Designing with Strategy: How Early UX Decisions Impact Your Product Roadmap

Event Description:

In fast-moving startups, early UX decisions can either accelerate your product's success or lead to costly reworks and misalignments down the road. Founders often face pressure to build quickly, but what happens when early assumptions overlook what users actually need?

In this candid and dynamic co-presentation, two UX experts will walk through real examples of how early design and research decisions have shaped (and sometimes conflicted with) startup founders' product roadmaps. From missed signals in user testing to design choices that saved months of dev time, you’ll learn how to avoid common pitfalls and make smarter product decisions throughout your entire product lifecycle.

Whether you’re shipping your MVP or scaling a growing product, this session will give you an eye-opening perspective on the integral importance of connecting UX to business goals to achieve long-term product growth and business success.

Event Details:

Date: Friday, May 23
Time: 3:00–3:45 PM
Cost: You must purchase a Vancouver Startup Week All-Access pass to attend this event.
Use our code VSWxInsideView20 to receive a discount on All-Access passes (covers 60+ events across 4 days) at https://vanstartupweek.ca/
Location: Low Tide Event Space, 1 Water Street, Vancouver

This is the 3/3 session in Van365View x Inside View x Vancouver Startup Week's 2025 Event Series: Navigating Tech, Product & Equity in Startups.

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About the Speakers:

This co-presentation features Ernesto Peña (Associate Teaching Professor of Design @ Northeastern University) and Silky Chan (UX Manager @ Charitable Impact).

Ernesto Peña is a professional designer, turned professional educator, turned professional researcher. In the years that passed between the first and the last stage of this ongoing process, he became a problem-solver with a deep interest in the root causes of those problems and rigorous methods to address them. This journey has taken him across continents, languages, and disciplines. It has made him an eternal learner and teacher, a big-picturer and a dot-connector.

Ernesto holds a Master's degree in Information Design and a PhD in Language and Literacy Education from the University of British Columbia. He is currently an Associate Teaching Professor of Design and the Information Design and Data Visualization Graduate Program Coordinator at the Northeastern University, Vancouver campus. He is also into information design, media and digital humanities. His research interests include visual literacy, semiotics and rhetoric, visualization, typography and editorial design, among many others.

Silky Chan is a UX Manager with over 10 years of experience in eCommerce and the public sector. She has had experience working with brands such as Disney and Apple, and was recognized with a Vancouver UX Award in 2020. Silky brings a thoughtful, user-centered approach to design, combining strategic thinking with a passion for creating meaningful digital experiences.