User Experience - Beyond the look

Jonathan:

Welcome to CCTalks - The Cleverclip Podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Tilly, and here at Cleverclip, we create animated videos and interactive experiences that help explain a complex topic and inspire your audience with an idea. And we're also doing that in an audio format with our podcast "CCTalks - The Cleverclip Podcast". Now today on the podcast, our complex topic is User Experience or "UX" for short. We're going to help you wrap your head around it and hopefully inspire you to understand it a little bit better. And what better way to do that than with our special guest Milan Vukelić. Milan got his Master's in Graphic Communications at the University of Arts in Belgrade, and then worked as a graphic designer and illustrator, and art director, lead designer, and senior user interface designer. But something in him needed to be let out. Not only is Milan a fantastic designer, he's also a teacher. His itch to teach has been the springboard for his work at techno art Belgrade as a visual design teacher, founder, and creative lead at Useful Pixels. And now lead UX UA teacher at Ironhack Berlin. Milan, welcome to the show.

Milan:

Thanks Jonathan. It's a real pleasure despite the heat.

Jonathan:

It's very hot today. Isn't that? So that was a little rundown from, uh, from your accolades, but why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Milan:

Sure. Um, I think maybe the best to describe myself is, uh, someone that was very bad at mathematics and logical stuff and good at art. So it looks quite easy to determine what I'm going to do in my life.

Jonathan:

Yeah. Same here. 100%.

Milan:

Uh, yeah, so very early I went to design school, uh, something that's I think US equivalent to high school, like 15 years of age. Um, so I started early with graphic design, went to university with graphic design and at one point just converted to the digital ecosystem. Um, started doing websites more, um, and understanding what it means to be a UI designer. Then, uh, UX design. Met some people, went to conferences, you know, like got hooked basically now. Yeah. So that's, that's it's a bit in short. I don't know if you would want it something longer than this.

Jonathan:

Perfect. That's perfect. Well, let's, let's dive on into it. Cause you know, UX, it's such a broad topic, isn't it? And every one of us we've encountered UX, but maybe we haven't even realized it. UX isn't just web design. It's also about thinking ahead or putting yourself in the shoes of the website user and even problem solving how the website user can hopefully effortlessly navigate the website without jumping through too many hoops and clicking around too much. So today in the podcast, we're going to explore the process of UX, the role of a UX designer, the importance of it for business,UX challenges and solutions and the future of UX. But before we go all down the rabbit hole with this one, let's grasp the basics of UX and build upon that, especially for the people that maybe have heard the name UX, but haven't really learned that much about it yet. So User Experience, it's an extremely vast field. So, let's go down to the basics first Milan, what exactly is UX and what disciplines does it encompass?

Milan:

As you said in the beginning, I think you formulated it very nicely. Um, the first sentence. Really. I wish, I wish I did that. Um, yeah, I mean, UX, as I said, is a vast, it's a vast, uh, discipline and it can be anything from using a doorknob to a website. I mean, there's, there's a famous, uh, Norman Doors, um, story, you know, like it's, it's when you ask, uh, the students, uh, you show them like a door with two handles that are implying that you should pull, but it's written push and then you ask the students, what would you do? And everyone says like, just remove the handles. Because like it creates like this, um, yeah, um, confusion in the user. But actually the real answer is you need to go there and see who is using the doors before you make any, um, decisions.

Milan:

So this would be kind of like in short, what UX is about now, you see there's a problem. Um, uh, you, you have some assumptions of what the problem might be, uh, but you should really restrain from trying to get to simple, obvious solutions before going into and talking to the users and observing them what they're doing. So basically, yeah, that's it, you found there's a problem and you want to find a solution. And the solution is found through multiple tools that are, uh, revolving around user centered design or user research. Um, so basically everything that you do, all the solutions that you get are deriving from the data that you got from user research and without user research, there's no user centric design and without user centric design, there's no UX design. So you could say they're definitely connected and they don't belong, uh, without each other.

Jonathan:

You know, I love that example of the, the two door handles and then it says push. And then they say, you know, just remove the, remove the, the, the sign that says push. But, but what you also said, which was, you know, what, if it's not the right door for the right person, what if this is a door for drafts, if they can push or pull that's great, but they still can't get through the door. So the idea of doing the research far in advance to really make it fit to the user, that's starting to click in my brain. And, you know, you were saying all the different words as well, like, um, UI usability, usefulness, there's so many different terms that are being used in the context of UX. So can these words be used interchangeably or do they describe different fields or different things?

