Name: Irfan Mir
Email: hello@ir.fan
Portfolio: https://irfan.design (timelines for recent positions)—view by project, rather
Blog: https://medium.com/@irfanmir
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irfan-mir
Resume: https://irfan.fyi
What has past management said about me:
“We’re so proud to have had you on this team!…I think that every time I’ve introduced you to another person I’ve always had trouble saying what type of work you do. Yes you do accessibility and yes you do UX, but you also do so much more than this and that makes you a difficult person to classify. I feel like back in the day (like, way back in the day, in ancient times) this was much more common and everyone privileges to freely exercise their right to learn and got to be a generalist in the study of thought. You are one of the most creative and versatile minds I’ve had the chance to work with, and I attribute this to two things. Firstly, you embrace and advocate for creative expression in a variety of modes. Secondly, you are a very kind person, who when given the opportunity to…create, will always do so for the sake of humankind.”
Why am I looking to leave my current position:
I have been working for a company I started in an independent consulting role while I focused on my own health and the health of my grandmother.
“There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein.
In 2017, my grandmother was diagnosed with CHF and there was no one to take care of her and she couldn’t take care of herself. While working with clients, AI projects, painting, and losing at least 170lbs!!, I took care of her to the best of my ability. She is, stable and, in much better health now. I learned I had to take care of myself to be the best I can be and worked on self development quite a bit — becoming more humble and minimizing arrogance and pride (hopefully, to the continuing best of my ability). Becoming more assertive and not passive, aggressive, nor passive-aggressive. Establishing a proper relationship with myself and food and fitness — getting my metabolism in check. I have always loved learning and been about learning and self development.
I am now looking to join a team at a great organization because another core tenet of my character is compassion. I learned to be compassionate with myself and I want to be compassionate with a team where we can grow with each others’ strengths through feedback and our diversity. The iterative process of designing and developing great experiences that I love, and am able to contribute to, works best with collaboration and under “one roof”. I have further developed and continue to develop myself. Let me be a contributing, creative, critical, and compassionate part of your company’s, your team’s, your experiences’ story just as your experiences elegantly empower in the stories of your users. My independence and drive yet collaborative and empathic ability are of my key strengths.
Where am I looking to go:
While I hold accessibility in high-regard and am devoted to creating accessible and usable products, I am an end-to-end experience designer and I’d love to design and develop any, all, and more parts of rich, interactive experiences with an inclusive team that respects and grows with their diversity. I’d love to integrate or work on projects applying or built with research in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning or other research, as I also have experience and research in AI from psychological and philosophical perspectives. This unique approach along with my empathy and attention to detail make me a great UX professional. Especially in intelligent applications.
What does design mean to me:
What differentiates design from art, both being creative endeavors, is that design is creativity applied to solve a problem where as art is a capture of a tone. Art preserves a situation or mood, an experience while design contributes to one. It goes beyond making something look nice or well-finished, but so polished and precise in form and function that it not only appears well made, but is delightful, intuitive, and seemingly simple. Most importantly that what one is designing has a purpose and solves a problem. Product and services ready for success are those that is purposed, precise, and built for people. Solving people’s problems which are revealed through research and having empathy for the product’s users. Knowing the product depends on the user and that the best products integrate seamlessly and unobtrusively into the user’s life without harm and with promotion of the user. A critical ability in design is reflection and recognition. One must be able to reflect and recognize through the iterative process with their team applying that same empathy to connect and grow through diversity to create inclusive, and universal products. Through being empathetic with our team and building on each other’s strengths and collaborating for unique and innovative solutions through our diversity. It is with this same empathy that I have been able to improve on myself and will continue to do so but is part of what makes me a prime candidate at your company.
What is the difference between a good and great designer?
A great designer is able to make intelligent connections collected through empathetic research and understanding of people. They are able to apply this same empathy in understanding the greater picture, stakeholder vision, and corporate strategy. Communicating their designs with their team and management, contributing to a well-rounded solution that is innovative and viable to the business. They are able to do this by being a generalist. Through constant education and pursuit of understanding and self development. Reflecting on failures and always able to grow. Not necessarily being perfect from the start and being aware of that, relying on others; their community, co-workers, and resources and having the high potential for and always being willing to grow and strive towards being the best they can be. And while being fine with failure, reflecting and even welcoming it as an opportunity to grow.
