Why does our Design team love working at Canonical

Tell me about a very cool
project you were involved
in at Canonical
Snappy – our newest product. I’ve been
working on snapweb – a beautiful and
functional interface for snap management,
the store which allows users to browse
and download applications that are
developed by engineers.
Describe your
creative process
Collaborate with UX designers and
do group brainstorm sketching
Receive a high-fidelity wireframe
to work from
Research into the feature for visual
inspiration
Develop visual concepts that reflect the
objectives of the new feature
Would you say that you enjoy
working with the engineers?
We have a good working relationship,
work closely when building a new feature
from flat visual design, to build then QA.
Design Heroes
David Carson – The Godfather of Grunge.
His style is unique and was renowned for
a rule breaking attitude to design, when
starting out my work was influenced
through his style of combining various
mediums of design.
Jonathan Ive – Designer of user interface
design amongst many Apple products.
Motivated me to move into the digital/
technology side of design.
Describe what interests
you have in common with
your colleagues
Great team morale
Agile working methods
Good working relationship inside
the office and socially outside
If you could re-design
anything in the world what
would it be and why?
Sky Sports football app – challenge
to update the user interface and align
it with their sub-brands, but also create a
positive user experiences for an application
that appears on multiple sized screens
and is viewed by many users.
“I enjoy working across the three Cloud products MAAS,
Landscape and Snappy. I also enjoy the versatility of the
work across the products. Keeps it challenging.”
Karl Waghorn-Moyce
Visual Designer, London

in at Canonical
The coolest project I have been involved
in lately is creating a dashboard for MAAS.
The design of a dashboard involves a lot
of interesting components of design work.
Initially, the requirements involve gathering
and prioritisation, then, information
visualisation, interaction design and
graphic design explorations. It was like
an exploration playground.
Describe your
creative process
When a project starts, the team organises
a few sketching sessions to brainstorm and
get the ideas flowing. Following, we agree
on exploring a few directions and meet
again for the next iteration. We follow this
process until we are happy with the the
solution, which is then mocked up
and prototyped.
It is as much a pleasure working with them
as with fellow designers. They are a source
of knowledge;theyknow all the aspects of the
feature you are designing being the ones
making it. They are great to brainstorm with;
they know the system behaviour, the errors
and edge cases so they can help you validate
your ideas and find “holes” in your designs.
They can give you a reality check; is your idea
feasible to implement given the technology,
time and resources? Last but not least, they
are great fun to work with.
Design Heroes
My design heroes are those people who love
what they do and put serious thought into
it and try to change the world for the better.
People who are open to new ideas and keep
an open mind, who respect the diversity of
other people and take them into account in
their creative process.
Maria Vrachni
UX Designer, London
your colleagues
We all enjoy our work, striving for the
best solution for our products and our
users. We share knowledge, ideas and
create a fun environment of collaboration.
As a UX designer you see the world around
you differently than other people, and want
to fix all of the things, from interfaces to
industrial products and processes. There
are a lot of things that I observe around
me that I would like to re-design in a more
human friendly way and make peoples’
lives easier.
“Putting myself in the user’s shoes and solving their problems
is incredibly rewarding. Also, being the creator of something
that didn’t previously exist is exhilarating.”

in at Canonical
I’ve been involved in re-designing Juju.
Visualizing software and how it connects to
each other provides big design challenges.
How it’s shown, the interactions between
connected said software, changing their
relationship, altering that relationship. It’s
complex and ever changing, but that’s what
makes it exciting.
Describe your
creative process
Collaborative is the key. Sketching, design
and flows are all worked out and talked
about together as a team. The goal is to
create the best experience for the user
possible and the most effective way
to achieve that is as a team.
I throughly enjoy working with engineers.
They are the backbone to all of the products
that we produce here. Coming from a
technical background myself, makes the
process of collaborating easier and they
are very open to new perspectives.’
Design Heroes
Malou Verlomme and the Monotype team.
To take on the Johnston font which has such
historical roots and work with it to bring it
into the digital age while still maintaining its
personality I think is an incredible feat and
they did a fantastic job with it.
Joseph Williams
your colleagues
The drive to create something great.
Everything has a great work ethic and they
are also great to hang out with outside
of the office.
Audible app and web service. I use it a
lot and I’m always thinking about how I
would improve it and reduce friction when
navigating around it. It would be a fun
project to work on.
“There is always something to do. Be that my own work or
a new process to get involved with or explore. Canonical really
supports self starters and if you have an idea or something you
want to try, they will support you.”

