Hey there! My name is Roan O’Brien
When I began my life as a student, I was studying to become an architect. However, after some time I found out that I was not meant to be a designer of the built environment. As I had always had an interest in digital products, I made a switch to computer science. Here I found out I was not meant to be an engineer or programmer either. In stead I was looking for something in the middle, something that would allow for creativity, while still being very much grounded in research. I went back to the drawing board and started looking for something that would fit these wishes. This is what led me to UX design.
As a designer, I love solving problems and coming up with creative and fun ways to mitigate people’s problems. What I love about the field of user experience design is that it offers a wide variety in the types of work. From conducting interviews and researching technologies to hosting creative sessions with other people and coming up with interesting concepts.
My professional career so far
After graduation from my study at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, I found a job at Rotterdam based digital agency YipYip. Here I filled a role of Product Designer (UX/UI). This meant that I, along with two other designers, were the ones mainly responsible for the designs of the various products that we developed. During my time at YipYip I worked on various projects, such as the Watertaxi Rotterdam Schippers app, EchtFit consumer app, EchtFit marketing website, Openr Intercom design and several other small projects. The focus during most of these projects for me was a lot on the visual design aspect of Product Design, focussing more on the UI part of my job than on the UX.
My time at YipYip has come to an end though, and now I am looking for a new adventure with new challenges. While working at YipYip I have gained a lot of important experience and knowledge, and I have found out that, if possible, I would like to work on projects where I can focus more on the UX part of digital product design. Questions such as “What does the user really need?” and “How do we design our products or feature flows in such a way that the end user can benefit from it the most?” interest me the most in this field of work.
In my free time…
… I love playing volleyball at D.S.V.V. Punch in Delft. I have been playing for about six years now and currently also give training to other teams. As a setter, I feel like the mastermind of the game and I love thinking about strategic ways to win our matches.
I also love to play board games or table-top roleplaying games (TTRPG's). With my housemates, I am currently running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign where I am the Dungeon Master (DM). Here I guide the players through the story and explain how each of their actions has an impact on the world they are playing in. Though I would like to play myself some time as well, I really like improvising and coming up with fun and wacky situations to put my players through.
And staying in the theme of fantasy, I have always been a massive fan of the Lord of the Rings, and I love nerding out about it. This is also why I have New Zealand at the top of my “places to visit” bucket list.