UX Pathways - Episode 8 Season 4 : Cătălina Manea

All right, everyone, welcome to another episode of UX Pathways, and I have the honor of being joined today by Catalina Manea. How are you today? Hey, Mark. Thank you so much for the invite.

Appreciate it. So happy to have you here. I know your career has had many twists and turns, and I was so excited to have you share your experience with our audience. So could you just tell me what is your current role in the industry and could you describe just a little bit about your journey?

Yeah sure. So I'm a staff system designer. My tongue gets kind of like ramble whenever I say like staff system designer and then system designer designer. I've been in design systems for a while now.

I kind of stumbled design system in 2017. Before that, I did graphic design and I got bored. And then I got into web design accidentally because that's what it was back then. And then I got into design systems.

And for context, I always had a thing for like engineering, the engineering side. I actually tried to be a developer at some point in my life. Unfortunately, I sucked at JavaScript so much that I couldn't make it on that side of the world. I do much better with operating languages versus syntax-based languages.

And it turns out that I think the reason why I got into design system, I was crutching an itch because I always wanted to figure out the way to bridge design systems and engineering and be closer to that side of the world. So I've been deliberately shaping my career around that. And I basically crafted myself and tried to find opportunities. And I think 2020 is really when it started blooming right before we got hit by COVID.

And I've been working in remote environments ever since. And can you define for our audience what a design system is to you? Yeah, not a kit. So please do not be confused with a Figma kit or anything like that.

do you want like do you want like the corporate answer or like a genuine answer I guess high level answer what you feel it is because there's a lot of confusion out there around what a design system is it's a contract it's a contract in technology between design and engineering and product and multiple teams it's a way to align design and engineers because there's a lot of different issues when it comes to aligning these two. It's a set of guidelines, rules, anywhere from tokens to components to patterns to templates.

And every single design stem is different, so they might not only include all these things, but it's a contract that highlights the things that the teams agreed upon when they are building together. I like that. First time I heard the word contract, I've heard a lot of words around a repository or some library, but I like that contract because it means more. It's more of a commitment.

Yeah, and I mean, you can have, what's the word, amends on a contract. It can be rewritten over and over again, saying how companies write their terms and policies all the time. Same thing with the design system. It's not like a static document.

Yeah, I like it. And I feel as though design systems has been a word that's been thrown around a lot out there. Also, this word user experience. Could you define to me what you think user experience is and why do you think it's important?

And I'm going to tack a third question on there. Was there some time when you finally discovered that it was important? yeah I mean I discover is important every single time I go on through a website and I want to facepalm myself because I cannot like navigate or it's a product that really annoys me and I'm becoming like so sensitive to those kind of details right now that it's just every single time but I think when I initially um saw the question I'm going to be honest with you I was like why are we still trying to define user experience in 2026 right like everyone should know by now what it is.

It's funny because even with AI and everything, we're still dealing with the same problems over and over again. The same things that I was talking about 10 years ago, they're still happening. But I used to think of user experience as purely the interface, not UI. I don't think they can be separated.

With all due respect, that's I think a completely different conversation. But it's more like how intuitive is this flow? Can I actually complete my task? Can I figure out the entire journey But then I think in the last few months I realized that that is so narrow And every touch point someone has with a brand is communicating something about what the brand stands for.

So now when I think about UX, I'm thinking about as larger customer experience ecosystem umbrella. And it's not just does this work, but also like what does it say? Is that articulated properly? And that can come through copy, through color, through imagery, through all sorts of like design techniques that we're using on a daily basis.

And I think that's where design gets editorial and where it actually matters via the product itself. And I think as I'm diving into my entrepreneurial journey, I'm finding that more and more as I'm going outside of like the corporate boundaries of exploring, if that makes sense. Yeah, it totally does. I love how you talked about articulating it properly.

And there's so much out there and there's so much noise. Sometimes it gets hard to decipher it all. And for you, it sounds like with your career, you started out one way, but then you ended up somewhere else. How did you adapt to change?

Is there some type of mantra or something you're following when you think about change? I will give an answer that doesn't sound very sexy, but I'm a burnout horse by now. So I've been in corporate for quite a while now. And I kind of crafted myself to target companies from the Silicon Valley, at least for the past couple of years.

