Meet Shokai Sinclair | UX strategy/design consultant

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shokai Sinclair and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shokai, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I had recently wrapped up a six-week UX design contract with a university. It had been almost a year since I had been laid off from my agency job (at the beginning of my parental leave), which was devastating. And I had spent the entire year as a stay-at-home dad. I accepted the contract with a “next Monday” start date and with no real plan for childcare, but my partner and I knew we would work it out.
Those six weeks ended up being the hardest of my life, with both of us working 8-hour workdays while splitting daytime and evening childcare. By the end of the contract, with my nervous system completely wrecked, I vowed to myself that I would never push myself (or my family) that hard again.
A couple of weeks later, I got a LinkedIn message from an old friend and fellow San Francisco Art Institute alum Michal Wisniowski, who first proposed the idea of creating a UX collective. Like me, Michal is an artist, a UX designer, a father of a young child, and passionate about climate action. His idea was immediately appealing to me, not only because it could double my chances of finding work, but it could also help me avoid taking on more work than I was able to with my childcare responsibilities. A couple months later, we co-founded Cameo Collective—a collective of on-demand UX experts.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Although we don’t exclusively work with climate or social impact organizations, both Michal and I have worked extensively with climate tech startups and nonprofits. And we are both aligned on using Cameo Collective to build connections with companies that value embedding sustainability, accessibility, privacy, and wellbeing into users’ digital experiences. We don’t work on projects that are about scale for the sake of scale or user engagement for the sake of user engagement.
One area I have been really interested in lately is trauma-informed design. In tech, many experiences are typically designed for users who are in this kind of idealized flow state. However, more often our attention spans are limited and our cognitive abilities are impaired by varying levels of stress and trauma. And when you are trying to access urgent and important information, it’s especially important to design for these states. For example, a recent project involved redesigning a website where people could report and seek support for assault, harassment, and discrimination.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I think my ideal day in Denver would start out with a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens. After I’ve taken in some of the seasonal beauty, I’d stop for lunch at Dairy Block, where you can sometimes enjoy amazing daytime drag shows with your lobster roll. Then I’d pop into Shop at Matter, a bookstore where the owner will engage you with hours of engaging dialogue. Finally, I’d wrap up with a super fancy cocktail at Death & Co. They are really more works of art than anything else.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I learned this great, simple technique from my coach (Aryeh Shell: https://aryehshell.com/) for when I’m faced with a difficult decision. Here’s how it goes. Hold one option in your mind. How does your body feel? Now hold the other. How does your body feel? I think it’s interesting how this practice relates to regret. It’s hard to regret a decision you made if it came from your body. It’s a lot easier to second-guess a decision that was totally made in your mind. I think this accounts for the nuance of the choice to keep going being a good or bad one, and vice versa. I’ve used this to leave toxic jobs that were “good for my resume.” And I’ve used it to keep going through long periods of unemployment.

Website: http://cameocollective.us/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shokaisinclair/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shokaisinclair/

Twitter: https://x.com/shokaisinclair

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shokai.sinclair/

Other: https://design.airloom.space/

Homepage

https://art.airloom.space/

Image Credits
Jamie Kraus Photography [headshot]