2021 End Of Year Special
Things to Reflect on for the Year Ahead
In this final episode of 2021, instead of an in-depth interview, you’re going to hear a series of short and important messages from a range of previous Brave UX guests.
There's plenty of healthy mind food in this episode, especially as you reflect on the year that's been and contemplate the year ahead.
Stay safe and be well.
And...
Keep being brave!
Who is Brendan Jarvis?
Brendan is the insatiably curious Managing Founder of The Space InBetween, formerly an award-winning digital design studio and now the only specialist UX research practice and world-class UX lab in New Zealand.
His mission? Helping enterprise design leaders to develop brave and inclusive design cultures, through effective UX research and research experiences that build the capabilities of their teams.
Transcript
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, Managing Founder of The Space InBetween, the home of New Zealand's only specialist evaluative UX research practice and world-class UX lab enabling brave teams across the globe to de-risk product design and equally brave leaders to shape and scale design culture. Instead of bringing you an interview today with a world-class leader in UX design or product management, I've decided to do something a little different. Are you ready?
- As with 2020, 2021 has been a challenging year for humanity and like many of the people in our global product and design community, I suspect that you haven't escaped these challenges. And while we enjoy far greater privileges than most two years of back-to-back Zoom calls unexpected homeschooling, economic, social and political upheaval. Not to mention constantly worrying about the health and wellbeing of our friends and family has certainly taken a toll.
- We deserve, need, a good break so that we are ready to take on the challenges of a new year. And amongst all of the madness, please make sure that you make some time for yourself. This festive season 2021 has also been a continued reckoning for some of the experiences that we have put out into the world no matter how well intentioned, and it's not just some of our outcomes that have been called into question. Many of my guests have shared with us their frustrations at the way in which we've been working, including the lack of meaningful progress towards a truly diverse and inclusive industry, the short-term decision making that often steers our organizations and the general lack of adequate time and space for our own mental health and that of our colleagues. We clearly face plenty of worthy challenges, but I am hopeful it's definitely not all doom and gloom.
- Far from it. If you are listening to this podcast, you most likely love this industry and the role that you play within it, and you probably still believe that together we the imperfect people working in product and design can and do make the world a better place. Your work is almost certainly more than a job to you. So as we approach the end of 2021, it's time for some personal reflection and projection, to think about where you have been and where you want to go. That's why in this final episode of Brave UX for 2021, you are going to hear a series of short messages from a range of previous Brave UX guests. Each of them has something that they feel is important to share with you while you are contemplating the year ahead. So keep listening if you are open to the possibility of hearing something that might change the path that you're on, or at the very least give you something new and interesting to think about.
- Koji Pereira:
- Hi everybody, my name is Koji Pereira. I am a Senior Product Design Manager at Twitter, and I'm here in the sunny San Francisco, California to ask you a question for 2022, how might we make our industry more inclusive? That's it. Thank you.
- Eva PenzeyMoog:
- My name is Eva PenzeyMoog, and I'm a Principal Designer at 8th Light, as well as the author of Design for Safety. The thing I want people in our design and product community to think about in the new year is how the tech that we influence and create and put out into the world can either harm people or can help keep them safe. And how that's always a choice we're making even if we're not doing it consciously. And that almost always, if we're not setting out to intentionally make our tech safe, we're inadvertently enabling people to weaponize it and use it for harm. Our intentions don't matter in the face of that impact. And I hope that in 2022, more people will do the work of designing for safety so that we can help our users know what they need to in order to keep themselves safe as well as in some instances even stay alive.
- Steve Krug:
- I'm Steve Krug, longtime usability person and author of Don't Make Me Think. So what's one thing I'd want UX people to think about more this year? I guess it would be how can we increase the chances that the stuff that we build will actually make people's lives better? The reality is we're often stuck working on features that we know nobody really needs just because they're good for sales or for active daily user counts. The decision of what we work on is usually out of our hands. All I'm suggesting is that maybe we spend some time on our own thinking about how our products could make people's lives better. It doesn't have to be anything dramatic. I don't mean fixing their lives, just improving them even in some very small way. I guess what I'm really saying is I hope that in the midst of all the demands and pressures we feel on the job, we can try to take some time out to remember that our most important job is as advocates for our users. Take care. Thanks.
