Ep 71 Career: How to become a digital product designer

In this highly requested episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates tackles the top question he receives: how to transition from a marketing, branding, or advertising role into digital and product design. With limited resources available to guide this shift, Stephen breaks down the key differences and similarities between marketing and digital design, and what skills you need to successfully make the leap. Tune in for actionable insights on building the expertise and mindset required to thrive in digital product design.

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Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 71st episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps to empower creative people. Now, be sure to subscribe to show so you get the latest episodes whenever those come out. And also remember, you can listen to all the shows, get all the show notes and a lot more just head over to the crazy one. That's crazy. And the number one.com. That's a new home for the show. So you can find everything you need there. And man, am I glad to be home and be able to do this show. I think since the last time you probably heard from me here I've been in I don't know what three or four different countries maybe 10 or so different cities 20 or so different airplanes. I am so glad to be home and actually able to sleep in my own bed for more than like two or three nights without having to get up at some crazy time in the morning and run off to JFK. But here we are. We're kind of coming down the homestretch of We're heading into the holidays. And it's an interesting time because I think you know, this is that time of year, whenever I see creative sort of do one or two things, I think you see the ones and it tends to be a little bit more of the way that I buy us. I don't want to look at my computer, I don't want to talk about work, I don't want to think about work, I need a chance to actually sort of like, reset, reload, just reflect on things. But then there's another group of people and I think they're the ones that sort of want to spend that downtime, they want to learn something new, they want to level up, they want to do you know, kind of get used that time to to get better, because you actually have time to stop and think and work on something. And it's really nice. And so much of the content of the show really comes out of two main places. One is just stuff that I've gone through things that I've been challenged with, and I kind of feel like I want to share that so other people don't have to go through it. Or I really is based on questions that I get and especially whenever I start to see that I'm getting a lot of the same question over and over again and lately The number one question that I get asked multiple times a week is the same. And it's coming from somebody who's in marketing and branding, in advertising something in one of those fields. And they're trying to figure out how do they get into digital design or into a product design role? Because the thing is, it's a, it's a tough question. And in researching this show, and as people been asking me about this sort of over the weeks, and over the months, have been sort of like deliberately searching like, What's that one great article? What's that one great podcast episode? What's that one great thing that I feel like really explains how to make this switch. And the thing that I've discovered is there pretty much no good resources out there to help people figure it out. And this is a journey that I've gone through because my career started in advertising. Then I went into broadcast design, and then I kind of smashed the two together to go into digital and I think a lot of people think that digital is just like, you know, you learn the tools and it's just like all this other stuff. For like, I know how to use an iPhone. So, you know, I'm going to be good at product design. And it is so much more than that. And I think that's why a lot of people, either they aren't sure where to jump in whenever they do they feel like they get lost. I've taken some time to do some research to talk to some other designers to even look back over my own career and how what have I done as a digital designer as a product designer? So in this episode, I want to take a look at like, what is that difference between that sort of marketing, advertising design, and product design? I want to look at, you know, what do they have in common? How are they different? And then fundamentally, like, let's actually start to dig in on what do you need to learn to be able to move into this space? And I think it's going to be learned from certainly nuts and bolts stuff, but I think, you know what, there's a ton of articles out there. There's a ton of tools out there, there's a ton of those sort of things. So I'm not really going to dig into that too much. Because again, I think there's so many other places to get better advice on that. So I think that's what We'll look at today's we're going to look at how do you actually become a digital product designer do it well become successful at it. And hopefully keep your sanity while you're doing the whole thing. Let's start with some just laying some groundwork, right, like, let's just look at some, some basic terms. So we're on the same page. And we know we're talking about, and this is really looking at because I'm getting emails, like I said, from people that are in branding, marketing, advertising, we will generically lump those into that sort of like marketing design. And now I know there are nuances between all those done all those understand what that is. But again, just for the sake of explanation, we'll lump those together. And that sort of marketing design, whenever you think about it is really about connecting, because the objective of any advertising of any branding of any marketing is to educate and then convert people into customers. So I'm trying to communicate at them. I'm trying to get them to consume something I'm trying to elicit out of them. So that's really kind of the focus there right is it's much more about communication, and product design, especially when it comes to digital. I think in a lot of cases, whenever digital started, it was in its sort of infancy, it was clumsy, and it was more probably trying to be about just connecting. But it's matured, and it's evolved. And I think this is the switch that's confused a lot of people this is the switch. That I think is why so many companies struggle with the definition of design, because they still see design in that connecting way and that educating way and that sort of converting way they don't see it in a product design way because product design and especially digital product design. It's about building something. It's about building an experience that I can use, it's about solving an unmet need with that product, and then creating value for the user out of it. So Fundamentally, it's a difference between that connecting, and building. And so right from the beginning, I think it's a really key thing to understand because it fundamentally informs the difference in the process, the difference in the approach, and in a lot of ways why you need to have such a broader skill set. Because this is where I get very frustrated, because in many