Who is your favourite office dog , and can you post a picture? Three-way tie! I love Bingo to pieces, but Norman is our design dog, and Dustin, the new shy guy, is also very cute. Donāt make me choose
I love speaking about design at all hands. Public speaking doesnāt come naturally to me (as you can probably tell), but I really enjoy it nonetheless . Iād love to do more. Weāve actually been discussing this with the team, and we agree that we should do more to share our design knowledge with the wider Monzo team. Leave it with me!
My favourite part of the Monzo product is the overall experience. The fact that we put so much work into making everything usable and understandable. On a feature level, Iām really excited about savings pots. Theyāre our first little step into the big world of marketplace banking.
What would I change? I think we could lightly restructure the app and organise our features in a way that makes sense going forward. Also, weāve been moving fast and accumulating design debt here and there. Iād love to tackle that.
What am I passionate about? Lots of stuff! Learning and reading about everything I can. Travel and different cultures. Trains and public transport systems. Maps. Space exploration. Mechanical watches. Hand lettering. Indie comic books. The NBA. Whisky.
And cats , yes! Sadly, Iām allergic to them so I tend to keep my distance IRL. Cat pictures on the internet, though, thatās a different story. Gimme!
One of my favourite things Iāve ever designed are the mascots I illustrated for a bunch of cities while I was at Citymapper. You can see them if you go to switch cities in the app. Hamburg, Cologne and LA might be favourites out of the ones I made.
At Monzo Iām proud of some of the bigger, more complex flows Iāve designed: things like overdrafts, CASS and 3D Secure. Letās say 3D Secure. I think the flow we built is far superior to any existing flow out there. Itās a joy to use, if I say so myself
Sure! For context: since I joined Monzo, the company has quadrupled from 90 something employees to over 400, and the Design team has grown from 4 to 15 people. Itās been a really fun ride, and thereās a continuous opportunity for all of us to step up and learn new things. For me thatās meant transitioning from a full time design role to a leadership role with no design work of my own. I still get to design, but itās by working with other designers on their design problems, giving feedback and discussing different approaches.
Iām also designing our team, in a way. For a few months now, Iāve been concentrating on managing Product Designers, on hiring, and on levelling up our team and its culture in different ways. For example, weāre starting to build a design studio culture and a space where we can gather to work together with all the designers and collaborate more. Our Product Designers work embedded in product squads, which is amazing, but as a counterbalance itās good to get that horizontal design perspective as well.
Tough question! We avoid making bad product decisions by staying transparent and talking with our community and our users, and by building and releasing the smallest possible thing we can to learn from. By making small product releases we can keep our feedback loops short and course correct quickly. So when we do build the wrong thing or take the wrong approach, the decision is small, reversible and low risk.
Because of the aforementioned process, I canāt think of any bad product decisions that would have resulted in a disaster. Sorry!
Yep, thatās right! Until this summer I was designing full steam, but as of September Iām primarily concentrating on managing designers, hiring, and generally doing what I can to help build the best design team in the world. I still design together with other designers, but the work is theirs. I do think that itās important for a design leader to have the craft , even if they no longer practice it.
This is an interesting question, actually. I recently listened to a talk by Cap Watkins, who used to run design at BuzzFeed, and he mentioned that they had all newly hired Design Managers practice design and just get their hands dirty for a few months to get to know the environment that designers work in (and somewhat to prove themselves). This isnāt a situation weāve been in before, but weāre hiring, so Iām trying to read everything about how other teams do it. Weāll see what works for us, but a design background is a must.
Today, our Design team consists of 12 people. On Monday weāll be 13, and in January 15. (A few new hires havenāt started yet.) In the team we have two Researchers, three Visual Designers, and the rest are practicing Product Design or come from that background. We have a little Design leadership team thatās starting to become really important as we prepare for the team to grow and change.
As a team, we believe that universal design principles are key
These principles are: providing the right affordances, using visual and interactive resources thoughtfully, no decoration, Fittās law, designing systems that prevent errors and provide the user with forgiving solutions when mistakes do happen, limiting the number of alternatives a user has to consider, communicating the systemās status clearly, removing cognitive friction, natural mapping, directionality, and considering stress and focus.