in at Canonical
The redesign of the notifications system
if one of my favourites projects because
our everyday life is filled with information
competing for our attention and this
project helped to simplify our users’
end-to-end notification experience.
Describe your
creative process
I wouldn’t call it creative but rather
systematic. I explore every angle of
a problem and break every idea down
until I find a solid solution. It depends
on the type of project, but usually, I start
with scoping and research involving
stakeholders from day one. I do lots
of iterations and testing of ideas until
I refine a solution that then integrates
within our implementation process.
I think we get along really well. We talk and
discuss project details on a daily basis, not
only when they are already implementing
the proposed solution but involving them
from the very beginning so we have a shared
understanding of the design choices and
issues, which creates trust and a better
collaboration.
Design Heroes
There are so many great people out there.
I’ve been inspired many times by Stefan
Sagmeister, a graphic designer and
typographer from NY. Also, I follow the
work of outstanding people such as Dan
Mall, Brad Frost, Erika Hall, Jon Lax and
Leah Buley.
Patricia Davilla
Lead UX Designer, London
your colleagues
I guess curiosity and passion.
Maybe human interactions because they
are complex and unpredictable and I’m
curious if I could design a system for this.
“I love every bit of designing for Canonical, the projects are very
Interesting, I enjoy working with such smart people, travelling for
sprints and learning every day.”

in at Canonical
Ubuntu Software Center was the first
app store shipped with a PC operating
system. It was fascinating to be involved
in a huge range of details – from app
categorization, to search algorithms,
to credit card handling, to the maths
of review ratings.
Describe your
creative process
Designing anything starts with
understanding the problem. Who will
use this thing, when, and why? Will they
be excited, or tired, or distracted?
Sometimes understanding the problem
makes the solution obvious. Other times
I need to sketch multiple possibilities and
compare them.
I enjoy working with engineers because
I think like a programmer. I enjoy finding
the balance of enough detail for engineers
to understand. And for some people,
thinking of edge cases is a chore, but
for me it’s fun.
Design Heroes
Edward Tufte and Bill Atkinson.
Matthew Thomas
Interaction Designer, London
your colleagues
We’re all willing to try new ideas and
rework old designs. Developing an
operating system is like performing a
show: every version has to be good, but
there’s almost always a chance to do
even better next time.
At least once in their life, every designer
should design a chair.
“Being in a small team means working on a wide variety of projects.
On any given day I might be working on the design of apps,
System Settings, toolkit controls, or presentations.”

in at Canonical
I’ve just done a design refresh for a very
ubiquitous app in software development,
the terminal. It was interesting because
terminal clients are used by so many,
but not many of them have had input
from designers in the past. It was great
to get encouraging feedback from our
community. You can read more about
it here: design.canonical.com/
Describe your
creative process
Typically it involves really digging into how
the product being designed currently works
(if it’s an existing product), how people use
it, what they like and don’t like about it
– and then re-imagining that product,
imagining what the best possible experience
would be like – drawing inspiration from
of their day is spent fighting with badly
designed and engineered legacy hospital
software. I think well designed and
engineered open source software would
be really helpful there.
I have a background in both front-end
development and design, that can be
very helpful when designing interfaces
and working with engineers. I would
encourage all designers to learn at least
basic front-end development – it is
very useful.
Design Heroes
I really liked Zaha Hadid although I’ve
heard she was hard to work with. I draw
inspiration mostly from fields outside of
UI design – photographers, musicians
and scientists.
NJouni Helminen
pure design practices and other best-in-
class products and patterns (sometimes
in the same category, but not always). You
need to trust your intuition to establish
the right path, but getting feedback from
users and peers throughout the process
is also very useful.
your colleagues
As designers, we all strive for the same
things – beauty, simplicity and usability in
our work, and we all draw pleasure from
when we get things right.’
anything in the world
what would it be and why?
I would re-design software medical
practitioners use daily. My brother and
his wife are doctors – a large portion
“It’s a great mix of design and cutting edge technology”

in at Canonical
Indicators, Scopes redesign, System
Greeter, System Launcher
Describe your
creative process
UX reviews and briefing, research,
design, reviews, testing.
We have weekly catch ups or when needed.
We do have the occasional Sprint.
Design Heroes
I really like Dave McKean.
Alex Milazzo
Lead Visual Designer, London
your colleagues
The drive and passion to deliver a world
class system.
In general I like products and devices when
they are highly functional and maintain
a graceful sense of beauty.
“By far convergence is the most awesome feature
I ever worked on.”

