I Teach to Learn, Too
What mentoring, workshops, and the designers around me have taught me about sharing knowledge.
I’ve always enjoyed learning from other people, especially the ones who make it fun.
When I think back to some of my favourite teachers, they were the ones who were engaging, funny, and made you feel comfortable asking questions. They made learning something I actually looked forward to.
I’ve wanted to bring some of that into my own career.
I remember wanting to mentor other designers when I was about two years into the industry. But at the time, I didn’t feel like I had enough experience. What could I really offer someone when I was still figuring so much out myself?
I wasn’t sure where I fit into mentoring yet, so I continued learning from the people around me. I’ve been fortunate to have some incredible mentors and people leaders throughout my career, and those experiences have shaped how I approach teaching today.
Learning from other people isn’t always easy
When I was a junior designer, there were times when I wanted to learn from someone more experienced and didn’t really get the opportunity.
Sometimes people were busy. Sometimes they didn’t have the patience or interest in teaching. And sometimes I just had to figure things out myself.
I understand that a lot more now than I did earlier in my career.
People have jobs, families, friends, and lives outside design. Not everyone has the time or energy to mentor someone, and that’s completely fair. I don’t think being a senior designer automatically means you have to be a teacher, either.
I’ve also been fortunate to learn from some really great people, including people outside the design industry.
But I remember what it felt like when I wanted guidance and couldn’t find it. And I think that’s part of why I enjoy making time for other designers now.
Making room for conversation
I like keeping things relaxed and open. When I run a workshop, I usually set that expectation right at the beginning. Ask questions, interrupt me, share something you’re working on. It doesn’t have to be perfectly structured.
At work, I’ve been running workshops around AI and some of the tools our design team has been building.
Sometimes I’ll run a prompt through one of our agents, and while it’s processing, I’ll start asking people questions about their own workflows. What are they working on? How are they approaching something? Have they tried a different way of doing it?
The questions don’t always have to be directly related to what I’m demonstrating. I just want it to feel like a conversation.
I also like getting people involved instead of having them watch me click through things for an hour. I’ll ask someone to suggest a prompt or take control and try something themselves.
It’s similar with one-on-ones and office hours. I let people bring whatever they’re working through, and we figure out where to go from there.
Sometimes I have an answer. Sometimes I ask more questions. And sometimes I learn something new about how another designer works.
Sometimes you have to recognize the gap before someone asks for help
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is how similar teaching can be to the work we already do as product designers.
We notice problems, look for patterns, ask questions, and try to understand what’s missing.
When I joined Absorb, we were starting to explore AI more seriously. Our developers were already using it, and our design team was building and experimenting with agents.
Things were moving quickly. We had built more than ten agents, and there were a lot of talented designers contributing to that work.
But with so much happening, I started noticing a gap.
We were sharing what the agents did, but we weren’t always getting into how someone could actually use them in their day-to-day workflow. There were high-level overviews, but not necessarily enough practical examples.
And AI was still something people were figuring out. There was uncertainty around it, especially with all the conversations happening about what AI might mean for design jobs.
I started sharing more of what I was learning during design critiques, asking questions in our team channels, and talking to my manager about running workshops.
I also collaborated with other designers on an internal AI Hub to help people better understand the tools available to them and when to use them.
I definitely wasn’t the only person teaching AI or building these tools. We have a team of very talented designers who have been doing great work in this space.
For me, it was about recognizing that we had all this knowledge and these tools, but there was an opportunity to make them more accessible.
We also have monthly Design Academies at Absorb, where designers can volunteer to share something they’ve been working on, lead a discussion, or watch a talk together. It’s a great opportunity to learn from each other.
I’ve always enjoyed sharing what I’m learning, whether that’s during design critiques, in our team channels, or through conversations with other designers. More recently, I’ve started running workshops and office hours as another way to share knowledge and explore topics together.
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I don’t necessarily wait for our monthly Design Academies anymore. If I notice a gap in knowledge or think something could be useful to others, I’ll bring it up and see where it goes.
Sophia, our Senior Director of Product Design, and I have even jokingly started calling these extra sessions Mac Academy, alongside our regular Design Academies.
The workshops are still pretty new, but I’ve really enjoyed seeing people get involved, ask questions, and share what they’re learning, too.
I teach to learn, too
One thing that’s changed since I’ve started teaching more regularly is my own confidence.
At Absorb, I’ve been fortunate to have leaders who recognize that I enjoy doing this and give me room to explore it. My manager, Lucy, and our director, Sophia, have been really supportive of me trying new things.
In a lot of ways, work feels like a playground. I get to experiment, share what I’m learning, and see what happens.
And the designers I work with are curious people. They ask good questions. They want to improve their workflows and help the people around them.
That makes me want to keep learning, too.
If I’m going to share something with the team, I want to understand it well enough to have a useful conversation about it. And when someone asks a question I haven’t considered, that’s an opportunity for me to go and learn something new.
I’ve also noticed this outside work.
Before I started running workshops, I spent time mentoring designers on their portfolios and case studies. Some people kept coming back with more questions or asking for feedback on what they’d been working on.
One person came back and thanked me, saying they couldn’t have done a lot of it without my help.
That really stuck with me.
Because from my perspective, they’d done the work. I was just there to ask questions, give feedback, and help them figure things out.
And that’s how I like to think about mentoring.
You don’t need to know everything to share something
I do think experience matters, especially when it comes to things like navigating interviews, reviewing portfolios, and giving meaningful feedback on case studies.
There’s a lot of trial and error that comes with being a designer, and those experiences give you perspectives you might not have had earlier in your career.
But I also think newer designers have a lot to offer.
Design is changing quickly, especially with AI.
When I was studying design, AI wasn’t even part of my course. Now it’s becoming part of what people learn in boot camps and other design programs.
I’m genuinely curious about how that’s changing the way newer designers approach their work.
What tools are they using? What are they learning that I didn’t? How are their workflows different?
I think those are conversations worth having.
Maybe someone with more experience can help a junior designer navigate their first portfolio review. And maybe that junior designer can introduce them to a completely different way of approaching a problem.
It doesn’t always have to be one person teaching and the other person learning.
I hope people come back with more questions
I’ve only recently started running more workshops at work, but it’s been encouraging to see people attend, participate, fill out feedback surveys, and ask when my next office hours are.
People are taking time out of their already busy schedules to learn something, and I don’t take that for granted.
Of course, I hope they leave having learned something useful about the topic.
But I also hope they leave a little more curious than when they arrived.
I hope they want to try something themselves, come back with more questions, or show me something they’ve been working on.
Not because they left confused, but because they’re interested in exploring further.
I think back to those teachers I enjoyed learning from, the ones who made it fun and made me want to keep asking questions.
I’d love to be that kind of person for someone else.
And hopefully, I’ll keep learning a few things along the way, too.
