Empathy in UX Design: Understanding User Needs

Jeff Johnson Transcript

Intro - 00: 00:01: Welcome to Beyond the Screen: An IONOS podcast, where we share insights and tips to help you scale your business's online presence. Hosting genuine conversations with the best in the web and IT industry, and exploring how the IONOS Brand can help professionals and customers with their hosting and cloud issues. We're your hosts, Joe Nash and Liz Moy.

Joe - 00: 00:21: Welcome to another episode of Beyond the Screen: An IONOS Podcast. Today, we're joined by Jeff Johnson on the show, an empathy-driven UX Designer and Creative Director with an impressive portfolio spanning across renowned companies like Dell, IBM, and Microsoft. Currently leading the design initiatives at Allata and Dotted8, Jeff's expertise extends far beyond creating visually appealing interfaces. He crafts meaningful digital experiences that address both business objectives and user needs effectively. Over the years, Jeff has not only been a pivotal player in designing world-class products, but also an influential leader fostering creativity, innovation and collaboration in his teams. As an articulate communicator and a visionary designer, Jeff continues to pave the way for UX design that solves problems backed by extensive research and a commitment to doing good in the world. Jeff, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me today.

Jeff - 00: 01:09: Yeah, thanks for having me. Man, after hearing all that, I'm like, who is that guy?

Joe - 00: 01:13: Yeah, we've had lots of similar reactions to the bio, which I take to mean that we're doing good things in writing. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff - 00: 01:18: Yeah, yeah. Sounds great.

Joe - 00: 01:19: We'd like to show y'all who you are, hold a mirror up and show that you are all truly awesome. So yeah, we're very honored to have you with us. And on that note, in terms of reassuring you that that bio is indeed yours, let's dive into your rich career path. So as you know, we mentioned a bunch of names there, a bunch of big companies I'm sure will be familiar to most of our listeners, but obviously now you're at a later. Could you kick off for tell us a little bit about that journey? We always love to hear how our guests get to where they were and what's happened. What drew you to the field of UX design in particular?

Jeff - 00: 01:44: Yeah, so I'm going to start like way back in high school because I think a lot of designers might relate to this, but I've always been a creative person. I love to draw. I initially wanted to be a car designer, so I wanted to do industrial design. So I applied for RISD, I applied for Pratt, I applied to Parsons School of Design, and I only got into Parsons School of Design. So that was kind of a bummer, but it worked out because Parsons School of Design, I didn't know this at the time, but they're like a world-class design school. They have like a good foundational program where like the first two years, you kind of just get your hands wet in everything. And so I didn't go into it wanting to do UX design. I just want to be some kind of designer, maybe hopefully pivot and go back into industrial design. But when I got into it, I really started loving like coding, HTML, CSS. I got into like web design, graphic design, and I was like, wow, this is pretty amazing. And I remember something that I learned that was pivotal to me, kind of shifting towards a UX mindset, which was the difference between art and design. So this is kind of the way they presented it to us. Art is more expressive. You can do whatever you want. And if somebody says they don't like it, well, too bad for them. It's not here to solve a problem for any user. Design, there's constraints and you're trying to solve a problem for a company or a user or a person. And so I think I found myself wanting to help people or help businesses or I love the challenge of creating something for somebody else and something that's useful for society. So I think that's where I kind of felt a shift in my creative process where I wanted to do stuff that was design oriented and not just artistic.

Joe - 00: 03:18: Interesting. I'm kind of used to the idea that in education you pick what you're going to do 20 years from now with absolutely no input or idea. And that's it. You're locked in now for the ride. It's nice they gave you that experience.

Jeff - 00: 03:27: Yeah, Parsons was really good at teaching us foundational stuff and not just focusing on like here's how to use Photoshop or a tool. So after I graduated from College, I was doing freelance work. And then I finally got my first gig at a company called UBM, which got bought up by a company called Informa. But over there I did work for IBM, Dell, Microsoft, a lot of big corporations. And back then, UX wasn't really like a massive field. This was probably like 12 years ago. But most people just refer to it as like web design or information architecture, or we need someone to come in here and make these fonts look pretty or mess with the layout and space.

