Kitty Chan (@IMKittyChan) and Alice Chan (@AliceChan319) are twin sisters and co-workers at Procurify, an online software company based in Richmond, BC, Canada. The duo work together within the design team at Procurify, and have originated many of the company’s creative workflows and protocols, grown the product and marketing offerings from the ground up, and installed a healthy creative culture.
In this conversation, we discuss how the sisters came to work together at Procurify, some of the early creative challenges faced by a small software company, and what sort of workflows and rituals you can use in your own company to help create order and harmony.
Procurify is an online tool to aide companies in their purchasing and procurement. Check them out at Procurify.com
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- Download The Busy Creator Podcast, Episode 70 (MP3, 35:27, 17.1 MB)
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Show Notes & Links
- Alice and Kitty are UX/UI designers
- Procurify helps businesses with their procurement processes, to help businesses buy the stuff they need
- The design team is only three designers, so everyone wears multiple hats
- Procurify began as as school project for three students at BCIT
- Kitty was the first designer, with Alice leaving her “corporate startup” to join about 6 months later
“We know how we both work. It's very easy to communicate.”
—Alice Chan
- Challenges at the start concerned process. A lot of trial-and-error.
“Don't bake a giant cake; you might not like the flavour. Bake a cupcake first and taste it.”
—Alice Chan
“Fail fast but also learn fast.”
—Alice Chan
- Adrienne Stortz runs xoxocooks, her cooking show on YouTube. She’ll like our cooking metaphors.
“Our design team is in the center of everything.”
—Kitty Chan
- Kitty & Alice (and their third designer) work on marketing, sales, and lots of other elements.
- “Two Pizza Team” — keep it small enough to feed everyone with two pizzas
- Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson on Amazon and on Audible
“Boss is a four-letter word.”
—Prescott Perez-Fox
“Our office feels like a community center sometimes.”
—Kitty Chan
- Show Your Work by Austin Kleon on Amazon
- Steve Gordon, and his Instagram feed
- Prescott prefers Kanban Boards over Gantt Charts
- Matt Cutts
- HelloKittyChan.com
- Kitty Chan on Twitter
- Kitty Chan on Facebook
- Kitty Chan on Instagram
- Kitty Chan on Dribbble
- Kitty Chan on Pinterest
- Kitty Chan on LinkedIn
- AliceChan.design
- Alice Chan on Twitter
- Alice Chan on Facebook
- Alice Chan on Instagram
- Alice Chan on Dribbble
- Alice Chan on Pinterest
- Alice Chan on LinkedIn
- Procurify on Twitter
- Procurify on Facebook
- Procurify on Instagram
- Procurify on YouTube
- Procurify on Dribbble
Tools
- Procurify
- InVision
- Smash Bros.
- Whiteboards
- Trello
- Wrike, and its Gantt Chart feature
- Sketch, over Photoshop, for interface design
Techniques
- Product Owners should bring in Designers from the start to create a feature
- Define a “development workflow” which breaks projects into smaller chunks
- Publish-and-iterate, not just in app/software design
- Move the Design Phase earlier to decide on features. Don’t build things before they’ve been planned.
- Take care to ensure consistency across apps, marketing materials
- Have a company scrum every Friday to showcase what you’ve during the week
- Upload your work to Dribbble as a team
- When moving from design to development, show your thinking in InVision and include images
Habits
- Continually share your work — even your in-progress stuff
- Take the weekends “off”
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Join the Discussion
Add your experiences in the Comments section below.
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