Interview with Jen Myers
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
The Guest
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Hi, I'm Mike with UGtastic. I'm here again at SCNA. I'm sitting down with Jen Myers from Relevance. You're a designer—a digital native designer—and you speak to technical audiences, programmers, and developers, as well as designers. I believe there's probably a big difference between those two audiences. Do you see any difference when you speak to them?
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
There are some differences, and I'm definitely more comfortable in the 'techie' community, for lack of a better term. That's where I started and where I feel most at home. When I speak to designers, I actually feel a little bit like I'm on the other side because I spend so much time in the technical landscape. But there are definitely differences. I know a lot of people in the UX community, which is almost a subset of the larger design community. They work with different mediums—some are product designers—but it's still interesting to find the common ground. It sometimes just takes a little more work to figure out a designer's perspective and what medium they work in compared to the tech community.
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
I do think designers tend to see a larger sense of things. Not to say tech people are narrow-minded—not at all—but designers like to have the large picture and know how everything fits together. I'm like that myself. That's one thing I like to talk to developers about, because it's easy to get wrapped up in details. Details are important, but having larger context is vital, whether you're building a product or dealing with a community.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
You used the term 'digital native designer.' What does that mean?
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
That's a term I've started to coin to describe myself. I am a designer who works in software, but I don't have a formal design background. I didn't come from a print background and then learn to do it; I learned design by learning HTML back in 2001. I started in a digital landscape. Everything I've learned about design theory and principles has always been applied digitally. I've done some print projects, but they are more of a struggle because I'm used to the flexibility of digital. I get nervous with print because I can't change it afterward! A 'digital native designer' understands how design specifically works in this digital medium, with all its unique implementations and needs.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
When you talk to technical audiences, is there anything that is particularly hard to get across? Something that just doesn't click?
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
Universally, I have really good experiences talking to developers. I've spoken about this at many conferences and I always have developers come up to talk to me. They often ask how they can learn, and many feel like they can't. I don't think there's any one thing holding them back other than not knowing where to start. It's about how we are educating people and sharing information. Designers need to be more explicit and clear so that developers understand, but pretty much universally, the developers I talk to are really interested in learning these things on their own.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
SCNA is a polyglot conference, but you've also spoken at Ruby-specific events. Do you notice signature styles between different platforms, like .NET vs. iOS vs. Rails? And now with Bootstrap becoming so ubiquitous—does that concern you?
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
It doesn't really concern me. I think it's okay. Bootstrap isn't the solution for everything, but in many situations, it makes sense to use it. There are different solutions for different problems. As long as people are still going back to those design foundations and staying in touch with the collaborative process, it's fine. It's about making deliberate decisions. If you're just doing things unthinkingly because everyone else does, that's probably not the best thing. But developing platform-specific solutions isn't bad as long as we continue to think deliberately about them.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Well, thank you very much for sitting down with me.
Jen Myers
Digital Native Designer and Developer, Speaker at Relevance
Absolutely. Thank you.
Critical Insights
durable
"The 'Digital Native Designer' represents a shift in the industry: practitioners who learned design through the constraints and capabilities of code (HTML/CSS) rather than traditional print mediums, leading to a deeper understanding of digital interactivity and flexibility."
durable
"Designers bring value to technical teams not just through aesthetics, but by maintaining the 'large picture' context—ensuring that small technical details align with the overall product and community goals."
durable
"The primary barrier for developers learning design isn't a lack of aptitude, but a lack of accessible starting points and clear, explicit communication from the design community."
durable
"Standardized UI frameworks like Bootstrap are not inherently harmful to design diversity as long as they are chosen as a deliberate solution for a specific problem rather than an unthinking default."
durable
"Design principles are universal, but the medium (print vs. digital) fundamentally changes the process; digital design requires an embrace of change and resizing that traditional print design often fears."