Who Trains at InDefence? Tania
NAME : Tania Chan
WHAT IS YOUR JOB TITLE??
Graphic Designer & UX/UI Designer (with marketing background).
I also do manage investment properties.
HOW MANY YEARS HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING IN THIS
INDUSTRY??
10 years
WHAT 3 WORDS DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO??
Design. With. Purpose.
WHAT DOES YOUR WORK ENTAIL??
Before I started off on my own, I was a national designer/marketing manager. I designed campaign and organised printings for over 150 retailers across Australia. I also co-ordinated events, trade shows and had to fly overseas to places such as Spain and Honolulu to attend conferences. It was actually hard work (no time for sleep or sightseeing!).
Now I run my design business. People usually come to me with an idea they want to bring to life or make better. Or maybe they want to refresh their business. Jobs I get range from website/app design, branding to marketing materials. My goal is to help improve people’s businesses and lives via design so I generally enjoy working with business who are passionate in helping their customers, regardless if it’s a small or large business.
With UX/UI design I usually get larger scale projects from clients with MUCH larger budget as it entails more. These clients are usually looking to build some sort of web, mobile, software app. UX stands for “user-experience” so it involves me talking/interviewing users a lot. I also create wireframe, prototype and have people test my ‘dummy’ apps/websites. If users finds issues with the website/app (eg they think it’s confusing), I redesign it until it seamlessly make sense. I then move into the UI (user-interface) phase where I make the website/app look colourful and pleasing to your eyes. I’m always asking my friends/families whether they want to volunteer in my interviews and testing haha.
My website is www.taniachan.com
I also accidentally started a digital portrait biz the other weekend. It’s called ‘The Sleepy Alchemist’ (www.facebook.com//
I left the 9-5 office life 2 years ago to work remotely. I have more flexibility in my hours and enjoy the freedom of being able to work anywhere in the world. However, it requires so much discipline (which I lack ha!). Last year, I briefly worked from cafes and co-working spaces in Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong etc. I ended up working from home this year but it eventually got extremely boring and lonely. I do have one co-worker though – she does nothing but farts, randomly poops besides me and tries to eat my food. I eventually decided it was time to leave the house and that’s how I joined you guys in Krav! (FYI – my coworker is our dog, Momo. Not a real human).
HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THIS AREA??
I was always into visual art as a kid and during high school became very intrigued in psychology (mainly on how human thinks and feel). I really want to help people but was too creative to be working in a clinical environment. So I decided to study Graphic Design, Marketing (consumer behaviour) and eventually UX/UI.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE/DISLIKE??
I like food, travelling, photography, architecture, misty weathers, big cities and of course, Krav Maga and HIIT training.
I dislike cockroaches, fruits (I have a fear or eating fresh strawberries, cherries, raspberries) and dead fishes. I rather be stabbed once by a knife than slapped by a slimy dead fish.
WHAT IS A COMMON MISCONCEPTION PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT WHAT YOU DO??
People thinks design is just about making things pretty in ‘photoshop’. It’s more than that. I’m a multidisciplinary designer and design to me is about crafting solutions to solve problems, minimising stress, making things seamlessly easy to use and creating positive experiences – not necessarily just for app and websites. When I designed my first investment property I asked, “how can I make this house functional for a family who works from home”. The solution was as simple as putting a spare room at the front of the house and the family room at the back so they can confidently conduct business without clients invading into their private space. When designing, I also have to take into consideration accessibility (i.e. designing for those who are visually impaired, disabled, language barrier etc). Have you ever gone to a foreign airport/train station where you don’t know where to go because you can’t read the language? Well, that’s bad ‘user-experience’ design. I would’ve include visual cues (eg icons) to make transport experience better for foreign people. I actually spend a lot of time empathising and understanding how the users may think or feel.
DO YOU HAVE ANY INTERESTING STORIES THAT YOU CAN
TELL US??
I used to do marketing at a swimming pool company. I’m bilingual and sometime mixes words up. Once I presented a new campaign to the sales team and the whole sales team started dying from laughter and calling my campaign disgusting. My campaign was, “When you buy a robot pool cleaner, you get a FREE phosphate tests”. What’s so disgusting about it? Turns out, I’ve been pronouncing phosphate wrong the whole time. I’ve been calling it “PROSPHATE” and with my slight Chinese accent, the sales team thought I was asking them to give out free prostate tests for every pool cleaners they sold.