Milan:

They can and they do, they are different things, um, and they can be described interchangeably. Um, usability is something that is, uh, let's say like, um, main, uh, decider, if something is well done, because you might have done great research, uh, you might have been pointed really good problem, and you found a really good solution, but the way you implemented it might not work. So the way you did an app or a website or any kind of solution is crucial, which is why we need to test all of these solutions. And, um, before we launch them, uh, for the users, so usability means simply, is it usable or not? So, if the user can simply go through the task and accomplish a task that it's giving are a task that they need to, for example, purchase a book on, on a, on a e-commerce site.

Milan:

So if it's not usable, then you might have a great book. You might have sold a good, a problem for this person, but they couldn't finalize the purchase because usability is low and they would just go and use another website, for example. So usability is really crucial. I mean, actually everything is crucial, obviously, so you can have great usability, but you might not have solved the problem. So you, you might have really great website, super smooth, everything is done perfectly, but you're selling something that no one needs. So this means that you didn't do any, uh, user research or enough user researcher. You went with your gut feeling. Gut feeling is a word that I really don't like using. And I think it should be used less or other business people are using gut feeling all over, um, as kind of something that drives them, you know, like, yeah, they had a gut feeling to do this and do that. Okay, fine. You can care about gut feeling, but you definitely need to validate that feeling and do some research to see if it's right, right?

Jonathan:

Yeah. You can have a gut feeling to jump off of a bridge, but that maybe isn't the best idea.

Milan:

Exactly.

Milan:

Of course. I mean, this is like extreme, of course, but some people have extremely good gut feeling and this is, this is what we call intuition. It's something that we grow with experience with years. You know, it's not useless, it's not useless. Of course it's very useful, but, um, you definitely need to test it out to see if other people feel the same.

Jonathan:

Yeah, exactly. So I wanted to go back to usefulness and this idea that you said about, um, about, you know, buying a book online and the, what would be an idea, just like on Amazon, for example, you know, you, you find the book it's in the, it's in the shopping cart, the delivery status is, is saved. Um, you do the payment and then bam! With one click it's, it's ordered and it's going to be delivered. Is that good, um, usefulness? And if so, what's an of bad useful... .

Milan:

You mean usability, not usefulness?

Jonathan:

Um, usability, sorry.

Milan:

Uh, it's a great example because in the same website, you have great example of usability and really terrible example of bad usability, depending on if you're gonna do, uh, what they call a one-click, uh, something right? Like one-click purchase or...

Jonathan:

Exactly.

Milan:

Um, so if you do the one-click, then everything is fine. Uh, most of the time, uh, but if you go like to the basket, then you are actually exposed to something called the dark pattern. I don't know how much you know about this. Um, it's something that mono... monopolistic companies like, um, like Amazon are doing, um, it's basically using, uh, UX research and UX UX principles against its users. So it's going against old. It's that honest, most of the people that work in UX really want to achieve. So in short, what this means is, I don't know if you've ever tried to avoid buying the prime benefits or to get rid of prime benefits.

Milan:

Um, you should definitely do this as, as a person, you know, you should go and check it out the next time when you want to buy. And if you don't have prime benefits, they're doing everything to sell you the prime benefits.

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Milan:

Which makes you think that actually their business model is not to sell goods, to be for you to become a prime member.

Jonathan:

Right.

Milan:

Um, and, uh, basically you get through several screens of not being able to complete your purchase, but trying to get out of buying prime benefits. So they're stopping you from accomplishing your simplest task, your, your fundamental task,

Jonathan:

Right.

Milan:

To just go and buy.

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Milan:

Most people is, uh, are not using the one-click purchase because you want to always double check if the address was right. Multiple addresses, uh, maybe you are not sure about the price. Maybe you want to get rid of something from the cart. Um, so most of the people actually go through this tedious process of trying to avoid becoming a member. So for example, if you want to click, uh, on, on, no, I don't want to pay for prime membership. It's not written like that. Um, it's written in a really bad, small parts of the, of the screen where it says, I don't want my benefits. So it's not written even like, no, I don't want to buy prime. It says, I don't want my benefits. So you have to think about it and "I don't want it". So it's, I mean, people, my students call this evil, you know, it's not evil. It's just, you know, a monopolistic, capitalist company that can do, and it's not regulated, but it's a completely different topic. And we can also go into and about like how it should be regulated by the government and so on. So this is a good example of good and bad usability on the same...

