Aylin Uysal
Leading a Global Enterprise UX Design Org
In this episode of Brave UX, Aylin Uysal shares her story of leading enterprise design 🌎, the reality of being an exec and a parent 🤹♀️, and how patience and perseverance have served her well 🐢.
Highlights include:
- Why is it important to have a good grasp of the details as a senior design leader?
- How do you know when you haven’t got the work-parent balance quite right?
- What changed at Oracle to enable the culture to significantly support design?
- How do you work across Oracle to ensure that users’ experience great design?
- Why can’t business apps be as simple and delightful as consumer apps?
Who is Aylin Uysal?
Currently the VP of User Experience for Cloud Applications at Oracle, Aylin is at the forefront of design at one of the tech industry's most established companies, helping its customers to see data in new ways 💡, discover insights and unlock endless possibilities.
During over two decades at Oracle Aylin has held several senior leadership roles ⭐️, serving previously as a Senior Director of User Experience, a Director of Applications User Experience, and as a Senior Manager of HCM User Experience.
Before her long-standing tenure at Oracle, Aylin was a valued member of the design team at SAP, where she was a lead designer. She also made her mark as a senior designer at Silicon Graphics, a legendary Silicon Valley icon 👩💻.
Originally from Turkey, Aylin graduated from Middle East Technical University with a Bachelor's in Industrial Design 🇹🇷. She further honed her craft, obtaining a Master of Fine Arts from San Francisco's Academy of Art University.
Aylin's influence is not just corporate; she's been celebrated as one of the top thirty influential Turkish-American women by Turk of Amerika 💪, she is a board member of the TUSIAD Silicon Valley Network, and is credited on 8 US patents.
Transcript
- Aylin Uysal:
- I enjoy designing. I enjoy building Oracle applications and designing and making it better and connecting with our customers and with all the people that I'm working with. So that makes me happy so I'm a better mom as a result.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, managing founder of The Space InBetween, the behavior-based UX research partner for enterprise leaders who need an independent perspective to align hearts and minds and also the home of New Zealand's first and only world-class, human-centered research and innovation lab. You can find out more about what we do at thespaceinbetween.co.nz.
- Here on Brave UX though, it's my job to help you to keep on top of the latest thinking and important issues affecting the fields of UX research, product management and design. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of a diverse range of world-class leaders in those fields.
- My guest today is Aylin Uysal, currently the VP of user experience for cloud applications at Oracle. Aylin is at the forefront of design at one of the tech industries most established companies, helping its customers to see data in new ways, discover insights, and unlock endless possibilities.
- During over two decades at Oracle, Aylin has held several senior leadership roles, serving previously as senior director of user experience, a director of applications, user experience, and as a senior manager of HCM user experience.
- Before her longstanding tenure at Oracle Aylin was a valued member of the design team at SAP where she was a lead designer. She also made her mark as a senior designer at Silicon Graphics, a legendary Silicon Valley icon.
- Originally from Turkey, Aylin graduated from Middle East Technical University with a bachelor's in industrial design. She further honed her craft, obtaining a master of fine arts from San Francisco's Academy of Art University.
- Aylin's influence is not just corporate. She's been celebrated as one of the top 30 influential Turkish American women by Turk of America. She is a board member of the TUSIAD Silicon Valley network and is credited on eight US patents.
- Beyond her love for design and her country of origin, Aylin also serves as an alumni ambassador for the global charity Save the Children, a truly worthy Cause. And now she's here with me for this conversation on Brave UX. Aylin, hello and a very warm welcome to the show.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Thank you and thanks for having me. Super excited.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm excited to have you two here, Aylin, as well. Been looking forward to this conversation and as part of this conversation, I've had a little look at some of the things that you've previously published, the talks that you've given, and of course I've learned some really interesting things about you. And one of those things is that you've lived and worked in the US for around 30 years and this was after you left your country of birth, which is Turkey. Now I've heard you speak about your childhood in Turkey and one of the things that you spoke about was a fond childhood memory that you had of the first product that you fell in love with. What was that product and why did you fall in love with it?
- Aylin Uysal:
- I had a couple of products. The first, very first one, my bicycle, it is this Bisan Cinderella, the red bike. I was begging my parents to get me a bicycle. All my friends they had won and I still remember the day they showed up at the door with the red Nissan Cinderella. But the unique thing about that bike, it was specifically designed for the girls. Then I could cycle with my skirts on. I didn't need to wear shorts or the pants that I really cool on it and it folded in the middle and our car had a small trunk. It easily fit into that trunk, which was super nice. But I fell in love with the colour. Of course it was red, but other than that, the way that they designed that bicycle, it was perfect for me was my biggest childhood memory that seeing my parents holding that bicycle and me opening the door.
- The other one actually it made a probably bigger impact on me. Our first family car, it's on a doll, it's a Turkish brand. It is the first car made in Turkey and with all Turkish materials and only the engine of the car came from the United Kingdom, but rest of the car was built and made in Turkey and they specifically chose the materials because the Turkish factories didn't have the heavy machinery to bend the metal and all that. So they had to build a car with the prefab materials so they can use the existing machinery in the factories. And also they had to think about the cost. It has to be cheap, cheap so the Turkish families can afford the car at the time and it had to accommodate with the family with the certain amount of kids and all that. But the car was red as well.
