Interviews with Paula Barcante

I am an award-winning, full-stack senior product designer with over six years of experience working for startups and large companies like Amazon and Zillow. I am an expert in UI/UX, mobile, interaction, and responsive design, as well as branding and illustration

Art has always been a huge part of my life. Early on, I denied becoming a designer because I didn’t think I could make a living. 1.5 years into university, while studying Economics, I realized I was giving up on a dream. I quit and applied to a University of Waterloo’s Global Business and Digital Arts problem. That was the best decision I ever made. Originally, I wanted to be an Art Director, until I went to a UX Design conference and fell in love with the ability to use psychology and human interactions in my designs. Later that year I was accepted into Amazon’s UX Design internship program in Seattle. The rest is history!

I always start my designs with pencil and paper. I find it easier to erase things and re-draw or re-arrange on paper. As much s I love technology and software, there is nothing as pure as creating something that can be touched. This is then followed by creating low-fidelity designs on Sketch. Once I have a solid map of all the screens, I like to prototype it and start showing it to potential users. Based on their feedback, I then re-iterate the designs and start building in the visual aesthetics.

Designing is my career, hobby, and job. I love what I do. When I’m designing it feels like time just doesn’t exist anymore. It feels liberating to me.

I am very passionate and excited about Joyster. So I that is where I will be dedicating most of my design time. Joyster is a mental health app that allows people to create journal stories in seconds to keep track of their mental and physical symptoms. Joyster aims to help with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or any other mental health symptom. We are currently open for beta and will be launching early next month.

I believe it's very important to maintain an identity as a designer. However, I do love capturing inspiration from other talented designers. My favourite place to get inspirations from is Dribbble.

I was born in Brazil, but spent most of my life in Western Canada. I think the blend of these two cultures have shaped me as a person and designer. I also love listening to music while designing, especially as I go through the visual and branding phase. It helps me to think more creatively.

Joyster was created based on my own experience. I was dealing with high anxiety and panic attacks and I was unable to find any good tools or apps that would help me understand my triggers. The principle of the idea is really simple, it's used to help people who suffer from anxiety, depression, or other mental and physical struggles to keep track of how their day to day lives are affecting their symptoms.

My main focus was trying to build a platform that was extremely simple to use, but also effective. Journaling is great, but many people do not have time to sit down and journal every day for 30 minutes. Additionally, journals do not give people an overview of how their activities, foods, or people are affecting them in a graph format.

Joyster just opened up for Beta, so we are still early days! We will be doing a complete ios and android launch in June 2020. We are overwhelmed with the support and interest we have received.

Joyster took me about 7 months to design end-to-end.

I designed it based on my own experience as well as observing people close to me who needed a tool like this as well. Joyster is a very personal project to me and we really hope that it can help many people.

Joyster is owned by myself and my co-founder, Steve Viselli, who developed it.

I was dealing with high anxiety and panic attacks for the first time and I was unable to find any good tools or apps that would help me understand my triggers. I started an excel sheet where I would measure my anxiety, panic, and depression levels against my meals, activities, and interactions each day. At the end of week I would graph all of this to see trends. This was when I had a light-bulb moment. For the first time, I was able to actually see what the causes and triggers of my anxiety were.

Not really. I wanted Joyster to reflect my own work and style as a designer.

The target audience is anyone who suffers from a mental or physical health that would like to keep track of their well-being.

A lot of similar concepts makes the experience a lot more complicated than it should be. Additionally, there aren't any apps (I'm aware of) that uses the same kind of algorithm as we do.

I used mainly Sketch for designing the User Interface and InVision when user testing.

I like to think the most unique aspect of my design are the illustrations. I believe it's important to humanize virtual experiences as much as possible.

I was the only designer on this project.

When I started Joyster, I did an early concept testing using usertesting.com to receive market validation and interaction feedback.

The main challenge was coming up with a brand that felt authentic to me as a designer and had a market fit as well. I went through three different brand ideations before landing on this calm aesthetic.

I received an e-mail from the A'Design Award & Competition inviting me to participate. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but the more I looked into it, the more excited I got.

Art has always been a huge part of my life. Early on, I denied becoming a designer because I didn’t think I could make a living. 1.5 years into university, while studying Economics, I realized I was giving up on a dream. I quit and applied to a University of Waterloo’s Global Business and Digital Arts problem. That was the best decision I ever made. Originally, I wanted to be an Art Director, until I went to a UX Design conference and fell in love with the ability to use psychology and human interactions in my designs. Later that year I was accepted into Amazon’s UX Design internship program in Seattle. The rest is history!

As a Product Designer, I design virtual experiences. This could be a website, a mobile app, or a smart hardware.

Create a portfolio you are proud of, even if it's just filled with school projects.

My secret recipe of success in design is always putting the user first.

Some that come to mind are David McCandless, the designer of “Information is Beautiful” and Olimpia Zagnoli, an Italian illustrator. I absolutely love how real and unique these designers are. David McCandless really displays how information can be displayed in a way that is digestible and beautiful. Olimpia’s illustrations are just so unique and deeply engaging.

Design for me is creating a beautiful human centric experience that makes an action (virtually or physically) more efficient and beautiful than before.

I believe my curiosity made me question every design decision I made.

Joyster (project that won) is what I am most excited about right now. It’s a mental health app that allows people to create journal stories in seconds to keep track of their mental and physical symptoms. Joyster aims to help with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or any other mental health symptom. We are currently open for beta and will be launching early next month.

Design has the power to change the world positively or negatively. I believe it's up to us to work towards a better world. We are the ones who define how people experience the world around them.

