Today we’d like to introduce you to Cam Cheline
Hi Cam, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story starts with Disney. Maybe more specifically with Peter Pan. I remember watching Peter Pan every morning with my little brother. We had every word memorized. The draw of being a lost boy who never grows up is something that never really left me. Like many, I fell in love with Disney in the golden era. They really hit their stride when I was a teenager thinking about what I wanted to be when I “grew up.” I couldn’t get enough of Aladdin and the Lion King. In 1994 when the Lion King came out I became a teen. I remember friends moving on from those childhood animated cartoons, but I was pulled in. Later it was Toy Story and Pixar, telling stories that made me remember the joy of being a kid. So that’s when my obsession with art and design began. I drew a lot. But after my pencils turned to pixels. I was using Microsoft Paint to do design anything I could. My obsession with movies didn’t end, so I ended up just splitting the two passions, design and film. I went to school and got a communications degree and quickly found myself in both worlds doing marketing. First for my church, then going broader. I realized this could actually be a career. I had gotten in a car wreck that left me with enough insurance money to play with. So I funded my video career. Then two things happened in the world of video and the world of design that made me separate the two. With video high definition came into the picture. This was game changing. But it also meant most my video equipment was obsolete and now had to find thousands to stay in the game. I wasn’t nearly successful enough to get a new powerhouse computer to handle a new HD camera that would set me back more than I could handle. The second thing that happened was the app boom. Everyone wanted in on the game. Designers knew websites. But now a whole new lucrative world of opportunities opened up. So I doubled down on design and got into the design agency world. That’s where my career took on a new form and I got to grow up with all the other designers who had no clue what they were doing. I remember the first app I worked on was that year’s version of the American Idol app. Since then I have hopped around to a few places that have allowed me to design in a very different way that drawing characters for Disney. But a passion for a delightful user experience was something that was born out of new exciting tech and innovations led by Apple. Who we know of course was tied to a little studio that was also innovating with storytelling in animation, Pixar, with Steve Jobs playing a big role in both. So I find myself today co-leading a team of designers spread across the glove at a company that supports live agents and AI bots in the customer service space that we call “Conversational Commerce” and the drive to give a delightful and even fun user experience has been something that has continued to drive me and bring the satisfaction I’ve needed to keep doing it.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t know that the road has ever been smooth. It’s been continually learning to pivot, to rethink, to be creative not just in the solutions but in the process to getting to them. Constantly learning new technologies, new programs to create on, new user patterns and even new devices has been hard to keep up with. But the key for me has been to be part of teams that can holistically bring the expertise needed to execute simple solutions to big, complex problems.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a Principal UX Designer for LivePerson. At any given time I’m working on 5-10 products across a suite that is used by a number of user personas at varying degrees of expertise. But outside of design, I love working with designers. On my team, I’ve fought hard to bring together a group of designers across the globe who are a part of different teams to collaborate and come together on a consistent design system and to align on what we call design tenets. Half of which are how we work as a design team and half are our values for what we simply see as good design. It’s a group of people who are experts in different aspects, whether its prototyping, iconography, grid layouts, user research, for our products and design. I’m most proud of playing a part in bringing this group together to make something greater than what we could do on our own.
What makes you happy?
Going back to film, I see successful design as successful CGI. Invisible. When a user doesn’t have to think, that what you have built is so intuitive that they don’t need training and they don’t spend time learning how to use things, that makes me proud. But I love doing that with people who challenge me, who push me to grow and who inspire me. I guess my son and cat also make me happy and a good old fashioned.
Contact Info:
- Email: ccheline@liveperson.com
- Website: liveperson.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/camcheline
- Facebook: facebook.com/camcheline
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