- We had a red car and I had a red bicycle bicycle. So that car also the name of the car, it's called Anadol, they made a survey and they put it out there to Turkish people because it was the first Turkish car. So they asked them how they want to name the car and the Turkish people chose the name Anadol Anatolia, so Anatolia where the Turkey is, so where the name came from. So I allowed the name as well. So it was a big accomplished and big step for Turkey at the time. This was I think 1960s we are talking about.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So the Bean Ella and the Anadol, these two products that had an influence on you, what influence, if any, did they have on your decision to pursue industrial design as a subject, as a career? Well,
- Aylin Uysal:
- I mean for me the biggest impact is really them thinking about the user, both bicycle and the car. The user was in the centre of that product. It was perfect for me, it was perfect for my family, the car and the bicycle. So I was always inspired by those type of products. Everything is, they taught every single detail and with the given boundaries, it's not in the car. For example, they couldn't create an amazing car with the extreme speed and like Ferrari, they didn't do that. Really look at the user and the population and the situation and that time in the country, what these people can afford, who are we designing for? So yeah, those are really looking at the products that made me think about, wow, who came up with this idea, why they taught that way. Yeah.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well let's talk about the country particularly your memories and your experiences of Turkey before you came to the us. Turkey's clearly a country that's played a very important role in the world for millennia. It's in a very important geographical location. It's got a rich and longstanding history. And I'm curious to understand that the impression that you get when you return to Turkey now after spending 30 or so years in the US and working in the us, how does it feel or seem to you? How would you compare and contrast it to the Turkey that you left behind? I
- Aylin Uysal:
- Do go every summer, by the way. Every summer I go back to Turkey because my family's back there and my heart kind of split into two. I love United States and I love Turkey. It's just I'm kind of in between. So the Turkey evolved in a way when I was in my childhood, everything was Turkish made and it wasn't an open country. Everything had to be produced in Turkey. We haven't really imported anything. So Turkey made that transition becoming more like a global country that opened up other products. And also in my generation, we haven't travelled that much in our childhood. We were very much in Turkey and contained there. And so Turkey opened up more. And when I look at the new generation right now, they are totally connected with the whole world and some part of it, the internet, all the technology changed those things. It's not only Turkey opened up, if you look at any country like globally, technology helped countries like people to connect with each other more and learn about each other. So I definitely see that change. The technology definitely made a huge impact with the younger generation.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And speaking of the younger generation, we were just chatting before we hit record and you shared with me that Aisha Al and yourself, Aisha being a very influential and famous industrial designer also from Turkey, you and her are working on something quite special in light of the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey recently. So
- Aylin Uysal:
- We partner with this foundation organisation, it's called Sunna's Daughters. Sunna is a name of a very well-known Turkish woman and she passed away, but her daughter started this organisation, this foundation for her. So we partnered with them and this foundation originally established to help the girls between 11 and 18-year-old age mostly focusing on the east part of Turkey to eliminate the early childhood marriage and girls education they need really giving the power to the girls in that age group. I mean it's really critical that age is so critical for girls. And while they were focusing on that in that region, the earthquake happened. So Sunna's daughters this Foundation Sun in Turkish name, so they started their own centres in the earthquake region. So we partnered with them. So we wanted to partner with these girls between 11 and 18 years old and really make them feel that they are the centre of everything. They have the full control of their future and they can design their future with the help from us. And Aisha has a great methodology and she also has this has a book called Design the Life You Love Using the Same Methodology. We are partnering with these girls and with Simon and K Simon's daughters. I'm super excited about that. So it'll happen in next few weeks. So we'll go to that region hopefully and we'll work with them in person. We did a virtual event last week and we'll continue with the in-person event.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Now for most people, including myself, that heard you tell that story at the very beginning of that you mentioned that there was a will to, it sounded like show these girls that there is a life outside of getting married really young and this is in the east of Turkey. So this is closer to what perhaps my geography is off but closer to the Middle East.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Middle East, yeah. I would say mostly that Syria, Iran, Iraq border, like east part of Turkey, I mean that area is more impacted. It doesn't mean that it doesn't happen anywhere else, but it is harder to go to school because of the geography and how it is in that region.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, I was going to ask you, I mean just how much of a challenge is this that you are seeking to take on?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, I mean challenge, but I'm super excited. So to be able to meet these girls in person and if we can have a small impact, that would be amazing. So it's all worth
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It. Is it something that you have to be careful conducting with for the girls' safety or is it something that they're feeling safe enough to engage in this particular programme publicly?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Well, I think they are. We are doing a pilot programme in that region. They are pretty safe. We already met with them in virtual session. Of course, if you look at the Sunna's daughters has a website, they do publish all their research in that particular platform. They already did quite a lot of research. Of course there are concerns with the girls, like Girls centred Design. That's what the son is focusing on. So the challenges the girls are facing with after an earthquake in living in the container cities, it's different than the men and boys of course, I'm sure the boys, younger boys are facing with quite a lot of challenges. But for girls it's not as safe as going outside. Comparing to a boy even buying the necessary materials, it's not as easy for them. So there's a great actually research done by Sterling K, it's published. Yeah, there's definitely safety issues, but us engaging with them I think, I believe that SW Kler is doing a great job to providing enough safety and all that. I'm not worried about our safety, so it'll be Yeah,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well this work, the work that you've just been describing here with Sun Daughters, that's about to kick off and also something else that I learned about you for the last seven years, you've been an alumni ambassador for the The Children Foundation, which you've raised a lot of money for these types of causes. I mean they certainly warm the heart, but they're also on top of what is a very busy role that you hold as a VP at Oracle. What is it that on top of all of this, all the stuff that you have to do just to live your regular life, what is it about these types of things that you seem to feel called to dedicate your extra energy to?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Well, I believe as a human being, it's all of, we all have a responsibility to our community. Of course, we need to do our job and doing a great job and best job I can do at Oracle, I'm also giving back to our customers and maybe indirectly I'm giving back to the community in a way, but there's something else really partnering this organisations like say the Children or Snows daughters, it's a different way of giving back because on this type of organisation, they really, organisations, they really survive and stay alive with the contributions like the people like us. And it also helps me to feel more alive and taking my brain and focusing on something else and engaging with other people outside of technology and all other things. If I can help any way, I believe it's my responsibility, I should do it if I can.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Speaking of feeling more alive, more
- Aylin Uysal:
- Alive,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah. Something that I understand that helps you well might help you to feel more alive is swimming. You're a pretty keen swimmer and I learned back in 2020, so this is in the middle of the pandemic that you were training to compete in the open water race across the boss for a straight in Turkey. Now that's a really, again, a really important body of water in the world. Were you actually able to compete in the event or did Covid dash your hope? I
- Aylin Uysal:
- Did it this summer. You did it one more time. I did. So I learned swimming in the open water and I guess I've been swimming since I know myself. Turkey is a country surrounded by water and as kids, whoever learns the swimming first teaches to the next person. That's how you learn swimming and there's always a competition. Everybody swims forward as far away from the beach and somebody chickens out, somebody turns back and you don't want to be the first person. That's how I learned swimming and I learned swimming with the competition in it. We always had to compete each other. And I love open water swimming. It's so exciting. While you are swimming, you see all these things in the water. There's the current, you need to adjust yourself. There's the strategy you need to develop to make your landing point to the right place and you need to use the current in a way that you can go as fast as possible and you can save your energy.