Jonathan:

All in one. That's fantastic. Now, next time I go into Amazon to buy anything, I'm going to have my eyes open for the good and for the bad. That's interesting. So the next question that I have is, is everybody talking about UX, UI and all these things. And now that you gave this example, we all understand it. Cause we've all gone through it at least once a week, you know, when, when going onto Amazon, uh, we, you know, um, so why did UX become so popular in recent years and when, and how did this need for UX occur? Was it just because we're always on our smartphones and we want things to be faster, better, and more scrollable and clickable? Why did this just become so popular?

Milan:

Yeah. Um, so I think they, they think of UX starting as like early two thousands, uh, like officially. So it's kind of like a young branch of design, only 20 years old. And let's say it's only really known in, in design circles since like 10 or maybe a little bit longer, a few years before that, like, uh, I mean, a lot of places, it wasn't even called UX design. It would be called user research and so on. But like UX design is a term became popular in, in the previous decade, basically. So a little over 10 years or so, uh. Why it became popular is like, because they noticed, uh, the business owners basically to actually decision makers, they noticed that they're really good, um, tools there to test out assumptions. So before you invest money, it's really good to do actually user research. So it proofed itself as a really useful, uh, economically useful tool.

Milan:

So it's simply like this. And of course, uh, the driving machine is, uh, in the Silicon Valley and, uh, uh, the companies, they're all companies that you know about, including Amazon, maybe not them. Okay. But, uh, Airbnb, uh, Tesla, Uber, all of the Salesforce companies from Silicon Valley, they're all something called design driven. So it means that all their main decisions that are being done by actually user centric design, because they are definitely aware how important it is. So the business, business is driving the importance of UX and UX was proving itself to be a very useful, uh, I think this was one of your topics that you mentioned that we want to discuss. Yeah. But like, uh, there's also a little bit of, um, a little bit of a problem with that is, um, not the problem with that. I mean, of course there's another problem with that.

Milan:

Sorry for not being consize here. Um, uh, there's a mystery to me, um, with the smaller companies. Um, for example, uh, I don't know if you heard about probably you have, and many listeners have about McKinsey, um, are doing research all over. And basically they did. They were intrigued to see if actually this UX and UI research due to the thing that it's claimed to do. So they did an extensive research and published an article in 2018. So you can check it out. It's called, I think, uh, the business value of design. On McKinsey website. And it's a really nice article proving in percentages with like clear metric that UX, uh, design and research is actually, um, has a huge return on investment. Wow. So it's proved, it's proven. Um, and with this article, I sent it to a few business people I know I can guarantee you that most of them never opened the link.

Jonathan:

Really?

Milan:

Yeah.

Milan:

Um, so that's why I say it's a mystery to me.

Jonathan:

Why?

Milan:

I think because most people want to go with the gut feeling. You know, most people want to go, like they don't want to interrupt their flow. I understand that, you know, like you were into something, you want to really work on something, you're putting everything there. You don't want some designer, you know, like to, to ruin your train of thought to doing your life, all of your ambition. And just to tell you, like, the idea is completely.

Jonathan:

Yeah. You don't a business owner doesn't want that in their flow. Doesn't want to be told you're going in the wrong direction. You need to follow us. They're thinking this is my business model. You don't, you're just a designer. You don't know anything about my business. Yeah.

Milan:

I mean, I went to a few, um, when, before the pandemic time of, uh, of course, like to a few meetups, uh, talking about like investment and stuff like this, and you can hear like, what is really, um, appreciated. There is always like something. So I'm building, uh, something like Spotify, but, uh, like Airbnb, but, uh, like this famous thing, but with a twist. So this is something that investors are looking for. This is something that they are, um, they're open to hear about because it's a proven model. So, um, they are rather would just blindly give an investment to something that they understand because they're using it then to actually question it with user research. Of course, there's many companies that are doing this great, you know, there's companies and leaders that are understanding, but still I'm saying, uh, like, I'm giving this research to you, someone did it for you. It's free. You can read it. You don't have to even pay for this article. It's a it's by one of the most renowned companies doing research, uh, all you have to do is like, just be open to it and maybe get someone good to do this for you.