cases, I see a lot of companies, I see a lot of universities, I see a lot of educational programs that still really focus just on the connecting piece because product design, design is the heart of it, creativity is the heart of it, absolutely. But you also need to understand so many other things you need to understand business, you need to understand people you need to understand data, you need to understand a lot of other things that really go beyond and then inform the visual design because as I've said before, say it again, great design is a visual expression of great thinking. So that's why this is important. And now it may sound like these are two wildly different things. But the reason why I think, if you come out of marketing, if you come out of branding, one of those things, you can make this transition because in some ways, they really are the same. Because if you kind of step all the way back, the delivery of the message is different, but they both share, thinking about what people need and how to connect with them. The expression of that may be different. But trying to get to the human truth, trying to get to the unmet need, trying to get to what is going to resonate in a crowded marketplace, what is going to stand out above the crowd, what is going to be something that people are loyal to want to come back to want to seek out. I at least think that that that is a universal thing that binds everything together. And I think that's why, since that's what I've tried to focus on in my career. That's what allows early guests has allowed me to move through graphic design into broadcast design into digital design into branding into, you know, running whole design teams into now sort of being an advisor to teams because that's the thing that sort of binds everything to together. But even though that binds it together, there are just some basic process differences that whenever you get into product design, I want to start there because I know that it's not sexy. I know that a lot of people are kind of like, Yay, design. Let's start with process. That's, that's why nobody went to art school, right. But I think process is going to be what defines your success, because in a lot of cases, how you go about things, how you actually create and being deliberate about that sets a huge tone for where you're going to go with your work. And that's the thing is it just, it's the foundation. And it's the most important because, like just i said before design has evolved, it's become a lot more complicated. And so I think that you know, the basic part of any process and once again, set up before, I'm sure I'll say it again. So it is the fact that we have to make sure no matter what we do, no matter what field you come from, you start with a problem to be solved, not a solution to be vetted, and they use some sort of methodology. To get there, because what you're going to find is in your clients, as you move into product design, you will see this somewhat in marketing design as well. But you see it way more in product design, is that the people you work with that could be product could be executives could be technology, even other people on the design team are going to want to run to a solution they're gonna want to run to be able to say, Okay, great, let's brainstorm let's coming up with ideas. Most of the time, this is the biggest break that I see in the biggest place where a lot of people wanted to come out of marketing design struggle, because a lot of times in marketing design, you can do that. You just have you understand your product, you understand what you're trying to communicate, you can go brainstorm a bunch of ideas, and then be able to do the research and then focus group that or do things like that afterwards. Product Design needs to put that research much, much closer to the beginning. And so you have to be much more iterative. You have to work in a different way. And so I think this fundamentally is the first thing to understand that as we look at process, yes, you need to start with that problem to be solved. You need to define a product vision you You need to write it was some organizations, they'll call it writing requirements. And this is just fundamentally as a product, what is it required to do? What are the things that we say, Okay, look, this is what, you know, again, it has to be able to do requirements, I think, candidly, are good and bad thing. On the one hand, any creativity needs constraints, it needs a box to be able to live inside of those requirements do a really good job of doing that. But I think that the place that I'll caution you on is I think, with too many teams, what happens is they get blinded by those requirements. They get them they set about doing the ideation and again, we are building a product, which means that the interaction with the way that people use it is a much bigger part of this. So the thing that I would very, very much, you know, really urge you to do is to get the requirements from your clients from the executives, but then to go through and do some product research, actually go out and say, Is this what people want? Is this really an unmet need? Are we really going out and solving a real problem or What you see too often in product design is the company is the executive is the team just simply talking to themselves by solving a problem that they think is really big, but consumers don't care about. Because that's, that's the part whenever it comes to product design that I struggle with, it's a problem that I see a lot of teams struggle with, is that they're a superpower is sort of their ability to rationalize why whatever it is they're doing works, even whenever it doesn't, and then afterwards, sort of rationalize the mediocrity that then ensues because they spent all this money on all this stuff to be able to launch something that consumers just candidly don't care about. So again, I think the role of research is definitely gonna be something throughout this that is very different. You need to put people as the center of truth and go to them much more often. We'll get into that a little bit later in a minute. But yeah, start with that vision, get requirements, right, the requirements, do whatever that is, do the research. But then make sure that coming out of that research that you're looking at, first off, what are just the facts What do people actually do? What do they really want? what is actually going on out there? Not with any spin not with any interpretation, just cold, hard facts. But then out of that, take those facts and try to figure out why. Right? Like the facts are the what the insight the Why is what you need to get to to explain that action. Why do they do this? Why do they want this? What is it that they aren't being provided? Because I think when you can have that, why, and you can have that insight, then and only then can you start doing brainstorming. Now here again, that is multiple steps and a lot more work than we're traditionally people that come out of marketing design are used to starting, they're used to just jumping in an ID ating you can do that. But you're gonna miss a lot of ideas, and maybe your products are gonna be really, really hitting this. And so again, it's why it's important to be able to do that up front before then you go into brainstorming and ideation. And in brainstorming