Austin Knight - Design & Research

I've had the honor of designing products that impact billions of people around the world. Today, I'm working on the future of Google Chrome. Previously, I helped lead UX at HubSpot while working remote from Rio de Janeiro.

Product Designer at Google

Based in San Francisco, CA

Advisor at Sequoia Capital

Mentor at Columbia and Stanford

Co-Host of the UX & Growth and Decrypting Crypto podcasts

Advocate for remote work, user data privacy and the open web

Work

What I've been up to

Globally adopted software, high converting websites, emerging technology and beyond. This is a detailed chronicle of the stories, processes and results behind a curated selection of projects that I've led and contributed to.

Globally adopted software, high converting websites, emerging technology and beyond. Here are the stories behind my work.

Coming soon

This case study is still being written

Redefining the app

Imagine a website that could also work like a native app, on all platforms. Responsive, universal, offline capable and on the home screen. Meet PWAs.

Timeline of Work

2003 • Lexington, KY

My first website

I built my first site (and taught myself how to design and code) by reverse-engineering sites that I admired. It was hosted on freewebs.com and had a phpBB forum.

2011 • Lexington, KY

Starting a non-profit

Motivated to combat human trafficking, I founded a 501(c)(3) and built a robust site (for awareness, crime tracking & fundraising), videos, presentations and more.

2012 • Lexington, KY

My first design job

I conducted an unsolicited audit of a local company's website, and as a result, was brought in to lead their design and marketing efforts. This is where my career began.

2014 • Cincinnati, OH

Joining an early stage startup

In a leap of faith, I joined Petbrosia as its UX & Acquisition Lead and dropped out of college. We raised $5M in funding and grew to 100K+ monthly site visits and 10K+ customers.

2015 • Boston, MA & Rio de Janeiro, BRazil

Rapid growth at HubSpot

Brought in as HubSpot.com's first UX Designer, I established our process, helped take us international and led the site through design changes that multiplied its conversion rate.

2018 • San francisco, CA

Big impact at Google

Today, I'm designing the future of Chrome for over 3 billion people around the world. From new technologies like PWAs, to critical EM capabilities, to better privacy and beyond.

Multiplying conversion rates

How our small multi-disciplinary team iteratively built one of the most-visited SaaS sites on the web, multiplying conversion and revenue in the process.

Growing a startup

A revolutionary idea and a tight timeframe would result in this critical redesign of our fledgling startup's website and product experience.

Designing for billions

I'm actively building for Google's Next Billion Users, who are coming online for the first time in places like Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil, India and Indonesia.

Entering virtual reality

Two weeks and a blank HTML document would turn into one of my favorite side projects. A fully functioning WebVR experience.

Coming soon

This case study is still being written

Case Studies

Doubling conversion rates

How our small team built one of the most-visited SaaS sites on the web, multiplying conversion and revenue in the process.

Growing a startup

A revolutionary idea and a tight timeframe would result in this critical redesign of our startup's website and product experience.

Entering virtual reality

Two weeks and a blank HTML document would turn into one of my favorite side projects. A fully functioning WebVR experience.

Coming soon

This case study is still being written

Involvement

Advising

I advise startup founders at Sequoia Capital, a VC firm based in Silicon Valley, China, India and Israel with a portfolio of companies that represent an aggregate public market value of $3.3 trillion.

Mentoring

I mentor students and entrepreneurs entirely for free at educational institutions like Columbia and Stanford, trade schools like DesignLab and General Assembly, and on an individual basis.

Advising

I advise startup founders at Sequoia Capital, a VC firm based in Silicon Valley, China, India and Israel. The firm has invested early in companies like Apple, Google, Alibaba, PayPal, HubSpot, Stripe, Airbnb, Instagram, Dropbox, and YouTube. Today, its portfolio of companies represent an aggregate public market value of $3.3 trillion.

Mentoring

I mentor students and entrepreneurs entirely for free at educational institutions like Columbia and Stanford, trade schools like DesignLab and General Assembly, and on an individual basis. I've been thrilled to see the people I've worked with go on to start businesses and secure roles at some of the world's most respected companies.

Kind

Words

As a manager, you hope to hire people who are smarter than you, driven to make a big impact, and who constantly push themselves to grow–and Austin was certainly that. I learned a lot from him (his knowledge in UX design is unparalleled) and it was a joy working together.

Jessica Meher

Austin, for being relatively young, exhibits the experience and talent of someone twice his age in years. He is an incredible leader and has a way about him to get the most out of anyone. But most importantly, he's always eager to help others learn, grow and improve.

Jack Farrell

What I enjoyed most about working with Austin was his mix of to-the-point creative vision and direction, while providing it in one of the most humble ways I’ve encountered.

Dan Crask

Writing

Notes from the field

In-depth essays, on-the-ground research reports, and product teardowns. Travel with me to Africa, or take a quick pass through a product onboarding flow. This is where I share my thoughts on design, research and leadership.

