Hi, I’m Nicolas Backal. I’m a Product Designer & Strategist based in San Francisco.
Selected writing
The superpowers of great product designers
Product designers, like superheroes, are always faced with unprecedented villains. These maleficent beings come in all types, sizes, and shapes, sometimes with powers of their own, and for the most part, they all try to make someone’s life miserable.
Hey designers and engineers, you can be friends
Building a digital product is hard. Whether you’re a product designer, a product manager, or an engineer, we all play a significant role in the user experience. And perhaps, one of the biggest challenges we face is building great relationships and communication channels within our teams.
Our ever-changing windows
Windows. All of them. Regardless of their size or shape, they connect us with people on the other side. We sit on the second floor of what I used to consider a relatively quiet street. Every day hundreds of people walk by it, and I got used to the noise made by their talk, laugh, and walk
Product Cookbook
Magic happens when product managers and designers work together collaboratively. Katie Le (PM at Okta) and I have been writing recipes for a great PM + Design partnership based on our learnings and experience.
Onboarding new team members
For the past year, Katie and I have been working together co-owning a couple of scrum teams. We constantly collaborate with our engineering partners and seek constant feedback from other product managers and designers, but the day-to-day work usually comes down to us two.
Create shared focus with vision prototypes
Vision prototypes have a lot of similarities with product development prototypes. Both of them serve the purpose of testing and validating our product and design ideas while getting feedback from users as they try to complete a task with an unbuilt product.
Selected talks
Mini-workshop Toolkit: Easy To Run, Interactive Workshops To Build Better Products
with Katie Le at the BeMore Festival 2022 by ADPList.org
September 2022
The Journey into Product Design
ADPList.org + Sketch + Springboard
August 2022
Differences between UX & UI
ADPList.org + Design Buddies
November 2021
Working at a Startup vs Corporate
ADPList.org + General Assembly
September 2021
Coffee Hours: Portfolio Edition
ADPList.org
August 2020
Blended Space: From Architecture to UX Design
Talk 20 at BCJ
San Francisco, CA
November 2018
Blended Space: From Architecture to UX Design
Tradecraft
San Francisco, CA
April 2018
Have an event? Let’s chat →
Selected work
Okta’s Identity Vision
Lead Product Designer, Okta, 2021
This vision-driven project explores just how robust identity’s role is in every facet of our lives, and how Okta sees the future of digital identity.
Okta end-user experience
Lead Product Designer, Okta, 2020
What started as a research project to understand user pain points, quickly evolved to define the future for Okta’s end-user experience.
The Human Diagnosis Project
Head of Design, Human Dx, 2018
How can we help healthcare providers provide better care for them by collaborating between them in a safe and supported environment?
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