ideation, this is just really looking at what is possible, what are all the different ways that we can solve a problem. This should be the exact same objective in every form of design. Whether it's marketing, design, product design anything else, I want to look at a problem from multiple different angles come up with multiple different lines of thinking. And here again, the problem is that too often people fall in love with their first idea, the first thing you think you think, Wow, that's really good. You just sort of take that idea and push it around a little bit, you don't dig in and drive past that to find additional new, more distinct lines of thinking that you can work against. So again, I think the first part, stick to the facts, stay open minded, don't run to the solution. The next part, again, don't get blinded by just one idea, go through and do that. And this is why this brings in prototyping. And this is going to be something that for those of you who haven't done product design for before, this is going to be something that's going to be a little bit different. And obviously work for envision, sort of believe this is a massive, massive, massively important thing, which is why I worked for this company, because that's where we started. We started with the ability to say, Okay, look, I need to prototype my ideas. I need to look at it on a device I need to figure out is this going to work or not, because the thing that you're going to discover is there are plenty of ideas, fantastic in your head probably even really look good. You're working in sketch or working in studio, you're working on something like, hey, you're like, Man, that looks really good. But it's the usability of the product. It's whenever I actually go to interact with it, that will define it, and the ability to be able to see those interactions to do it. And again, I think this is a little bit of a different mentality. It's a bit more of a build to think mentality, not build to launch, right, because again, if I'm in marketing design, whenever I am building whenever I'm designing, I'm trying to get to a finished product. This is similar, but it's a bit of a longer view to it. Because what I want to do is maybe I start with sketches, maybe I start with just simple really low rez designs like wireframes, or I do something where I can first look at the functionality, because that's the first part of the design process that I need to look at. And this is why prototyping is so important. I need to look at how does it work I need to look at is it providing value I need to look at those sort of things that we talked about and this is the building process. Thus build to think. And they need to go through and prototype that and to be able to try it out and to see and to iterate a lot. This is not a one and done process. This is much more of a loop, and a lot more loops. And I think you'll have found in marketing design in the past, because once I've done that, I've got some sort of prototype. And again, this could be something you put together an hour, like I said, you couldn't really sketch it out, photograph it on your phone, throw it into InVision cloud, throw some hotspots on it, and you have a working prototype, it can and probably should start that low fidelity, because you run a new need to do multiple cycles to look at that to look at what is the product, how does it work? How do people use it? And the important part of that is whenever you do prototype it, hand it to somebody else, because that is the truth. The truth is going to be when somebody else uses it, who doesn't understand it. The truth is, whenever somebody else gets it and you can't explain it to them, can they use it? And because here again, this is another key point of distinction as we come into product design. usability. This is not because that's the difference is in marketing design. It's about consumption. In product design, it's about use, because if I'm building something, I want people to use it. And I want it to do a few very, very sort of key things whenever they do that. But this is why I need to test it, I need to validate it, I need to look at even those requirements and say, Okay, look, you know, should we do a loop against that to make sure these are really right. And I want to loop through that ability to do research, brainstorming, ideation, design, prototyping, test refinement, and I want to do that loop, ideally, multiple times and through each one of those loops. I want to make sure the idea is getting better, I probably will start to work up the design. So sketches may go to wireframes wireframes, may go to low res design, low res design, may go into higher res design, those may go into more high fidelity animation, they may end up in code, but as I go along, it's that ability to work it up. It's kind of like if you've ever done illustration, you'll watch an illustrator they start with really light pencil sketches, and then they start to draw a few lines and then they'll start to ink the lines and they To get heavier and they start to add color, they work it up. It's very similar here, because that's what we want to do is we want to do this sort of loop over and over again. And ideally, what you're probably gonna be able to do is at some point, you're going to launch it. But launching it sort of unlike an advertising campaign, or branding or stuff like that, actually, you know, this is where it is probably pretty similar to branding or something like that is that it's never done. You want to continue to iterate on it, you want to continue to improve it, you want to continue to work on it, to put it out there in the world, see what people think. And so it's that loop over and over again. But if that's the basic process, and look, there's there's plenty of other documentation out there. If you've got questions, send it to me. I don't want to spend a huge amount of time on that because I think again, there's a lot of stuff though, sort of document what is process and those sort of things. But what I did was sort of sit down and say, Okay, look, if I had to define a handful of things that I feel like whenever I look at what how I've been successful whenever I look at other product designers I really really admire, what are the things that they do? What are the things that makes it not just about design. But you know, we've got this more complicated process. So I sat down and thought about, I really sort of came down to these three things. And look, I'm sure that there are more than three. They're all like, Look, everybody has their own list. But I think these are the three that I think have the biggest and these are the three I want to dig into a little bit more. The first one is really having a holistic approach to an understanding of design. Because since this is about usability, since this is about connecting with people to be able to build something, I think the complexities require you to be able to sort of flesh out your skill set a little bit differently or a little bit more. I think that you have got to be got to be business savvy. Because since I'm bringing more people into this process, since I'm prototyping things, since I'm sort of exposing my creative process much much earlier. I need to do that without losing control. I need to be able to look at how do I work with data I need to be