in at Canonical
The coolest project in my opinion was
‘telephony’ – dialer, messaging and
contacts. It’s a very big project and it
was really interesting to be working on
something that is so familiar to people.
Describe your
creative process
We find an issue or project and then do
research, like what other patterns are
already out there. Following that, I mock
up the visual design based on the wire
frames. Then, we do a visual review after
which I will finalise the design and hand
it over to the developer when
it’s all approved.
Yes. I work with them really well. It’s good
when you try and understand what they’re
doing and speak the same language.
Design Heroes
I like Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Hische
I also like the work of the company Invision.
Rae Shambrook
your colleagues
We all care a lot about what we’re doing.
We are super-into our work and we really
engage in what we’re doing and everyone
wants to make the best product possible.
Anything that is about accessing media
content, like Netflix or even Facebook
news feed. I’m really interested in how we
access and find content and always curious
about how it could be smarter.
“I love the fact that I get to work on so many different things,
ranging from full on apps to the keyboard. I have even blogged
about design! And again, it’s the people I work with and what
I’ve learnt from them.”

in at Canonical
I can’t reveal what exactly it is yet
unfortunately but it involves the creation
of a whole new page. It’s the feeling of
starting something from the beginning
that’s great. I have never worked on
anything like this before in my life and
neither has the design team and we
are all enjoying the team work and the
creativity of this project. Also, the fact
that something like this hasn’t been done
before and that’s very challenging.
Describe your
creative process
It varies – it depends on the project.
I do research and any problems I might
have, the solution is always very human-
centered. It’s always based on what people
need. We then do analysis in groups all
Yes. I work with them very well. We
are a very close team. They are amazing,
incredibly talented, quick and very reliable.
Our collaboration is very close even
though they’re all based very far away.
Design Heroes
I like the design work of ‘Ideo’ which
is a social innovation consultancy. I love
their creative process. Also, I had a few
fantastic tutors.
Elvira Figueras
UX Designer, London
together or split in smaller groups in order
to try and solve any problems. Usually, we
all contribute with ideas.’
your colleagues
We are all very different and that is
very inspiring since we work together.
That actually helps us as everyone gives
different points of view.
I think it would definitely be something
from a social perspective. Something that
would benefit the community. I really
enjoy community-friendly design and
user well-being so it would have to be
something social.
“I like the fact that there is never just one way of doing things.
It’s up to you to find a way to solve the problem and that the
creative process is open.”

in at Canonical
It‘s most definitely convergence. It’s
ground breaking stuff and designing is
also very challenging. The responsive
operating system is also a lot of fun.
Describe your
creative process
Basically, we see what we currently have
and what we’ve implemented first. We do
competitor analysis and see what other
people have done. Then, we pinpoint where
we can do something innovative and then
start the process of going through the
journey – drawing out a journey of how
this particular piece of functionality should
behave.Afterthat,wecreatethewireframes
and then we show it to other designers and
also test outside of the design team. We
get feedback and re-design until the best
solutions are found.
Yes. I work very well with them. In my
team we sync a minimum of twice a week.
Usually, a lot more often, even though
they’re scattered all over the world.
Design Heroes
Jonathan Ive helped to revolutionize Apple
and Jacob Nielsen really helped to bring
usability and UX to the forefront
of our industry.
Femma Ashraf
Lead UX Designer, London
your colleagues
I would say that we’re all geeky in
our own ways, we are from varied
backgrounds but working for Ubuntu
is great. It’s also great to geek out with
everybody and that’s the norm.
I have a very recent example actually.
I would re-design the ‘Wagamama’
vegeterian dumpling take-out box. The
dumplings are very small and the container
for the dip is very small too. They’ve placed
them in a large plastic bowl with a plastic
lid and it’s not environmentally friendly
and overkill for five dumplings.
“Being a designer is very creative. I like solving problems and the
fact that UX covers parts of lots of different areas – psychology,
engineering, creative and the visual side.”

