As the passionate founder of Motivate Design – a user experience research, design and staffing firm – Mona works with large organizations to help them understand how users are using their brand, product or service. Overall, Mona and her team tackle a big question: How do you understand how people work and think, and then how does that apply to the design of products? Her team will heavily research, work intentionally across industries, apply different perspectives, and even shadow actual users, to find insights that can then help improve the experience a customer has with certain service or product.

When she’s not leading her team of 25 at Motivate Design, which also happens to be an Inc. 5000 company, Mona is an instructor at Parsons The New School for Design. Her passion for encouraging others to think about design problems creatively has expanded to writing a book, Reframe: Shift The Way You Work, Innovate and Think; hosting workshops, launching design camps for kids and even a children’s design book. Mona also is a though leader on user-centered design and innovation, experience strategies, usability, lean startups and business management who writes for Fast Company and TIME Business.

In episode 19 of I Want Her Job: The Podcast, Mona shares her technique for triggering design ideas, advice for those considering a startup life and her favorite resources for reading up and getting ahead. For detailed show notes and a detailed list of Mona’s resources for learning about UX design go to www.iwantherjob.com