able to look at how do I do it without losing creativity. I've talked about some of these subjects in the past, and so I'll reference those go back and listen to them, they're gonna make a hell of a lot more sense after this. But then the last thing I think that you absolutely have to have, and I would argue that I feel like I don't care what kind of design you do, you have to have empathy for who you're designing for. I just think it's an absolute must when you do product design, I think you can do branding, you can do marketing, you can do a lot of those sorts of things and just sort of put it out there to the market and say, This is who we are, and let everybody catch up. But even there, I feel like the best part of that, whether it's conscious or not, still has some empathy built into it. So I'm gonna dig into those three little bit holistic approaches design, business savvy, and empathy. So if you've had this interest and making this move over the digital design digital product is, again, there's so many different names for UI UX. There's so many different ways that people can, but just we'll just call it digital design, right? So if you want to make that move, probably the thing that scared you the thing that paralyzed you the thing that you are unsure of is just how Complicated it can be. And and I think that as you look at that, there's a lot that goes into this. And so for me, as we look at this approach to design business, having empathy, I want to break these down into things that I think are the parts that people don't talk about. They're the things that are the underpinning underneath all this process, all these tools, all this sort of thing that hopefully is gonna let you organize this in a way that's gonna make a little bit more sense. And so obviously, with design, much like anything, I think there's sort of three key parts of this. I think there's your craft. I think there's your palette, I'll explain what that means. And then I think there's your inspiration. There's your motivation, and how do you kind of keep your your point of view strong. Now if you're going to start this, the simple place to start with this is is always the tools. You need to understand the tools you need to understand them as you go through the different segments of design. You need to go through and look at, you know, what, how do we start this? How do we concept whether it's wireframing, whether it is sketching, how do we get that into a prototyping platform. And again, this is why I would highly encourage you, if you're doing concepting. If you're doing that sort of thinking tools like envision freehand are free, go out and check those out. Because again, this is basically a multi person, you can a couple, you know, one or 200 people you can put into a whiteboard. And you can start to be able to work those up, work up some sketches, and then be able to bring that through the craft plugin into sketch, you can bring it into envision studio, which is a new new design platform that we launched, you could do one of those, but you can start to do some sort of ideation than thinking. And the reason they're all of this is a balancing act. The Balancing Act on your tools is going to be how do you work with them enough so that they become transparent. You can run around trying to learn 30 different platforms with 20 different technologies. And all these sorts of different ways of doing things, I think, well, you need to stay up with that. But I also think you can get lost in it, it can become an excuse, it can just become the reason why you don't work on the rest of your process. Because you're just so busy learning the tools. And the reason why you do that is because it's going to feel familiar. If you come out of marketing come out of branding, you're used to learning other platforms, you're used to learning other tools. So this is gonna feel very, very familiar. But you need to push past that comfort, you need to get out into the uncomfortable parts. And this is going to be to start to go from that low fidelity to high fidelity through prototypes and an iterative process. Start with sketching, start with simple wireframes. Start by linking those things together. Put that in front of people put it in front of like people you don't know. I mean, you know, your mother, laugh all you want. Your mother may be the best audience, you're ever going to have one because they're going to have a different relationship to technology than you will. And two, they're probably, again, going to absolutely tell you the truth. They're not going to sugarcoat it. So I think the ability to do To start to get out past the tools is going to be important so that you can start to work through this process. And the best thing that I will tell you to do is to just start, pick a product you love, pick a brand you hate, pick something that you feel like you know what, look, I feel like that car company could have a better app. I feel like my home security system should have a better experience. I feel like my grocery store and what it's like to be able to use their app could be better. There's something in your life, there's a digital experience that you've used, that you don't like an app that you deleted that you put on your phone, you try to use it. I hate that delete it. Okay, well, if that's the case, make that your project. Start really simply and just get in and start messing around. Just start trying it just start getting it wrong. Because I think that the other thing that you're going to discover is that in many cases, the other big difference if you're coming out of marketing or branding is the dynamic nature. Design whenever it comes to digital product design, we are not we are no longer the days of designing pixel perfect comps, where we can say, Okay, look, you know, this is exactly what it's gonna look like, this is exactly the wording all the time. And here's where the line break is gonna be. He's long gone. Because from a design perspective, from a craft perspective, you need to realize that what we are doing are we are designing dynamic data systems, not cops. For those of you who have done this for a little while, who have some exposure to it, the moment that we went from designing everything in pixels to percentages that changed, responsive web design, made that change, having to design apps for multiple different screen sizes, made that change. There's a lot of this thing where the dynamic nature of design as our layouts need to flex for different screen sizes for different situations, for things like that brought in this rise of data and brought in comps, yeah, I wish comps went away. But I think what it did was it brought in this sort of dynamic design system where we had to To be able to design inside these constraints for what we're doing is being defined by data where those really beautiful word marks, get rid of that widow, that one word that was just hanging out by itself are gone. And so these are those sorts of things you need to start to play with to start to understand to start to look at that what you really are designing is probably more systems thinking than straight line, just visual design. And so I would encourage you, whenever it comes to your craft, to start to look into systems thinking to start to understand how do you construct the frameworks? How do you construct