Joe - 00: 04:02: That was going to be what I was going to ask. So it wasn't that UX wasn't happening. It's that how we describe it and how we think of it as its own thing wasn't necessarily there yet. It was dispersed in these other job roles or these other specialties, right?

Jeff - 00: 04:13: Yeah. And I think the role kind of naturally formed as like digital products. Everybody was using it all the time. So we just needed people to make them work better. So at that time, I was just like, I'm a web designer and I found myself doing all these UX activities, creating wireframes, researching the user, creating personas. And no one was like, oh, this is a UX. And it was just like, oh, you're just a web designer that does this stuff. And then the field evolved and grew. And then I leaned more into UX, got a job at Dell, was a Senior Designer there. So I did a lot of like front end web design, but also like UI design for their interactive elements. And then freelance for a little bit, but eventually it came to Allata, and it's been a great journey.

Joe - 00: 04:53: Yeah, that's super cool. I'm glad you started from the high school element. I think that's a really important part of your journey. Has there been any points throughout that journey that have shaped your approach to UX design now, like anything that's added to your philosophy or how you think about it, other than obviously the comparison to art, which I think is a really great one?

Jeff - 00: 05:06: Yeah, I think for me, what I found that I enjoy the most and that shaped me the most is the moments where I'm like talking to a stakeholder or maybe talking to a user and they tell me something about the task that they're trying to do or the problem that they're trying to solve. And I'm able to come up with a solution that saves them time in their day, makes their life happier, or just adds like real value to a person or to society. I almost crave that now where I'm like, I want to help people. I don't want to create products that are like harming the world or harming society or the planet. I really want to do good. So I think that's like a main part of what differentiates me as a designer from everybody else. I'm not just doing stuff to help people. I'm not just doing things to help people to meet business goals. That's a big part of UX design, but I really hope I can help the end user. I see myself as an advocate for them.

Joe - 00: 05:53: You must really get to see some tangible improvements and some real minute to minute moments of people's workflows and stuff that just make their everyday better in cool ways. That's really, really neat. Let's talk about your current roles. So you're a lead UX Designer at Allata and Design Director at Dotted8. I take you understand. That's a lot going on. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about how those two roles and your work on that, how you think that UX contributes to the way that digital products are perceived? We're talking about solving people's problems. So I guess you see real tangible impacts of UX at those companies.

Jeff - 00: 06:22: So a little backstory about Dotted8. So I started Dotted8 right out of College just because jeffjohnson.com was taken. I got like the most generic vanilla name in the world, so it was not available. So I started the freelance thing and it kind of just eventually grew naturally. I just got more freelance work and I hired my wife as my first employee. She hired more designers, she hired developers. And then eventually I did a contract at Allata and they said, you can have your freelancing on the side and still work at Allata.

Joe - 00: 06:51: So this is the dream-like, own business trajectory here. This is so cool.

Jeff - 00: 06:55: Well, even though I did that both, I'm not really involved with the day-to-day of Dotted8 anymore.

Joe - 00: 07:00: It drives itself now.

Jeff - 00: 07:01: Yeah. And my wife hired everyone to replace me, so.

Joe - 00: 07:04: Replaced by your wife, that's cold.

Jeff - 00: 07:06: Yeah. So she literally owns the majority of the business legally and the day-to-day activity, so it's been great. But I love my job at Allata. I think I function better in like a nine-to-five Allata-type job. So it was good for my mental health too. And my wife loves running the company. So she's been running with that. But speaking to what we do at Allata and how we try to solve users' problems, I think what I love about what we're doing at Allata is the leadership really evangelizes UX and product design to the rest of the company. And we're not just seen as people that make interfaces pretty. And I think that was a big shift within UX where people are like, hey, we need a UX Designer, but what they really meant was we just need someone to come in and make these screens look a little bit better. And I think our leadership really understands that. And I have like an amazing mentor and other like principals above me that really value UX design. And because we value that, when we go to a client, we're able to talk to them about it, talk to them about the importance of UX and they're able to see value too. And I think having that leadership value it from the top down is just so important. And something I've been really blessed with.

