UX Design Power: Bridging Tech & People

Speaker 1: [Music] taking the pressure off experimentation is so important if I don't experiment if I don't approach it with curiosity I'm never going to know whether it worked or it didn't work taking that leap of faith to be like I know things and I don't know some things that I'm only going to find out if I rip that Band-Aid off and be like let's roll with it I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the shilp podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of selfcare magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Sheila podcast thank you for joining us fry you worked with several consumer brands in various Industries how do you incorporate storytelling into ux design and why do you think it's crucial for creating a strong user experience I have a background in Psychology and just growing up in a huge house with multiple personalities I realized that people and behavior who they are the way they consume content or even what they purchase whether it's I am the brand of Kombucha that I'm buying or whether my default is Netflix versus HBO it's so rooted in obedience sometimes or also my personal beliefs or a user's personal beliefs and they differ so much and I crack that code when I was in marketing that at the end of the day it all comes down to psychology and how people are consuming content how people are interacting with anything whether it's in person or online and that's why I clubbed it together and we call ourselves scientific storytellers because it's research and it's listening and understanding but at the same time there's this component of how to surprise them how to surprise your audience and in a pleasant way of course or give them exactly what they want so it's very R&D and that's what I really like about design and storytelling it's so interesting because so often we buy things based on emotions and if you think through that process during the sales process it's really interesting and you're right we see so many of the same things that being delighted in something might move the needle in selling a product exactly decision fatigue is real we're just bombarded so much and you're absolutely right about emotion being at our core when we go to a movie and we get moved by a movie whether we cry or laugh that's the movie we end up rewatching even if it made us sad because it made you feel something and thankfully we're in this time where design has evolved so much that people are Now using it not just as a medium of Aesthetics but also as a medium of how do we colnect people overall it's really fun and even thinking through colors and brand colors and design can be really fun when you start to dive into it there's this terminology called shikake and I had no idea it existed before I got into ux designing and it's all about Behavior nudges which is so much of nurture and nature debate that we go back to it's like we are predispositioned to like something and not like something or favor something and not favor something but at the same time our experiences collectively and individually shape our preferences at the end of the day so it's that creative problem solving for us which is really fun because every subset of personalities and like users are so different and it's always even delightful for us I always get to learn something because I'm not always in the same wavelength as every single user we're designing for and it's a constant learning Loop not even a curve but you're just constantly spiraling upwards and I don't know if this is true or not they say if you have a red plate red will make you want to eat more it is true red will make you hungry because of the color itself it has a backing in terms of like research but at the same time we hear it so many times that it's almost like power of suggestion sometimes as well and also telling people not to do something so if I tell you don't think about an elephant you're instantly thinking about an elephant so it's recency bias or thinking about something that somebody tells you don't think about it at all you've helped companies build strong social media communities how do social media insights influence your ux design process not a lot of Brands look at social media as a user research community at all or even a platform social media now so much of the world is so dig and people are best friends sometimes without ever meeting each other right and it becomes very Collective again you're so individualistic and singular your experiences could be so singular in your personal life but online these are just Collective pools so what I learned through my marketing experience was that you just have to listen to what they're commenting Sometimes some it's as simple as that or sometimes it's as complicated as how would you want this product to be designed like how would it make your life easier I would always be surprised by the answers they would give me because I was very young back then for instance if I was like creating a marketing campaign for a mother I had no idea what mothers want or like what their days even looked like but then hearing them I would just be like that makes so much sense you have no time of course you want this to be waterproof it's a little thing and it's simple but it is so effective you just have to ask the right questions yeah it's so true it's like listening is so important you ask your community what they want and if you have the knowledge give it to them it's complicated but also simple at the same time exactly and also listening is hard for a lot of people just like talking is hard for a lot of people every single day we go through this and we're surrounded by humans constantly but we never really take the time to understand where they're coming from and it's all rooted in communication it's also hard to be vulnerable at times but I think sometimes that vulnerability makes someone relate to you or be closer to you or your brand that is very true we're not willing to be vulnerable because we have this image that most brands want to represent and that's why sometimes it's also so hard when we take on clients for us to separate the founder from the brand because especially when you work with disruptors and people even small businesses for them the person becomes the brand and we have to reverse it and we have to ask them how do you want your consumers to feel how do you want them to feel when they look at your brand do you want them to get up and be like I am going to start running because I am motivated or do you want them to be like