DocuSign

I work at DocuSign as a Product Designer on Design Systems to handle components. I champion inclusive design and accessibility through my work, and though I have much to learn, I believe I’ve grown in my understanding of where I am at in my craft and relation to the world.

Personal milestones (small, but impactful):

• I suggested to the Senior Product Designer that we should change the name strings we were using for our avatars. The existing name strings sounded White and lacked diversity in naming conventions (e.g., Nguyen, Sanchez, Khan) that highlighted racial/ethnic differences.

• Similarly, I suggested to the Senior Product Designer that we should diversify the avatars’ race and ethnicity, because we had a limited range of people from different backgrounds represented in our avatars (photos).

• I supported the Accessibility Engineer with their Accessibility Guidelines for engineers and designers by editing their spreadsheet so that it was more visually appealing and written in plainer language.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my ideas were welcomed and accepted, as I’d anticipated some pushback. It took me time to learn to trust other designers, because it was hard for me to explain to them how to work with d/Deaf and hard of hearing people. As this was my first full-time design role, I worked hard to prove myself and at times faced doubt and insecurity. The imposter syndrome was so real, and I broke down numerous times, especially in my conversations with my manager and coworker(s).

Through this experience, I built resilience and refined my identity. I came to terms with the power dynamics that existed in tech industry and questioned my role, and I decided that it’s time for me to move on.