Joe - 00: 08:12: Yeah, perfect. Well, now I'm going to put you on the spot and absolutely curse you with making sure that future UX Designers who get hired by bosses have a boss that feels that way and understands it. So if you're listening to these bosses, could you help our audience understand how you see the importance of UX and how you see it acting as the lifeblood of digital products? Can you get them that perspective that your bosses apparently have?

Jeff - 00: 08:30: Yeah. Yeah. So I think a big part of it is the shift in technology now, almost all products we're using, like a library or we're using, like pre-made components and a lot of the development is already pre-made. There's so many resources for architecture. And I think where companies are seeing the most value added is adding a feature or changing the UX flow or changing the way people interact with the product. We're just saving people time like Amazon. Their Prime App has changed the world. I literally don't need to go out anymore. I can literally just press that button.

Joe - 00: 09:04: I never need to think to the future. I have things in my house. They'll be there when I need them.

Jeff - 00: 09:07: Yeah, yeah. I feel like a developer or somebody on the more technical side would have said, like, hey, let's make this App better or let's change the code or let's do something technical with it. But I think a UX person would come and say, hey, can we save time in this person's day? And that adds business value that increases the revenue. And so, I mean, money talks, I think UX is starting to evolve where it's less about making things look good and feel good. And it's more about saving businesses money and saving customers time. And that's a big part of UX now.

Joe - 00: 09:38: Yeah, absolutely. Looking to e-commerce and time in particular, I think is a very effective one because we hear nonstop in the e-commerce space about checkout abandonment and what small percentage of customers actually make it all the way through checkout. And so, like a lot of that is friction. If you're carving that time off, you're really helping with that very bottom line affecting problem.

Jeff - 00: 09:55: Yeah. There's a company called Baymard Institute, the Baymard Institute, and they take like the top, I think, 200 something e-commerce sites in North America in terms of like revenue. And they research the crap out of it. I think from like how many people are abandoning checkout when you don't have to log in or when you have to log in. How should a credit card field be styled? Literally like the most detailed things and they do like an amazing job. I'm also certified by them. So I'm also shouting at myself. Shameless plug.

Joe - 00: 10:25: That sounds like a cool certification though. That's a nice program to be running.

Jeff - 00: 10:28: There's only like 280 people in the world that have the certification, but if anybody's listening and they're UXer, like definitely go check them out and look into their certification because they're doing amazing work.

Joe - 00: 10:38: I worked in payments very briefly, but I feel like if you're going to pick like any one industry to go and see UX at work, just looking at a credit card form on a bunch of websites is like a great example of like, hey, this sees some UX touches like heavy lifting, especially if you look over time. So we might have just completely sniped this, but my next question was going to be, we spoke about the importance of UX. What are the risks of not thinking about UX first or putting UX as an afterthought? Like what are some of the pitfalls that companies can fall into?

Jeff - 00: 11:05: I've seen a lot of products work without proper UX done. So it's not like if you don't have a UX Designer, your product is doomed to fail. But I feel like even though it might not fail, it can get so much better if you involve a UX person from the beginning. And it may not be not having UX or having UX. It's like when you involve UX.

Joe - 00: 11:25: Like a maturation step?

Jeff - 00: 11:26: Yeah. So a lot of people, or traditionally, I think they would have the business folks do the research of what we're trying to do, or the product owner would try to figure out what we're trying to solve. And then when it's time to again, do the aesthetics or make a visually appealing interface, they bring in the UX Designer to try to solve that. But I think the shift that we're seeing is, UX Designers are brought in right at the beginning to ask stakeholders and users questions right at the beginning. And that I think is adding value. So I think it's more about the risk of not having UX at every phase of the project.