- So Bosphorus is one of those pretty exciting competitions because there's a huge current in the Bosphorus and also from swimming from Asia to Europe doing between two continents and Istanbul is an amazing city and the first time I swam they said, oh, you should stop in the middle of your swim and look around. You look at the city. It's so beautiful. But I was so excited and with the adrenaline rush, I forgot I kept swimming and then I said, I'm going to do it again and I'm going to stop in the middle. And this time I did that. I stop and I look at the city, I'm like, wow, this is an amazing city.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Aylin, would you consider yourself to be a competitive person?
- Aylin Uysal:
- I think I have.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- How hard was it for you to stop and have a look around?
- Aylin Uysal:
- It was a little bit hard. I was also checking, is everybody passing me what's up here? But I really wanted to see the city.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Have you done something similar in San Francisco? I'm just mindful of the stories that I've heard about the great white sharks that may visit San Francisco. Have you done that there?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, I did escape from Alca dress four times. The triathlon. That is a totally a different swim. It is shorter swim than Borus, but it is scarier swim and it takes a lot of energy and you are swimming for your life. Kind of a feeling post Bruce is like you are enjoying at the same time. Although I ran into quite a lot of jellyfish this time. But yeah, al cadres is from swimming from all cadres. Also nice swimming, but it's a little bit scary. But you don't think about the sharks somehow? I don't think about them.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Not at all at it doesn't ever cross. Not at all. Okay. I usually
- Aylin Uysal:
- Think about the sea lions, but not the sharks. They're not supposed to be in the bay. So
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed, crossed. It seems like there's a little bit of a will to live a little dangerously going on here for you. Well,
- Aylin Uysal:
- I don't know. Dangers, it's more looking for the next thing, the excitement, just keeping that energy and holding onto life. And I enjoy, it's not, I don't see it as a danger, I would say it is more like having that adrenaline rush. It's a nice thing to feel.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Let's change topic a little bit here and talk about something at the very beginning of your career in the United States, and I mentioned this company in your introduction, they're called Silicon Graphics. And for people that know the Silicon Valley history, this is a very influential and important company in the valley. I don't think it exists anymore now, but tell me, how did you come to work there at such an icon?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Academy of Art University at the time, and I was taking some computer visualist graphics and 3D animation visualisation type of classes. And we were using Silicon graphics machines with programmes like S or Softimage. Those are the 3D and visualisation applications at the time. So they were only running on those machines. So we had some guests came from Silicon Graphics to visit our class and one of the people in the group asked me whether I would like to come and do some work as an in-house artist. So I was like, yeah, I can use the Silicon graphics machines as much as I use it all the time. Of course. So it started as a part-time, more like in-house artist type of work. And then this is, we are talking about the.com booming and Silicon Graphics was the first company started their website. It's called Silicon Surf.
- I started working with that team and then I got more interested in user experience, like how the website can be designed, how I can make it better for the users accessible and all that. I connected with user research team, so it's how my user experience career started as well. But yeah, I met with amazing people at Silicon Graphics and they've all been instrumental in my career. Super smart people. And one of, actually the poster I designed for Silicon Graphics impact machine, it's in the computer science museum. I took my son over there to show him the computers and all that. I'm like, this is my poster. It's in the museum. It's such a permanent collection. I was like, whoa, I didn't know that. It was so nice seeing my big poster hanging on the computer science museum. It was amazing.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It was an amazing feeling. You reminded me of a thread that I had discussed with Bob Baxley a while back, and it's come up a couple of times actually, and this is the non attributed nature of design, but you didn't even know that your design was in the museum and it was a surprise.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, it was a surprise. I didn't even know, but I mean at the time we didn't really sign, the posters didn't have an artist's name. It was Silicon Graphics, beautiful poster hanging on the wall behind the Silicon Graphics machines in the computer science museum. So that was pretty awesome. And my 11-year-old was with me, so I was like, this is me. I made that.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Now my memory might be a little bit off here, but I seem to recall, I read a book called The New Thing maybe 20 years ago, and it discusses how Netscape came about and chronicles the Browser wars. I believe there was a character called Jim Clark in the mix there. And Jim, I think Jim was the founder or he was a CEO at SGI.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yes. Yeah,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah. Did you ever, you mentioned you met some wonderful people there. I
- Aylin Uysal:
- Haven't met him. No, I have not. But so when I was there, I think it was just around that time, bill Clinton and Al Gore, they came to Silicon Valley and only company they visited was Silicon Graphics. I mean it was the company happening. We had this beautiful visual simulator room. You can really feel that. And we opened studios in Hollywood to educate the artists how to use our machines and how to create those amazing visual effects. Like Jurassic Park has been the first one created using the SIP graphics machines. It's pretty amazing. I mean, I met with engineers, you need to work with the engineers and the product managers. They're all super smart people.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That scene, I'm not sure if it was rendered by Silicon Graphics computers, but that it still scares me even though I know, even though I know how it was made.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Even in the first movie, actually, they do have graphics machine and the girl says, this is Unix. I know how to use this Linux. Sorry, this is Linux so I know how to use it. This was a silicon graphics machine
- Brendan Jarvis:
- We kind of take for granted these days, and I'm probably dating myself here, but we take for granted just how much computing power we have at our fingertips. And you were talking earlier about going from art school and being offered to have this role at Silicon Graphics and just how exciting it was. You'd be able to access the hardware that you could use to do things with. Yeah, we really do take it for granted. I want to talk to you a bit about your early stage at Oracle. You went to Oracle and then you went to SAP and you worked with one of my previous guests, a gentleman by the name of Daniel Rosenberg. Daniel's been pretty influential person in our field as well, and he wrote something about you on your LinkedIn profile back in 2010. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, he said he considered you to be a great designer, one who was both detailed and creative and it sort of sounded to me like Daniel was almost surprised to find these two qualities in one person at the same time. Is that the same way that you think about yourself as a designer when you were a practising designer that you were both detailed and creative
- Aylin Uysal:
- As a design leader too? I spend a lot of time on the details. I mean, some people look at it as, I mean at your level, do you really need to spend time on the details as much? I believe that devil is in the details. So especially in the enterprise applications, you really need to understand the product, all the details, how this machine works to be able to come up with the best solution to be creative because you need to know the details to be able to innovate and create and open up your creative mind. So yeah, I am very detail oriented. I might drive some people crazy sometimes, but yeah, I believe that to build great products that you need to get into the details to regard of your level. You can be a junior designer, you can be a VP or senior vp.
- And I think it's very typical Oracle too. When I look at our executive leadership at Oracle, like the head of application cloud business, Steven, Miranda, they all come in from the engineering background or the designer background, some of them, but they know Oracle product, they know the technology, they know what it takes, they know all the details. Yeah, I mean you see that just that culture is in Oracle maybe being at Oracle so long that it's just kind of pulled into my DNA, but or I am at Oracle because of that reason. It was already in my DNA and that's why I'm here.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, yeah. One nature or nurture I suppose, we'll never know what you're saying. Makes a lot of sense. And I'm going to mention Bob again because when I spoke with Bob, he said that the executive leadership at Apple all has an innate design sense of design sensibility. They all understand what good design is and it's similar to what you're saying about Oracle. So it's interesting to understand those parallels in terms of the details of Oracle and the design sensibilities at Apple. Daniel, you worked with him for a while and I was wondering what impact did Daniel have on your career?
- Aylin Uysal:
- So Dan Roseberg is actually the leader hired me at Oracle. He started the whole UX organisation and practise at Oracle Applications Group. And that was a small team actually the reason I came here, I was at Silicon Graphics and I really wanted to get into user experience and I saw an advertising in the industrial design magazine ID magazine and big one page, it said Oracle, we wanted to hire the best designers or something like that, but there's a design advertising from a technology company. I was like, wow, I didn't know about Oracle till that point, not that much. And I was like, wow. A company published a big design ad and they are looking for the best designer that is the company I wanted to work for. Because if they can publish an advertising in a design magazine, that means that they value design and designers.
- And that was then Rosenberg published that advertising. So I started at Oracle and while I was in here, I had my first child and he was around three years old at the time. And Oracle decided we decided to open a design practise in India, which we didn't have till that point. And then asked me whether I wanted to go and investigate and see what's happening, what's out there in Hydrobot and Bangalore. And I had another designer colleague here, so both of us and I had a 3-year-old. I'm like, oh, I don't know my son, can I leave him alone? He's only three years old. It's the other part of the world. And then said, when son when he grew up, he's going to appreciate all the amazing work you are doing and you have done and he's going to be very proud of you and so you should go for it.