- Laura Faulkner:
- Hello, UX community. So what is the one big thing that I want our community to think about in 2022? So here is the big thing. Evangelization is the job. We keep imagining that we're going to walk into this fairytale castle, that it's going to be all built in one of these days and that the best measure of our success is that people will just know and instantly buy us. They know exactly what we do. They buy us internally, whether we're internally for a business or as an agency, and they know here's what UX is, here's exactly how it works, here is the benefit, and we don't have to sell it and we don't have to keep selling it after 30 years of the profession existing and as continuing to do this and developing into a paid profession maybe. Maybe it's because that is part of the job, it is the job and that it's okay to keep doing it.
- It's okay to keep training, to keep advocating for our users to keep talking about the methods and approaches. So you think about a lawyer. A lawyer doesn't stop advocating for clients why over the course of their career, why don't they stop advocating because they get new clients. So we get new clients all the time and some of them are going to understand our field, just like some of a client for an attorney, they understand what it is the law is and how that works, but a lot of them come to us because they don't know. So let's keep evangelizing, keep telling, keep training, and know that that is part of the glory and joy of our existence. So start sectioning out time for that and invest in that and invest in how you wanna talk about it and know that every time you talk about it, it's an opportunity to elevate the whole world in understanding, knowing and applying UX.
- Bob Baxley:
- Hey everyone, my name's Bob Baxley. I'm the Senior Vice President of Design and Experience at ThoughtSpot, located in Silicon Valley in beautiful northern California. When you have a chance over the holiday, I hope you'll take a moment and think about this idea that software is not merely a tool of business. It's not merely a collection, a computer code and apps and websites, but probably better thought of as a medium, a medium sort of like movies, music and literature. And when you start to see it as a medium, you can kind of start to see yourself as a practitioner in that medium, similar to maybe some of your friends who are writers or photographers or filmmakers. And if you notice them and how they talk about the medium, there's an intense love and understanding they have of the medium and what drives them to be part of it.
- And I think that's also the piece I'd really encourage you to think about, that you get to be a practitioner and what is undoubtedly the most important cultural artifact, the most important medium being created today at this moment. And you're in the middle of all that. It's easy to get caught up in all the metrics and numbers and testing and requirements and timelines and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, as someone in the medium, the most important thing for you to keep in mind is trying to produce work honestly, that you're proud of something that at the end of the day you want to bring home over the holidays and show your family and say, wow, look at this amazing thing that I made at work with my friends. Because I'm really certain that if you can do that, if you can produce work that you're proud of, not only will that be incredibly satisfying for you, but your audience, what we sometimes call the users, the audience will feel that passion and that love and your dedication coming through in your creations. And yeah, that's going to result in much better software for all of us. So hope you have a warm, wonderful, happy, peaceful, calm holiday and look forward to seeing lots of you in 2022. Thanks.
- Luke Hay:
- I'm Luke Hay, User Research Director of Fresh Egg. And over the coming year I'd like people to think about their users. This seems like an obvious thing to say, but now more than ever, we should be considering their emotional states and wellbeing as we generally try to do right by users, but after the past year or two, we need to do better than that. We need to consider how the effects of the pandemic have put an enormous toll on the mental health of millions of people. The issues like accessibility have become an even bigger consideration than before with people being locked down, being unable to or unwilling to travel. We've seen online services go from a convenient alternative to a, this is true for everyday services like supermarket shopping as well as tools like Zoom that have become a real lifeline for some in a disconnected world. Whether it's showing more consideration for participants during our user research or finding ways to consider the mental state of users when designing solutions for them, we really need to be thinking about the human side of our users more than ever before. So for 2022, I'd like people to consider not only user needs, but also the impact that our design decisions will be having on the mental wellbeing of those who use our products and services.
- Chui Chui Tan:
- Hi, I'm Chui Chui Tan from Beyo Global. I help and coach businesses to define their strategies and propositions by having a deep multi-dimensional understanding about their users in different countries, looking into their history, their culture, their political set of infrastructure and so on. I would like to propose a fun but interesting exercise for you. That is the challenge yourself in identifying and learning one or two unique things about how people from different countries might think, perceive, behave, which might be different from what you're familiar with. They can be in any form or topic, it can be related to what you design or built or something completely different or unrelated. The most important thing here is the challenge, the stereotypes and assumptions you might have and to find out the true insights about them. There are many ways you can do that without having to rely on other people, for example, your company to make it happen.