Joe - 00: 11:58: Yeah. Maybe risk isn't the right word. Maybe it's like the unrealized benefits, right? Like if you have UX in earlier, you just get more bang for your buck, right?

Jeff - 00: 12:05: Yeah. Yeah. And traditionally UX people might just be contractors where they just come in for like a short stint and then we literally ACCANed our files to the developer and they do whatever they want. We don't really see what's happening. But I think where there's value and where you can avoid risk is having them till the end to continue to like iterate on what's been developed. Cause honestly, most times like developers, they, I love developers. I work with like 200.

Joe - 00: 12:29: I mean, you are a developer yourself. We've covered that you wrote code in the website, right? Yeah.

Jeff - 00: 12:32: Yeah. But you know, they're not as focused on whether it's five pixels or seven pixels or like whether it's off white or white. So a lot of times we have to go back in and say like, Hey, instead of using this color, let's tweak it to this. Cause that's actually what we have on the design.

Joe - 00: 12:47: And by that point, they're solving for different problems. And if the UX Designers out of the room, there's no one to realign those priorities, right? So like they're just drifts out of vision.

Jeff - 00: 12:54: Yeah. It's good to have, like a UX person be like the bad guy to continue to work on the design.

Joe - 00: 12:59: Yeah. And I guess lots of people have had the experience of coming into a project after a lot of the decisions are set in stone and you know, some bad decisions are locked in and I can really easily see how that would be very limiting in terms of the UX changes that you can make and the scope of improvements you can make. So yeah, I definitely understand bringing people in earlier. So one of the things you mentioned there was, you know, this was shifting UX and starting to see these changes. So obviously some positive people come into UX, like UX Designers coming into projects at better times. Are the changing times bring any challenges? Like what are the biggest challenges you face in creating impact for UX designs?

Jeff - 00: 13:30: Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges we're seeing in UX is expecting UX people to know all the different UX roles. So now there's, like a UX Researcher, UX Strategist, and then there's a person that we traditionally think of who would just, like make the UI better. There's like C-suite level people that are just Chief Product Officers. And I think partly because of social media and all the posts that we see on LinkedIn about you got to do this, you got to learn this, you got to update your portfolio too. I think designers might be trying to get overwhelmed and stressing themselves then to be like a master of everything in UX.

Joe - 00: 14:04: Of course, full-stack developmental library again.

Jeff - 00: 14:06: Yeah. And then some companies expect you know how to code too. So we're like supposed to be developers and UX Designers and researchers and strategists and business consultants. So it's good to know, like a little bit of everything. But I think maybe the challenge for designers is finding a place where you feel like your specific skill set is valued and they don't expect you to know everything.

Joe - 00: 14:27: Very interesting to hear it's splitting into so many defined roles. I guess that makes sense. Like user research is a long established tradition in more traditional consumer facing businesses. So it makes sense that it's popping up in the digital sphere as well.

Jeff - 00: 14:38: And if you even like, think about the type of mindset or the type of person that would want to do UX research, talk to a person and like really get to know them and empathize with them might be completely different from like an artist that just wants to make stuff look good. Right. So expecting someone to do both a lot of times doesn't jive.

Joe - 00: 14:55: Yeah. And you saying that reminds me, you know, I'm a developer and I code, but I could never do the sit behind the desk and focus nine to five on writing code thing. I need to be doing, like other stuff. I just couldn't do that length of time. Other people thrive in that environment. With any profession, there's that dichotomy of like stuff coming in. Right. I want to take a step back to earlier in your career and, you know, entering this space, obviously it was evolving a lot of the time. So this might be different to people's experiences now. But what were some of the obstacles you encountered in those early stages of breaking into UX design and making this a path that you can choose? I'm especially excited to be fascinating because you started out like freelance from the get-go. It sounds like you forged this path hard.

