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Meet The Thunderbird Team: Sol Valverde, UI/UX Designer

Welcome back to our Meet The Team series! I recently had a very entertaining conversation with Sol Valverde, one of the creative minds behind Thunderbird’s user experience and interface design. During our chat, Sol explained how growing up around developers influenced her career path, and discusses the thought process behind designing and improving Thunderbird’s visuals.

Sol also shared a hilarious and heartwarming anecdote about her family’s reaction to her joining our team. It’s a story that underscores the importance of maintaining core Thunderbird features that long-time users rely on, while still modernizing the interface.

For the best and most complete experience, listen to our entire conversation above. Or, you can read select excerpts below.

Q: Can you start by sharing your origin story? How did you end up in UI/UX design?

A: As a kid I always used to draw a lot. I did want to become uh some sort of artistic area professional. However, I do come from a family of programmers. My dad and uncle are both developers. My uncle, he’s been a huge Thunderbird fan for 20 years. But when he found out I got the job he was terrified. He was like “oh my God that’s cool! And also please don’t change anything. It’s perfect the way it is. Don’t touch it!”

Q: What does your role entail?

A: I tend to take the first pass at evaluating how a user is going to interact with something. Like for example the first user experience. When I look at the screen, of course I want to make sure it’s attractive. But I ask things like “will the user understand what they need to do in this screen? Is it intuitive?”

Q: How do you ensure that a design is intuitive for users?

A: I love the example of a door. If you have a door without a handle, you can assume it should be pushed. But how do you interact with a door if you don’t know? A lot of doors have “Push” or “Pull” signs. But then you kind of also get the extra interaction with the handle. Sometimes it’s a handle you can grab, but sometimes it’s just a bar that has to be pushed. The design lets you know intuitively what should be done, without needing to read anything. We want to guide the user without hiding anything from the user.

I grew up and learned by grabbing things, breaking things, interacting with them. And that kind of learning for me is crucial. So if the user is going to come into this room and and learn what I want them to learn, I have to make it easy for them to figure it out. I do a lot of research. If I’m working on K-9 Mail, for example, I not only look at other email apps, but also at various social media apps. How easy it to switch accounts? What do I dislike about those applications?

Q: Are there any mobile apps that stand out? Where the user experience is so straightforward there wasn’t any kind of learning curve?

A: The simpler ones tend to be the most intuitive ones. So for example, when you’re using an app to read comics or manga, you tap the book you want, and then you swipe back and forth to turn the pages. Like mimicking the physical actions of reading.

Q: What has been one of the most rewarding projects you’ve worked on at Thunderbird so far?

A: Definitely the Cards View revamp. We redid the first big chunk of code code, but then realized we hadn’t accounted for high contrast and other accessibility needs. We had to address those because accessibility is a must. So, when Micah and I started reworking the design, we thought, “What if we make it ten times better than we originally planned?” Thankfully, Alex was crazy enough to let us do it.

Q: How important is community feedback in your design process?

A: It’s invaluable! The community has a lot of opinions which is great. We design and extrapolate based on our own experiences and those of people we know. We do our best to put ourselves in others’ shoes and predict how they’ll interact with the design. Some comments were straightforward, like “I wish for this or that because it serves me better” or “I just like how it looks.” For UI, as long as it looks cohesive, I’m happy. However, some users provided deeper insights and explained their use personal use cases and concerns. That kind of feedback is so eye-opening, because it addresses things we hadn’t considered. I’m really grateful that they bring those perspectives forward.

Q: OK, big picture question: What’s your overall vision for the user experience in Thunderbird?

A: My whole desire for Thunderbird is it’s something easy to use. It’s something friendly and inviting. However, it can be as complicated or as easy as you want it to be. Intuitive at first glance, but powerful when you need it to be!