In-depth essays, on-the-ground research reports, and unfiltered thoughts on design, research and leadership.

Design
Guide

Tools for and by practitioners

Around the web

Press & Interviews

Podcast

Good Design is Humble

Article

Lean UX & The Death of Ego

Don't Defend Your Work

The impulse to defend one's work feels natural in design. But as we start to examine design reviews in the context of user-centered design, it becomes clear that defensiveness may not be the best response. Designers are much better off when they focus on collaborating with their stakeholders, listening to their feedback, and asking questions to get the deepest insights.

Want to Be a Better Designer? Travel.

Psychological studies have shown that an individual's level of creativity (and the open-mindedness that facilitates it) can be directly influenced by the amount of traveling that they do. But perhaps more surprisingly, the creative benefit that an individual gains from traveling can be drastically impacted by how immersed they become into the culture that they're visiting. Designers should not just aspire to travel, but also to immerse themselves into the different cultures, languages, and experiences that they encounter while abroad.

A less commonly discussed side effect of adopting an iterative and experiment-driven design process is the incurring of something called Design Debt. This is where the cohesion and consistency of a design deteriorates over time as new experiments are run and new elements are introduced into the design. Strong design direction and regular refactoring can help to periodically unify the design and uphold its structural integrity.

Good Design is Humble

Humility and design go hand-in-hand; it's just in the nature of design. Designers should strive to be humble in their work and organizations should reinforce this in their cultures.

While design and art do share many overlapping qualities, they are two fundamentally different disciplines. They are informed through two different sets of data, they are created through two different processes, and they perform two different functions. More than anything, these distinctions demonstrate that design decisions cannot be based purely on intuition, opinion, or ego. Humble design is good design.

Nope, Dark Patterns Never Work

LinkedIn was just ordered to pay $13 Million in damages to users that were affected by Dark Patterns in their designs. This sets a new precedent in the design community's resistance against Dark Patterns.

Don't Defend Your Work

Want to Be a Better Designer? Travel.

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Read by some of the world's greatest design teams

Podcasts

Thoughts worth hearing

Some conversations just need to be recorded and shared. I happily co-host two fully non-profit podcasts, where I've had the pleasure of speaking with some of the brightest minds in design and tech, all in front of a microphone.

Some conversations just need to be recorded and shared. I co-host two podcasts, where I've had the pleasure of speaking with some of the brightest minds in design and tech.

UX and Growth Podcast

Stories, debates and advice

I regularly sit down with my friends from around the world to take deep dives on design, conversion, and leadership. As part of this, I welcome a different co-host with every episode, giving you access to unique and fresh perspectives that are designed to challenge the ways you think. These aren’t interviews; they’re conversations between practitioners discussing real-world experience, and sharing actionable advice. I invite you to join in this journey of learning with me.

Recent co-hosts

Hannah Lee

Casey Yee

Aarron Walter

show facts

100,000+ episode downloads
Non-profit and independently run
New co-hosts with every episode
Monthly release schedule

top listener countries

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Google Play

Soundcloud

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

show facts

100,000+ episode downloads
Non-profit and independently run
New co-hosts with every episode
Monthly release schedule

top listener countries

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Google Play

the Decrypting Crypto podcast

Blockchain tech, without the buzzwords

Every week, Matthew Howells-Barby and I sit down to "decrypt" blockchain technology and explain it in ways that everyone can understand. We're learning too, so we often enlist the help of prominent and diverse guests in the space. Whether you're completely new to tech, have a growing interest in crypto, or have been building blockchains for years, we'll always have something for you to enjoy. And we'll offer it from an objective, tech-driven perspective without paid-for interviews or hype.

Recent Guests

Amy Wan

Bram Cohen

Jerry Cuomo

show facts

150,000+ episode downloads
Non-profit and independently run
Top guests from the blockchain space
Weekly release schedule

top listener countries

Listen on Apple Podcasts

show facts

150,000+ episode downloads
Non-profit and independently run
Top guests from the blockchain space
Weekly release schedule

top listener countries

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

speaking

Keynotes and connections

I’ve had the honor of speaking at over 50 events in some of the most beautiful and vibrant parts of the world. I'm intent on challenging the ways we think about design, and being present in places that aren’t frequented by big conferences.

I’ve had the honor of addressing audiences at over 50 events in more than 25 beautiful countries. Here's a small sampling of those.

From the sun soaked shores of Rio,
to the arctic peaks of Tromsø

I've purposely exited the major tech hubs and traveled far to meet with local creatives, delivering talks about design, research and leadership in new places.

Previous Talks

Current Topics

JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out
A look at how Google designs for Digital Wellbeing, and the research behind it.
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Design at Planet Scale
How products with billions of users are built and scaled across every dimension.