- So you can first choose a few countries you might want to focus on, then work out how you could go about finding out about the people in a deep sense. You can do that by recalling the holidays memory, details of your holidays in these countries. Is there anything that you observed that might be slightly different from what you are familiar with? And can you use that as a reference and then dig deeper into understanding the underlying of those differences or think about the interactions you might have, either colleagues or friends who are from this countries even better take this opportunity to get in touch with them again. And then think about is there any point in your interactions where you both might have disagreement or at any point you might be taken back by some of the things they say or do. Now think about that in a more open-minded way and question, is that possible that those moments happen due to the fact of cultural differences? If so, what exactly drives the way they think and their actions? I'm pretty sure you will have a lot of fun doing this. This will not only help with the work you do, but also have a positive impact on the personal life. I promise that I would love for you to get in touch with me and tell me how you go about doing this exercise and what you have found. Have fun and stay safe.
- Toby Delamore:
- Hi everyone, my name is Toby Delamore. I'm a co-founder of COLAB and a Product Manager at Xero. And as we head into the new year, there is one thing on my mind that I hope everyone will take some time to think about, and that is how can we leverage our own experiences and learnings to help others grow in their careers? Each of us has so many unique insights and things we've learned along our career journeys that I think if we take some time to think about how we could share those insights, we'll be able to help so many more people through the challenges they have in their careers. So my ask for you is take some time of the Christmas break and think about what is it that you have as a unique learning skill or insight that may help someone else. Then think about how you can share that and together we can start to build out in a community that is sharing and learning as one.
- Lou Rosenfeld:
- Hi, I'm Lou Rosenfeld. Brendan asks a great question, what's one thing I want people in our community to think about over the new year period? Well, my answer to Brendan's question is really another question. What's important to you think about doing a pre-mortem on 2022? What will you wish you would've done as a designer or researcher that you'll regret not having done? It might be a cause that you want to work on, whether it's related to racial justice or climate change or something else, but it could also be something a little less grand just by bringing a different side of yourself to your work or by helping someone in the workplace or outside the workplace, a peer, a colleague, someone that you might be mentoring. These are all things that we can think about doing over this new year's break and think about making 2022 a year. We're going to be really happy when we look back upon or at least without regret. Thanks.
- Andrew Tokeley:
- Hi, my name's Andrew Toley. I'm a Product Leadership Coach here in New Zealand and I work for myself. Two facts in New Zealand, and I suspect around the world 70% of chief product officers have never held a product leadership role before, and less than 10% of them are active members of a product community and contributing and supporting and learning from it. Well, this often results in as executive teams being very disconnected from the true value of product leadership in general. And it often means that they place an unhealthy emphasis on product managers being responsible for the delivery of features rather than product outcomes. So my challenge to you all is to find ways in which you can bring your chief product officers into the community for them to share their learnings about what it means to operate at the executive level for product leaders, but also to help them absorb the things that we talk about day-to-day and aspire to be as effective product leaders.
- What this means is that we're going to have healthier companies with healthier product cultures and you, even if you're not an executive product leader, can impact that change by supporting your own executive product leaders in their roles to help them be more effective. So give it some thoughts. Maybe it's bringing insights, it's aligning your roadmaps to strategy, it's mapping the leading indicators of product to the lagging indicators that the executive teams chase. But whatever it is, you've got the control to do it and don't wait to be asked. Get in there and support your chief product officers to do the best work they can do. Have a great break over Christmas and we'll see you on the new year.
- Dan Balcauski:
- Hi, this is Dan Balcauski, Principal Consultant at Product Tranquility. If you're listening to this podcast, you've chosen a path to help make the world better, although you may face challenges along the way, continue to be grateful for the opportunity to use your skills for the betterment of all and know that you are appreciated. Thank you.
- Steve Bromley:
- Hi everyone. My name is Steve Bromley. I'm the author of the books Building User Research Teams and How to be a Games User Researcher. The one thing I want our community to think about over the new year and also the next few years is how do we make research practice more open and accessible to the teams that we work with? As researchers, we spend a lot of time understanding our users, understanding the challenges they have, problems and opportunities for the teams we work with that we are not the ones who have to make decisions, we aren't making those product decisions about what should the product do, how should it work, what features should it have, and we're not making those design decisions such as what should it look like, how should it work, what should the buttons do, what should the flow be? And that communication gap between us who understand our users and the team, the people who are actually making those decisions can become quite a big issue. So over the next year, I'm really excited about exploring how do we reduce that communication gap? How do we open up the research practice? How do we bring our teams into user research so that we are not presenting work to them, it's they are doing their own work and understanding these things themselves. Thank you.
