When this year’s Adobe Creative Residency kicked off in May, interaction designer and recent grad Natalie Lew was ready to get to work; she just needed to figure out what, exactly, she wanted to be working on.

As a longtime IT professional, Owen Modamwen knows tech. “It’s definitely great being able to provide helpful services for people, but I’d always be sitting at my desk thinking about how I could be more creative.”

From sunny San Diego, designers Jessica Moon and Claude Piché anticipate issues and solve problems around the way you interact with everyday tech. Here, they share stories about the early days of Photoshop, the importance of a good attitude, and a custom playlist to get in the zone.

Nick Slough believes in the bright future of games. Four months ago, the Bay Area-based UX/UI consultant co-founded Beholder Design with Ian Wall. We spoke with Slough about holodecks, unfiltered user feedback, and the sound of silence.

We chatted with Ponce de Leon about problem solving, evading discouragement, and 90s music, and his eight-person team–spread out across the world–piped in with some thoughts of their own.

Joshua Oluwagbemiga’s passion for producing engaging online projects only grows greater the more he learns about the industry and develops his skills. We Skyped with Josh at the end of a busy Monday about how good UX and UI design can make users care about a banking app, the allure of trap music, and discovering the “Jedi of design.”