Meet Joe: UX Designer
(and Wannabe Mouseketeer)

Tell me about yourself.

Hi! I’m Joe Naldo– a designer, dancer, and Disney aficionado. I come from a product management background, hopping around from technical writing to requirements gathering. I worked as a technical business analyst for 3 years before making a career change into UX and UI design.

When did you get into design?

When I was a teenager, Myspace and Xanga (send eProps) started my fascination with web design. I wanted to be a web developer and create beautiful things for the internet. Fast forward 10 years,
 I stumbled onto UX design through my employment at Booz Allen Hamilton and I was fully captivated by it. I enrolled in
 Bloc’s Designer Program in Nov. 2018, and the rest is history.

I love how UX design combines my desire to create with solving complex problems that matter.

Why is UX design important to you?

Design influences how users complete tasks, and getting it right is critical to a successful business. In my past role as a technical writer, I made instruction manuals and SOPs for web apps. More often than not, users of the app struggled through simple tasks despite having instructions in front of them. This caused delays in meeting service level agreements, putting the business behind. I tried my best to break down each task flow, but only so much can be documented if the user interface is not intuitive.

All-in-all, design is important to find the perfect alignment between stakeholder goals and user needs.

How can you use design to make a difference?

I want to design enjoyable experiences that are intuitive and help you think less. Whether it’s showing more personality within the product or reducing the cognitive load on a page, my goal is to make people happy during and after they use the products I design.