Vilia Ingriany: Insight-Driven Design
Co-founder and product strategy and design lead at Sixty Two
by Elizabeth Lavis
|17 Mar 2022
Vilia Ingriany, co-founder and product strategy and design lead at Sixty Two, manages her portfolio of diverse clients from around the world with two simple methods; looking out, and looking in at her challenges for insight-driven inspiration and design.
She and her team “look out” to the space itself, envisioning user needs and multiple opportunities. But, at the same time, they also “look in” at the organization’s mission and vision. “I believe our roles as designers are to bridge a lot of these inputs and come up with a delightful and functional experience that answers these varying needs,” she said.
Ingriany’s' company is a distributed product innovation team in Southeast Asia, working with companies from around the world. As such, they’ve had to adapt their designs for various cultures and viewpoints, making their insight-driven approach even more valuable and necessary.
“I was born in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy,” she said. “I started my design career in Canada and have led teams of talented designers in Vancouver, Canada, and San Francisco, USA, before starting Sixty Two. Growing up in Southeast Asia and working as a designer in North America gave me an interesting perspective on being adaptable as a designer and ensuring that we’re designing solutions effectively for diverse cultures and contexts.”
Even as a child, Ingriany recalls coming up with creative solutions to challenges, and her passion for collaboration continued to adulthood. Through her work with Sixty Two, she has the ability to work directly with the local design community in Southeast Asia. She created Project Lima, a forum dedicated to addressing location-specific concerns within the design world.
She also brings her own perspective to the project, talking about how working in Southeast Asia comes with its own set of challenges. “I’d say that the biggest thing that I learned when I moved from North America to Southeast Asia was having to adjust my design perspective to be able to design effectively for the local context and culture,” she said. “This experience made me realize the importance of being adaptable as a designer.”
Her flexibility, adaptability, and comprehensive two-pronged approach to client briefs make harsh client criticism rare. However, when it does happen, Ingriany tries to get to the root of the problem. “Harsh criticisms usually come from unresolved or unspoken issues,” she said. “We spend time trying to truly understand what’s behind the criticism and resolve it accordingly.”
Ultimately, Ingriany and her team try to avoid misunderstandings by involving their clients in the entire process. They are fully transparent and disclose how their solution totally solves the problem, leaving space for modifications or questions.
Collaborating with clients is one of Ingriany’s favorite parts of her job. “Working with genuinely kind, like-minded individuals at Sixty Two and having clients and partners that are aligned with our vision to deliver a positive impact to the world are what I enjoy most about my work,” she said.
Moving forward, Ingriany looks forward to working with the larger design community to solve problems both locally and globally. Her inclusive, insight-driven approach has already made some significant positive waves, so we’ll surely be seeing more outstanding things down the road.
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