- And that really made a huge impact on me and it's really important having design leaders, male design leaders like Dan to say that to a woman. I was very, at the beginning of my career, I was a designer, not a design leader at the time. So I took it by heart. I mean that truly had a huge impact on me. I realised I can still be a great mom, but at the same time I can still build my career. That doesn't mean that I'm leaving my child behind or it's bad for my child. Actually that's a great example for my child, especially for a male child. So when he grows up, he can support his wife and the woman around him. So yeah, I think that was a great lesson from then to me and I really appreciate for his support at the time.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And this is why it's so important for people such as yourselves and Aisha to do what you're doing in Turkey with these girls, with these girls that haven't necessarily been shown what you can make of a life unless they are there to meet people like yourselves.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, exactly. Leading by example, really encouraging, especially for the younger generation, younger women having examples and helping them and actually it makes a bigger impact if it is coming from your male colleague. And it happened to me a couple of times in my career and when I look back, it really makes a huge impact and it really helps you.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm probably of that generation of men who is more engaged in their children's lives and I certainly have felt when I've been too busy at work or I haven't quite got my balance, I've felt it's probably less about guilt and more about a sense of loss. Like I'm missing out on something in terms of my own son's life. He's just turned five and started school. How do you know throughout your career, how have you known whether or not you've taken work too far or that you've felt fallen out of balance with what you feel your family, your children need?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Well, I mean sometimes I do. I mean I take to work to home, but as a parent you need to be happy what you are doing then your child could be happy. I can be a 24 hour mom all the time, but that's not me. For some people it might be right because I find happiness not only taking care of my child, but at the same time doing the work that I'm doing. I enjoy designing, I enjoy building Oracle applications and designing and making it better and connecting with our customers and with all the people that I'm working with. So that makes me happy. So I'm a better mom as a result. I believe that sometimes I'm passing that boundaries more workless time maybe for my child. It's a balance. I definitely saying I didn't slow down, really, you need to spend more time with your child. So sometimes I pass that line. It's more work sometimes, but I'm mostly a believer that, I mean if they are happy, I'm happy. It's the balance you need to keep in and yeah, it is hard.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, isn't it is hard, especially when the demands on our time aren't always clear and known. When things get busy, they can just get busy really quickly and you do have to deal with that. I suppose that's
- Aylin Uysal:
- The boundaries, right? This is the time that I standing with my kids, so there shouldn't be any work at that time. It's just him and I and that's it. So if you can set those boundaries and without disruptions from work and you can't have a hundred percent quality time with your child and do both, I guess
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You know what the trick is with that. Do you have a
- Aylin Uysal:
- Trick?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, the trick is to have that a hundred percent quality time is to leave your devices in another room. That's true, that's
- Aylin Uysal:
- True. Yeah, I'm good at that actually. Yeah,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That's a healthy to do. Hey, just coming back to something you were saying earlier about Dan publishing that ad that you saw, which then led to you going to work at Oracle, now Oracle's a company that was founded for people who dunno way back in time in 1977, which that's not that long ago, but that makes it quite an old tech company as far as a surviving tech company in the valley and it's been designing software since before it probably had people working in the company called designers. So in the time that you've been there, how have you seen Oracle's posture or view on design shift?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, I mean other, if you think about other companies at Oracle's age, we all went through a transformation, right? I mean, so the biggest transformation started with I guess the iPhone. That changed the whole practise I would say. And first it started with the consumer applications and then users realised I don't need to deal with this unusable applications in my daily work as well. I want the same quality when I do my work. So it definitely, that has a huge impact and Oracle is one of those companies. It's very good at transforming itself, continuously changing and adjusting and keeping up and trying to make itself better. So I guess that's one of the reasons I've been here quite some time since I came back from SAP because there's not any dull moment at Oracle. And five years ago also a new SVP of Design joined Oracle and he's an amazing person and definitely made a huge culture change and really pushing Oracle to more design driven company and definitely both Hillel Cooperman and Jenny Lamb made a huge impact.