in at Canonical
I’m so new so it’s too early to say!
Describe your
creative process
Lots of thinking behind it. The way I
try to do it is first step research, find out
more about the project, see competitors,
inspiration websites. Second step would
be sketching the different ideas I have in
mind on paper and then you can see which
ones are worth it and after that the next
step would be to refine the ideas I have on
paper on the computer. Most of the times
you need to repeat this until you get the
best result.
I’m very new to the company, so I haven’t
had the chance. I’m sure I’ll work with
them as well as I work with my own team
but I haven’t worked with them yet.
Design Heroes
Sagmeister. Very organic and experiemental
design work.
Joana Sa
your colleagues
Team work – everyone likes to share
knowledge and help each other.
Re-designing the air conditioning in the
underground. Improve it and do everyone
a favour.
“Designing means challenging yourself to do better,
always learning and needing to improve your skills.
I like challenging myself.”

in at Canonical
I love working on database-less websites
and our new CSS framework, Vanilla.
Describe your developing
process
I am part of the web team and for the
last year we are doing pretty much pure
Scrum now, before that Kanban.
How well do you work with
the design team when
sharing common patterns?
Patterns make our work better and easier;
it is my life’s ambition to make them as
amazing as possible.
Peter Mahnke
Head of Web Development , London
your colleagues
Love of Ubuntu. A desire to learn and
grow. A willingness to change and adapt.
If you could develop any
web page which one would
it be and why?
Any page that helps people use Ubuntu
better is a great page.
“I came here for a three-month maternity cover, five years ago.
I love the people and the products.”

project you were involved in
at Canonical
The design team is working on our
open source CSS framework, Vanilla
Framework. It is really great focusing our
energy into a project that we can share
with the community.
process
I primarily work with Python an Django
and our process follows an agile
workflow. We are always pushing to
improve our workflow and tools, adding
more and more automated tests, moving
towards continuous integration. Our team
consists of designers, user experience,
and developers which gives us a great
environment and great feedback.
The design team are great to work with.
They are very open and collaborative. We
work closely together, making sure we
share a common vision for our products.
They are a great source of inspiration
and feedback.
Will Moggridge
Web Developer, London
your colleagues
My colleagues are all very passionate
about technology. We share a passion
for Ubuntu, originating from a time
before we joined Canonical. We care
about our work and pushing our work
to be the best it can be, and even like
playing foosball!
it be and why?
I don’t think I am able to pick a specific
site. I really enjoy building sites for
communities. A site that brings people
together and helps the community grow.
“I love the opportunity to give back to Canonical and its
community. I have the opportunity to work on devops,
backend and frontend and enjoy the ability to create tools
to make my life easier.”

in at Canonical
With the growing number of sites the
web team maintains, coupled with our
role as a support team for web projects
in the company and community, we
took the leap of developing a new CSS
framework – Vanilla. Vanilla has a broad
scope and has involved a lot of work
but we’re already seeing benefits of a
standardised set of tools for building
sites. Vanilla is also an Open Source
project so we can take pride in our work
helping others and we can, likewise,
benefit from community input.
process
Sitting within the design team, the
Canonical web team developers work
very closely with design and UX;
it be and why?
I don’t think I am able to pick a specific
site. I really enjoy building sites for
communities. A site that brings people
together and helps the community grow.
I already mentioned Vanilla, our CSS
framework, this tool helps us to share
patterns more readily. Given how we have
such a wealth of design directions – with
desktop, phones, cloud apps, websites, etc.
– the design team really need to keep close
to share and collaborate.
Karl Williams
Web Developer, London
we collaborate and communicate both
ways rather then simply implementing
finished designs without any input. We
run our team on Agile principles so our
process is very fluid and focuses on
communication to work more effectively.
No two pieces of work are the same and
we need to keep adapting to that.
your colleagues
Many of my co-workers have a lot of
experience with, and love for, Ubuntu
as long-term users. In the greater design
team, we all have a clear understanding
of the importance of the Ubuntu brand
and the unique problem of keeping
design consistency across a broad range
of community and internal projects.
“There’s always something new at such a fast-moving company so
I get to be involved in a variety of projects. I feel that we’re treated
like experts and our opinions are considered.”

Why does our Design team love working at Canonical

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