Watercooler Chats with Izzy from Boost
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Ever wondered what it really takes to become an expert? Malcolm Gladwell says it's 10,000 hours, but we think it's more about the small, overlooked moments that fill those hours.
In our latest series, Watercooler Chats, we peel back the curtain on office life with people who spend their days making the world a little more interesting. No fluff, just the real stories behind the titles.
Meet Izzy, a UX/UI designer and one of the creative forces within Boost's team in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington.
When she’s not wrangling pixels, she’s busy designing user interfaces that feel like second nature, and tackling the ever-important task of figuring out whether a button should be slightly more rounded. Or really she's thinking about sneaking in a session on the office massage chair.
What does your family think your job is?
My immediate family would generally say something like “making websites look really cool”. I think when I talk about it with my Grandma, my explanation is at a slightly higher level of “designing websites and posters and things!”
What's the most bizarre task you've had to do in your role?
One of the first tasks I ever did in the first week in my role was designing a personalised Christmas t-shirt for one of our clients.
If your job had a theme song, what would it be and why?
Busy Earnin’ by Jungle comes to mind. Productivity soars when that comes on the Sonos!
What's the most boring part of your job that you secretly enjoy?
Making coffees! Our team regularly hosts our clients and we tag-team as barista. Lots of great chats happen around our coffee machine and it’s certainly a favourite ritual.
Tell us something surprising about your job.
We have an office massage chair! The first time I ever took it for a spin was at the end of my working interview for the role. The team encouraged me to try it out at the end of the day but it was VERY hard to feel relaxed in the corner of an unfamiliar office when you're still in interview mode!
Describe your job in one sentence, then explain why that description is misleading.
As a UX/UI designer, my job is to translate user and client needs into digital software solutions that are intuitive and enjoyable to use. Perhaps a misleading thing is that that only scratches the surface of what we do in our day-to-day?! Sometimes it looks like user research, sometimes co-design workshops, sometimes I'm bumping a button around Figma, one pixel at a time!
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What does your family think your job is?
My daughter swears I “sell sauce” and my husband insists I “just move boxes around.”