Greetings!
I'm Yana Barysheva, a product strategist and designer who excels at solving complex challenges with clarity and pragmatism (ask me about designing products for the rat's nest that is retail energy!). For me, design is about finding solutions that work in practice—balancing creativity, strategy, and execution to move projects forward.
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y.barysheva@gmail.com
Nice things people have said about me
Yana is the best product designer with whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of working.
She is incredibly talented as an illustrator, designer, and artist, but she also led WattBuy’s effort to fully grasp the energy consumer by conducting insightful user interviews and customer surveys.
She was incredibly influential at WattBuy, wearing many hats, as Product Manager, Designer, and Customer Advocate. She relentlessly optimized our UX with A/B experiments, driving our conversion up and abandonment down. And she was essential in developing Sunny, our AI-powered solar advisor chatbot. I hope I am lucky enough to work with Yana again.
I can't recommend Yana enough!
I've had the pleasure of working with her over the past 3.5 years and have seen firsthand how she leverages data, customer feedback, and cross-functional input to make strategic recommendations that have meaningfully improved our user experience. Any team would be lucky to have her!
Yana is not a good mentor. She is a GREAT mentor.
She is a hidden gem amongst the ADPList and one of the few people that I felt very comfortable talking to as well. She provides amazing feedback and would go out of her way to help me. I look forward to her continued guidance!
Is it possible to both have a strong POV and opinion based on data as well as intuition and experience while ALSO being ego-less?
Yes. Yana is. And she puts that to practice by studying Buddhist thought to the point where she'd probably tell me "we can't fully become ego-less, but we can keep it in check and be good humans and that's what we're trying to do."
Where most succumb to the pitfalls of being data-driven, Yana encompasses what I like to call being "data-mindful" and approaching problems like a strategic designer should.
Also she's down to earth and earth needs folks like her working on the good stuff.
Approach
I approach design and strategy by channeling my creativity through a pragmatic framework of user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility. My process starts with understanding the problem: collecting information, analyzing it, and forming a mental map of the challenge ahead. I work in a cross-disciplinary fashion, connecting the dots to ensure that the final outcome is greater than the sum of its parts, and enjoy wearing whatever hat is put upon my head.
Mentorship
Every relationship with a report or mentee beings with three questions: Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How can I help you get there? Recognizing that everyone's approach and goals differ, I prefer to support them in the style they're comfortable with. Ultimtely, I want to help others define the path that works for them.
AI
I'm using it! I'm vibe coding (a bit), spending too much time on AI newsletters and events, and I have a lot a lot of thoughts on it (ask me!). I'm concerned about the ethics and frustrated by the hype; I accept AI as a tool; and as a designer, my priority is pragmatic: how to implement AI wisely.
Outside of work
Most of my hobbies have to do with creating. I majored in creative writing and co-wrote a cookbook with my mom. I like to draw, paint, and generally "do art". I'm currently learning to play bass. I love people watching, and talking to them, too (people skills come in handy for user interviews). I also love cats.
More than Borsch
This is a book of Russian & Ukrainian recipes, culinary history, foodie literature, and other tidbits that I co-authored and co-designed with my mom, Ellen (who also taught me design!).
Check it out
Notes:
I used Cursor as a copilot to build this website. I know HTML/CSS well and can confidently say this is terrible code, but it was fun to have a little buddy messing things up and sometimes even helping. Ask me about my experience with this and other vibe coding projects!