Working with clients has been core to Jenny Ta’s entire career. After studying Communication Studies at UCLA and cutting her teeth in client work as a digital strategist for OMD/Media Arts Lab, the UX designer explored the world of music streaming in a sales role at Spotify. At the time, design was just a passion project. Fast forward a few years, a slew of design courses and a lot of hands-on experience later, and Ta now spends her days thinking carefully about the user experience for Pattern’s clients. Her favorite parts? Learning from incredible founders and vibing with the Pattern team over design ideas—or culture updates—at their Berkeley, California studio.
I started my career in digital media and worked at ad agencies on the media strategy side. Apple was one of my first clients. From there, I pivoted to the sales side of things and worked as an account manager doing advertising sales at Spotify. I’ve always held client-facing roles, and design was something I would do for fun. After a few years at Spotify, I moved to San Francisco and quit my job to pursue design as an actual job. I joined a design program where I worked with startups in the SF Bay Area to help them design their apps alongside a team of other people in my cohort. That’s how I got my first "professional" taste of design and specifically user experience (UX). I was able to build a portfolio and I started freelancing while taking more UX design courses.
That deep dive into design led me to my UX Design role at Fluid, where I first worked with Mike Janiak, then-Senior VP of Design, now Pattern’s co-founder and executive creative director. I spent about 3 years there working on UX design for various eCommerce brands before coming to Pattern.
"I have always thought that the psychology behind web design was really fascinating...the intersection of visual, UX, and interaction that makes something great"
Why UX design?
People take good design for granted, in a good way. They expect things to work, and it’s only when a website doesn't work that people start to notice bad design. When things work well, people rarely think about the designs and engineers focused on making the process easy for them. That’s the part that really fascinates me, the intersection of visual, UX, and interaction that makes something great.
I have always thought that the psychology behind web design was really fascinating. I wanted to dig into the process behind the visual aspects of building a website. I’m always thinking about and putting myself into the mindset of user flows. Now I get to apply that deep thinking to my day-to-day work.
What’s it like to be a UX designer at Pattern?
We work with a lot of founder-led brands which means we get to work with the founders themselves, as well as their core teams. I love hearing their stories and asking them questions directly; I have access that's not always so easy when working on larger brands. Founder-led companies inspire me every time because you can feel the passion and care when they describe their product. They’re trusting us to represent them based on how they see themselves currently and aspirationally. When we ship a redesign that both the client and our team are proud of, it’s an incredible feeling.
Can you share a recent project that you’re proud of? What made it awesome?
Elfster, a secret Santa exchange app, just launched a couple of weeks ago. Unlike our standard ecCommerce website redesign, this project was an entire app redesign. Elfster came to us to update their existing app to make everything more streamlined; they wanted an entirely new look and feel. From the beginning, Elfster listened to customers and built an app based on what they asked for. Our challenge was to streamline the user experience while keeping the features that current Elfster users expected. We wanted to build on what was working while rolling out an elegant new design in time for the holiday season.
We needed to simplify the user’s journey from creating a gift exchange for family and friends to adding gifts to a wishlist, the two core site and app functionalities. One of the big challenges of this project was that we were designing for several different points of view or personas. There was the person creating the gift exchange, the friend or family member who gets the invite, the person who adds gifts to their wishlist, and the friend trying to view a wishlist to buy products as gifts. That’s a lot of layers to solve for.
The app is now live, and we’re rolling out the redesign slowly. From what we've heard from customers so far, they’ve really liked what we’ve done. I’m excited to see how the app and website get used this holiday season.
"Founder-led companies inspire me every time because you can feel the passion and care when they describe their product. They’re trusting us to represent them based on how they see themselves currently and aspirationally. When we ship a redesign that both the client and our team are proud of, it’s an incredible feeling."
You’ve worked at agencies in the past. What sets Pattern apart?
We are very open as an agency, and we take pride in our discovery process with clients where we ask thoughtful questions to get to know our clients, including their hopes, needs, and concerns. We hear about why they started their company, experiences they’ve had in their past, or what they’re dreaming of next. That discovery helps us get a general feel of what they’re all about, insights that can inspire design, and decisions down the line. Of course, we always ask the more tactical questions, like hearing which websites they like and which features they want, but those foundational conversations help us create something that truly feels unique to them.
I think the level of detail we get is unique, and we’re open to different ways of collaborating, too. If a client wants to be involved, we're totally open to that. And if a client wants us to make the decisions and to just review them at the end, that’s great too. Our flexibility and willingness to adapt to different types of clients help us become successful. At the end of the day, clients are hiring us for our expertise, but we also need to take their needs and opinions into account. That balance is a key reason that we have good relationships with the teams we work with.
Another key differentiator is the people. Our team is small, but when we come together, we do killer work, and we have fun while doing it. We care about the type of work we take on and what we produce. Whether it’s a project we’re pitching, a design decision that needs to be made, or even choosing what we’re all having for lunch that day—probably the most important decision in non-COVID-19 times —we trust each other.
What have you learned after a little over a year at Pattern?
One big thing I’ve learned as a designer is to just listen. As a designer, sometimes it's hard to not take things personally because you’ve poured so much into your work. But Mike, Isaac, and the rest of the team have taught me to truly listen to feedback—whether that’s at an internal design critique or from a client—and not to react right away. The more you can give it space to think through the feedback, the better. Your first round of design is never what ends up getting shipped; there will always be multiple rounds. I try to use feedback to inspire me to present something better or to move in a direction that I hadn’t considered before.
What gets you stoked?
Lately, I’ve been stoked about “the culture drop,” a biweekly team meeting where we chat about design, politics, art, culture, or really anything going on. The routine started as a casual thing in the office where I would bring up random stories that I saw on Twitter or mention a new restaurant I had heard about or a random celebrity update. It could be design-related or not. Mike encouraged me to make it a monthly or biweekly meeting about what was going on in the world. Today, we have a meeting that I lead every other Monday to chat through interesting articles, shows, podcasts, etc. It’s good to be informed about what’s going on, and it helps us in our work, too.
What are you looking forward to in the next year?
I’m most excited to see Pattern grow. I started here as one of their first freelancers and have enjoyed seeing the team steadily grow. It’ll also be great to work and learn from more designers in our community. New team members will thrive here if they’re not afraid to collaborate, ask questions, and voice their opinions. I think we’re really good about encouraging everyone to contribute. We’ve created a space here where we like to talk things through. Sometimes you’ll be surprised, and you might think what you have to say doesn't make sense, but other people will be excited by the idea. Your idea might start a conversation and lead us somewhere we didn’t expect to go. At the end of the day, I think good design comes from collaboration.
Want to join Jenny on our next project? We’re looking for freelance designers and project managers to join our team. If crafting award-winning digital experiences for emerging and established consumer brands is your thing, get in touch!
About Pattern
Pattern is a digital design & e-commerce agency that helps brands succeed in the experience economy. We design modern brands, eCommerce experiences, products & platforms that help founders, disruptors and visionaries find their place at the intersection of culture, community & commerce.