How do you begin a project?
In terms of strategy, in my experience, it is best to begin with research. Outlining what we know in terms of stakeholder vision, current research, and heuristic and competitive analysis.
However on multi-disciplinary teams following an Agile method, it is important to outline the the connection between departments and what tasks depend on each other. Identifying this hierarchy allows for better collaboration and smoother hand-offs through the cycles of iteration. Design is creativity applied towards solving problems. I use my expertise and my team’s expertise to evaluate the problem, conduct and collect research, iteratively conceptualize solutions, and evaluate any competitive and/or existing solutions to similar problems. Future steps include compiling and organizing research; in true personas, scenarios, and stories, information architecture; through site-mapping and user flows and sketching, and then cycles of higher fidelity design, prototyping, development, and review.
In terms of software, I love Milanote for starting projects: planning, outlining, and collecting research. In my experience as a PM (in school) and for some large scale projects, I have worked with OmniFocus. More on the applications I have experience with and/or prefer is later on.
What do you believe the relationship between UX and Visual/Graphic Design is?
Great design is invisible. This applies to both UX and Visual/Graphic Design. Visual Design is an element of the broader UX Design, which includes User Research, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, and Usability for example. UI or Visual Design is sometimes confused for being all of what UX Design is and then sometimes referred to as UI/X Design. This however is only Visual Design based on assumptions. UX Design in its true form is based on research and principles not just what looks good. And to say that Visual Design is the icing on the cake is also incorrect as attention to detail in all areas of UX Design can act as delighters, sealing and presenting the experience as a gift to the user. Great visual design however is critical to usability as per the Aesthetic-Usability effect. Following this and other UX laws and principles (Fitts’ Law, Hick’s Law, and Law of Pragnanz for instance) along with patterns and consistency as per environment (OS/device), brand standards, development standards, and design languages are all necessary details that when fine-tuned and applied properly help create an experience. Not just a graphic, website, or app.
Describe your experience collaborating with developers. In your experience, what makes for the best collaboration between designers and developers?
I believe empathy, communication, and bridging departments through one’s ability as a generalist and working with developers and engineers is critical to do exactly that. Through using their expertise to help create a mutual understanding of our strategy, vision, and solution through empathy and effective communication and one’s own programming ability.
Wolfram Research
During my first internship at Wolfram Research, while I was optimizing the flow for their Premier Service purchasing process as well as prototyping redesigns in Axure RP, developers on the project did not feel like they could realize some designs in code. I was however able to sit down and work with them, rather than talk through the company chat, and understand their frustrations and concerns, value their expertise, while applying my ability in programming and empathy, we collaboratively came up with a plan for realizing the design.
Michigan State University
While at Michigan State University, I contributed towards a cultural shift welcoming and accepting difference and promoting inclusive, universal design in their design, development, and purchasing workflows. I first did this through evaluating, with WCAG 2.0 AA and usability standards, a web app for MSU’s holiday campaign in 2015. My review was accompanied with suggested techniques in solving these barriers known and suggested through my programming ability. The development firm then reached out to me expressing their new commitment towards using modern Front-End code and techniques as well as committing to building accessible and usable web apps now and in the future — through my suggestions and everyday techniques for better design and development. I continued to work with my team at MSU to push for universal design contributing to the development of more inclusive Admissions, Scholarships, and Title IX websites. I believe these high-stakes sites will help advocate more diversity, acceptance, and promotion of people. Hopefully contributing towards healing, reflection, growth of the leadership, and unity for the campus community.
At my last position, I was able to lead in a similar cultural shift, hoping to promote empathy, designing for people, and problem solving rather than only focusing on visual design and implementing flurries of features without being a solution. A good example of this is when we were working on the Flint FNT Bishop International Airport website and I presented and worked with developers leveraging my expertise as a generalist and appealing to their expertise in programming — outlining a strategy and realizing the strategy and accessible interactions together as a team.
What is the most interesting project you have worked on? What made it interesting?
