Welcome to Documill – Yiping Xu

Documill has seen considerable growth during the past year and with new business come new faces. In this series we will turn the spotlight on those who have chosen to join Documill to further their careers. 

In September 2021, Documill welcomed Yiping as its new UX/UI designer, which means that this public welcome is long overdue. 

Yiping joined us while finishing up his Master’s in Human-computer Interaction & Design at Aalto University, a stone’s throw away from our offices in Espoo, Finland. 

In his role as UX/UI Designer, he is primarily responsible for the usability of our latest Salesforce app, Documill Leap. But – as is so often the case when working for a low-headcount company – his tasks are more diverse than that and he is heavily involved in all things visual, from Christmas cards designs and presentation templates to whitepaper layouts and troubleshooting forms. 

Sink or swim 

In fact, we threw Yiping in the deep end and asked him to do some frontend work despite his unfamiliarity with headless websites. Still, we learn by doing at Documill. Luckily his HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills, a must for UX designers these days, and some support from our software developers turned this task into just another day at the office for him. And our website is still up and running, too. See for yourself. 

“Initially I expected to start with design work and layouts. Instead, I had to figure out how the backend works and communicate with a partner company to learn more about the technology behind the website,” Yiping recalls. “In hindsight this kind of start makes sense. Work is more than just focusing on a single skill like graphic design.” 

When I ask him how he would rate his first 6 months at Documill, he gives the experience a solid 8/10. “And that is mostly because I dislike the weather,” he elaborates as we glance over the piles of snow that still occupy the parking lot.  

“Before I joined Documill I did an internship for a company in Germany. We often worked remote, but we did not have much communication online. At Documill everything is documented so it is much easier to catch up with tasks and to follow processes. I really like that way of working. Remote work at Documill mimics working from the office much closer,” he concludes. 

Diverse minds 

Yiping is from China “from near Shanghai,” he mentioned to me. It turns out that Hefei, his hometown, is at least 4 hours away by high-speed train. I could cross the entirety of my country in that time. It was no wonder then that he remarked to me that “your nearby is different than mine.” No kidding. 

It did highlight how diversity leads to thinking different and that is exactly what we need. That, combined with his willingness to learn and excellent documentation skills have already made him an essential member, not just to the development team, but to the company as a whole.  

So, a belated welcome Yiping, we are delighted to have you.