So I've kind of adapted without using too many buzzwords, but by being pragmatic. And after years of clockwork layoffs in Silicon Valley, I kid you not, like every single six months, we're going through layoffs in every single company that I've been so far, even in the startup environment. 12 months, if you're lucky. I think when I was at the startup was once a year.

But I kind of stopped letting macro instability shake me, if that makes sense. Especially when you're like in a larger organization, macro cultures, I don't know, they're getting like really diluted, if that makes sense. So I focus more on like the micro culture that comes with it. So like right now, the things I'm looking for is finding environments where I can perform best as a designer and where I can grow.

And that means healthy microcultures. I do care about benefits as well, but also alignment with long term vision and who I want to become as a designer. And I think that's also driving my shift towards building my own thing and where I have more control over that environment as well. Yeah, it makes sense.

I mean, where you can perform best, then it automatically connects to growing. And that's something I think for me being in this space, I've really enjoyed. That's why I think I like UX is that there's so many routes you can go. People come in from different disciplines.

and right now it seems we're in this Gardner hype cycle. There's been many new technologies that have come along. I've seen blockchain come along. I've seen big data.

And it seems right now artificial intelligence is the thing that's out there. What current hype in the industry do you think we shouldn't ignore right now? And why do you think that way? I think you're going to answer to your own question.

I know. um definitely the AI hype matters and we can't ignore it like I use it into my own work heavily but I think the problem that we're dealing with and again it's the same problem we're dealing with 10 years ago is the industry is treating design as purely the outcome and it's ignoring all the thinking and internet uh Englishing as a second language but internationality as like something that actually matters, that actually makes something good. And AI, I think it makes easier to hide that because it just like generates surfaces, if that makes sense.

But what shouldn't be ignored is still the why behind the design decisions, you know, the craft that goes with a real perspective instead of just like something that looks designed. And I think it's the design intent behind the AI. And I'm seeing that with a lot of portfolios that people are building because they are building it in AI and you come up with like this one size fits all into everything where you see monotypography and the same descriptions over and over again and everything is centered.

And I think that's the reason why I'm starting to care more about like the whole customer experience rather than just pure user experience because it pushes the boundary of how we're thinking about the product itself and it's not just a screen. What interesting is I liked how you said that artificial intelligence could be hiding certain aspects And I had many opportunities in my career to redesign a very large application or website And when you looked at the current version, there are many things hiding behind there that you don't see until you put a real user in front of it or you start looking deeper.

and sensing you're feeling the same with artificial intelligence right now. There's a heavy confirmation bias towards our own work. And you can get to be attached to it, you know, as a designer, especially when you work on it on a daily basis. It's like your baby.

It's the thing you care about. But I think that's where we need to be self-aware and try to avoid that confirmation bias as much as possible, even in research like back in the day I used to research my own projects that's a problem like you shouldn't be doing that because you're already coming with a strong point of view versus allowing somebody else from the outside doing research that's why you have dedicated research teams versus generalists that kind of do it all and they come with that bias confirmation and I think the other thing is like when we go into research or even testing it's like don't expect to like defend your design right through the usability testing like use it as a discovery session and I think a lot of designers don't do that and everything is very like methodical if that makes sense like you're not necessarily thinking about the why like why am I doing interviews versus a survey versus observational learning versus contextual inquiry And why am I vibe coding at this point in time?

And is this the right deliverable that I'm doing for this type of engagement? Because the project is shorter in length. And maybe I don't have time to go through the full end-to-end design cycle. I think designers are coming out of school and coming out of bootcamps.

And it's the industry's fault too. also like how they they created the standard of like you have to have like this very methodical way of doing things and it's not like that like in reality when you work in corporate it's not the way it it works and i think that's the problem with ai right now it's surfacing a lot of those kind of designers that unfortunately we know a lot of people entered the industry because it's they thought it's easy right like it's the outcome design it's the outcome Everyone can design.

And it's going to hurt us. It's been hurting us because it's been setting the wrong expectation with recruiters, with companies that maybe are not as mature in terms of design. And then you get the designer that's more seasoned and pushes back and people are not expecting that pushback. and that's why like yes the whole AI hype is important and it shouldn't be ignored but at the same time if you think that AI is going to be replacing you as a designer then you're not a designer my friend like I'm sorry there's so much that goes into design and AI is a tool and a thing that can potentially like help you facilitate a lot of the conversations and things you've been already doing you can be a better designer if you use it the right way And that's where LinkedIn, sometimes the noise over there just becomes overwhelming for a lot of people.