The most extensive project I have worked on is also my longest is that of my own named Ellsi. Ellsi is of the most interesting projects I have worked on as I have learned and grown as a designer and developer tenfold through it, built and led teams to collaborate on it, and it applied and challenged a variety of my interests and abilities. Although I started working on it in 2012, I have not been working on it for 8 years as for most of that time it remained dormant and free from my work as I was restrained by Intellectual Property Agreements and the like. Ellsi is an empathetic, intelligent assistant built with my research in emotions, consciousness, and AI. From it, I developed prototypes of a few other products as well as a process for creating more empathetic, intelligent technologies. Please find more information about Ellsi at its introductory website at https://ellsi.com. I have twice prototyped hi-fidelity models, more than a hundred lesser, but still hi-fidelity prototypes for various interactions and experience elements in Javascript. I am happy to share a webpage detailing the process I took in developing the latest prototype, which includes wireframes and links to, interactions and experience, prototypes as well as details on the process and suggestions for applications of the technology. Please reach out at hello@ir.fan
What tools do you use? Why have you chosen them over their alternatives?
Pen, paper, white-board, and marker
I’ll often use pen and paper, notebooks are my friend, and various recording devices and software during in-person research. For sketching and early flows and sitemaps, I’ll use pen, paper, and white-board and marker. I love using UI Stencils’ browser and phone sketch pads. To build on this, I may move on to making a flow and linking interaction prototypes and early visual design in Axure RP.
Omnifocus for PM
Although I don’t always play the role of a Project Manager, when I have, I’ve used various project management software; e.g. Trello, Asana, although one that I prefer for its ability to connect tasks and todo lists is OmniFocus.
Axure RP
At Wolfram Research, I began using Axure RP for flow design as well as interactive prototyping. While the code it outputs isn’t as useful for actual development, the ability to translate interactions into logical if/else statements on events helps bridge the gap between design and development.
Creative Cloud and Sketch
I prefer using Adobe Illustrator for illustration and vector drawing as well as some UI Design. However, I do more UI Design and import things drawn in illustrator into Sketch. I use Sketch for higher-fidelity UI Design as it is more intuitive and therefore more rapid and iterative. I use Illustrator for somethings still because I believe while Sketch is amazing for UI Design, Illustrator is also intuitive for other vector illustration. I am also well versed in using Photoshop for design and editing.
InVision Studio and Principle
After designing an interface, I’ll import it into InVision or Principle to demonstrate interaction and motion. InVision Studio and Principle are my primary choice as they are intuitive and work well with other tools. I am currently in the process of quickly learning how to use Figma. InVision Studio has not yet been released to the public. I have some, but limited experience in After Effects. The motion design page of my portfolio has some examples of what I have done with code or After Effects.
Glyphs 2.0
After drawing glyphs and lettering in Illustrator, I’ll create an icon font or a css custom font by importing into Glyphs 2.0 to use the vector graphics in Front-End experiences with minimal load time through a single request.
Javascript & Web components
My favorite technology to rapidly prototype and develop with is programming in Javascript along with HTML and CSS. I have used FramerJS before, but prefer coding in ECMAScript and not CoffeeScript. I am familiar with jQuery as well, but these days one can accomplish a great(er) deal with vanilla Javascript’s cutting-edge APIs and widening support. I am also familiar with using Web Components to easily follow patterns and standards. My experience in Front-End Development also allows me to design and develop Progressive Web Apps and experiences that work across browsers and devices, gracefully degrading for legacy browsers and environments.
InDesign, Microsoft Word, and Acrobat
In designing accessible documents, for more aesthetics, I’ll use Adobe InDesign or otherwise Microsoft Word and then Adobe Acrobat to ensure accessibility.
NVDA, Voice Over, BrowserStack, and Loader.io
I think it is essential to use the above tools in Quality Assurance and Usability reviews for software. NVDA and Voice Over are my preferred screen readers during testing. While JAWS is ideal and often used in real-practice, it is expensive and often crashes other software or forces a reboot. I will use the 40-minute daily trial of JAWS to double check something unexpected I noticed in NVDA. BrowserStack is great for rapidly testing Front-End experiences across devices, OS, and browsers. Loader.io is a great tool for stress testing web apps and services.
What is some technology you love? Why do you love them?
