Meet Ruth Johnson

What were you doing before you joined Octave? 

I’ve worked in-house for banks, fintechs, and start-ups. I started out as an intern at The Co-operative Bank and grew through a few roles there while learning from their awesome digital team. When the time felt right, I moved to the startup HospoConnect to work on order management software. 

Great customer experience is crucial in all industries - but particularly in finance, where products and services are used by a wide range of customers with different needs, situations, and backgrounds.  I’ve spent a lot of time neck deep building design systems and mock-ups while working to detailed requirements - always making sure designs provide great experiences for customers (while also keeping our legal teams happy). 

What interested you most about working at Octave?

Can I say, Claire? While I’ve had some great mentors in past roles, it’s inspiring to learn from strong female leadership. Have you seen her article about women in leadership? It’s 🫰🫰🫰

Octave was also a bit of a strategic career decision. Up until now I’ve been in in-house design roles, and while I love being busy, I’d been pretty sceptical about switching to an agency due to stereotypes about intense pace, pressure, and workhorse deadlines… but I wanted to see if I’d crack under that pressure, and what I’d learn through the process. Octave was a bit of ‘right time right place’, and I’ve loved it so far! (and don’t worry, the stereotypes are far from true) 

Can you describe your approach to UX?

Trust the process! Always <3

Of course, every project has a slightly different process, but the point is to take things step by step - not rushing to the end with assumptions. Sometimes it can be good to just smash out some ideas to get things out of your head and feel like you’re making progress, but I’ve learnt those usually aren’t the best ones. Giving yourself time to step back and learn through quality research and iterations will get you the best outcomes. 

How would you describe your personality type? 

An aspirational extrovert, but definitely an introvert. 

I’m a problem maker and a problem solver - I love breaking and fixing things (mostly fixing I promise). I really enjoy digging into the details of complex problems and figuring out how to make sense of them. In this, I tend to have a logical and realistic approach but balance that with a bit of creative flair, experimentation, and probably too much enthusiasm. 

What do you love doing outside work?

Plants and cats (so original) also D&D! I also have about a thousand other crafty hobbies but never enough time to do them all… like gardening, and baking, the list goes on. 

Now that you’re here at Octave, what’s it been like?

Love it! I’ve been pretty fortunate in my career that I’ve loved all my jobs, and it’s felt like I’ve had a little work family at each one. But Octave is the first place where I’ve been a part of a larger collaborative design team. Even though we all have different projects to work on, it feels like there are more overlaps and collaborative input with other designers than when you’re in a specific in-house role. 

I’ve also found that having multiple things on the go means there’s almost always something I’m excited about! Turns out I find task-switching fun - and there’s a lot more of that in agency life 💛 

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