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Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, however who are the folks behind Canonical? This blog collection is all about getting to know the different workers that make up our firm.

Lilyana Videnova is a Senior User Experience (UX) Designer who has labored on a variety of Canonical products. We spoke with Lilyana to search out out what it’s like designing person experiences for one among the most important, most energetic open supply communities in the world.

What’s your background in IT?

I’m originally from Bulgaria. I all the time loved maths and taking part in video games when I used to be growing up. When it came to applying for university, pc science sounded like the proper mix of those two. I moved to England 9 years in the past to review pc science at the University of York, after which went on to do my masters in human-pc interplay at UCL. After graduating, I worked at an training know-how startup for two years before becoming a member of Canonical.

After working in the identical startup for two years, what was it about Canonical that made you need to work right here?

Canonical is at the forefront of open source, which is a field I’ve always been eager about, and i really feel that it’s an organization that is trying to do something good for the world. Some time ago, I spoke with a consumer who looks after a fairly giant server lab at a London University. He instructed me that if MAAS - our Metal-as-a-Service answer - wasn’t open supply and utterly free to make use of, they wouldn’t be able to keep up that lab and continue their analysis. Canonical really is an enabler on a worldwide scale, which I like.

You talked about MAAS, could you inform us what are you working on in the mean time?

I’m presently creating design guidelines for all the command-line interfaces (CLIs) used in Canonical products. It’s an fascinating venture as a result of it’s not one thing that a designer would normally be concerned in. Typically, CLIs are created and used by engineers, and that often exhibits in the way they're designed. The brand new tips ought to help our engineers make command strains that are easier to make use of and standardised.

I’m also working on Snapcraft - the Linux app retailer - to encourage extra folks to obtain and use snaps; and I’ve beforehand been part of the MAAS team.

It appears to be like like you're employed on many various projects. Does your design approach change relying on the challenge?

Absolutely, all of it will depend on the meant audience. Take MAAS and Juju, for instance. In comparison with Snapcraft, they are way more technical tools aimed toward a more technical audience, so it’s important to strike the fitting stability between complexity and intelligibility. Since these instruments encompass such a big selection of concepts and capabilities, it’s common for a person to be expert in a single side and a novice in another. We'd like to offer customers the opportunity to easily expand their knowledge, but with out an excessive amount of ‘in your face’ recommendation that may frustrate specialists.

That being said, we do also intention to build similarities throughout products. Even though Snapcraft and Juju are aimed at completely different audiences, someone who is aware of one device ought to know what to anticipate from buttons and layouts in the opposite. The CLI standardisation project is a good example of how we try to maintain the user experience constant.

Speaking about your design method; how do stakeholders factor into design decisions?

For Snapcraft, we work with three separate engineering groups and a entrance-end group, in addition to end-users. Managing expectations and priorities from all these totally different groups is all the time a challenge.

Feedback from customers is particularly essential - it drives all of the enhancements we make. We've got analytics looking at how folks use the web site, and we strive to talk on to users via our boards, surveys, and analysis panels. It helps that many Canonical engineers are also users of Canonical merchandise, so they’re able to offer beneficial suggestions on a extremely technical degree.

How has the shift to remote working impacted your work?

I’m a bit old school. Before the pandemic, I designed primarily using pen and paper, but now all the things is digital. We use tablets and a instrument referred to as Miro, which is great for quick sketches and collaboration since everyone can draw on the identical canvas. For high fidelity designs, we use Sketch. And of course, all of us use lots of sticky notes - every self-respecting UX designer has to love sticky notes!

Inside the Snapcraft workforce, we’ve additionally began having weekly work collectively sessions. Five of us get collectively on a two-hour call and deal with any quick tasks we’d normally handle by pulling up a chair to each other’s desks. There’s no set agenda, and it tends to be very productive.

Finally, what sort of opportunities have you had whereas you’ve been at Canonical?

Probably the most exciting factor has been all of the travel over the past two years. We have sprints in superb places. I’ve been to Montreal, Vancouver, Paris, and Cape Town. At those occasions, I’ve had the chance to go up on stage to present my work, which has undoubtedly helped me to improve my confidence and leadership skills. I’m now not intimidated presenting my ideas in front of a room of very technical engineers, so we’re able to have productive and interesting discussions.

In terms of profession progression, I used to be promoted quite shortly to Senior Designer. It’s been really great to be given a whole lot of accountability every time I ask for it, and I’ve been properly supported by both friends and better-ups. It’s a cool setting the place I feel like I could be brave in what I want to try.

Canonical is all the time on the lookout for vivid new expertise, and we rent from in all places! Apply here to join the team or go check out our Twitter account @UbuntuWantsYou.

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