Inside Segment Design: Meet Qiao
Inside Segment Design is a series designed to shine the spotlight on the talented team of designers and researchers that make up the Segment design team. We’ll publish a series of articles that will follow each team member on their career path and journey to Segment. Read our previous piece in the series here!
Medium, meet Qiao — One of our amazing product designers here at Segment and an enormously talented artist outside of Segment (seriously, check out her work 😎). Qiao is an integral part of our design team with no shortage of creative ideas and a passion for enhancing our product to better serve both technical and non-technical users.
So Qiao, Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. I moved to the United States about 5 years ago and have since lived in various big cities — LA, Seattle, New York, and now San Francisco.
How did you get into design?
Ever since I was young, I found myself having a keen interest in problem-solving, DIY projects, and illustration. I had been practicing sketching since I was just 10 years old and ended up attending college (NTUST) in Taipei to study graphic and industrial design. Years later, I pursued a master’s degree in Art Center College of Design in LA where I studied research and design in the realm of technology, science, and art.
Why did you choose Segment?
During my time working at a design agency in New York, I found myself pondering how I could better understand the users who I was designing interactions for. That’s when I came across an open position at Segment — a product that helps businesses better understand their users. I was excited that I found a company that is so user-centric and that uses data to inform decisions. I moved to the Bay Area to join Segment and help design those user-centric features!
What is your role at Segment?
I design features for what Segment calls the “Events Pillar” which is centered around product observability, data governance, and processing. My job is to create concepts and visualizations for the future of the Segment event architecture, which my teammates and I are currently envisioning.
What’s a recent project you’ve worked on?
Before joining my current team, I led design for Segment’s “Instrumentation Pillar.” A particularly fun project that I worked on involved designing a no-code tool called Visual Tagger, with the goal of helping customers get set up in Segment easily. After completing the project, I wrote a Medium article going into detail about my design journey and learnings. I was even able to give a virtual talk at San Francisco Design Week this year, along with the project PM, about the impact of this no-code tool.
What’s a guilty pleasure right now?
I’ve been filling my days with music! I recently bought a microphone and a small disco ball so that I can do karaoke with friends at home. I also watch a lot of documentaries (probably too many).
What’s the last really good book you read?
Non-fiction: New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World — and How to Make It Work for You (published in 2018).
Fiction: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami (published in 1994).