Hey! Probably not, since design isnāt about self expression but about solving user problems. If I do have a style, though, itās definitely a functional Nordic one
How did I get into Product Design? Itās a long story! I grew up in the US, and I spent most of my childhood drawing baseball team logos and car logos ā but I didnāt know that could be a real job. Fast forward a few years, and Iām a teenager reading snowboard and skateboard magazines, admiring the logos again, and the layouts and the crazy illustrations ā but somehow I still didnāt realise that that could be a real jobā¦ so I studied Economics , continued designing on the side, and it was when the first iPhone came out that I decided to make the jump to designing full time. I also went to design school to make sure I learned all the rules I had been breaking. There was just something about apps that you can touch ā they were so personal, and I loved the constraints of mobile design from the get go. I love solving problems and making a difference in peopleās lives. Thatās the reason I got into Economics in the first placeābut that way of changing the world turned out to be frustratingly slow. Surprise!
My aesthetic touchstones? I love comic books (especially Saga and Paper Girls by Image Comics), mechanical watches (my favourite is the Seiko Pogue from Skylab 4 ), cinematography (Blade Runner), animation (Adventure Time, BoJack Horseman ), architecture (Aalto, Eames)ā¦ I could go on and on! Interesting colour palettes, layouts, ways to display information, and ways to surprise and delight are all around us. One of my favourite things to do is to just walk around London, taking photos and looking at everything.
The best parts of my job areā¦ where do I start? In a nutshell : we get to design an amazing product for our users, and I also get to participate in designing an amazing team and company to work at. I get to make a real positive impact. And challenges? Gotta say the constant growth of the team. Every few months our processes break, and we need to come up with new ones. Thatās fine, though! Itās actually fun. It never gets boring.
Hi! Yep, Iām new to managing. I hadnāt planned on becoming a manager, but it happened, and Iām really enjoying it. We have excellent manager training at Monzo, and Iām starting to pick up my own learnings too. Iād say the key is active listening, constantly asking for and giving feedback, and being honest with your words and consistent with your actions.
Getting around a mental block when designing or writing? A blank screen or page is my enemy, so I try to get started by just dumping all my ideas on there. If it doesnāt happen organically, I timebox it and give myself 10 minutes to get as much from my brain to the surface as possible. Iām also a fan of this simple trick that Ernest Heminway followed while writing : always stop for the day when youāre on a roll and itās easy. That way itāll be easy to pick the thing right back up the next day. (I hope I explained that well.)
Back in the day when we were small, we used to work across every part of the product somewhat chaotically. Today, our Design team consists of User Researchers, Visual Designers, and Product Designers who work embedded in independent product squads. Weāre a bit behind on hiring, so a few Product Designers are stretched between two squads, but our goal for the next few months is to have enough designers so that everyone can focus on one thing at a time
Hey! Our definition of a Product Designer is someone who does end to end design: from defining the problem and exploring ideas to leading a discussion about alternatives and then narrowing down towards a solution and finally crafting that solution and making it pixel perfect. Product Designers solve problems and create functional, aesthetically pleasing experiences for our users.
Graphic Design to me is purely about finding a visual way to display information. Out of the three, my opinions on Service Design are the least solid. If I had to define it off the bat, Iād say that Service Design could be any kind of process that uses design thinking principles to solve business problems.
Hi Rodrigo! I feel like I could write a book about this, but Iāll try to keep it short. In essence, every quarter we define our company wide goals , which then influence each product squadās goals. Those squads then figure out what the most impactful things to work on are. As a squad, what should we build in order to meet our goals? From there, it depends. Sometimes itās quite straightforward. Other times itās more of an exploratory process, and a series of experiments. This is the big, guiding principle.
