Tina Ye

A Brief History

I got my start making techy things in middle school, when I stumbled upon this wonderful thing called HTML... and promptly made this website. Since then, I've been:

• a web and graphic designer at a small brand consultancy
• an in-house designer at a famously opinionated software company
• the creator of two food and cooking web projects
• almost a chef at one point
• a freelance UX designer, researcher, and front-end developer for various tech companies
• and, most recently, lead UX designer at a small startup on a mission to make scientific research more reproducible

I have also:

• mentored students on their Master's thesis as part of SVA IxD's Alumni-in-Residence program
• facilitated workshops on participatory decision-making with my co-consipirator Cordelia Yu
• hosted many experimental dinners

Today

I am a multi-disciplinary design researcher and UX/product designer who values kindness, curiosity, and accountability.

I blend my experiences inside and outside of tech into an evolving set of practices. Some of them are:

Be curious about other ways of seeing

Acknowledge the limits of your own experience. Talk to others to find out what they need.

Be critical, but kind

Deconstruct the problem and interrogate assumptions, but also consider how to share your thought process to meet people where they are.

Know your tools

Tech affords us the ability to do things really fast and at scale, but not all problems are tech problems. Develop a varied toolbox to help with this.

Experiment courageously

To solve complicated problems, you have to be willing to iterate and learn.