the experiences, so that yes, not only do they solve a problem, but they need to do it in an elegant and beautiful way, they need to be able to do that in a way that everybody can get, kind of get their head around and be able to really use over and over again. Now a lot of that really comes into how do you know if your work is any good? Because if you're gonna have a holistic approach to design, the key part of that holistic part is I think one being inspired by a lot of other things. We'll talk about that more in a minute. But also So just knowing how the hell do I know if my idea is any good? How do I know if what I'm doing is really differentiated? How do I? How do I know? And so I think to be able to do to have that you need to develop your palate. Now, this is something that if you listen to the show at all, you know, I'm a big foodie. And you'll talk about people who are really good. chefs, she talked about people who know really how to cook, they'll talk about how they have a really good palate because they can taste something and know what's missing, they can understand if a dish is gonna stand out or not, they can do the sort of things where they can get a lot out of very few ingredients because they really know how to use it. Bring that same logic into your design work, because you have to have a developed palette and to be able to do that. You have to go out and consume a lot of different experiences from a lot of different sources to be able to expand your thinking and be able to judge if your work is any good, because that's the thing. You need a lot of really good food, you eat a lot of really bad food, then you understand where do you place a dish in that spectrum? Is it really good, really well executed? Is the finesse really there? Or is this clumsy, too much sauce too much Too much. That's that sort of thing. And again, I think that's all the experience that we've had, you know, the best, whatever it is fried chicken you've ever had. And you can probably remember the worst. But it gives you a spectrum. And so you need to go out and be deliberate, but not just running consume. The ability to have a palette is also being conscious in the way that you consume it to say, what makes this good? What makes this bad? How can I pull this in to my work, and not just go out and consume so much? Because I think this is where social media sort of screws us over, right? Because we get really into this consumption mindset. So consume it, but to do it with your eyes open, understand that it is a means to an end. And then from there, it really needs to then become about how do you continue to drive yourself forward. You have the basics of your craft, you understand the tools, you have a basic process, you jumped in and this is going to be an ongoing process for the rest of your career to work through that. The palette is what keeps you true. It's what keeps you driven at what's let you know if your ideas are any good. Your inspiration though is again, it's the position of that because to be successful, you need to find your voice, your way of doing things, your style, what makes you different, what makes you better, more refined, or something that's different for everybody else, because copying will be the starting point. That's the way most people start to learn. But it cannot be the path forward. So you're going to need to draw from your inspiration from a lot of different sources, to be able to find these sorts of things. And like I said, you can use social media, you can use all this different stuff. But for me, there is no bigger inspiration than actually going out to experience something. Go out and be a part of what you're designing, take part in it, see what it is See, what do you love? what frustrates you, whenever you use your app, use it all the time. What do you love what frustrates you? And then again, have the self awareness to capture that as those inputs for how do you continue to make your work better, it's better for the product, the actual experience is better for the visual design to be able to do those sort of things. It comes in so many different ways and this is since design is more complex. This is what is driving a broader definition of design than just Simply the visual piece of it. So that if you're going in and thinking, Oh, it's just my ability to design something, it looks pretty, absolutely not, you're gonna struggle, you're gonna fail, you're gonna get really pissed off. And so again, I think that's why you may have a bit of a broader definition. And as we look at that broader definition, this brings us to the second piece around being business savvy. Because look, I'm asked so often should designers learn to do things like code or other things like that to master their craft? I, my answer continues to be to learn business. Business is going to define your budget, it is going to define your timeline, it is going to define your ability to grow or add to your team. And ultimately business is what is going to define which of your work actually sees the light of day, your ability to work with executives, your ability to work with product people, your ability to work with other people that are now a part of this process is absolutely going to define how successful you are. And look, I'm not saying go get an MBA, never been a fan of MBAs again, when you're in design. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is there's a few basic things that you've got to understand to be be successful. And I would argue that those are value data and influence, value designs fun. But in these days, it has to answer for so much more, you have to be able to demonstrate the value of design and design honestly, in the broader term here, again, to be much more encompassing of creativity much more encompassing, of problem solving a meeting unmet needs of seeing the non obvious solution, because that's really our gift, we put together the dots, we see the picture in a different way than everybody else. But to be able to do that, we have to know first and foremost, that design does take on that broader definition and that we need to lead with problem solving. And that we need to do that in a way that is inclusive of other people, and actually connects with the people that we're designing for. And then design. Design is then the visual expression of that solution. And it's a really key distinction because I see so many teams, so many designers when you lead with just design, just the visual piece. The business is going to see you as a commodity, they're gonna see you as the quote unquote make it pretty people, they're gonna tell you what to do, you're not gonna have any power, you're not gonna have a seat at the table, and you're gonna become really frustrated. Because what you got in there for this possibility, this opportunity to build something is going to be stripped back to the opportunity to execute on something, and it's gonna be really frustrating. And I think a lot of this then comes into, you need to have the ability to speak their language. And in many cases, a business savvy language uses data. It needs to apply to your work, you need to be able to look at data to understand how is how are things performing, you need to be able to look at data to understand what is the business's priority? Do they need to make more money? Do they