I'm just going to have a lazy night in because I feel comforted and I feel warm so separating the image and with people vulnerability is always going to be hard so for me it's how do we make this about your brand and not just about you it's an extension of you not just you that's also hard for Founders once the brand is established how you want someone to feel then the founder sometimes thinks where do I fit into all of that as a person I've realized that Founders have a vision and an idea and it's a great vision and a great idea but at the same time they also have an idea of who their users are or their target consumer basis but just like me they don't know them not until they really sit down and they're like oh I see now these are their behavior patterns this is the place where we're going to find them or this is what's going to make them be a part of our community or our brand so that shift or that alignment as long as they're open to prioritizing the brand first or prioritizing the product first it always works out and it's like criticism really great criticism because you never have answers to problems you didn't know they existed yeah and Founders are usually so involved in the details of the business that thinking through that process is hard yeah it's very hard also because you're constantly bogged down by so many things that sometimes that Clarity and that Vision you need an outside voice to be like this is where you're spiraling and this is your problem that no one is looking at of course because everybody's trying to solve some problem or the other and putting out buyers in businesses having managed brands in Beauty fashion parenting and food and beverage what unique lessons have you learned from these industries that apply to ux design wow that's again these are really great questions and it throws me back to my marketing position the fact that every industry is different and they have very different Behavior patterns and no one really truly understands them not until you sit down and you do research and none of the industries do that it's always about Fast and Furious that's their Common Thread which is how do we reach the most people in the fastest possible way and I enjoyed working with each one of them but my favorite was food it's something that we all do every single day eat and share a common meal so again it's so easy to connect with something like a factor where we already have an in I do it you do it we all eat so it's like we all have a story with it that we could connect and launch a campaign with and it brings people together too it's such a social thing exactly yeah I feel like there's endless things you can do with food as it relates to marketing and social media it is very true one thing that also connects with all of these industries is intuition and also the pressure to never do anything wrong there's a lack of human factor sometimes that like people make mistakes it's going to be very human I had to develop this spidey sense where I was like right before a campaign my brain would never look at what's going to go right but it would constantly be like I can see who's going to say what and how we need to fix it beforehand that to was what makes people tick what makes people be like I'm uncomfortable because of this so something as simple as nail polish campaign right and if you're like launching it with destroying a cake with your nails or like something like that and you're like wow that's Innovative that's different my brain was constantly like somebody's going to talk about how disgusting this is or why are you doing this it's that also like taking the pressure off experimentation is so important if I don't experiment if I don't approach it with curiosity I'm never going to know whether it worked or it didn't Works taking that leap of faith to be like I know things and I don't know some things that I'm only going to find out if I rip that Band-Aid off and be like let's roll with it and then we'll take care of it when we're in the thick of it we'll approach it with good intentions and as long as that's there it calms you down overall no matter what the industry and that's where your psychology background comes in and I find it so interesting with a deep understanding of human behavior how does this knowledge enhance your ability to design userfriendly products like you were mentioning to deeply think about how someone's going to respond to designer a social campaign I should have a scientific answer to this I grew up in a really big family and I am the eldest daughter of this family so I have four other siblings and 13 other adults all living in the same house so for me it felt like I always could predict people's behaviors I knew if I wanted something I have to go to my dad not my mom if I want something else that my dad is going to refuse I have to go to my aunt not my mom or dad so it's also understanding and predicting what people like and what they don't like and it's putting your implicit bias aside because I'm sure if I ever approached it with oh I hate this purple shirt but my sister is going to love it and so I have to make a decision even when I'm making that product or building that product as a team we down and we list it out that what are our ERS biases and as a woman I might think that all women have this gut instinct because we have the survival Instinct and a male designer on our team would be like yes but we should not be discounting men as not having any survival Instinct such that they're never going to press this SOS button so it's a lot about really understanding if I do this there are two ways they're going to behave yes or no and then sometimes it's like a third option which is made and I am never going to know that unless and until I talk to the users or I see them behave that oh the hamburger menu should be on the right and then they're constantly looking for it somewhere else so it's a pres set Notions that we have about human beings and what they're like sometimes the answer is as simple as what does their day look like what apps do they interact with and we take it from there and a lot of times it comes down to asking the right questions and what are they doing what are they not doing it's so funny because how we grow up comes into what we do so much I think back I moved to LA when I was really young and my father taught me to be aware of my surroundings part of what you're talking about is paying attention you pay attention to whether your sister likes the purple shirt knowing that you don't but it's okay I don't but who