- Stephanie Marsh:
- There are several topics that I thought about when asked what I want UX people to think about over the new year period. One was bringing product and UX closer together to make meaningful things. Also improving the way we calculate the ultimate return on investment of UX. Cuz it's not always obvious, but I think really the most important thing considering the last few years and actually always has been is diversity and inclusion. And that's both internally and externally, making sure internally we have diverse staff, so we have lots, I mean it is just better when we have lots of different perspectives and experiences and knowledge base and people from all walks of life. It just makes what we deliver better and it's just the right thing to do ethically and on a human level. And that's partly a recruitment. It's and how we recruit people, it's partly giving people opportunities that wouldn't necessarily have them.
- Like do we have programs of shadowing or do we have programs to give people without university education opportunities to get work experience and things like that. And it's also important to make sure a lot of that our participants in the research we do are also diverse and really representing the people that we are building products and services for or the people who we want to build products and services for. And some of these might be hard to get, but we need to make the time to do that. And the ones that are more difficult to talk to cuz they're harder to reach or they don't have the infrastructure to do remote research at this time, we need to make the time and the effort to talk to those people so we can really meet their needs.
- David Hamill:
- My name's David Hamill. I'm an independent UX consultant based in Scotland. I'd like the people in the UX community to ask themselves if they're happy in their work over the new year. There's no such thing as a perfect UX job. None of us are doing UX and it's purest form, but many people with UX and their job title are not doing UX. Many UX jobs are what anthropologists David Greer would call a bullshit job. Google it. Just know while you're at work. You see if you keep a bullshit UX job for too long and you fall into a circle where bullshit UX jobs are the only jobs that you can get, have a think about what you really want. Think about whether it's time to move on. There's never been a better time to look for a new job as a designer.
- Peter Morville:
- Hello, I'm Peter Morville, president of Semantic Studios and I'm also co-author of Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond, also known as the Polar Bear book. My invitation to you in this liminal passage from one year to the next is to consider how we might change our environments in order to change our behavior. There's a famous quote falsely attributed to the management guru Peter Drucker that says, culture eats strategy for breakfast. My amendment to this folk wisdom is that environment eats information for lunch, we write speak and sketch to teach and persuade, and then folks carry on as before they ignore or fail to understand. So we beat on voices against the limits of information born back ceaselessly into the past. If we hope to shape the behavior of our users, our colleagues, ourselves, then we must step it down a pace layer and look for the levers of thereafter in our physical and digital environments. And that's all folks. Happy Christmas, Merry New Year. Best of luck.
- Corinna Stukan:
- Hi, my name is Corrina Stukan. I am the VP of Product at Rome Digital. Well, reflecting on this year, it certainly hasn't been an easy one. Again what helps me personally is to, while we can't change some of the things that have happened or will happen next year as well, I have seen people really learn new things about themselves in those difficult times and gain new things. Whether that is a new hobby they have picked up, maybe they've found writing for themselves new challenges that picked up at work and really enjoyed going for walks, like just anything big or small that really gave them energy during this year. And so I hope that may help a few other people as well to just really take the time now to reflect on what they have gained or what they have learned throughout this year and really take that into the next year as well.
- Varun Murugesan:
- Hi, my name is Varun Murugesan. I'm the Head of Research at Apple Banana, and the one thing I would say to think about this year is that your work matters. I think it's very easy to get frustrated and fatigued, especially if you're doing research or design to see your ideas get shot down or the company going in standard typical ways. But I think if you step back to think about what we are doing as an industry to reshape how people's experiences and relationships with products and the world around them, we are slowly crafting that into something that works for everyone. So I think don't forget that this is a bigger marathon, a bigger journey, so don't lose track and the sight of the fact that your work matters, putting these hours in will slowly build a better more just world for everyone. So that's what I would say think about.
- Phil Gordon:
- Hi friends, I'm Phil Gordon, it's great to see you again. The last time you heard from me, I was working at Spotify, but in 2021 I made a pretty big jump. I decided to leave Spotify and move to a much smaller company called Skillshare, where I'm now the research team of one. And honestly, it has been one of the most fulfilling and best decisions I've ever made. Now at this small company, I get to think about what is the right research for our needs, how do I scope it? Who are the right participants to recruit? What are the best methods? And I also get to think about how do we disseminate this information most effectively? How do I help my teammates who are in different departments understand what some of these findings mean and how we put it into use? And so my message to you as we head into 2022 is to ask yourself, do you feel fulfilled in your role?