need more users? Do they? What is it the goal that they want to do? And then how can the experience that I'm creating work in service of that? Now the danger is going to be and go back and listen to the episode that I did about balancing data and creativity because this is that moment, it gets really tricky, because you can go data blind, you can Just trust the numbers implicitly and lose all your creativity. You lose your competitive edge and it becomes a real problem. Because then everybody wants to know, why are we not being more innovative. That's why that data has to be a part of what this is. Because I think that data needs to inform what you do. It needs to be based on logic, you want them ultimately, when you do this really well to call you crazy and not stupid, because crazy means that they can see that it is different, but they understand why it should work. They can see it in the data, they can rationalize it from business perspective, and they can then know why they want to go on for the ride. And this last part around business savvy, I think doesn't get talked about enough. And it's this really concept of influence. Because look, you can just go out and do design, you can just build products. My argument continues to be that the calling of every creative is out there that works in a commercial setting is that we have to see a bigger picture. We have to be able to step up for more, because we're in a time right now where we have the unprecedented opportunity to really be able to go out and influence business but so many of us struggle because we don't have the influence to be able To do it, because if you can see how it created process with what it is that you do, and what you bring to the table can actually influence entire companies, how the ability to remind everybody that they are creative, the ability to go in to solve problems in new ways, the ability to go in and reconnect them with customers, which creates better products, all of these things create a massive amount of influence inside of a company, you're gonna have to fight to do it, you have to show them the way this is not a one and done easy. Oh, they're just waiting for you to do it, you know, somehow, like Rudy, and they're all gonna carry you out on their shoulders. That's not what this is gonna be. But again, I think our ability to understand that it's not just simply the nuts and bolts, because again, you can be business savvy, and still be really frustrated and feel really trapped. How do you go and use the numbers against them? How do you actually be able to make your case any business sort of way? How are you able to bring in the things that you do every day to pull people into that and to change minds like a Trojan horse, you can go into companies and be able to make things different? Because that's what all the companies that everybody wants to be Netflix Ubers, the Airbnb is the Apple's the Nikes. That's what they do. They put all of those things at the center of their work. And it's amazing for as long as those companies have been around, still people aren't catching on to it. But again, our ability to have that influence, I think, has to be a part of getting business savvy. Now, look, that is not the starter kit, that is not where you want to be able to go right in the beginning, but you need to have an eye on it. And the last piece of this is empathy. You need empathy, to understand the people that you're designing for. But I think the other part of this is to have empathy to understand the people that surround you in your creative process. Your colleagues, your teams, your customers, your investors, like all these different things, right. Like you can't just shut everybody out and kind of say like, this is the way I do it, and you get what you get. It's that's not the way you kind of that's not what a design and creative existence looks like anymore. Because for your customers. You need to walk a mile in their shoes. You need to actually go out and understand them and you need to do it without them in a way that loses Have the arrogance to say I am a consumer, right? Because too many people think that because they design for a product, they empathize with their consumers. And to a certain point you do, like right like, Look, I designed for a hotel company for nine years did some of the best work in my career stayed in a hotel for 364 days to really understand that to really be able to empathize for it. But I also every single day understood that as soon as I started to design as soon as I started as a product designer, to be able to produce a product, and that I was no longer just the consumer, I lost objectivity. Because I was trying to be an insider and the outsider at the same time, the insider who was designing work, the outsider who is still the consumer, but the to automatically influence others. So you are not completely clear and empathetic. But that's the thing, right is that it's not just enough to say like, Oh, I'm empathetic, I am the consumer. You need to change your process or realign your company or do whatever it is to make sure that that consumer is the source of truth for your work. They are the ones that you were talking to. They're the ones who are validating things when they're the ones that you're going Back to this is not saying go out and do co creation. There's a time and a place for that. But in general, what you need to be able to do is to be able to say, Okay, look, this is what I'm thinking, does this work too far? Not far enough, just right, like Goldilocks, right? Like too hot, too cold, just right. Where How do you find that just right? And the ability to do that consistently, to be able to open up and here's the issue is that as designers, it is really scary. They're gonna love it, they're gonna hate it, what are they gonna think I'm gonna be way more open about my process, I have to show things much sooner, I have to be able to be a lot more vulnerable about those sort of things. Not always fun, not always comfortable. But I think it's something you've got to do. And you also have to have empathy for your co workers. Because the thing that you're going to need to do that you find is that whenever you design a product, you don't do it alone. And if you do, it's not going to be good. You need to be able to bring in product people you need to be able to bring in people from technology you need to be able to bring in executives, you need to be able to bring In legal, our regulators or all these different disciplines, because look, it's gonna be so much easier just to say, as a design team, we're going to do what we want, and then everybody else is going to be able to see it, your works not going to get executed the right way, because technology is not a part of it. So maybe they can build it that way. Maybe they can't, you're not really talking to your consumers. So whatever you launch, maybe it works with them more than likely, it probably won't, you're not going to show it to the executives and the people that are actually funding it. So whether they buy into it, whether they like it, which is going to continue to allow you to exist either in a job or as a team, probably not going to go too terribly well. So the ability to bring this in, is really important. And again, I think this is where we need to get over our own arrogance, you need