab, for Facebook, or Google as your first job. I guess they got their fair take of, like, designers. We want to work for them, so they wouldn't hire anyone junior. Cheryl from the audience is asking, does Shopee need you to have a degree to be a UX designer? Okay, I'm

I'm not sure if you need a degree specifically, but I do know that... Have you had colleagues who don't have a degree but are working in Shopee? Oh, diploma holder.

Okay, I think I cannot confirm or deny this yet because I don't know the actual information about this. But if it's something that, Cheryl, if it's something that you're really interested in, I can help to find out for you. And I think you can also consider internship first because, I mean, it also depends on which stage of the career you're at, right? Because if you're a fresh graduate or you're a diploma holder, okay, I think you could still supplement it with, like, a strong portfolio is one of it. And you could also consider enrolling for boot camps, right?

that gives you certifications for UX. So I think that could help you as well. Well, I think as a diploma holder myself, I think don't necessarily be held back by whether you have a degree or you have a diploma. Don't let that be your glass ceiling. I've actually gotten jobs in tech as high as a product manager, actually without a degree. And then I had to explain to the organization I was hired for that I will

I was working on my degree. But I think as long as you can demonstrate you have the relevant problem solving skills and experience, they'll be quite open to helping you and giving you the opportunity, especially startups, which are also very hungry for new talent. So someone's asking like this extra certification in areas like human computer interaction or UX writing, does it actually help you be more employable?

Okay, so for my case, I think my certification for UX did help me a lot.

So it opened doors for me. You can talk about it. It doesn't have to be like... Sorry? I know I no longer teach that, but then... Like, it did help me, but I also know of people who took extra certification, right? But it didn't necessarily help them in employability. Yeah, so I think it really depends on the company that you're applying for and who your hiring managers are. So...

But I would say that, I mean in Singapore right, I think as long as you have the necessary experience and a strong portfolio, maybe you can consider internships or you can consider trying to figure out how your current job role is relevant to UX. So for example, if you're a copywriter, you can use that for UX writing. You don't necessarily need a certification in UX writing to transition into UX writer. Yeah.

I will share from the perspective of looking at how we help our students transition. And I always tell them it's not about the certificates. It's really about your portfolio and your ability to answer questions in the interview itself. So it demonstrates your understanding. While certificates are nice, like it gets you in the door, a good portfolio does the same thing, right? It also helps get you in the door and have those conversations. Yeah.

So when you talk about interviewing, that's so true. Like portfolio is one of it and interviewing is so important because the way that UX interviews are conducted is quite different from other jobs. You have whiteboard challenges, you have take-home design challenges and you need to be able to understand how to

succeed in these challenges and do it really well so that you can go through your interview process smoothly. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we take great care in preparing our students for that. And someone's asking, do you think UX in Singapore is like too saturated? There's too many UX designers. I would say that it's saturated in terms of generalities.

But I also think it's because of the state of the design maturity in Singapore right now. Because I think it's still a lot of companies do expect the designers to be more generalist rather than specific to the roles.

But in terms of like specialized roles like UX writers, UX research, interactive designers and all that, I think it's not saturated yet. Yeah, because perhaps because the roles for those positions are not as common yet. Someone also asked like before you started working for Shopee, did you work as a freelancer before or work on any side projects? Let me see. Aside from working for Shopee, do you work on any side projects?

I was involved in this side project called Taraweh, which is a pun for Taraweh. Basically, it's a Muslim ritual during the month of Ramadan where they pray certain things. So that side project is actually just for fun. It's to help fellow Muslims get to the mosque quickly. So kind of like grab, but to get to the mosque.

That's a good one. And while you're on that topic, as I understand you did that app and did anything happen after you helped sort of design it? Okay, so it was a very simple project. Like it was just for fun. There's no backing. And I think it was quite bare bones also. A lot of it was based on, I would say the native design for Android. Actually, we didn't even, I don't think we went into iOS. So it didn't really get a lot of users.

But it did get quite a few attention from, I would say, some leaders in the Malay Muslim community because they thought that it was quite interesting that a group of youth, young adults, are interested in building apps that are helping people. Hmm.

I think since we're on that topic, I would really love to hear your perspective. What's it like working in tech? Because in tech, you're already a minority as a woman. Additionally, you're a Muslim woman, right? So do you face any form of discrimination? Do you get mansplained? How's it like being a minority working in tech?