- And I can definitely see that I have been before and after that doesn't mean that we haven't done any excellent design work before, but the impact we had, it was much smaller. But the way that after they joined, the way that they look at the bigger picture with their amazing storytellers by the way, both of them, especially Hial, really getting, earning the credibility with the vision and now we are executing but really making that happen. Oracle again, the transformation and we are very much like now designing the centre approach and design team has a huge role and an impact in the overall organisation. I mean, as I said, Oracle is great at realising something is not right and then let's transform and let's adjust ourselves. We are very good at that as a company.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And words like transform transformation, putting the user at the centre, design having impact, these are things that they sound really good and they are really good when they happen, but some people aren't fortunate enough to find themselves working in organisations like you've just described where that's actually become a reality. And you were there before these new leaders came on board and you talked about the cultural transformation. Again, that's another word that we throw out, cultural transformation, but getting down to tangibility here, what is it that you saw significantly change to enable that to happen? Was it all driven from within the design organisation or was there a role played by executive c-suite leadership as well?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Of course at the leadership level too. I mean we all know Oracle founded by Larry Ellison and he's also amazing. He has an amazing mind and he also realises what are the gaps? And there was top down and bottom up both sides. And it was the time. Sometimes the time is right because other companies are investing it as well. Competition is so fierce. You need to stay up in the competition and you realise design can change the whole everything. The sales and better design is better business. So if you can invest into design, that means that you are going to get better business. So it is the realisation of that it was the right time and we have many fierce competitors in the market, especially in the application business and we realise make this change or it's going to be hard to survive. Yeah,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's a bit of necessity in there as well. You are someone who's been a design manager at Oracle since 2006 and you're now a VP of design for one of the major lines of business. What role has patients played in your design leadership journey and sticking with something?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Well, what patients played? So first of all, you need to your patience with sticking with the quality, not sacrificing. It pays at the end. Sometimes you can say, okay, we'll just let it go, but just keep picking your battles. But one thing you cannot sacrifice, what is the problem we are trying to solve? What is the impact on the user and really not sacrificing that quality and be patient and you have your vision, you set it up, but how to get there without sacrificing that quality with the patients. Maybe small steps. But once you have that vision, once you have that aspirational direction and you'll get there, you are not going to get there in one release. This is going to take multiple releases, especially in enterprise, it's important comparing to maybe consumer space. You deliver something that release next day, it's in your consumer, your users are already using it. It's different. In enterprise, we do release something and after a few releases, our customers take it and start using it. So there's a lag and they also change things. So you need to create the vision and say this is where we wanted to get there and how we are going to get there and be patient and don't let go. That's your vision. We'll get there. Be patient. Don't sacrifice the quality, don't sacrifice your goal and small steps, but you'll get there.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yes, it sounds like you don't know what you shouldn't let go of and then also know what you need to let go of in order to get to where you need to get to. Yeah, I just want to give people a bit of context for Oracle and just a sense of just how large the business is. So it has around 430,000 customers, over 175 countries, and there are 25,000 partner organisations involved in the mix here. And it has around about 137,000 employees back in 2019 at least. So this is a large, very, very large company. As someone who plays a very senior role in design at Oracle, does that scale just, does that massive scale, does that ever intimidate you? Does it ever seem like there's just so much at stake here with what we're doing? Well,
- Aylin Uysal:
- I mean of course there's a lot, right? But everything is like you need to strategize and pick the right place to focus on and prioritise. What are the most important things as a UX design leader or design organisation we need to focus on? Maybe it's not that big, it's maybe a small piece, but it's going to have a huge impact at the end. So really identifying those points and focusing on those. Otherwise, it's huge. I mean the product line that I'm supporting, my team is working on human capital management, so hr, human resources, types of applications. It deals with all person data, employment and person data. From the day you hire the employee till they leave your company, it's huge. It's a big portfolio. So there, there's no way we can just address everything at once. But what are the most important problems that we need to focus on as a design organisation at the end? It's going to have a huge impact on our user base. I mean in HCM only, we have 45 million users. It's kind of a consumer space. It's just like 45 million users. So I mean we have big customers with many users. So yeah,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- We're picking up on that. This realm of B2B software, enterprise software, it's not often possibly unfairly. It's often thought of as not being as well designed as those consumer applications. And about this, you've said something previously and I just want to quote you now. You've said enterprise software is just software. Why can't it be as simple and delightful as consumer applications? Enterprise users are human too. So my question is why can't it be as simple and delightful as consumer applications?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Well, we are trying to make it as simple as delightful. Hopefully with the patience and with the small steps, maybe what we'll get there, our aspiration at Oracle that creating the best enterprise applications in the market, that's our goal. We'll be the best. Number one in enterprise space, that's what we wanted to do. So why it's hard because in the enterprise applications, especially the business that we are in cloud applications, we are designing out of box default experience and our customers buy that product depending which industry they're in, they change it, they sometimes change the language. They might want to change the processes because their process might be different in the healthcare business than the retail business. So as a design organisation, we designed that out of box, that 80% of the functionality, but the customers change that. So it's hard. You need to plan for it, you need to think about the extensibility.