Joyster (project that won) is what I am most excited about right now. It’s a mental health app that allows people to create journal stories in seconds to keep track of their mental and physical symptoms. Joyster aims to help with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or any other mental health symptom. We are currently open for beta and will be launching early next month.

I would love to see more design leaders, especially female ones.

I always start my designs with pencil and paper. I find it easier to erase things and re-draw or re-arrange on paper. As much s I love technology and software, there is nothing as satisfying as creating something on paper.

Less is always more. I like to simplify the design, copy, and steps as much as possible. I believe in making efficient, delightful, and purposeful experiences. I always try to find a way to decrease the number of screens, copy, or buttons as necessary.

As a Product Designer, I tend to use mostly softwares. My favorite ones are Sketch App, Figma, and Procreate on my iPad.

When I was 19 years old I interned as a graphic designer for a local magazine. The Art Director of the company taught me a lot of typography, spacing, visual hierarchy, and colour schemes. Additionally, my first internship at Amazon was tough. I had to figure everything out on my own, it was like throwing a baby in the pool to see if it swims. I think that experience taught me a lot about being self-sufficient as a designer.

- 100 things every designer needs to know about people by Susan Weinschecnk

- Living with Complexity by Donald A. Norman

- Nudge by Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein

- Electric dreams by Ted Friedman

Favourite colour is tea. Favourite place is Vancouver Island. Favourite food is definitely sushi. Favourite season is fall. Favourite thing and brand is furniture by FLOYD

It was obvious to my parents, but not to me.

Art has always been a huge part of my life. Early on, I denied becoming a designer because I didn’t think I could make a living. 1.5 years into university, while studying Economics, I realized I was giving up on a dream. I quit and applied to the University of Waterloo’s Global Business and Digital Arts program. That was the best decision I ever made. Originally, I wanted to be an Art Director, until I went to a UX Design conference and fell in love with the ability to use psychology and human interactions in my designs. Later that year I was accepted into Amazon’s UX Design internship program in Seattle. The rest is history!

Paula Barcante Consulting is a design studio that focuses on creating products that will benefit humanity. Technology has so many effects on our well-being, so we believe it’s up to us to make those effects a positive one.

Design for me is creating a beautiful human centric experience that makes an action (virtually or physically) more efficient than before.

I spent a lot of my career designing for large companies and a lot of the time I wasn’t sure how it was benefiting the world or even humans in an individual level. So I would say my passion lies with designing for the greater good, that could be an app, a website, or even an illustration that sparks positivity.

I don’t think I have a favorite design per-se, but I have a lot of designers I aspire by. Some that come to mind are David McCandless, the designer of “Information is Beautiful” and Olimpia Zagnoli, an Italian illustrator. I absolutely love how real and unique these designers are. David McCandless really displays how information can be displayed in a way that is digestible and beautiful. Olimpia’s illustrations are just so unique and deeply engaging.

The first thing I designed for a company was a dashboard for companies to keep track of their advertising click through rates and impressions. I know, boring, right?

This is a hard one. My creativity doesn’t have a time. Sometimes it comes in the morning, but other times it shows up at 12am. It really depends. However, the times I created something I was proud of were times when I was personally struggling.

I love focusing on where the product could go. I’m a futurist in nature, so when I design an experience, I design for the future, not the present. I also just adore bringing in illustrations and small delightful experiences throughout my products.

Designing is my career, hobby, and job. I love what I do. When I’m designing it feels like time just doesn’t exist anymore. It feels liberating to me.

The moment I ship something, I have so many emotions come through me. I usually feel proud and anxious, but also extremely nervous and scared about how people will use the product and if they will enjoy it.

I believe what makes a design successful is how useful and helpful the product is. As a Product Designer, I am always looking for the human-aspect of the design. Do my users find my product helpful? Would they use it? Does it serve a purpose in the lives? These answers help me determine if the design is successful or not.

This may sound like a broke record, but again, I look at the purpose of the design, how the design itself is fixing that problem, and if the way they are fixing it is the best way.

As designers we are responsible for how people will make sense of the world around them. I believe it’s our responsibility to create designs and experiences that will help society and the environment in a positive way.

My design inspiration comes from books and designs from other fellow designers. I love using Dribbble as a source of inspiration as I find a lot of amazing product designers post their work there.

I would say my design style is “less is more.” I like to simplify the design, copy, and steps as much as possible. I believe in making efficient, delightful, and purposeful experiences. I always try to find a way to decrease the number of screens, or copy, or buttons as possible.

I always start my designs with pencil and paper. I find it easier to erase things and re-draw or re-arrange on paper. As much I love technology and software, there is nothing as pure as creating something on paper. This is then followed by creating low-fidelity designs on Sketch. Once I have a solid map of all the screens, I like to prototype it and start showing it to potential users. Based on their feedback, I then re-iterate the designs and start building in the visual aesthetics.

My “golden rule” in design is start with the user.

I believe having the ability to articulate your designs and be open to feedback is extremely important.

As a Product Designer, I tend to use mostly software. My favourite ones are Sketch App, Figma, and Procreate on my iPad.

My most important job experience was my second internship with Amazon in Seattle. I was 21 years old, designing a brand new platform that had never existed before. I learned so much in those 4 months.

I have worked with big companies like Amazon and Zillow as well as small start-ups like Medella Health, cv19.solutions, Charlie, custom care, NICHE Magazine, etc.

My next big project is launching Joyster. We are currently open for Beta and are beyond excited to launch early next month!

Yes! Joyster (project that won) is what I am most excited about right now. It’s a mental health app that allows people to create journal stories in seconds to keep track of their mental and physical symptoms. Joyster aims to help with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or any other mental health symptom. We are currently open for beta and will be launching early next month.

You can find me on twitter @paulabarcante , LinkedIn, or instagram @joyster.app