TV OS (APPLE)
I love TV OS because of how it gathers, no, unifies the tv experience. Gathers doesn’t do it justice. I didn’t have cable growing up and that helped introduce me to my love for reading, learning, and education. An excellent decision on my mom’s part. Now, in my adulthood, the first Apple product I bought with my own money was an Apple TV and later, the newer generations. I loved the Apple TV. I then truly fell in love tenfold with TV OS. When I visited home for the first time while working at Wolfram Research, it was so effortless to AirPlay my MacBook Air (first computer I bought with my own money). The beauty of the Apple TV and TV OS is how elegantly it creates the Smart TV experience so ridiculously better than the majority of Smart TVs’ default experience. Default experience sounds like a bad word haha. I can’t touch on all the aspects but here are a few: From the remote that I remember demonstrating to customers, while working at Apple Retail, from behind the hallway door to back of house (far away), to the endless customization of the AppStore to my music from Apple Music and Siri further in the palm of my hands. This was before HomePod. But something I truly love about TV OS is how it unifies everything together and affords me the ability to watch what I want to watch with ease. It has allowed me to cut the cord with cable but not be dependent on an antenna. To be a supportive customer of the content I love to watch. We love to watch. The corresponding TV app on iOS works seamlessly and a small, but not so much, feature I love is how Siri finds what I want to watch where it already is. Think about this. Any other Smart TV, especially one with a market place for Media as iTunes, would sensibly direct you to that store. Siri on TV OS finds where what you want to watch is already in the services, libraries, and content you’re already paying for! And then suggests the purchase if it can’t be found. The main criticism I have on the Apple TV is the remote—where function was sacrificed with form. There is too much of a cognitive load and physical effort to type out something—swiping between letters on an A-Z vertical keyboard. Not everything, like passwords, or non-English searches can be easily done with Siri.
Robinhood
Robinhood is a great experience, as a service, for taking out the middle man and empowering the user through making a service more accessible through technology. It affords the user a more hands-on ability in managing their portfolio while organizing data with clear, comprehendible colors. Best of all is does this while following OS patterns and design languages yet being unique and innovative in Visual Design. A great example of unique delivery, delightful and intuitive interaction design, and the Aesthetic-Usability effect.
Although Instagram may have controversially built similar features from competition, they improved on them, built on them, developed them further and made them unique and seamless parts of Instagram; and to some, more usable, delightful, and easily integrated. This is a great example of design never being done. They’ve created an all-around collection of tools for being social with photos uniting them under a single brand even while, optionally, being separate apps.
Newton
I love Newton as it innovates in the common space of email. As a researcher and pursuant of AI, I was biased towards apps that leverage Machine Learning for summarization, reply times, and suggested replies. However, I found Newton’s select features were more organized around relevancy of sending and receiving email and were more useful in my life. While Machine Learning is very valuable in services with large amounts of data like communication, a music player, or email, often times uniqueness and success can be found in approaching a problem through a different perspective and mindset apart from trends or hype. Intelligence is important, but in a time when many are trying to apply it, applying it uniquely and/or with other innovations, especially when all are Human-Centered, can create further success. However Newton is not perfect I do not like that these features come at the cost of privacy. While the features are nice usefulness shouldn’t be at the cost of privacy.
What are your other relevant skills?
Empathy and drive, Collaborative strategy, and Reflection ability
I aim to conduct myself with compassion, understanding, and respect towards users and my co-workers in understanding them and working with them, building on each others’ strengths towards achieving a shared vision. Solving problems and realizing stakeholders’ vision through iteration and inclusion. Knowing that all projects and tasks can’t and don’t always contribute to the final product or to launch. Reflecting on any failures and learning and growing from them to approach the next-coming projects and tasks more informed and driven. A word that is often used to describe me is driven as I cherish and apply my love for intrinsic motivation. A drive to lead, follow, and solve — always for the benefit of the user and company all in all creating accessible, usable, and viable products as rich, delightful, and immersive experiences.
Thank you for your time and for reading these Frequently Asked Questions. I hope they introduced you to some of my approach, experience, and strategy towards designing and developing Human-Centered, People-First experiences.
Thank you,
Irfan