- It's not only what the user is personalised, but in between a group who takes the product and they need to deploy it into their company. So it goes through that channel too. So it becomes super critical thinking about all those steps in the extensibility when they are customising and configuring this, do we have the right guardrails in place? Those people are not going to mess up things, right? We are like, okay, I handed it to you a beautiful application. Oh my god, what ended up at the end? So we don't have enough guardrails maybe. So there's much more, it's a much bigger and more complex when it comes down to what we ship and what the user gets at the end. So there's multiple steps in between. Yeah, I believe that's one of the biggest challenges while you are designing for enterprise, because for the consumer you are Facebook, let's say you are designing that, it's everybody use the same solution. On the consumer side, we all get the same experience. And there's also security, privacy, all those other layers in the enterprise space that needs to be built on. And I guess everybody's thinking about the accessibility, which Oracle takes it very seriously being accessible, it's secure and all that. It adds onto that, but it's possible and we'll get there with the patients and with the right vision and the strategy, why not?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You've spoken about the general complexity in enterprise software design before and it's tied into this idea what's the reality that these applications often exist in the cloud and they often have to be interoperable with other systems, other legacy systems or other providers systems. So you've said about this, I want to quote you again. You've said it's all about the ecosystem. We cannot think about Oracle itself anymore. And for people that cast your mind back, I dunno, 20, 30 years we used to have installed on-premise software and things were very much like a walled garden. You wouldn't necessarily have many other systems you need to integrate with. So this presents this modern cloud-based world now presents a technical and also a design challenge. You talked about guardrails, maybe that's one example. But how do you design effectively for systems that you don't control or behaviours or actions that the user or the customer might take that you don't control, you don't have direct control over?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, so I mean one of the strategies I think we are following, we have a design system. It's called Redwood Design System. We also have a platform, Oracle application platform where we build our applications with using the redwood design system and we have the templates and the componentry and everything that's in there. So we are also now making that available for our customers, for our partners. So they are going to be using the same tools and the same templates and everything, what we use to build and design on our end, they will have it. In addition to that, recently we opened up a Redwood design system, our toolkit, it's available in Figma. So you can also look at the Redwood toolkit and Figma library so that it's also available for our customers, for our partners, they can design with our toolkit, they can build with our platform using our components and templates. So that will allow us to create that end-to-end experience. And we are publishing a lot of materials and our philosophy, like how we are simplifying, what's our thinking behind that. So our approaches, we can learn from our customers, but we can also help them to learn from us and build the same quality of applications and processes as we do. So
- Brendan Jarvis:
- What does success look like for you in terms of leading one of these major lines of business? Is it, and I'm putting words in your mouth here, so just feel free to jump in and tell me what it actually is, but is it so that your customers who are using the software, that they don't know that they are moving in between different products, that they have a seamless experience? How do you think about, well, what design success looks like?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, so it's a challenging problem because I mean, let's face it, not everybody has everything from Oracle. They might be using applications from different vendors. They might be maybe as Oracle actually we have full solution. We can be your single technology partner. If you wanted to run your business in on cloud, we have the solution for you. But some companies they don't and they still get solutions from different vendors. So first of all, I mean the database, many of them run on Oracle database and OCI the platform. So that part is kind of the connectivity and integration, but the UX UI layer. So that's a challenge. But if you think about as a consumer, if you think about your experience on the consumer space, we jump from one application to another one. As long as it's connected, the data is connected and transition that carries your context to the next thing. So we don't really mind that they look a little bit different and buttons are not exactly the same, as long as that experience is fluent and it just transition.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Can you test for that? Is that something that in your research practise that you are actively, I wouldn't say it's measuring as such, but you're actively gathering evidence that that's being achieved. How do you know whether or not you are doing that to the degree that you would hope for?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Well, I mean of course we are always working with our customers when we, of course we are monitoring our cloud data and mostly on our applications. And our user research team is always looking at some of those problems we are facing with. So I don't necessarily have quantitative data in my hand, but just talking to our customers and doing our qualitative user research and all that, we are seeing that the feedback we are hearing more than the user experience, the front end continuity is if the experiences is great and the connectivities there actually users, they don't have a lot of problems switching between the applications. In the consumer world. We don't, right? I mean you go to Uber, you order your car and then you get a notification on your iPhone on the notifications. It's not exactly maybe the Uber colours and all that, but you get inform and then you go to your vase and open that and look at your directions.
