Evelyn Lee’s career is useful because it shows how architecture training can move into experience design, technology, organisational culture and broader business thinking.
As a Senior Experience Designer at Slack, founder of Practice of Architecture and co-host of Practice Disrupted, Evelyn connects design with how people work, collaborate and experience organisations.
Watch: Evelyn Lee on architecture and experience design
Evelyn Lee explains how architecture, workplace experience and organisational culture connect, including her work with Slack and Practice of Architecture.
Listen: Evelyn Lee on design and organisations
The audio conversation gives the full Architecture Social discussion on experience design, career routes and people-first organisational thinking.
Useful source links
These links give more context on Evelyn’s work, platforms and background.
What architecture can bring to experience design
Architecture teaches people to think across systems: users, briefs, constraints, teams, communication, space and behaviour. Those skills can translate into experience design when the designer can explain the value clearly.
- Understanding how people move through systems.
- Balancing qualitative and quantitative evidence.
- Building collaborative design processes.
- Linking environment, behaviour and culture.
- Explaining complex ideas to different audiences.
What candidates can learn from Evelyn’s route
If you want to move beyond traditional practice, the issue is not whether architecture skills are useful. The issue is whether you can translate those skills into the language of the next industry.
Common mistakes
- Assuming an architecture title explains your value on its own.
- Only talking about buildings when the role needs systems thinking.
- Underselling research, facilitation and communication skills.
- Trying to make a career pivot without evidence.
- Ignoring how much design work happens inside organisations.
Architecture Social view
Stephen’s recruiter view is that architecture careers are wider than many people realise, but a wider route still needs proof. Your CV, portfolio and story need to make the transfer obvious.
Translate your architecture skills
If you are exploring experience design or tech-adjacent work, make the bridge clear.
- Name the user problem you solved.
- Show research and process, not just output.
- Explain collaboration and stakeholder work.
- Use language the next industry understands.
Next step
Explore Evelyn’s platforms for the source context, then use Architecture Social resources and jobs to think through your own next move.
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