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< Trailblazers
Xindeling Pan
Experience Designer, IBM
Boston, MA, United States
See my Trailhead Profile


Being a Trailblazer is like being a student again with a growth mindset. I'm grateful for the opportunity to meet the design community.
Why did you become a designer? What does that mean to you?
My childhood dream was to become a fashion designer. I’ve always been very fond of beautiful things and wanted to create things that can give great aesthetic pleasure. Even though I didn't end up designing beautiful dresses, I now design delightful experiences that can help people live a more efficient life. It's an amazing and unique feeling when I see how my design actually improves people's lives. In addition, I enjoy working with creative people who also care about making things better and more attractive.
What is one of your most memorable design moments?
There have been so many memorable moments throughout my design career. Other than those moments when a project was awarded, most of my favorite moments happened when a team of creative people would have a solid design debate. Personally, I enjoy learning about a wide variety of ideas and perspectives from people with different backgrounds. And I believe we get inspired and arrive at great ideas in a collaborative working environment.
How do you keep your solutions human-focused?
At IBM, we practice Enterprise Design Thinking (EDT) in our daily work. At its core, EDT is a human-centered framework that focuses on solving users’ problems at the speed and scale of the modern enterprise. Design thinking comes naturally to most designers. And this framework helps establish a common language between designers and people from a non-design background. It made things much easier for me to remind my team and clients that we are not our users.
How do you use design to create social and business value?
I value Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) a lot. Design is a powerful force that affects our daily lives. I know designers alone won’t be able to fix all the social inequality. However, we can make the world better by bringing a human-centered lens and being mindful of D&I when making design decisions. Last year, I created a _D&I checklist_ (https://xindeling.github.io/Diversity-and-Inclusion-Checklist/), a practical guide for designers to help ensure D&I is built into any future-state experience. And of course, this list will continue to evolve as I keep learning and practicing activism through design.
What advice do you have for new Trailblazers?
It's been a wonderful experience working with a brilliant team to design the Salesforce UX certification. I'm grateful for the opportunity to meet and collaborate with all of the designers. Also, I learned so much more about Salesforce and its ecosystem. Being a Trailblazer is like becoming a student again but with a strong growth mindset.

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