What a NICU Visit Taught Me About Product Design 

About the Author:

Evan Tindle, Senior Product Designer at AngelEye Health (Evan ensures AngelEye products are seamless, usable, and create great experiences for families and clinicians.) 

A couple of weeks ago, friends of ours had a baby at 30 weeks. Visiting them in the NICU was heavy enough on its own, but what caught me off guard was seeing something else in the room.

For the first time in my career, I watched someone I knew personally interact with a product I helped design. Not a demo or a staged user interview. Not a slide in a presentation. A real family in a moment where the stakes could not be higher. They asked me a few questions, ran into a couple of small bugs, and I helped them troubleshoot.

People thank me all the time for this work, and I appreciate it, but this time was different. It made me think about every day I didn’t give it my all, or every time I shrugged and said, “It’s fine, ship it.” Those shrugs might show up in the worst moment of someone’s life. That weight is uncomfortable, and it makes the work feel less like a project and more like a responsibility. I try to think about this moment in a healthier way now.  I can’t fix everything families go through, but I can try to make one small part of their experience a little easier. That is my job.

Good work is not only about metrics or awards. It is about showing up for people who need you, even when you do not get it perfect the first time. Caring, consistently and deliberately, might be the most important part of the job.