Talent Tree: A blog series about the talent behind everything we create. Meet Christina, a senior designer on the Battle.net team!

Talent Tree is a blog series about the talented people behind everything we create. In each installment, we chat with a different Blizzard employee about their role and how they approach their work. Next up is Christina, a senior designer on the Battle.net team.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to Blizzard. Did you always want to be a designer?
I took a graphic design course in high school that really caught my interest, though I had no idea what user experience (UX) was at the time. From there, I majored in New Media Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology which allowed me to discover things like user interface (UI) animation, programming, and modeling.

It was a course in UX that changed my life-I felt like all my interests aligned. I've also always loved Blizzard, having played World of Warcraft since it came out in 2004, though it was Overwatch that really stole my heart. I got very involved in the Overwatch community and esports. When I saw a job posting to work on the Overwatch game sites, I applied, tapped into all my knowledge of the community and the game itself, and I got it! I credit both WoW and Overwatch with helping me develop the leadership and social skills that have brought me to where I am today.

Can you explain a little bit about the role of a designer?
As a designer on the Battle.net team, I create lots of things that our teams use on the backend of the platform-tools and infrastructure that power and support not only how people access our games, but the games themselves. I work with product and engineering folks to understand their needs, learn what projects they're working on, and figure out the strategy and requirements to create what they need. I then conduct research to help shape it, and design the holistic experience from end to end. It's like thinking through a chain reaction: planning out what happens from each step to the next, looking at the bigger picture and how systems interconnect. On any given project, I might work on tooling, data architecture, product configurations, and more. While I'm thinking about the users' holistic experience with these products and tools, other designers on the team are developing the visuals, branding, interactions, and animations on the page. We all work very closely together to make Battle.net easy and enjoyable to use for players and our internal teams.

When faced with a new project at work, how do you approach it?
My first step is to understand the scope of any new project with the product and engineering teams. Once we establish a base of what we're trying to achieve, I take a step back and look at it from a higher level, asking what other teams this could affect. Design is like a tree where everything is connected. Depending on the project, we might dive into research to see how certain features or changes will affect our users. We might do competitive analysis to understand what other platforms are doing, or we might do internal testing. And sometimes the experience is already "decided" at the outset at the API (application programming interface) level of how our applications connect and function with each other-at which point all of us on the team will collaborate to make sure those decisions are intentional and valuable, setting us up for success. But before we get started on wireframes or designing the layout of any new functionality, it's my job to determine just what is needed to help make this experience seamless for anyone who uses it.

What considerations and factors are most important when designing something new?
My users are internal developers and members of the game teams. Everything I design, I do so with them in mind, tapping into their perspective to make sure it all flows smoothly. I get a lot of joy out of designing tools that are effective and efficient so our devs can do what they do best. Shaping these systems for our game teams also sets our players up for success, so it's really rewarding to empower our devs to empower players.

We've recently brought some new Xbox Game Studios games to Battle.net. Can you tell us more about your work on that?
It's been so exciting to be a member of the team bringing these games to our platform and players. We get to leverage all the features and the reach that Battle.net has to offer as we build these great experiences with partners from Xbox Game Studios. We're harnessing all the knowledge and ideas we've found success with over the years in conjunction with all the ideas they bring to the table too. We're learning a lot from our new partners' needs and are crafting flexible solutions on the platform to support all of our game teams and players combined. In the end, it's all about making sure our game teams have what they need and building a great gaming experience for players-really rewarding to see it all come to life!

What are some qualities needed to be successful in design?
Curiosity is a big one. Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools for a designer in understanding the users, the business, and all the "whys" as you get into the crux of a challenge. Collaboration is also huge because of how many people you work with across countless disciplines. And, of course, empathy-because you not only have to put yourself in a user's position but advocate for them too. Having empathy helps you balance what's best for your users against what's best for the business. As far as education, designers can come from anywhere. They can come from psychology, English, or even anthropology.

What projects or accomplishments are you most proud of?
Working on the Overwatch World Cup website and supporting esports tooling was a career highlight, for sure. I wouldn't be here today without that experience. I was also really proud to attend Afrotech last year representing Blizzard and the Battle.net team, showing others that there are so many roles in the industry beyond game development that they might not know about.

What do you wish more people knew about design?
Design isn't limited to pixels and making things pretty-your skills can translate to so many different roles. I've worked in advertising, enterprise software, and tech. The skills you cultivate in other industries can serve you really well if you want to get into design, and vice versa.

What's one of your favorite Blizzard memories?
Watching Overwatch League games at the Blizzard Arena when I first joined the company in 2018-I worked on the esports platform so it was really cool to be there in person supporting tournaments and conducting user research too. It's been such a great ride ever since. If I could tell my childhood self where I'd be today, she wouldn't believe it, but she'd be very happy.

Battle.net recently launched Avowed and Sea of Thieves from Xbox Game Studios, and DOOM: The Dark Ages from Bethesda Softworks, with The Outer Worlds 2, Call of Duty, and much more to follow later this year. Check out Battle.net for details!