else would not everyone has that emotional intelligence as deeply curated you're so right about that I don't think we all pay attention to how people around us behave or how they perceive the world sometimes it's just like that simple yeah yeah it's important too when we put out a campaign to Think Through how is our community going to respond to this because that's really what we're like because we're not always going to be everything to everyone yeah that's also a very hard truth that you have to design with keeping in mind with like you're not going to be able to get 100% of the users to like it there's always going to be room for improvement what advice would you give to Business Leaders looking to enhance their digital presence through effective ux design I would say not skimping on time as well as effort that goes into the design process most of the brands we end up working with they will want to get to it right away I get that timelines are very important sometimes you need a website out in two weeks you need it out in two weeks and we get it done but always having room for doing it well versus doing it fast and also relying on the experts to let you know when you are blindsided by certain factors if I am a business owner who thinks that my brand is offering XYZ and that's the limitation of it or this is how my consumers are going to operate or interact with this website but I never listen to the expert who is within the industry and has seen their fure of things those are massive road block box I really like to tell everybody that we want to build something right that lasts long versus I can roll it out into weeks and then you'll come back in two months and you'll tell me everything you said I should have listened to it and on day one so being patient truly is the only thing that you need When approaching things with design and being open-minded as well being open to new ideas that's so true and putting it out too fast sometimes doesn't get the response that you're looking for because it's not well thought out enough and I feel like we're just always in this hamster wheel race where we just feel like somebody else is gonna do it before you but at the same time they might do it well and that might hurt your brand more than you putting it out first and them coming out like two days later after you've rolled out your website so it's paying less attention to competitors and more attention to what the core values and what your users really want and why they're going to come with you versus your competitor and it's so true and I always tell myself I'm seeing things that I'm talking about so it seems like so many people are doing the same thing that you're doing when really that's probably not true you're just seeing it because it's the keyword I understand searching for things is one thing but then also if you're in the industry you keep seeing your own industry people and that can be overwhelming at times so I try to tell myself I'm just seeing this because it's what I talk about it's true each industry has their own subsets and sometimes that's why even with design getting out of your comfort zone is so important if you're doing the same thing again and again there's no innovation there's no Evolution even though I we do design and marketing sometimes I'll just be like I am going to take a break and I am going to do something that's completely different it has nothing to do with art or even science it's like fishing and sometimes that's also where what we call Magic happens right like in the sense that your brain unlocks where you've been pushing it at the back of your head that I can't reach it not right now because I have so much on my plate yeah I'm a runner and that's when my best ideas come to me CU they kind of clear my head everything that I could be floating around goes away and it just frees up that space for new ideas to come in running is also very meditative I've heard I do not run I can only run with a football some people tell me all I think about when I'm running is how I hate that I'm running but if you're a runner and you get into it long enough once I push past a certain speed my mind starts to wander wow I'm sure you must be very resilient because all Runners are resilient I was never a sprinter but I'm definitely an endurance Runner speaking of magic magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is we've talked a lot about business today and you just mentioned doing a few things for you but what is one way that you make sure to find and live your your joy hey that's always a hard question because for me it's always been people I am where I am or I've been able to be wherever it is that I've been able to be in my life at every Point has always been because of people around me so it's spending time with them is often where magic happens I'm a very verbal thinker so sometimes it's going on tangents about existential dread or like topics that we're like why don't we never ever talk about this why does anyone talk about this so it's spending time with my family spending time with my friends for me it was like having a company means I get to make the schedule as well have that work life balance and it's always hard as a Founder but at the same time it's very important most of my magic happens with them it's through them and it's something they'll say or something they'll do and that fuels another part of creativity in my brain I've love this conversation because it seems like you're really doing the right thing for you with the mix of psychology and your curiosity about people and the way things work and design it fell in my lap for the longest time I had no idea all of them could intersect really in even in high school I loved art and I loved science and I was just like they're two friend groups I can never merge them that seems absurd but as I grew up I feel my last job that I left I think that's what really put it all together for me where I was wait a minute I can actually do it all it's not just design is the intersection of Art and Science for me and I'm so glad I discovered it a bit too late in life but I'm so glad it happened thank you for joining us today please share with us how and where we can find you our website is unpa doxyz and you can find us on LinkedIn Instagram Twitter we also have a medium Channel called design bites by unpas where we talk about all things design psychology and building for dreamers and disruptors thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheed on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you Cate