to be able to get over this and work in a slightly different way to again, be empathetic, to see it from their point of view, to bring them along for the ride to use methodologies that bring them in but still give you some control here again, this is sort of one of the founding reasons why something like envision was created because it allows you to bring everybody in to let them see it. But again, I can define do they just see it? Do they comment on it? Like I can define the way that they want to work I can say Look, this is a place where this an FYI, this is a place where I want your feedback. And that again, I can be able to do that in a centralized way, I can do it in a way that lets us work asynchronously, asynchronously in different locations, all that sort of stuff. But again, you have to have empathy and to be more inclusive in what you do. But all of this really comes down to still like that open question of what what the hell is a good product? Right? Like, what what should you be shooting for? Here? Again, I think there's a lot of voices. There's a lot of opinions on this, that the one that I turned to the most, and that the four things that I have are really sort of based on. You need to go out and there's a guy named Mike Stern, and Mike works for Apple. If you've ever gone to the Worldwide Developers Conference, seen any session on design, it's probably either been Mike that did it or somebody that worked for him. And I think basically, he's sort of the public voice on design education for Apple. And I think there's sort of a couple key tenants that he has, and I sort of took those rifts on those a little bit, but I think like Mike's a really good one to follow to, to be able to sort of kind of be one of the leading resources because he probably sees more product design than anybody else in the world. So he's a really good person to turn to be able to watch that. And you can find him on Twitter. He works for Apple. So I think that's probably the only place you're gonna find him. But I think that there's sort of here again, for things that I want you to focus on. The first one is how do you balance the best of the new and the old because I think the best products solve an unmet need. And the best designs combined familiar interaction patterns, but they do it in new ways. Because design and products they need to be easily understood, which is about consistency. It's about clarity, and it's about familiarity, consistency, and that it's not a copy of what everyone else does, but it does understand the rules. It does understand that again, you know, there are certain buttons that are put in certain places for a reason I expect to see, you know, a close arrow in an upper corner on a screen I expect it to be an x I expect a menu To be three or four lines, I expect, there are certain sort of conventions that we all sort of unconsciously agree to, you need to understand that. So I think that that's the old and consistency. Look, it doesn't mean that's copying. But I think that it does mean that you are aware of, I don't need to reinvent a search icon, it is a magnifying glass. Everybody uses it. Great. I can continue to use that. But what it does mean though, is you don't go blind by just using that. I think whenever you look at how do you bring in the new It is to be able to say, look, if I pick up an iOS UI kit, if I pick up Android UI kit, if I pick up something else like that, if I if I want to break the rule and do something differently, it needs to be clear. I need to have a reason behind it. I need to break it consistency consistently and with logic, because that's that sort of consistency because really bad usability and bad products are ones that force you to go in and relearn what you're doing every single time. I don't want to use those. It becomes too much mental burden for me to every time I get to a new screen to start. And have to figure this thing out. So it's how do I balance the tradition? How do I balance convention? How do I do that sort of stuff, but then balance it with the newer things that are going on. And then that really gets into clarity. And clarity is that I know what to do without a ton of exploration without a ton of text to, to be able to do it, everything you do has to be clear, because whenever somebody gets that product, you're not there to explain it over their shoulder, you're not to talk about why you made that decision. The work is what it is. So you've got to be clear about that. And like I said, it is that familiarity, in that it feels like something I may have used before, but it's being presented in a new way. So it's this balance of new and old to constantly say, look, is this a hole we're dying on to do something different? Or is this a place where I feel like we could do something better? And so it has that. Ultimately, the second thing is that the best products have value. Every product has to have a clear value to the customer, not just to the business. The business means that we are doing this because our investors wanted the businesses because an executive wants said, businesses because a team or somebody else feels like they knows what it is. But if it doesn't actually provide value to the consumer, then you've got a problem. And so again, this is why I'll remind you again, that every product needs to start with it to start with solving an unmet need. And it needs to do it in a way that is going to have value because value is what is what really defines great products. Take a second right now. Pick up your smartphone, iPhone, Android, whatever you got, right? Pick that up, open up your phone and look at the apps that are on the first screen. I will guarantee you that that set of apps are the ones that have the most value to you. And then often what happens is as you go to successive screens, the value that you find those drops off maybe it's something to use only every once in a while maybe it's just something you wouldn't be able to get to you haven't had a chance to do it. But the ones that are on that first screen, man they've got. They've got you hooked, they got value. Think about that. Think about how do you build experiences that get to that first screen, because I think that needs to be that sort of goals. If it doesn't have that level of value, you've got a problem. And we value the other the other thing that comes intrinsically with this, that people have to trust it right, because the unspoken part of product design is building trust. It comes from being transparent, consistent. And here again, falling convention where I need to transparency is in things like telling me why do you need my information? What are you going to do with it? What am I going to get out of it? So that again, I feel like we're in a relationship, you're able to do this, the ones that just be more transactional, more service oriented, don't tend to trust those. This is where like, the financial industry struggles with this, because they struggle with that level of transparency. And they try to struggle with what is the value to the consumer. I think that the ones that do it well, though, be able to do both. Because the thing is, is that if you have that sort of consistency, if you have the clarity, if you have the familiarity, those will build trust. And I think that's that sort of thing is that it needs to build trust