Jeff - 00: 15:30: Well, I think the biggest challenge for me personally was, I'm naturally, like an introvert. So if I'm in a room, like I always prefer to be a fly on the wall. I'm not the person that's going to jump up and raise your hand and like try to get my time to speak. Like I would love to just stay silent and just like, absorb everything in. Being a UX person is almost naturally the opposite of that. So I'm always almost in, like an uncomfortable situation where like to be a good UX person, you have to be able to speak up. You have to be able to ask questions. You have to be able to give an opinion. You have to be able to share a story about, like what we think is going to be beneficial for the user. So all this requires being an extrovert essentially.

Joe - 00: 16:10: So the reason you have to do that, that's because of advocating for the customer role, like being that voice in the room.

Jeff - 00: 16:14: Yeah. You have to be the voice of UX in the room and speak for your users. So when I first started my career, I was obviously like a junior designer or like a visual designer. I wasn't a lead designer like I was right now. So I felt like I shouldn't speak because it'd be like out of turn or talking over like a VP or somebody. But internally I'd be like, oh, that's completely wrong. Like we should definitely change that. But I just didn't speak up. And I think if you're in this space, you just got to challenge yourself to speak up and say, okay, like I'm here in this room for a reason. I need to add value to the conversation. And they brought me in as UX person. So I got to share what I know. And that was a big challenge for me.

Joe - 00: 16:51: Yeah, that does sound like a big challenge. Has having to do that shifted you towards more extrovert tendencies or is it more that like, hey, I'm on and I'm performing and after this I'm going to be really drained for the day, but I've done my extrovert bit for the day.

Jeff - 00: 17:04: There is like an element to that where at the end of the day, I'm a little bit drained from having to talk a lot. But also as I've done it more, I've realized that I do know a lot about what I'm talking about.

Joe - 00: 17:15: I imagine that's energizing and helps you do it.

Jeff - 00: 17:17: Yeah. They're like, oh, wow, thank you so much for saying that or like providing that insight because this is really helpful for our business or this is going to help our users a lot. And so when you hear stuff like that, when you get feedback like that, it just like pushes you to keep doing it. So I would encourage designers to just speak up and try it. You'll be surprised at how much value you can add.

Joe - 00: 17:34: Yeah. From the strength, fear and knowledge, people definitely consistently under-appreciate what it is that they actually know, especially early stages of the career. So I think that's a really great tip. Switching back to a little bit to, I guess, of like breaking down UX for our audience. I feel like every profession has its kind of like pet concept or word that gets thrown around a lot when talking about what it is that person does. And for UX, I think one of them is definitely empathy. We see the word empathy get thrown around a lot. Could you tell us a little bit about why empathy is so important for UX Designers?

Jeff - 00: 18:02: Yeah, I'll share why it's important and then I'll give you, like a little example too. So I feel like to really create a good user experience or like a good path for a journey, you have to put yourself in the user's shoe and try to feel what they're feeling. And if you don't do that, you're going to default to just doing what's the easiest design or what's like the quickest way to get your tasks done for that day. And so by really thinking, okay, like what does this person really need? Like how can I make his life easier? How can I remove pain points from his journey? That's when you get to like a good UX. Because yeah, by default, you'll just literally do what you think is going to save you time or make your boss happy, make the business happy. But to empathize with the user is crucial. So one example that I'll share about that is I can't share the client name, but there was a user experience within a physical space that I had to design. And so part of the scenario is people were walking in a line and they would get their barcode scanned, like physically scanned. And the person scanning the barcode was the person that I was designing this experience for. And I asked them like, hey, how far is the barcode scanner from the screen that you're looking at? And they said it's about like 20 feet. And I said, okay, so do you have trouble seeing the screen or like seeing the number that you just scan? And they're like, absolutely. Like it's almost always way too small for me. They'd have to literally scan, like sometimes walk over and check, walk back. And they have to do this for like 100 people every day. So literally by just asking that question, thinking about like, okay, how can I make this person's life easier? Empathizing with them, I increased the font size by like 10 pixels. It probably added like an hour to their day from not having to walk back and forth. They could just sit on a chair and just, like scan it and have the next person come over.

Joe - 00: 19:49: The fact it got that far where like that physical space was designed where that was the case is...

