about — Ana van Schalkwyk Portfolio

**I’m a Product Designer in the OSS, and Observability industry with a background in Psychology.**
Having worked for quite some time as a People Business Partner in two multinationals made me learn a lot about people, their behavior and expectations.
**Then… what made me want to transition to Design?**
In early 2020 I went through a major life transition [moving abroad for good] and it made me started reflecting on my career and the things that I really enjoy doing, such as:
innovating;
creating products that bring real value to society;
making a lasting impact on people.
This alongside my strengths led me to discover UX and Service Design. So, in August 2020 I took a courageous leap of faith to explore this new world, and I absolutely fell in love with it.
**So far, it has been the best career decision I’ve made.**

“When researchers look at how people change their habitual behaviors, they find when some changes occur, it seems to set off a chain reaction that causes other patterns to change as well.”

— Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit”.

Fun fact

On the classic first day of 2021, I took an old new year’s resolution out of the dusty drawer and decided to pursue it.

Slowly but surely I was back into running, aiming for better health and to reach my personal target of 5km.

Knowing myself, it was clear that I should use some help to stay motivated in this pursuit, so I downloaded an application called “From Couch to 5k”.

I must be honest and say that getting there took longer than expected.. precisely 107 days, but with lots of persistence and fun along the way… I did it. And continue to enjoy this new hobby.

Similarly, I am determined to design products that work as a force for change and improve people’s lives.

I’m currently working at Grafana Labs in a fully remote fashion, in collaboration with a design team from whom I have the opportunity to learn everyday.

Passionate about

People

Innovation

Education

Core values

Respect

Determination

Growth

Skills

User Research, User Interview, Personas, Competitor Analysis, Heuristics Review, Experience Map, Empathy Map, Scenario, Problem Statement, Storyboard, “How might we”, Design Studio, Sitemap, User Flow, Wire-framing, Prototyping, Usability Tests, Backlog Documentation.

Tools

comfortable Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, InVision, Miro, Slack, Keynote, G Suite.

beginner Visual Design, HTML, CSS.

learning Zeplin, JavaScript, Adobe Photoshop

When I'm not working...

Running [and taking photos along the way]