in the way that it looks talks x, you know, style, it follows standard conventions. But if you start to do things that erode that trust and erode that value, You, both of those are going to get your experience either ignored or deleted. And then the last part of it is functional should not be our standard. Because the product alone isn't enough your product and your brand need to have personality. And they need to be brought to life in ways that really matter about the execution they need to have in for this last one, they need to have delight, right? They need to have fun, they need to be something and again, it's not like fun like he I'm laughing all the time Isn't that great? But they need to be something that I enjoy using. Because I think, think about the most popular apps on Uber. The delight comes from watching that little car, navigate the streets be able to come get you from Airbnb, it's the ability to explore the neighborhood that you're gonna go stay in from Google. It's the way that even like their logo, the Google Doodle changes every day on their search page. delight can come in very big and very small ways, but it is the ability to again not just simply follow convention so blindly to do the old so completely, that you don't have something in there that that is iconic, something that is fun or interesting and to be able to do those sorts of things. And so like I said, this is a really complicated thing. It is a big mind shift to go from that sort of communication into building mindset. But I think, look, there's not a magic formula to becoming a digital designer, or a product designer, UI designer, UX designer, like whatever the hell The title is, right? Like we call it so many different things. And I think that's part of the problem. But the key is start with the basics. Start with your tools. Start with working on and working through and getting used to that more iterative process get used to talking to consumers much more often in many cases, they're just like, go sit at your local Starbucks, have a whole line of people you can go talk to put them at the center of it. But also understand that they're always going to be learning there's always going to be so many different methodologies and tools and there's all this other stuff. Understand that those are going to continue to change to continue to evolve. But your ability to combine the best of what's old and new, your ability to create things that have value, your ability to create products that people trust that are delightful your ability to have that ultimately will combine into that holistic approach to design. You can ground that in a business savvy that isn't going to connect so they can see the value in it. So that work goes out, the door gets funded, all those sorts of things. And that you're empathetic to the people you are building for make them their source of truth, but also empathetic and thoughtful about the way that you work with the people around you. Those are the things that ultimately are going to define a truly successful digital designer that you're going to define people who are going to be able to make that jump and be successful. And like I said, Give yourself some credit because if you work in one of these fields, you've done this stuff before you thought about other people. It's just going in and starting to do it and a lot of it is going out and it's really comes down to I think your ability to humble yourself and the more you're willing to share The more you're willing to get it wrong, the more you're willing to challenge your own thinking to try to break your ideas, to do those sort of things, so that you can learn so you can get better. And so that what you launch goes out the door is better. That's what is ultimately going to define whether or not you can be a really great digital designer, you can use whatever the hell tool you want. You can use whatever methodology you want, if you aren't able to do those things, and ultimately, because at the end of the day, here's the cold truth. And we'll wrap it up here. At the end of the day, if you aren't able to deliver a product that does those things, it's not going to be successful. And this is the cold reality of it that too many of us are able to rationalize it around. The work that it gets presented put in front of somebody is the work they don't have you there to explain it, they love it or they don't they get it or they don't they use it or they won't. But that's there is a reality to that, that I think we can start to rationalize and get a little bit too far away from. So start with those things. If you struggle along the way if you're not sure what to do, if this makes total sense. If you're like I have still have no idea where to start. Look, reach out to me, I'm here to help. Like I said, you can, you can go if you need the starting point, here's what I'm gonna tell you to do is I put together something on my site A while ago. So go to the crazy one that crazy and the number one calm in the navigation, go to the essentials section. And in that section, you're gonna find all the apps, all the sites, all the books, all the articles, all those sorts of things that my team uses and that I use in my work, it's gonna be a great starting point to be able to give you that sort of kit of parts to be able to start with and if that doesn't work, find me on social media, find me on LinkedIn, email me through my site, ask me whatever those questions are. And like I said, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If for whatever reason you don't hear from me in some amount of time, please ping me again. Because there are times even as I try to do my best there is an email that may slip through the cracks, I missed the flag, whatever it is, but again, follow up and I will get back to you. So this has gone on really long this is a hell of a long show. If you liked it make sure whenever your favorite my favorite podcast platform, leave a review let people know what you think of it. If while you're there, you want to make sure you hit the subscribe button because again, these shows do not come out on their most regular cadence I wish they would. My time is not often my own but hit subscribe to get the latest ones whenever they come out. Like I said, head over to the crazy one calm you can get all the show notes for this you can see related articles a lot of other resources on there. Like you can find me on social media you can like the show on Facebook, go to The Crazy One podcast, like the show answer questions post stuff on there. Any other social media channel. As always, everybody down in legal wants me to remind you that the views here are just my own. They do not represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my opinions. And finally I say it every time because I mean it every time but thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury any of us have always incredibly humbled you want to spend any of it Listen to me. So hopefully this helped. Hopefully you have some idea of where to start. Take those next couple of weeks. Just start. It's gonna feel weird. It's gonna feel like you aren't sure if you're doing it right. That's the point. Be able to do that because ultimately what that stays with is the thing that we end every single show with is that so while you're doing it, stay crazy.