Jeff - 00: 19:53: Yeah.

Joe - 00: 19:55: UX Designers earlier in the room.

Jeff - 00: 19:57: Yeah. And then another thing was like they had to compare what they scan to what they previously scanned to the next person line. And so just by having the two screens like side by side change the game. So, like little things like that. Yeah.

Joe - 00: 20:09: So one of the things we hear from related disciplines a lot, especially, I guess, like product fields, but also, I guess, to a limited extent, you know, designers is that the user doesn't always necessarily know what it is they need or they want. Is there any truth in that? How have you encountered that phrase and how do you deal with that being so user and empathy driven?

Jeff - 00: 20:29: Yeah. I mean, Apple, I think is like the best example of that. Where like they just kept removing buttons from their phone. You're like, how am I going to do anything?

Joe - 00: 20:37: And also obviously the whole thing about Steve Jobs hating the Pen Stylus or whatever.

Jeff - 00: 20:42: Yeah. So if you've seen the documentary or like, seen anything about Apple, you know, they're not afraid to make bold decisions or like, change the way we interact with things. And now it's like, why would I want a button on my physical phone? Like, that's ridiculous. So what I like to suggest, we take as much information as we can from the user, gather as much data as we can, do interviews, do all the research activities that we can. But we don't let the user dictate the user experience. We use that to dissect it and see if we can add value from it. But we're not like, OK, the user said it. We have to do it.

Joe - 00: 21:14: The user's not the UX Designer. They're providing the data, right?

Jeff - 00: 21:17: Yeah. And a lot of times they don't know, like the technical things. Obviously, you're a developer, so they don't know how much it would cost to implement something, or how much lag, or low time it would take to do something like this. So you can't just blindly take what the user says and just implement it. You always have to see for yourself, this is actually going to help them. Another thing is there's common UX patterns. So people are just used to doing things a certain way. And so they expect other apps and products to follow that pattern. Yeah. So if one person changes it, at first it's going to be like, whoa, how do I navigate this thing? But after a while, you're like, oh my gosh, this actually works so much better. And then you can't go back.

Joe - 00: 21:51: Does that then become a new UX pattern?

Jeff - 00: 21:53: Yeah. I mean, the iPhone is a great example of that.

Joe - 00: 21:55: Okay, that's probably true in the way it's like, how do you keep up with what the current UX patterns are? Is this just something you know? Or is there like a UX Pattern Bible that all the UX Designers have on their desk? How does that work?

Jeff - 00: 22:04: Yeah, I think social media is actually a great way to keep up with them, all that stuff. Because there's always people posting about new UX patterns or new things coming out in technology. LinkedIn is great resources. There's a lot of good LinkedIn groups. I mean, you could read books, but obviously they don't stay up to date. I think for me, as I've done UX more and more, I've just begun to notice things in the world as I'm interacting with them. I'll be like, oh, that's interesting. I didn't have to enter my credit card information that time. They just already automatically knew. Well, like I was on Uber Eats yesterday and I ordered something and they had my previous order already there and they just said like, hey, do you want to order this again? I was like, thank you. That is what I want to order again. And I was like, I expect this now from every food ordering App. I want them to know what I previously ordered so I can just click a button and press it again. And then on our examples, normally on e-commerce sites, they'll ask you to fill out the state or the country, the city, all that stuff. But now we're seeing that you can just put your zip code first for the user and then it auto fills everything for you.

Joe - 00: 23:04: You just choose the house number or whatever, right?

Jeff - 00: 23:07: Yeah, so. And then now I'm like, why are we not doing this everywhere? So it's just about paying attention to what happens in your everyday life. Obviously, all UX Designers are using technology, so just be aware of what's happening out there.

Joe - 00: 23:19: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jeff - 00: 23:20: Cool.

Joe - 00: 23:21: You've mentioned a couple of times the fact that UX is also really good for the business. And there's a bit of a balance here between prioritizing user needs and prioritizing business needs. Even in some of the examples we've been talking about, there are examples in many digital applications where what's good for the user, especially with regards to speed and getting off that platform and somewhere else, isn't necessarily what the business wants. So how do you as a UX Designer go about walking that tightrope and keeping that balance?

