I spent most of my childhood drawing and painting. As I was growing up, I aspired to be an architect. I was obsessed with buildings. Figure 1 depicts a random architectural doodle I created back then. After completing an independent study with a local architect and mentor, I quickly learned how to refine my drawing skills and create a visual style that enabled me to pitch new and exciting ideas.

For various reasons, I never achieved my goal of becoming an architect. However, I found my way into User Experience (UX) design. Throughout my career, I've carried a lot of the ideas, principles, and techniques I learned from childhood, and I've spent a lot of time refining them. My drawing style is a combination of techniques I applied in watercolor painting, drafting, and digital design. The drawing in Figure 2 is a fine example of how I combined these various techniques. As a result of blending these skills and techniques, I've experienced a lot of success sharing ideas early and often.

Drawing has improved the quality of ideas explored by the teams on which I've worked. I've been able to successfully apply drawing in a way that enabled me to challenge the status quo, explore new ideas, and share the breadth of my thinking. I've used drawing to enable my teams to align on ideas that we co-created.

For example, I used hand-drawn sketches to design one of the first mobile and web apps for controlling lights and shades in homes. I also used drawing and sketching to convince a customer to drastically change the way in which scientists interact with an atomic force microscope. One of my early atomic force microscope concept drawings is displayed in Figure 3.

Later in my career, I used hand-drawn sketches to help pitch Rivet, an AI-powered reading skills practice app offered by Google. I also used drawings to enable the team, a group of non-designers, to explore some early minimum viable product, or MVP, designs for the app.

Finally, I successfully created a hand-drawn presentation to convince a Google Cloud team to shift from a text-driven interface to a visual interface that used visualizations to highlight insights within the data.

I want to share my success with you, and I truly believe that my style and technique doesn't require artistic talent to master. I'm confident that with a few quick and easy adjustments to your drawing technique, you will be able to draw digital product designs, like the one in Figure 4, with finesse, polish, and confidence. Most importantly, you can start creating more impactful designs with your team.