A Catalyst for Change: How Yingxiao’s Mastercard Experience Sparked Designs that Empower Women

My name is Yingxiao Ouyang, a product designer with 6 years of experience creating simple, intuitive and actionable experiences for digital data products. Currently, I am a product design manager at Mastercard, where I lead the design of three flagship finance products, helping to equip the finance industry with advanced data analytics tools.

Previously I spent 3 years in Walmart Supply Chain team, leading the design of warehouse applications to help warehouse associates make data-driven decisions. I graduated from Georgia Tech MSHCI and Industrial Design program with a focus on Human-centered design. My core expertise relies in turning complex requirements into simple, user-friendly and impactful solutions.

Design challenges the status quo by delivering what people truly needs. I enjoy building creative solutions, understanding people’s struggles and strategically planning ahead. While the process can be demanding, the reward of seeing things come together makes it all worth it.

It pushes my limits, requiring both deep expertise and creative thinking to understand what people needs and what products our team can build. Even a small success in this field can fuel my passion and motivate me to continue exploring and innovating in design!

I am building data products for Mastercard Services or targeting multiple personas like Destination Marketing Officers, Retailer Executives, and small merchant owners. My goal is to simplify their digital experience by helping them understand data, explore insights, and leverage data to solve complex business challenges.

In my current role, I need to collaborate closely with product managers and development teams to address customer pain points and prioritise solutions. I create mockups for the product team to map out execution details and enhance the overall customer experience.

My favourite design is the Nintendo Switch, which is a great example of knowing what people want. The company’s goal is never to use the latest technology, but to deliver unique and advanced experiences for gamers.

In order to give users a better chopping experience, the engineering team implemented multiple ways of chopping from different angles, offering users unprecedented flexibility. A comment from a user is a great demonstration of their design principle: ”Even I forgot what I want, but Nintendo always remember.”

Girls Find Girls is an app inspired by many female career explorers’ true stories. A common struggle among these users is the uncertainty of what career paths are possible. One interviewee shared that, “I never knew what I could do at that time, and I didn’t thought too much about my career options.”

Another interviewee mentioned that her environment was less supportive when she was younger. In order to help these females reach their full potential, this app leverages on career data and census data to bring in-depth insights to female presence across various fields and offer insights to female career explorers.

1. This industry creates highly usable products to solve urgent 21st-century problems by giving users 21st-century capabilities;

2. The industry constantly changes the status quo by adapting to human behaviour changes.

3. The design industry is able to really make an impact on people’s living styles.

My design professor Wendell at Georgia Tech is a great example of professionalism and kindness. He encouraged me to be creative, while also holding a high standard to meet public expectations. One lesson I learned from him is to use high-quality design to persuade people.

People can reject a design because of aesthetics, even if they have the need. As a designer, when we receive pushback, it is our job to reevaluate their needs but also to push our design to a higher level.

“Design until you cannot move a single pixel. “ This is a wisdom coming from my first design professor. After years of practising, I find this wisdom easy to embrace and hard to fully commit to, but very rewarding in the end. This is a reminder I gave myself when I’m stuck on a project and tempted to give up. This mindset has helped me go through many challenges.