Irene Au is an operating partner at Khosla Ventures and was the former head of design and user experience teams at Google, Yahoo, Netscape, and Udacity. What she does in her job is to work with portfolio companies and make their design and user experience great. In her role, Irene is more like a leader and a mentor of UI/UX designs and designers, who establishes design practices, helps build high performing design teams, and grows the next generation of great designers in UI/UX design. As one of the outstanding design team leaders, Irene mainly focuses on the user’s needs to inspire product innovation and grow the company.
As a woman in the tech industry field, Irene experienced challenges that men have not. Since the design and tech industries are predominantly male, women have to gain experience, seniority, and authority to navigate all the challenges brought by gender inequality. In her early career, Irene learned to listen to others and helped guide people towards the right answer by relating to them on their terms in order to raise efficiency. Instead of creating a more balanced and equal industry for the company, Irene emphasizes the value of diversity in a team. Individuals of different races, gender, socio-economic background, life experience, education, geography, and skill set can contribute and build teams composed of complementary skills as Irene states, “Diverse teams build better products and better companies because they are more empathetic and creative.”
What makes Irene outstanding in the human-computer interaction design field is not only the good designs she made, but also her great understanding of user’s needs and how to create and lead a strong team with self-aware, self-managing, and socially aware characteristics. In the process of growing a company, listening and understanding the user’s needs, and organizing the teams are important key factors to bring company growth. With the change of time, “Great design is no longer just about how a product looks and feels”.Talk to the customers or users and communicate with them during the development process to help the company and design team understand how their products need to be improved. These important design researches will not only contribute to the company’s growth but also bring the user’s support and love for the product.
Reference
“August 2015 – Irene Au”. Irene Au, 2015, https://ireneau.com/2015/08/.
“Irene Au On Facilitating Companies’ Growth With Good Design”. Miroblog | A Blog By Miro, https://miro.com/blog/features/irene-au-companies-growth-design-insights/.
“Women’S Day: Interview With Irene Au”. Medium, 2018, https://uxdesign.cc/womens-day-interview-with-irene-au-99e9426dec66.
