99. A Candid Conversation about Mental Health With Hang Xu

How can understanding our mental health make us better UX designers and more empathetic human beings?

In this episode, I sit down with my good friend Hang Xu, a brilliant UX designer and familiar face online. He’s been refreshingly open about his mental health journey. Today, we’re peeling back the layers on a topic close to both our hearts: the mental health of our fellow UX Designers.

We explore the pressures of the tech industry, recent layoffs, and social media activity and how they can exacerbate mental health issues. We also discuss how these challenges have pushed us to be more open without issues and advocate for others to do the same.

This isn’t your typical design talk—it’s unfiltered, it’s real, and there aren’t any key takeaways. It’s just an open conversation among friends and colleagues who want everyone else to know that they’re not alone. Tune in for a dose of honesty, humor, and hope as we navigate mental health and design.

Hang 🤙 Xu
Product Designer Turned Talent Agent @ Collective Supply

About Hang

Hang Xu is the founder and lead recruiter for Collective Supply, a talent-centric design recruiting agency based in NYC. Before that, Hang was a senior Staff UX Designer at Boston Dynamics and designed the user interface, and workflow for their first warehouse robot. His experience in both doing hands-on design work and recruiting for design roles gives him a unique perspective on the state of UX and design hiring in the US. You can read his writing on design strategy, activism in tech, and salary negotiation techniques on his LinkedIn. Aside from his work in UX design, Hang has a keen interest in film photography and enjoys tinkering with instant film cameras. And if you’ve ever wondered if there’s a fully manual Instax/Polaroid rangefinder camera, he’d love to chat.

Connect with Hang on LinkedIn

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