Maya Patterson is a people person, in the sense that she has an innate interest in the way others navigate the world and a finely tuned ability to see solutions where others may encounter roadblocks.
In April, the Midwest native and “diehard Chicago stan” moved to Oakland, California, for a job as a product designer at Facebook; we talked with her about user experience design, empathy, internships, and why it makes sense to keep up with the Snapchat habits of teens.
Create: Tech titles and terms can be tough to parse. You’re a product designer at Facebook; what does your job entail?
Patterson: It’s funny you say that because I feel like my title—and what it means—changes every six months. Officially, at this moment, I’m a product designer at Facebook. If I could rename this kind of job, I would call it “digital product designer” because we’re not building tangible things—we’re focusing on web experiences; it all started with desktop, then laptop, then mobile devices, and then on to AR and VR and all of these developing spaces.
But essentially my job is to take care of users, to dig into their needs and behaviors, and build a digital system that helps them accomplish their goals. Depending on who I’m working for, that could be anything from intense data infographic systems to designing a way to get a trunk of clothes sent to your house (which was my last job). Now it’s designing different pieces of the Facebook experience.
So that’s the “real” answer. Though the answer I oftentimes give is: “I’m a web designer.” People are satisfied with that.
Read the full interview here
See more of Maya's work here