Jeff - 00: 23:44: Yeah, and this is probably a mistake I made early on in my career where I thought I'm only here for the user. I almost disregarded the business side of it completely. Or like the business goes on like, if I make this user experience amazing, it'll obviously help the user, but it's not helping the company that I'm working for. So I think it's important to advocate for the user and to empathize and to present all your findings to the business and say, hey, I think this is what the user needs. And obviously their job is to make money and to increase profits from the designer, from the product. So they'll push back a lot of times. And I think instead of seeing it as like a conflict of interest, seeing it as a way to create digital products that work, but also are sustainable to the business. So I think if you go into a company and you're just always disregarding the business goals or not thinking about them, you're doing a disservice to yourself as the designer, because as a designer, you're there to solve a problem, not just for the user, but also for the business. And so I think that's something that you as an artist have to keep in mind. And finding that balance is always key. But as long as you're advocating for your user, the business will naturally just like, push back and advocate for the business. But you just have to find that balance.

Joe - 00: 24:58: Yeah, that makes total sense. Like, yeah, that journey is fascinating. I think there's another role called developer relations. People go for a similar journey where they're, like, hey, I'm here to advocate for developers. And then they realize that you're like, oh, you know, there's something here if the business is not served. Yeah, fascinating. Here you go for that same journey. You spoke about Apple and Apple's approach to UX. And, you know, that's a poignant example, because when people think of Apple as a brand, they often think of these ways they broke or redefined design. Can you talk a little bit about how UX and a company's UX works to build that brand's image and defines their relationship with their customers?

Jeff - 00: 25:33: Yeah, I would say that with UX design, one of the things that's kind of changing and evolving with it is we're seeing the people in branding and marketing work with UX designers to figure out, like, how does the experience of this App or product inform users about who we are as a company? And so, like we said, Apple, when I think of Apple, because they have such a clean interface and like everything is, I wouldn't say minimalistic, but it's not cluttered, easy to navigate. I have an association of their company being for the user and for like everyday people almost. Whereas like Microsoft, I feel like they're trying to be for everybody. They're trying to design for every single person in the world with their pricing too, obviously. But because of that, it feels like they're trying to do too much in their interfaces. Whereas like Apple's like, no, we're not going to give you all those options. We're not going to let you do all those things. We're going to keep it to just these few tasks that you need to do. We're going to remove all the buttons, less options, but we really think this is what's best for you. And you might not like it, but you can go buy another product.

Joe - 00: 26:42: Right. Sure. Yeah, something that really speaks to that is the minute you said like Microsoft trying to design for everyone, my head was just filled with the really clear mental image of the ribbon UI, like when they made that big UI transition and all the office products. And now it's like a bunch of mismatched icon sizes and there's hundreds of them and there's no categories. Just like PTSD flashbacks. The minute you said that, I think you're spot on.

Jeff - 00: 27:01: Yeah. So I feel like Apple, this sounds like cheesy, but I feel like they really care about me or my user experience.

Joe - 00: 27:08: They're willing to be opinionated and they recognize that I don't know what's best and that's what I need.

Jeff - 00: 27:12: Yeah. I'm a dad of two kids. Apple is like that parent where they're like a little bit more strict and they're like, no, you don't know what's good for you. I really love you and I want to take care of you. So here's the best experience for you. Microsoft is like that parent that's like, you can do whatever you want or like figure it out, be a free spirit. Everyone's just like doing their own thing on their Microsoft laptops, hacking it, creating their own computers.

Joe - 00: 27:35: That particular comparison between those two is a great point because it comes back to that brand perception of Microsoft. The Apple brand perception works for you, especially right now where you are in your life and whatever, but that brand perception of Microsoft is very appealing to a whole world group of people. Right. And it's like, not everyone can get away with being the stern parent who takes the toys away. Right. Some people need to be the cool parent.