- And if the answer is no or you're not sure, I encourage you to look around. Even if you're getting extremely well paid right now, there are a lot of great opportunities out there and there are going to be so many more with our globally sort of work from home environment. So take a look, take a leap if you can, and really try and find something that allows you to grow and develop as a researcher, grow those skills. That's my message to you for 2022. I hope everyone has a safe and healthy, happy New Year. All my best.
- Amy Santee:
- Hi, my name is Amy Santee and I'm a career strategist and coach for UX professionals who want to navigate their own way to success and impact the world for good. Something I would love everyone to think about as we go into 2022 is boundaries. Establishing and honoring my boundaries has been one of the most significant and valuable developments in my personal and professional life. So has understanding and respecting the boundaries of others. Boundaries are important for all relationships and social situations, whether it's our family, partners, friends, strangers, colleagues, employers, and especially ourselves. Boundaries can be physical, emotional, psychological, temporal, or even financial. If you think about it, practicing boundaries is a form of self-care, self-advocacy and self-respect, their manifestation of our values and action. For example, my values include transparency, excellence, acknowledgement, connection, and authenticity. And I've learned a lot over the years about what kind of work environments allow me to thrive based on how much my values are honored and whether or not my boundaries are respected by others.
- It's not easy to practice this in a society where we feel obligated to others because of cultural norms, tradition and hierarchy. This is especially true for women, people of color, people with disabilities and other oppressed and underrepresented groups who are socialized to accommodate others and put others' needs First. Implementing boundaries might sound harsh or self-centered. It might sound anti-family, anti community, or anti-worker, but it's not. It's about protecting ourselves from unhealthy and imbalanced relationships. Having boundaries doesn't mean we can't be generous and engaged and supportive of others. It is possible to create a culture of healthy relationships and the responsibility falls on everyone. This means challenging established norms and expectations and questioning why these boundaries exist and who they serve. We must clearly communicate boundaries so people can adapt their behavior. And at work it means that organizations and employers have to care and they have to provide an environment of psychological safety for the new year.
- I encourage everyone to think about how they can define and practice boundaries in the workplace. So think about some areas where you could use more space or where you are lacking in something that you deserve as a human being. So this could look like saying no to unfair requests of your time, waiting to respond to emails, recalibrating your performance expectations to a healthy level, having integrity to your ethics, negotiating a salary, being open about your feelings, saying no to a mentoring request, telling someone they make you uncomfortable. Not doing things out of guilt or unreciprocated loyalty, whistle blowing on your company for harmful or illegal activities or even organizing and unionizing your workplace to demand better working conditions and showing solidarity with coworkers at all levels. To practice boundaries, you must first recognize and accept your agency and power. And you must truly believe you deserve to have boundaries that are respected by others. This will give you the necessary confidence to put them in place. So decide what it is you want for yourself, share this with others and protect yourself if your boundaries are being crossed. Practicing boundaries requires bravery and a willingness to take risks. Advocating for yourself and for others is always worth the reward. So be brave everyone and have a happy and healthy 2022.
- Ryan Rumsey:
- Hello, my name is Ryan and I want to thank Brendan for inviting me here to chat with you today. And he's given me 60 seconds to talk about one thing to think about in this new calendar year. And I think if there's one thing that we should think about and talk about, it's that you are not alone. There's a lot been going on [laugh], in case you haven't noticed the last few years, and you are doing wonderful, amazing work. Perhaps some of that work drives you in a way where you are kind of out maybe on your own, maybe you're there before others, maybe you're being asked to lead in a way that is new to you. And what I want you to know is that you are not alone and it's vitally important that you invite others to be right with you. You can't do this on your own. And I think as you reflect and think about 2022 and the new year is how can you invite others to be right with you? How can you help others be there with you along the way? And what I also wanna let you know is that you are not alone. If you ever need to reach out hear my credentials on Twitter, feel free to DM me any time. I'd be happy to chat and be there with you and let you take up some space. Thanks. Happy 2022 and I'm very proud of you.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well, that's it for the special end of year episode of Brave UX. And as Ryan has said so, well, you are not alone. You are enough. This is a great industry that we all have the privilege of working in. And it's great because of the generosity, smarts, and contributions of the people that work within it, like the people that you've just heard from. I hope there was something meaningful in there for you. Thank you for supporting the show With your eyes, ears, or both, I very much look forward to seeing you in the new year. Stay safe and be well. And remember now, this is very important. Keep being brave.