And I don't know. I don't think it's as bad as it seems if you're a good designer. There's so many things on there to unpack. A lot of interesting comments.

I love all those questions you were asking. Understanding the why. those are the key questions going into anything you're designing and i also like the fact you talked about using user research or usability as discovery not necessarily being defensive about your design and you're right i mean there's a lot of biases that happen when you go in with your own design so it's necessary i love all that that was there's so much in there that i would just love to go on for, we could probably make an entire podcast and just one little snippet in there.

The question I have for you though, is for people watching this podcast. So you mentioned a lot of the bootcamps, you mentioned a lot of the people coming into user experience. What advice would you have for people that are looking to make a career change or possibly follow your path and go down that same journey? I don't think all paths are equal.

So like, please don't follow my path because it not going to be the same way I think like the biggest advice that I have right now for everyone and people that I mentoring and even people that I work with on the Unhinged cohort right now It like we need to stop thinking about this cookie generic stuff that everyone's building. And we need to make design human again. And if you have the opportunity to do that, I think a lot of people feel the need to blend their personalities and who they are in the idea that corporations and organizations will accept them because they will fit better.

So they cut pieces of themselves essentially to fit into those different areas. So that's why I think you also, that's another reason why I end up with this generic design approach where you see it in every single SaaS application, in every single website, in every single portfolio. You don't come across like loud designs that convey something. And I think it's really important for a designer to stay anchored to that and try to define themselves throughout the career journey, because I feel like we're losing a lot of that.

The other thing is staying curious. Like, I think if you're within the boundaries of the organization you're working with, if that provides you enough, that's great. But I can tell you, mark every single time I interviewed for a company. I think the people that were interviewing me were more focused on my personal projects and the things that I was so heavily involved in in my free time because that's where it shows like true commitment.

So if people or designers have the opportunity to explore things like that, highly encouraging it or even a side projects or doing non-profit exploring you know staying curious caring about design and don't let corporate suck the life out of you because that can happen um and design is supposed to be fun and i would like to think a lot of the a lot of people that join design is because design is fun it's not solely for financial purposes so if design doesn't feel fun anymore like people should do something about it.

Wow. I mean, that first point you made being yourself and like cutting pieces up at being someone else, I think going down that route, that's really going to open up that creativity, like you're saying. And then that being curious, you know, thinking like that, you know, six-year-old is very helpful. But that last point you made about being fun, it should be fun.

Exactly. I mean, there's, that's, what's going to get you up in the morning. That's what's going to keep you going. And there's a lot in there if you're thinking about a career.

And there's another thing that I would like to add. I do get that in order to be curious, you need to have like a safe environment, whether that's at work or the community of designers that you're part of. I've gone through the whole circle of imposter syndrome and still working through that myself. You know, like you can come across really talented designers and they can make you doubt about your own craft.

but I think again like you need to use maybe agile methodologies as well and do like retrospectives and look into some of the things that you could potentially improve within yourself and and and make you better you know so self-reflection is really important and psychological safety doesn't necessarily come only from those around you but also like the the connections you're building with those around you and how you're getting there. But it's also a luxury to get to that point.

I want to admit like it's not easy to feel safe enough to feed that creativity, but do it on your free time if the organization you're working for doesn't allow you to. Yeah, great additional point. So you've given a lot of advice. How can people find out more about you?

So my portfolio is from 2020. don't judge i really need to uh see it but i do have my website out there i am on linkedin uh katalina mana is my name and um and hinge design is like my new side thing that i've been doing where i'm trying to build a community of designers where we're keeping things very real and very transparent while cutting the corporate fluff um yeah feel free to reach out that's that's kind of like the main channel that I've been using right now to enhance my voice.

So it sounds like you're building a community. There's more to find out in your world and they can just tap into it instantly. For sure. Well, great.

Well, I really appreciate you being on the podcast, sharing your experience. There's a lot in there as we talked about today, but there's a lot going on in this space. So I really appreciate you sharing your opinion. Of course.

thank you for the invite. Appreciate it. Thanks for joining.