---
title: "Ista Cheban - Mentor in Kyiv | Tal"
description: "Meet Ista Cheban, Product Designer with a Lead mindset · Building teams & processes · UX strategy · Mentoring 500+ designers · 13 years in product · B2C, marketplace, AI interfaces, SaaS Open to new opportunities based in Kyiv."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/ista-cheban/share-image"
---

# Ista Cheban on Tal

## Headline

Product Designer with a Lead mindset · Building teams & processes · UX strategy · Mentoring 500\+ designers · 13 years in product · B2C, marketplace, AI interfaces, SaaS Open to new opportunities

## About

13\+ years in UX/Product Design\. I've worked in consulting, freelanced with my own project team, taught, and mentored\. Over that time, 500\+ students have studied with me at Projector Institute, Genius\.Space, and service\.so\. I built curricula, recorded lectures, ran workshops, and supported designers through both their learning and their work\. Open to new opportunities, projects, and collaboration — full\-time, project\-based, or part\-time, remote\. Core competencies Design strategy and UX consulting Supporting product teams as a UX/UI designer Flow redesign and MVP design for new products and features Working with design systems User research: planning, method selection, analysis Generating and validating hypotheses Designing interfaces at the intersection of UX and technical constraints Prototyping and preparing handoff\-ready files Building customer journey maps Communication with stakeholders and the team UI visual refinement Key achievements Designed new, more usable interfaces for chat operators, helping the team move off contractor\-built solutions faster\. Operators responded so positively that they pushed for an earlier exit from beta and a full switch to the new product\. Created scalable page templates for a SaaS system, enabling developers to extend the product and add new sections independently, without pulling in a designer\. Introduced kickoff practices into the product process: built templates, ran workshops, and helped teams start work on tasks more systematically\. Advanced a customer\-centric approach to digital product development company\-wide through a workshop series for product managers and business analysts on defining target audiences, user journeys, needs, and pain points\. Set up a process for working with product hypotheses at the design\-team level: from research assumptions and choosing a validation method to building testing tools, analyzing results, and forming conclusions\. Built a research knowledge base so insights stayed accessible, reusable, and useful for future product decisions\. Helped embed customer\-oriented and research\-driven practices into the company's design and product processes — approaches that took hold in the teams and kept developing after\.

## Location

Kyiv

## Work experience

Mentor at Projector Institute, 2022 \- Present · 4 yrs 8 mos

Product Designer at Kyivstar\.Tech, Jan 2023 \- Jul 2026 · 3 yrs 7 mos, Kyiv City, Ukraine, Key achievements and business impact: Designed new, more usable interfaces for chat operators, helping the team move off contractor\-built solutions faster\. The new interface received strong positive feedback from operators, who pushed for an earlier exit from beta and a full switch to the new product\. Created scalable page templates for a SaaS system, enabling developers to extend the product and add new sections independently, without direct designer involvement\. Introduced kickoff practices into the product process: built templates, ran workshops, and helped teams start work on tasks more systematically\. Advanced a customer\-centric approach to digital product development across the company through a workshop series for product managers and business analysts on defining target audiences, user journeys, needs, and pain points\. Set up a process for working with product hypotheses at the design\-team level: from research assumptions and choosing a validation method to building testing tools, analyzing results, and forming conclusions\. Built a knowledge base from research findings so insights stayed accessible, reusable, and useful for future product decisions\. Helped embed customer\-oriented and research\-driven practices into the company's design and product processes — approaches that took hold in the teams and kept developing after\.

Авторка навчальної програми та викладачка at Genius\.Space, Dec 2022 \- Apr 2026 · 3 yrs 5 mos

Mentor at service\.so, Mar 2021 \- Jun 2026 · 5 yrs 4 mos, Kyiv City, Ukraine

Product Designer at Київстар, May 2020 \- Jan 2023 · 2 yrs 9 mos, Kyiv City, Ukraine

## Education

Національний авіаційний університет

Kyiv сollege of electronic devices

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/ista-cheban)

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