ali felski

As some of you may know, I recently left my government job for an opportunity to work for the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit here in Washington, DC. The Sunlight Foundation works to promote transparency in the government, and the Sunlight Labs group, in which I work specifically, focuses on making government data more interesting and accessible through APIs and web apps exposing the data in unique and insightful ways.

Why I changed jobs

I am always looking to make a difference through design – which is why I signed on with the government in the first place – and I think I was able to make a difference there, but only with the few people who were granted access to my work. Working for the Sunlight Foundation, I can take pride in the difference we are making on a daily basis, and our work (and my design) has the opportunity to affect uncounted people in America and, hopefully, around the world.

The Challenge

Given all of that, the challenge I have been presented with is that I am the only designer in the Labs group, working alongside five developers. Make no mistake, my new coworkers write beautiful code and are fun, wonderful people, but being the only designer in the group can feel like a bit of a vacuum.

So I ask the masses

How do you get inspiration, feedback, and a push when you’re essentially a solo designer? I’m working on a few ideas, but would love to hear what others have to say.

What I have been doing

My first couple of weeks on the job, I was presenting my work to Jack because I was just getting comfortable with my surroundings and I knew that he would give me a valid opinion on my work and push me to question details so that I could make my work much better. But of course he has his own job in some other Labs, so he can’t be around all the time to give me feedback. I am sure many freelance workers feel the same way: you have some good friends and old colleagues that you can ping every now and then, but what do you do on a daily basis?

My Solution

My working solution is to present to the whole office on a weekly basis, and on a daily basis solicit my coworkers in the Labs for their opinions. Although these people aren’t designers themselves I think as long as people stay away from personal preferences, such as “I like / I don’t like that color,” then brainstorming or discussing projects with a group will allow you to step away from the project and hopefully give you new ideas and new directions.

Fingers Crossed

This hopefully won’t become design by committee, but instead honest feedback from a decent number of educated and interested colleagues that I can process and fold back into my work as it makes sense. I’m inspired by Mark Boulton’s experience with the Drupal community, which I think has the chance to be a disaster but seems to be working quite well.

Let me know what you think or what you do to push yourself to keep producing excellent work. Also, keep your eyes open for the new Sunlight Labs site in the next couple of weeks.