Articles

The Opportunity Cost of Rigidity

Jan 2024

Justifying Prioritizing Design Systems, Robust DevOps Culture, and Effective Product Management Through the Lens of Risk

A ship in a stormy seascape in the style of Ivan Aivazovsky

Design Concept: What if Pocket, Overcast, and YouTube had a baby?

Oct 2023

Earwig is an audio app for listeners with rich information diets.

Close-up of person’s head wearing headphones and data flowing into them

Resolving complex forms with OOUX

Sep 2023

Simplify complex forms by recognizing complex objects.

Abstraction of emerging complexity

Gherkin for Designers

Apr 2022

Gherkin is a powerful tool for describing system behaviours. By annotating your design deliverables with Gherkin, you will win the hearts of product, development, and documentation teams.

Photo of gherkins

Designing Hazel’s Accessible Color System

Mar 2022

What happens when your simple color palette also needs to accommodate interaction states, sentiment, accessibility requirements, and more?

Diagram illustrating Asana’s design tokens

Designing collections for mobile web experiences

Mar 2022

How do you allow users to search, filter, sort, and perform batch operations on collections when space is so limited?

Screenshots illustrating desktop to mobile conversion

Work

Senior UX Designer at OneSpan

Jun 2020 — Present

Building and maintaining a design system to accelerate the design and development of OneSpan software products and features at scale.

Product Manager at TrackTik

Jul 2019 — Jun 2020

Managed the development of a mobile app that facilitates shift worker scheduling, communication, and retention for security service companies.

Product Manager at Acquisio

Jun 2015 — Jul 2019

Built a turnkey Google Ads solution for SMBs, contributing to Acquisio’s eventual acquisition by Web.com. Fulfilled triple duties of UX Designer, Front-End Developer, and Product Manager, facilitating unprecedented development velocity and deployment frequency within Acquisio.

Lead UX Developer at Qwalify

May 2012 — Jun 2015

A talent engagement platform used by brands such as Home Depot, Scotiabank, and Roots Clothing Company. Developed its design language system and its front-end. Learned BDD-related tools to increase development velocity by 15%.

User Experience Designer at UrbanOrca

Jan 2012 — May 2012

UrbanOrca was a friend finder and social network where I had learned to design and integrate within the Django web development framework. For the first time, also had the opportunity to work with, and learn from, a technically-savvy product manager.

User Experience Designer at SocialGrapes

Jul 2010 — Jan 2012

An oenophile's social network, which received an honourable mention by Robert Scoble during the 2010 San Francisco Vintners Market. Developed design language system for both web and mobile apps while also developing the web app’s front-end and design language system.

Web Designer and Front-End Developer at Webdweller

Oct 2009 — Feb 2010

Webdweller was a brand engagement platform where I further refined my skills as a web designer and front-end developer specializing in designing for the Ruby on Rails web development framework and using CSS preprocessors. Beyond front-end development, tasks also included wireframing and paper prototyping.

Web Designer/Programmer at Standout Jobs

Oct 2007 — Oct 2009

A recruiting portal Acquired by Talemetry. Learned front-end development within a Ruby on Rails stack. Further integrated myself into the development team by learning to work with GitHub while developing Standout Jobs’ design language system.

Web Designer and Integrator at Wine Price Exchange

Sep 2004 — Oct 2006

Wine Price Exchange was a wine cellar management and appraisal app. At the company, I focused my web design skills into application design while working with developers. These skills included wireframing and prototyping, design integration into PHP. There, I continued to champion business blogging and usability.

Generalist at Mediagrif Interactive Technologies

Jun 1998 — Sep 2003

Mediagrif builds and operates B2B marketplaces for resellers. Provided customer support, often technical in nature. Performed database entry before improving its processes and rebuilding its core tool to increase database entry by 500%. Joined its marketing department and further developed skills in web design and brand development. Subsequently engaged in blogging and usability evangelism within the organization.

Education

Domain Driven Design: Fundamentals

Jun 2023

Certification issued by Udemy

Object-Oriented UX (OOUX) Fundamentals

May 2023

Certification issued by Udemy

Software Product Management

Mar 2020

Certification issued by Coursera

AI For Everyone

Mar 2019

Certification issued by Coursera

The Music of the Beatles

Jul 2015

Certification issued by Coursera

Computer Science Technology

1998

Diploma of College Studies issued by Champlain College Saint-Lambert

About

Head and shoulders shot of Francis Wu

Hi! I'm Francis Wu, a husband, dad, and designer from Montreal. I've had the opportunity to work with amazing people who taught me so much. Now I try to help designers and organizations level up the way I did. I'm currently a senior designer at OneSpan.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Montreal, I started tinkering with design at the age of 10 when my family got an Apple IIc and a copy of The Print Shop. What followed was a long love affair with PCs and bootlegged copies of Photoshop that culminated in a degree in computer science.

Joining a B2B internet startup in '98 revealed customer issues rooted in poor design. I thought this was something I could help people with. I picked up a copy of The Design of Everyday Things and learned HTML and CSS.

Between '07 and '19, I collaborated with test-driven developers, worked with product managers who could query databases for analytics, and lead teams that deployed code multiple times a day. I've seen what "good" looks like and I'm committed to helping others recognize they need not settle for less.

Beyond work, I enjoy reading, podcasts, running, cooking, board games, and being a less-than-perfect handyman.

Connect

I'm always up for a chat about design, working together, and .