[Management] Alumna Kim Eun-joo, Design Lead at Google
- Date2021.08.05
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Alumna Kim Eun-joo, Design Lead at Google
This issue of Ewha DNA Interviews met with alumna Kim Eun-joo (Information Design, graduating class of 1996), who is working as UX Design Lead at Google’s Google Assistant Team, to hear her thoughts on the nature of UX/UI and ways to live a good life.
Q. Nice to meet you. Could you please briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Kim Eun-joo. I graduated from Ewha with a degree in Information Design and I now work as a Design Lead at Google in Silicon Valley.
Within the Google Assistant Team, I’m currently designing a system that helps machines to easily communicate with humans. To put it simply, I’m working on creating a multi-modal design that integrates various types of data including voice and touch information with visual information.
As the Design Lead, I’m working with UX design specialists in various fields, such as visual designers, motion designers, and interaction designers. In the United States, there are many UX designers who studied cognitive psychology or human factors engineering. In addition, the recent demand for voice conversation design has resulted in the emergence of a new, specialized UX design position called “Conversation Designer.” Not only that, we also have linguistics experts working with us to develop AI-based conversation systems. The Design Lead serves as a conductor who coordinates various designs from a number of specialized fields to create one integrated product. As such, the Design Lead must be able to see the design as a whole. In my case, the fact that I majored in information design in Korea and studied human factors engineering and human psychology at a graduate school in the United States was very helpful in becoming a Design Lead at Google.
Q. I heard that you led the development of Samsung’s first round smartwatch, the earliest in the company’s range of wearable technologies. It was an award-winning achievement and a great example of success. Do you have a particular formula for such success?
It wasn’t the case that I was special, but rather a stroke of luck that I was given the opportunity to join the project as a designer. However, the reason I was so fortunate was most likely because I built my career on blazing a trail where most others did not follow. When I joined Samsung Electronics, I specifically requested that I wanted to be assigned to a department that wasn’t related to its Galaxy line of smartphones. As a result, I was placed in charge of Samsung’s wearable UX design team instead of smartphones. At the time, Samsung’s smartwatches were equipped with Samsung’s in-house-developed Tizen operating system instead of Android. From the operating system to the app design, we had to create literally every single detail from scratch and developing an operating system was not an easy task at all. But as I was given the freedom to create all patterns and paradigms without limitations as well as to design the UX for all software applied to the operating system, it was an ideal opportunity to create an integrated experience. And luckily, the technological capabilities of hardware improved in a timely manner to enable the introduction of the round shape and bezel, which were unprecedented and received favorably.
I once had an interview with a journalist who looked at my resume and asked me why I decided to leave everything behind despite being in my prime and leave for the U.S. to start with a clean slate. After listening to the question, I thought about the meaning of “being in my prime” and even looked up the dictionary definition of the concept. According to a dictionary, the definition of “being in one’s prime” is “the period when a trend or force reaches its peak.” But, for me, I believe that I’m in my prime whenever I feel full of passion and ideas. I define this period as a time when I can feel ideas coursing within myself, rather than defining it based on external praise. Sadly, ideas can dry up and become stagnant after working in a stable job for several years. If you fall into that trap, one way to regain inspiration can be to completely flip the situation. I believe that one of the factors behind my success was endless exploration to prevent my ideas and passion from drying up.
Q. Could you give a word of advice for members of Ewha who want to become a UX designer or feel at a loss because they haven’t discovered their dream job yet?
My dream isn’t necessarily working as a designer. My actual dream is to make the world more beautiful. I chose my career as a designer in order to realize that dream. So, I think it’s more important to think about how I want to live and what I want to do, rather than “what I want to be.” That will help you to stay focused whenever you find yourself feeling uncertain in life.
In the process of realizing your dream, you might try working as a designer and be lucky enough to find that it’s a good fit for you, but if not, you can just try a different line of work. If not a designer, I could’ve become a writer or a counselor instead. But that doesn’t mean that I would feel a sense of despair, thinking “I wanted to be a designer, but I failed.” Because my dream was to make the world beautiful, becoming a designer was just one of my many attempts to make my dream come true. So, I think that it’s vital to set your own life mission that defines “how you want to live.”
The last thing I want to add is “you can just do it.” You can try something even if it’s already obvious that you won’t be good at it. You can throw everything down if you want, and you can start all over again if you want. Just believe in yourself and do whatever you want! This is what I want to say.