Okay, so I'm quite grateful in that I have not experienced overt discrimination based on gender, race or religion, or at least I don't think I have. I have experienced being mansplained before and I have heard inappropriate discussions about women in like a majority men conversation a long time ago. I can't even remember who did this to me, but I do have it in my memory.

So I'm quite lucky in the sense that those were the few experiences that I have. Nothing too serious, but I don't think that my experience should be used to discount the real experiences by other women in the job market, including the tech industry, which is, as we know, it's male-dominated. And I'm talking about this generally, not specifically from my experience or specifically for Singapore. I'm talking about like,

all other countries as well. Like there are issues in varying severity such as, I mean, getting mansplained is one of it, but there's also the gender wage gap. There's the sexual harassment. There's also things like pregnancy discrimination, right? So while I have not experienced like the more serious things, I have heard about this from other people and I do, I am aware that this happens because, you know, there's so many articles online just talking about this. So that's why women representation is so important.

But I would say that for myself, as a minority within a minority, you know, like the intersectionality of being Malay, Muslim, women in a male-dominated tech industry, I have an internal struggle too. I used to experience...

imposter syndrome. And even these days, sometimes I kind of question myself. Yeah, like sometimes I wonder like, am I really that skillful? Am I really that talented? Like what if I'm not that great? And sometimes like there's a lot of pressure also because when you're a minority in a minority, you feel like whatever you're doing, it might be falsely representative. People might use it as a way to represent people of my identity, right? So what if I make one small mistake and then

others might think, "Oh, all women are this way" or like, "All Muslim girls are this way." So there was a lot of pressure in that sense also. So like, how did you sort of manage that in a healthier way? I think having a support system is so important and being able to talk about my feelings to other people really helped a lot. So

They helped to validate my feelings. They told me that, okay, this is normal. We've also been through this way. So basically what I did was I spoke to other women professionals who were more senior in title. I shared with them my feelings and they reassured me and said that it's okay to feel this way, but sometimes you need to be able to separate facts from emotions and also to separate from things that are within my control and things that are not within my control.

other people's perspective of me is not something that I can control. But if it's something that is really my weakness, for example, there's a skill that I am not good enough in, then it's an opportunity for me to build on that. That's one of it. And also to identify, I mean, to also join groups like Tech4She and Kodak Project, because it's like a safe space for women to talk about shared experiences. It's also a great place to network and like new skills from classes.

And Kodak Project, for example, right, they had a women-only hackathon so that women would feel safe to sign up for an event like that because usually hackathons are male-dominated. So sometimes women might feel intimidated to join. So it was a safe space for women.

How would you attribute to some of the communities that you're a part of, like Call That Project or Tag4She? How has it helped you grow in your career? Okay, so it has definitely made me feel more confident. It helped me a lot with the imposter syndrome because I knew that it's something that's normal to feel, but it's something that eventually will fade away. That support system really helped me a lot. And it also gave me the networking, right? They do introduce...

I would say, role models of women in tech. So sometimes they would hold classes or talks and then they would invite women who are more in senior positions from big tech companies to talk about their experiences. So having these role models, it gave me more confidence to achieve my goals and to believe that

the tech industry is somewhere that I can belong in for a long time. I think that's such an important point you raised over there and the fact that you're also doing this tonight and you're also being a role model for other people who are either looking at joining the industry or are already in the industry and are maybe struggling a little bit. I think that's a very important thing to kind of practice and leading by example in this sense.

We have questions around education again and some are asking if I was a front-end web developer and I want to go into UX, how can I prepare my portfolio because most of my work is experience as a developer. I see. I think there's a few ways you can go around doing this. Okay, front-end developer who wants to go into UX, right?

You can go into UX directly or you can also consider going into, because I know that some UX teams, they do hire UX developers specifically. So that's something that's more accessible for you also because the skills that you have would be relevant for that position. But I would say that a lot of UX roles, they will value your programming experience because it shows that you have an understanding of how front-end works. So when you design, it means that you understand what is feasible or not.

technically, like in terms of the tech part. And it also shows that you would be able to communicate with the front-end designer better, maybe even the back-end designer, because you understand the tech terms better. So a lot of UX roles actually, they will value that experience. So in your portfolio, it's okay to show that you have that experience. And I think it would really put you in an advantage as well. In terms of the part that you're missing, perhaps it's the more visual part.