Jeff - 00: 27:53: Absolutely. Yeah. I went off on a little tangent, but to get back to like the way we perceive a company, because of that, I perceive certain companies as like higher quality based on these experience that they provide. And I think we do that naturally too. Like when we see a website that's clean, minimalistic. I mean, recently I was shopping at a company for new diapers for my kid and their website was so beautiful. I didn't even look at the specs of the diaper, but it was just like all these clean fonts, it's like off white, soft light colors and like these pops of blue. They had this parallax effect going. And honestly, I could probably find a better diaper on like Amazon. There might be a better one at Walmart, but just from the user experience and just from like the way they presented themselves throughout that whole checkout flow, I was like, oh my gosh, this diaper has to be amazing. I was like, you know what? Maybe I should go back and actually like check what's happening with these diapers. But yeah, we perceive good UX as a good product. They took the time to like make this amazing website or this product. And so whatever they're selling or whatever they're offering must be high quality too.

Joe - 00: 28:53: So yeah, I mean, I didn't have a kid and that description of that website made me want to go buy some diapers. So I can definitely see how that works. I guess I perceive it as lots of more traditional businesses suddenly have websites that look like Tech Startups, but like the Mattress Companies are a big one. Like, you know, all these like in-a-box mattresses, you go to those websites, you're like, this is like a SaaS product. This is like a fancy tech startup, but it's a mattress.

Jeff - 00: 29:14: Yeah. And the way they sell it too, it's like, it could literally change your life. You're sleeping like eight hours a day, like a third of your life. And they have all these like funny people, all these funny videos, they're dropping random objects on their mattresses and the mattress could be garbage. And you wouldn't even know because it's like, wow.

Joe - 00: 29:30: The UX to get you there has been great.

Jeff - 00: 29:32: Yeah. Awesome.

Joe - 00: 29:33: So what words of wisdom would you offer to emerging UX Designers or folks who are entering the field who, you know, you get to make their mark on the field and, you know, start their careers?

Jeff - 00: 29:41: Yeah. Two things I'll say is when you're young, obviously be open to learning. A big part of that is having a mentor, finding anybody that can mentor you. So I was really privileged my first job at UBM. I had a designer, his name is Peter Cannizzaro. Shout out to Peter if he's listening, but he kind of took me under his wings, gave me really good advice and he knew when to critique me and like tell me, hey, this looks like garbage. And when to say like, hey, this is actually really good. Or like, here's a good way to like improve this. And then one of my mentors right now, his name is Chris Merritt at Allata. He's done a phenomenal job with helping me prove my confidence, helping me speak up, helping me share, present a story, all these like little things that you will never learn like a proper design school, but you have to learn on the job. So yeah, shout out to them. Always find a mentor and it'll help you a ton.

Joe - 00: 30:31: Awesome. Yeah. I think that's great advice. Well, we are coming up to time. I want to end on asking you, what are you excited about for the future of UX? We've spoken about a lot of trends and, you know, a lot of the evolution, like what's coming in the future that is keeping you hanging around?

Jeff - 00: 30:43: I think one of the main things that I'm excited about is seeing C-suite level people come from like a design background. And I haven't seen much of it yet, but the role like Chief Product Officer is like slowly becoming a thing or like VP of Design. It's like becoming more common. So I think companies are starting to realize like, hey, we need someone that's just like focused on this. And also companies are valuing UX more and introducing it at the beginning of a project instead of like just at one segment, but throughout the whole product life cycle. So yeah, just seeing more value in design through companies.

Joe - 00: 31:16: Perfect. I think that's a great note to end on. Jeff, thank you so much. It's been a blast.

Jeff - 00: 31:19: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Outro - 00: 31:23: Beyond the Screen: An IONOS podcast. To find out more about IONOS and how we're the go-to source for cutting edge solutions and web development, visit ionos.com and then make sure to search for IONOS in Apple podcasts, Spotify and Google podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Don't forget to click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at IONOS, thanks for listening.