Designers play a big part in making sure that we focus on the user experience while also hitting business results. As a transparent and open company, we get tons of input from multiple sources, and itās easy to get feedback and know what our customers think. Thatās amazing, and it definitely makes our job easier
Haaa, but I asked what decisions Monzo didnāt take. Letās say, product team meeting, you can decide A or B. Using aforementioned process, you pick B. Some time passes, and you realise A would have been terrible idea. Itās kinda āoh crap, if we had gone with A, we would have been so screwed right nowā.
, and can you post a picture? Three-way tie! I love Bingo to pieces, but Norman is our design dog, and Dustin, the new shy guy, is also very cute. Donāt make me choose 
doesnāt come naturally to me (as you can probably tell), but I really enjoy it nonetheless 
. Iād love to do more. Weāve actually been discussing this with the team, and we agree that we should do more to share our design knowledge with the wider Monzo team. Leave it with me! 
savings pots. Theyāre our first little step into the big world of marketplace banking.
Also, weāve been moving fast and accumulating design debt here and there. Iād love to tackle that.
, yes! Sadly, Iām allergic to them so I tend to keep my distance IRL. Cat pictures on the internet, though, thatās a different story. Gimme!
Itās been a really fun ride, and thereās a continuous opportunity for all of us to step up and learn new things. For me thatās meant transitioning from a full time design role to a leadership role with no design work of my own. I still get to design, but itās by working with other designers on their design problems, giving feedback and discussing different approaches.
By making small product releases we can keep our feedback loops 
short and course correct quickly. So when we do build the wrong thing or take the wrong approach, the decision is small, reversible and low risk.
design team in the world. I still design together with other designers, but the work is theirs. I do think that itās important for a design leader to have the craft 
, even if they no longer practice it.
everything about how other teams do it. Weāll see what works for us, but a design background is a must.
but about solving 
user problems. If I do have a style, though, itās definitely a functional Nordic one 
team logos and car 
logos ā but I didnāt know that could be a real job. Fast forward a few years, and Iām a teenager reading snowboard 
and skateboard magazines, admiring the logos again, and the layouts and the crazy illustrations ā but somehow I still didnāt realise that that could be a real jobā¦ so I studied Economics 
, continued designing on the side, and it was when the first iPhone 
came out that I decided to make the jump to designing full time. I also went to design school to make sure I learned all the rules I had been breaking. There was just something about apps that you can touch ā they were so personal, and I loved the constraints of mobile design from the get go. I love solving problems and making a difference in peopleās lives. Thatās the reason I got into Economics in the first placeābut that way of changing the world turned out to be frustratingly slow. Surprise!
), architecture 
(Aalto, Eames)ā¦ I could go on and on! Interesting colour palettes, layouts, ways to display information, and ways to surprise and delight are all around us. One of my favourite things to do is to just walk around London, taking photos 
and looking at everything.
: we get to design an amazing product for our users, and I also get to participate in designing an amazing team and company to work at. 
I get to make a real positive impact. And challenges? Gotta say the constant growth of the team. Every few months our processes break, and we need to come up with new ones. Thatās fine, though! Itās actually fun. It never gets boring. 
block when designing or writing? A blank screen or page is my enemy, so I try to get started by just dumping all my ideas on there. If it doesnāt happen organically, I timebox 
it and give myself 10 minutes to get as much from my brain to the surface as possible. Iām also a fan of this simple trick that Ernest Heminway followed while writing 
: always stop for the day when youāre on a roll and itās easy. That way itāll be easy to pick the thing right back up the next day. (I hope I explained that well.)
In essence, every quarter we define our company wide goals 
, which then influence each product squadās goals. Those squads then figure out what the most impactful things to work on are. As a squad, what should we build in order to meet our goals? From there, it depends. Sometimes itās quite straightforward. Other times itās more of an exploratory process, and a series of experiments. This is the big, guiding principle.
Letās say, product team meeting, you can decide A or B. Using aforementioned process, you pick B. Some time passes, and you realise A would have been terrible idea. 
Itās kinda āoh crap, if we had gone with A, we would have been so screwed right nowā. 
Going to go read about mechanical watches and comic books 