I would say that, I guess if you're a fresh grad, it's okay to have your own case studies, like your own projects that you work on and try to follow the UX process. Like just refer to other portfolios from other successful UX designers, see how you can follow the structure, like how they storytell the case studies and then use that as inspiration to build on your portfolio. But I would say if you're more in like the middle of your career, I think...

and you are willing to go for an internship or a more junior position, you could still go through that route. But I think if you want less of a junior role, right, then you have to consider having case studies that are actually real products, not just your own projects. Yep, that's my...

Yeah, I second Tika on this. There's actually a very specific role called UX engineer. Some big tech companies actually do hire that. That means you need to have front-end web development experience, but you also have knowledge on the aesthetics side and the UX side.

So it's actually an actual job scope, so you can still do UX even though you're in front-end. You probably need to go for a course or a program to pick up some of the UX skills and to practice that and probably need to do some reading as well. I think there are many people who ask about the transition process but perhaps we'll take it after the course.

Someone's asking you about your career aspiration. After working for Shopee for three years, where do you see yourself moving? Not to a different company, but rather like the role itself. Do you see yourself becoming a product manager or project manager? Okay, so for myself, I'm actually quite interested in going into a more managerial role because I feel like

Looking back at my experience, I realized that I quite enjoy mentoring interns and juniors and teaching them how to succeed in their roles and teaching them how to do well in interviews and all that. So I find that that part

of my work quite fulfilling and I enjoy that a lot more than designing for products and features. I mean, I do enjoy UX design, of course, but I think the managerial part, the mentorship part is, it feels more fulfilling for me. Well, then we're very lucky to have you as a co-instructor to do that outside of your work. Someone's also asking like in general as sort of like a strategy, if you're a beginner, is it better to

begin as a generalist, as a UX designer generalist? Or is it better to be very specific like, hey, I want to be a visual designer or a UX researcher? Okay, so my answer to this is because of the design maturity in Singapore, I would say that it's better to be a generalist first because a lot of the roles in Singapore do tend to be more general in nature. I think you rarely see roles like junior UX writer. You rarely see like

UX researcher, I mean, it might exist, usually for bigger companies which are harder to get into. I guess, just to increase the probability of you landing an interview and doing well also, I think,

there's no harm in focusing on being a generalist. I see this as being pretty consistent, even as we talk to some of our guest instructors who are specialized, like now they are proper senior researcher in a company and all that. They say when they started out, it's always generalist. So even if you're very good at research, some of our students have market research background. We tell them,

still, please say you're a UX designer, apply for UX design roles, but say, hey, you're coming from a strong research background, they'll still hire you because of your research background, or they'll hire you for your visual design background, or they'll hire you for your writing background, or your technical front-end knowledge, right? Depending on what skills you're coming from. But you kind of do still need to know the entire UX design and can execute that process from end to end.

in this case someone's asking like in your line of work as you're doing UX how do you force yourself to change the way you see things because this person she's in graphic design and she finds it hard to change the way she approaches UX work and kind of switch lens in her own words

Maybe for my case because I wasn't formally trained in graphic design. So perhaps the switch for me wasn't too difficult because I wasn't too subscribed to the processes and all that for graphic design. Because for me, it started out as a hobby that turned into a two-month internship that eventually became...

like one year of work experience. Like I wasn't formally trained in graphic design, so I'm not sure if my experience will be too relevant for her. But I guess one important thing to note is to always have the user in mind. And when you're designing, consider how the user perceives your product because you're designing for them, not for yourself.

Yeah, I think that's really good advice. And thank you everyone for the questions itself. I'd love to ask one final topic and one question about designing for Muslim countries. I believe as a minority, as a Muslim woman, you might have been asked in your job and in your role to actually be part of the

the design process for designing for countries that are majority of a Muslim population. Do you have any advice or tips for people who are designing for such a population, right? And for such countries? Yeah. So I think when you're designing for

a majority Muslim community, it's important to take note of the general sensitivities. As usual, if you are designing for a specific culture, you should take note of the nuances and the sensitivities of that culture, right? Because it's part of localization. So maybe something specific to Muslim majority countries would be to avoid taboo images, for example. Just to give an example, there's this Chinese e-commerce company called Jingdong.

And in China, I think the mascot that they use is a dog. But then when they bring over the app to Indonesia, they change the mascot to something that looks more like a horse because...