- But these are all very well designed applications. As long as your experience is seamless, maybe you don't mind the buttons and the colours and all that. It's going to be different. But fundamentally, these needs to be very well designed applications. Of course, in one of them, it's in the middle. It is just, I don't know exactly what is happening here. You don't use that application anymore. You're like, okay, you are out of, they're not connected. It's not seamless, it's not part of the experience anymore. So I mean we are definitely looking into that. So there are certain strategies we do. We have certain designs. If customers have different solutions from different partners or vendors, how we can make it part of our experience. We have certain pieces in our solution. The customers can embed and provide links and connections to other applications. Not Oracle, maybe built by another vendor, but we do that. But we are focusing on creating the best experience within our solution and with right connectivity. And we believe that that's probably the best strategy.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And for any enterprise software company, that's a big challenge. It's a
- Aylin Uysal:
- Big challenge.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, it's a big challenge, right? You've got many different product teams, lines of business acquisitions, just the she scale of the complexity of achieving that itself. Well, I
- Aylin Uysal:
- Mean that said mean in our solution now we are actually, I mean using redwood design system and redwood approach across all our Oracle solutions. I'm talking more on if the customer is using some other solutions outside of Oracle, we don't have a control over that, but still we have the right practises in place for the right connectivity. How achieve that,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Right. You mentioned data a little earlier now it would be remiss of me not to ask you about data's role in design, both because it's important topic to cover, but also because Oracle's founding was really around databases, right? It's a very data-driven organisation. What role does data play or what influence does it have on the way in which you do shape your designs given how large your customer bases? Well,
- Aylin Uysal:
- It plays a huge role. I mean data I guess in different levels. Data is from our user base. Of course privacy, we don't see the user's names or anything, but we see the usage data or how they are completing their task where they are failure. So we learn quite a lot from the cloud data so we can make our solutions even better, but also showing the right information to the user so they can achieve their tasks in a way that they have more knowledge. And sometimes we are just letting them know, do you want to do that kind of thing? Really looking at the data, looking at the usage patterns and really guiding the user into the right direction. So data is so important. I mean it's the future everybody. As you look at any company, everybody is looking at focusing on the data and how we can use it the best way. Yeah.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You once said, and this was in reference to the use of data within the design org. This is a very short quote, you said, we basically tear down the product. Yes. Now that sounds a little scary, right? That's like we're just going to just get stuck in here and figure out where all the issues are. Just how thick skinned do the designers in your org and perhaps also their cross-functional peers need to be when it comes to looking at the performance of the design of the system as a whole.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah, we do have a dedicated user research team. So we worked on different levels. Of course. We look at initially more doing customer site visits, really observing the user, like the first in the user centre design, the first step you really need to understand your users. But throughout looking at the cloud data, but also testing our designs more, collecting the quantitative data, are we the benchmarking, what we designed and the next release are. Did we hit that mark? So we have a great user research team and yeah, they are doing an amazing job letting us in different levels. But yeah, I mean in that particular comment, we tear down, yes, we practically tear, we pull it apart, the whole experience because it wasn't really working and we said, okay, we need to look at it, how we can simplify it. You really need to pull it apart and really identify the things, what is working and what's not. Do we really need it? And then putting it back together. And also looking at your data, cloud data, how it's been used, what are those usage patterns from our user base. So when we are putting it together, we are doing the right thing. So yeah.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm not sure if this is a fair label, it's more of a question than a label actually. But would you say that Oracle is a sales driven organisation?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Maybe in the old days, this changed quite a lot. I mean, every company sales plays a huge role of course. But I would say Oracle, especially the area cloud application space that I am in, I don't think sales driven is very much customer focused and I would say customer driven in the space that I am in our executive vice president responsible for human capital management in every presentation he has, this is all many requests from the customers. That's been because we have a customer connect that customers can report their needs and he's very proud that this much of it we address. It's very much customer focused, what customers need. And that used to be maybe sales driven in the old days, but I would say it's very much customer in the centre, customer driven, and then the product team and the research is super important. And of course sales too. But
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah. Well, I'm curious about this because there's a reality in enterprise software that the customer, the person buying the software, procuring the software isn't always the same person that uses the software. And I know this is something that you've previously spoken about, that it's really important to get these experiences, not just from the sales point of view with the customer, but also for the day-to-day usage for users. So how do you calibrate or do the dance with the other departments that have a role and role to play in aligning, I dunno if aligning is the right word, but how do you do this so that you actually have a better shot of delivering and designing software that's great to use as much as is great to sell?
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yeah. Mean that's a great point you made. I mean, it takes the whole village. I mean definitely sales team has a huge information because they're out there on the field and trying to sell product, talking to potential customers and coming back with their data, saying that, hey, these are the things, we are continuously getting the same feedback. It's not working. It could be user experience and the functionality and all right. So we definitely look at that data at the end of each quarter, what the sales team is saying, and then your customers. We have the customer advisory boards, the strategy, customer strategy, consoles, and we attend to that. And they're also providing their feedback. So they play a huge role and we share our designs and our direction with the customers and we get that feedback and product management or of course the engineering, they're like, okay, we cannot build this.
- Not in this timeframe. Everything is possible but not in this timeframe. So you need to get that data. So I mean the designer, so it takes the whole book village and you need to balance it out. And of course the priorities and how long it's going to take. But that's our vision. We set that as a team and we can adjust certain things on that vision, depending how the market is changing, how the world is changing. I mean now with ai, like generative AI and all that, the last five, six months, that's all people are talking about. So you start paying more attention maybe on certain things. You readjust your vision and look at it, are we doing the right thing? But at the end, that vision has to be created with these group of people. They all have a say. They all have a perspective.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Your department's design. You are a leader in the design department or function. You mentioned team though, and I'm curious about this. Who do you see as your team?
