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Alissa Chan | Product Designer

Hi, I’m Alissa (uh-LEE-sa). I’m currently crafting enterprise experiences for IBM Cloud, where I’ve led design for over 20 services & features from inception to delivery and have helped teams navigate ambiguous problem spaces from a user-centered lens.

How I work

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I deliver on ambiguous, complex projects from big picture strategy down to detailed design handoffs
I cut through ambiguous projects by using my skills I’ve learned over the years, including design thinking coaching, negotiation, storytelling, and the usual set of skills like research and testing, sketching, prototyping, and high-fidelity handoff.
Lead product manager’s feedback
“As a Storage Offering Leader, I have learnt a lot from Alissa in terms of Design thinking — how to structure the problem we are solving, and prioritize with well defined outcomes for our customers through Enterprise Design Thinking. Alissa facilitated several workshops on identifying and prioritizing the problem set, defining relationships and outcomes that we can start progressing towards. She has championed [Project Databunker] which will be a differentiated and comprehensive solution that we are looking to build on IBM Cloud [...]. Alissa is an excellent coach and an amazing individual and my team has benefited tremendously from her knowledge and experience.”
—Faleel M. // Product Management Lead @ IBM Cloud
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I embrace collaboration early and often
I make sure to involve the right stakeholders (product management, engineering, front-end development, content/documentation, etc) early and often so they’re involved in the process and can contribute their unique expertise and perspectives. This also reduces rework down the road!
Software engineer’s feedback
“I think you’re very communicative and I enjoy working through problems and brainstorming ideas with you. You’re very open to change and iteration for your designs and don’t take change requests personally. I appreciate that approach and I think it helps us all ultimately provide a better end result to our users. Other things that I think you do well is that you’re always asking questions and trying to uncover your blind spots. Even asking for feedback is an example of that – you’re always wanting to improve, even though I think you do a great job already.”
— Zach S. // Software Engineer @ IBM Cloud
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I contribute back to the team and love optimizing processes
I’m always looking for ways to optimize processes, whether that’s internally for my team – like successfully advocating for & getting funding for better design collaboration tools – or pushing for experiences that better fit our specific users’ needs, even if it deviates from overarching design system patterns.
Manager’s feedback
“Thank you, Alissa, for your diligence in pushing to enhance our work and our team. I’ve been consistently impressed with your approach, as well as your attitude. Regardless of if your projects are blocked, you always look around and find a way to make our experience better. Your work for VPC Left Nav enhancements is a perfect example. That was a dead idea that you breathed new life into, got prioritized into the roadmap and have led multiple rounds of testing and iteration (the results of which I believe will have a huge impact on our users). The fact that this work has been self-directed is to be applauded. Thank you again for all your thoughtful contributions to our team and our platform.”
— Jp P. // Design Manager @ IBM Cloud
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I love learning and knowledge sharing
In addition to leveling up my own skills, I love helping others level up as well. Over the past few years, I’ve presented personalized learning sessions to my design peers on accessibility, inclusive design, and negotiation skills specific to our team and context.
Peer feedback
Hey Alissa! I've really enjoyed working with you on the accessibility workshop. You've done a wonderful job driving the project forward, creating goals for each session, and maintain scope for the particular use case of the presentation. I also love that accessibility and inclusive design are something that you're passionate about and want to bring into our product.
— Maria G. // UX Designer @ IBM Cloud
You are great at sharing knowledge and setting up teammates for success. Whether it's getting people started with Abstract [the design versioning tool] or answering questions about UI patterns in Slack, you are always open to help and help me stay on top of many work streams and resources. I appreciate you :-)
—Helen L. // UX Designer @ IBM Cloud
 
 
 
 

What it’s like to work with me

Additional feedback not mentioned under the How I work section above.
“Something I really admire about your unique perspective on design is how much you take accessibility and developer experiences into consideration. It is something that is very easy to overlook unfortunately, but having you on the team brings a renewed focus into an area that is extremely important to our users (and our partners). I also think you are kind of the golden example of successfully working in testing/research into the design process, and seeing you blaze the trail and jumping headfirst into [our researcher’s new self-service usability testing process] has been awesome. Also, you’re just a badass experience designer and have an eye for patterns that work well for the needs of our complex user-base.”
— Austin E. // UX Architect @ IBM Cloud
 
“In addition to her technical skills, Ms. Chan is an excellent and very professional project manager. She is a self starter who is organized, reliable, diligent, and timely. She quickly understood the problems we identified, and then took the initiative to understand our business and identify more areas of potential improvement. She is a solid communicator, presents her ideas well, is open to changes, often asked questions, and listened well to what we were saying. She was also able to successfully work with two very different managers. She has an easy going personality and is a pleasure to work with.”
— Michael W. // Theater Manager @ Upstage Arts
“Since day one, Alissa has been using her unstoppable curiosity and ability to execute tasks to really drive positive change on our team. She asks all the right questions and makes sure she gets the right answers. Additionally, working with her in brainstorm sessions is always a joy because she is always able to come up with ingenious ideas. Her strengths inspire me everyday. Thanks for all that you do, Alissa!”
— Michelle Y. // UX Designer @ IBM Cloud
 
“You are all that a writer could hope for in a designer when working on a project, and more! You keep us abreast of new functionality, invite us to brainstorm UX designs, and collaborate on inline text, tooltips. and messages. You consistently improve our deliverables. I’ve been with IBM for 30+ years now. Throughout my tenure as an info architect, instructional designer, etc., I learned just how important it is to work with UX/Design to produce a cohesive deliverable that helps our customers’ succeed. Each meeting or conversation with you is well worth my time because you bring the “solution” one step closer to excellence. It is a pleasure working with you. You are skilled, professional, and a true team player. I look forward to our next collaboration!”
— Dana L. // Technical Writer @ IBM Cloud
 
“Alissa has always shown aptitude and passion for UX. Going beyond her task-related analysis, Alissa is constantly seeing how something she saw or interacted with could be improved for everyone. It not only speaks to her passion, but also her curiosity and empathy for people. I am impressed by the level of consideration and advocacy of inclusive design in her work. As someone with 10+ years of experience in the technology industry, I wish for more like her in our growing field of UX.”
— Kevin J. // UX Analyst @ University of Michigan