I think because images like a pig and dog is seen as taboo in the Muslim community. Yeah. And also to avoid showing visuals of people who, what the community would consider as dressing immodestly. So these are the kind of general sensitivities. And I would say that also designing with inclusivity in mind so that there's representation of different identities. Because like, let's say for Shopee, right?

We do operate in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore where there's a sizeable Muslim community. So that's why I think in the illustrations, actually one of the designers in Shopee, her name is Nisrina, she helped to create illustrations that included Muslim women inside.

So it's not just about different skin tones and different races and different genders, but also different religions. So including that kind of illustration helped to create a sense of representation and inclusivity for the branding. I think that's really great. And to be mindful of being inclusive, to be mindful of taboo topics and not designing for that.

What about as a user, right? Like who do you think does this very well when designing for say a Muslim person like yourself, which apps or that you've used you'd think sort of localize very, very well?

Oh, okay. So I can answer this from different ways. For example, let's say Zalora, okay? So I shop quite a bit on Zalora. Basically, it's an online platform where you can buy clothes. And what I really like about the website is that

they have a good filter section. They have the normal like you know blouses, pants, skirts and all that but they have something specific that makes it very easy for someone like me. For example, I can choose the filter for headscarf and I can choose the filter for modest wear or like baju kurung and even like prayer garments because for Muslim women we have a specific prayer garment that we wear to cover ourselves

more modestly. So I really like that extra touch of detail. Like, I know it's a very small thing, but it really makes it more convenient for me to shop for things that I feel meets my requirement for clothes. And also, I would say websites like, okay, Red Mart, which is an online grocery website, you can actually select the halal filter. And I think they do this for grab as well, right? The halal filter. So this helps me a lot. I mean, it's food. And

It's just food, it's just a halal filter, but it really helps me a lot because how do I know if this biscuit is, this chocolate chip cookie is halal and then the other one is not, right? Yeah, because it might contain lard and I don't know, but the filter would help me with that. Yeah, so that's more for like normal lifestyle stuff. There are also other apps like Muslim Pro, which focuses more on some ritual or rituals

ritual things like prayers and Quranic recitations. So those kind of apps, they help a lot for Muslims when it comes to doing their worship. That makes a lot of sense. I think someone in the audience mentioned that in Shopee, it seems like you also have modest wear filters or something like that. Yeah, we do. So I think that helps a lot. You're one of the people who suggested it. Oh, yeah.

I think it was in place before I joined. Okay, okay. I can't take credit for that, sadly. That sounds great. That is great because the fact that the company is hiring in a very diverse manner means that they're able to sort of like be more inclusive in terms of the design. So yeah, that's definitely something worth learning.

And I think with that, just going to ask you one final question as we end off this specific interview itself. What would be an advice you would give your younger self or to the people who are here who are very new to the industry and are trying to like transition into the industry? What would the advice be? Okay, so my advice, I think for my younger self, I would say,

trust in the process and don't be too stressed about things not working out or things not following the pace that you expect it to be. Because I think this is quite a general tip. It's not something specific to UX, but basically, you know, you have a goal.

like that goal is like your main quest right then think of like reaching the goal as the small little side quest to get to the main goal yeah maybe you have a final goal but you need to be realistic in terms of how you want to achieve it so it's okay if it takes time it's okay if things there are hiccups along the way because like the journey is not linear like it could go a different direction but you could always like reach your goal eventually so um yeah I

It just kind of feels like Dark Souls, right? Like if you can't defeat the boss, then you just respawn in. And it may take a little bit of time. Yeah, it will take a bit of time. So I think like five years back, I mean, I wouldn't imagine myself to be where I am now. Because even along the way, like I wouldn't expect to be where I am now. As long as you are working towards your final goal, baby steps is okay too. And celebrate every little success. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think with that, that's so important because that helps you to build your creative confidence. And if you have a strong mental game, that's already like half the battle won versus like you don't feel very confident about your work or about yourself. So thank you for sharing your experience here today and also your specific knowledge and skills with our audience over here. Really appreciate that.

and while even adding a little bit of gaming analogies to it. Spoken like a true gamer, someone said. Let's go. All right. So thank you so much, Atika, for the session. Thank you. Thank you, Dylan. And thank you everyone for joining. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please let me know what you think. Get in touch with me over email at mail at curiouscore.com. I would love to hear from you.

Do also check out our previous interviews and other free resources at curiouscore.com. And until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Take care and keep leaning into change.