- Aylin Uysal:
- It is my team. Again, these people, people are only reporting to me. My team is, and the unique thing about the design organisation, actually as a design leader too, we are kind of the glue. We are on the centre of everything. People come to me with the questions. I'm like, you could have gone to product manager. This is product manager question why you are coming to me. But because we sit on the centre of everything, we kind of see everything. So because we need to talk all these people to come up with the simplest, the best experience for our customers, that the thing that we say, consumer grade plus experience that we want to create, you need to talk all these people and visualise that for everybody. So they come to you. So let's a unique role. So my team is all these people. I would say it's my team, the designers in my team and the researchers in the Oracle design. But at the same time, that extended community, my team is my customers, my team is my sales team, and my product management team, the engineering team. So
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Aylin, you are someone who's from a different place, different culture to that of the USA that we obviously touched on earlier. Coming from Turkey, English isn't your first language. No, I wouldn't imagine either.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Can you hear the accent?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well, I'm sure people can hear my Kiwi accent as well. Hopefully they can understand me. And you are also a woman, right? So these three things are going on here, and yet you've succeeded at the highest levels in one of the world's most professionally demanding industries and also companies. What is it about you and how you've operated throughout your career that you feel has made this possible?
- Aylin Uysal:
- I see that also in United States in general, if you work really hard, they recognise that. And especially in Silicon Valley, it doesn't matter where you come from, who you are connected with. But if you are not only talented, but you need to be the hardworking person. And if you are passionate about what you are doing and if you really want to go for it, people come forward and really support you. And yeah, I mean there are challenges of course, being a woman and all that. Sometimes you are in these meetings, I'm like, I really don't pay attention. But sometimes, okay, I'm the only person here as a woman. Why? There's not another woman. There is some, because of other challenges in life, like I said, three-year-old, my son, I didn't want to go, but Dan said, iden, your child will appreciate you and will be proud of you later.
- I'm like, yeah, that's a different perspective. A woman usually tend to step away from those leadership roles. I could have easily say, no, I'm not going to go. But I did go and it showed that I can take the initiative. Well, I left my child behind for a week or 10 days, but I also have a great supporting partner. He's always, and it's another man supporting and encouraging you. So that plays a huge role. But again, I'm a really hardworking person. I'm super passionate about design and making things better and simpler and for our customers, for the users. And I pull everything. Whatever I got to make that happen, I never let go. If I put my mind into that, that's going to happen. I don't let go. It's one of my characters. I really push till to the end. Of course there are certain times you're like, okay, I need to let go.
- This is not, this is right now, it's better. It's not the time I need to let go. And especially in technology, you need to keep pushing forward. And also, I really like this tagline and my son, both of them actually, I have two sons. Both of them plays ice hockey and they have a tagline on their shirt. It says, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. I'm a huge believer on that. So I really believe on hard work and be passionate and be inclusive, collaborative. I'm super inclusive person. I wanted to make sure everybody's perspective are heard and I wanted to include them if it makes sense. I give them that promise. I listened we'll, make sure we are going to reevaluate and see what we can do. And you are part of this team and I believe in inclusivity. I think that plays a huge role in if you want to be succeed and come to a certain level and you need to be nice to people and you need to keep learning, never give up on learning, just be curious. It's like I always reach and wanted to learn and collaborate with people. And I think those are probably my superpowers.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I almost wanted to end our conversation on that note, but I cannot resist asking you one final question, and this is to do with your observations across your career. You've seen and done many different things, both as a designer and now as a design manager and leader of other designers. What is the most important thing that you've learned about leadership during this time? The
- Aylin Uysal:
- Most important thing I learned, I think if you really be, I dunno the right word, being vulnerable. Just being show that you are human and show that empathy and relate to themselves. People needs to look at you like you are a human being. You are a leader and you're not sitting in that high tower, but you are one of them. And just to show that you are vulnerability and be open on that, I think that's one of the most important thing. Otherwise, people are not going to come to you and you'll never know what's happening. And they need to know that you are taking risks in your life, in your job. You are vulnerable and you are failing as well. So they can do the same thing. And that's the only way we can innovate and go to the next level. So you need to show them you are a human too.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Maybe this is why people come to you with product management questions.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Yes,
- Brendan Jarvis:
- This has been a really enjoyable conversation. It's been really great to hear your perspective. Thank you for so generously sharing your stories and insights with me today.
- Aylin Uysal:
- Thank you. Thanks.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You're most welcome. My pleasure. Aylin, if people want to connect with you and want to keep up to date with what you are doing in your career, the things you're contributing to the field and the other things that you're active and engaged with, what's the best way for them to do that?
- Aylin Uysal:
- They can reach me via LinkedIn and they can feel free to connect with me and yeah.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Awesome. Great. Thanks Aylin. And to everyone who's tuned in, it's been great having you here as well. Everything that we've covered will be in the show notes, including where you can find Aylin and all of the things that we spoke about.
- If you enjoyed the show and you want to hear more great conversations like this with world-class leaders in UX research, product management and design, don't forget to leave a review. Subscribe as well, so the podcast turns up every two weeks for you to listen to. And tell someone else about the show, maybe just one other person if you feel they would get value from these conversations at depth.
- If you want to reach out to me, you can find a link to my LinkedIn profile at the bottom of the show notes or just search for Brendan Jarvis on LinkedIn. Or you can head on over to my website, which is thespaceinbetween.co.nz. That's thespaceinbetween.co.nz. And until next time, keep being brave.