Jonathan:

It, it reminds me of that quote from Abraham Lincoln. And I'm, I'm sure I'm misquoting it where he says, if you give me 12 hours to chop down a tree, I'm going to spend the first 11 hours sharpening my ax. And I think there's a lot of people that they'd rather just like you were saying, Oh, it's the new Spotify, it's new Airbnb, or it's like Airbnb, but, okay. I understand that let's jump on board before actually doing any of the research. And this goes into my next question, actually. So this is perfect. So who is, and this is for the people that have no background in, at all of, of, uh, of UX and who are dying to understand how this becomes or how this doesn't become what it is today. So who is usually responsible for the UX within the company you were saying, you know, at, at conferences when people are pitching, you know, is it a subfield of the webpage developer, is the creative department, is it a completely different role. Um, and what diff... and for the tech savvy people, what different business areas does it include?

Milan:

Yeah. It's a, you're hitting the nerve. You know, I'm trying, as you're, as you're giving examples, I'm, I'm getting different answers because like I'm going through my experiences and other people's experiences. And, um, it's difficult to give a concise answer. Um, ideally UX and UI design should be split. Um, and they should be part of a product team, um, or of a team that is dedicated just to build a digital product. So let's say we just talking about the digital product. We're not talking about building doors. Okay. So, right. This is what I'm actually doing. I gave an example from the physical world, but digital is where we live. So, um, imagine, um, just you having a product or website app or something, you need to have a dedicated team. That's going to be a product team. In this team, you need to have someone that's going to do only user research and everything, except for the visual part.

Milan:

Right. Then you need a UI designer that's going to do also UI parts. You might have also a product designer. There's going to be someone that does both things. So, and something we called [inaudible]. So from, from the conceptual part, also someone that knows more about the business, someone that's involved in the whole process and or until, uh, the development process with the developers. Right? So they should be a separate team, unfortunately, in a lot of startups that get money for "Spotify, but" you know, "Airbnb, but" they, um, it's regular, it's still regular that you have only one designer that does everything, including market marketing materials, uh, graphic design, print stuff. I was one of them.

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Milan:

I was one of these people. And it's really difficult when you're inside, like to get a voice and to explain, you know, the importance of it like offering even like, I remember even offering like, yeah, I have this friend he's come for free to explain the importance of UX research.

Milan:

This is when I was not really doing any UX research. You know, I was, I was, I came, come from a visual, uh, background. So I was not really sure about like the research part. I didn't didn't have any experience in it. I just knew how important it is. And I was trying to get people like, like for lunch, you know, too, with my boss. Yeah. Let's get a lunch. And it never happened, you know, like to get someone on board to actually do research while in this example, I think it was really crucial. And unfortunately they didn't listen and it didn't turn out well, um, for, for the organization, I think precisely because of this. Um, so you're asking me, you know, like, how is it ideally, it's how I told you. Uh, but reality is, um, a lot of these companies are not getting, uh, enough designers or they don't get experienced enough designers. You know, they would get someone that doesn't ask for more money, you know? Yeah. And they want them to do everything, you know, everything. And they think it's enough, you know, because they have a website, they are having investments. They have basically, I get somehow going and their goal is usually like to scale up and sell. Right. So they're not really going deeper into, into, uh, questioning the whole business model. So it's a little risky, right?

Jonathan:

Yeah. Well, what I think is so fascinating about what we're talking about today, anybody that's listening to this podcast will see all of that resistance that you've already experienced and say, you know, maybe we should have a listen to more of what UX and UI is. Understand it, more, understand the research behind it. Just before we go into the process of it, because this is where the rubber really hits the road. You said it would be best to have a UX and then a UI designer. So what's the, what's the difference in, in a nutshell, in, in a couple sentences, what's the difference between UX and UI? Yeah.

Milan:

It's very simple. So UX, um, yeah, it's not simple. Sorry. So first of all, like if I would say, uh, about myself as I'm a UX designer, it would be correct because in the end you are designing for an experience. So I am designing experience of, of digital product. Uh, within that experience, we have UX research and we have UI design, user interface design, right? So UX research is doing conducting, um, interviews, uh, observing people, how they're using the product, uh, trying to understand, uh, the user needs and to understand the problem. Um, and then, um, the user interface designer is someone that is doing the visual part, someone that knows also about branding, someone that knows more about implementation, ideally also some coding. Um, so they know how to collaborate with, um, the developers. So, um, this is roughly at, I skipped like a huge part in between, but yeah, UX research basically is like, they don't even need to use the computer.

Milan:

You know, like the tools are like that. You can use everything on paper basically until it gets to the visual designer that has to shape it up to, into a smooth user usable website. Uh, of course he's not someone they should, both of these should know what the others are doing. And a lot of people are like me doing both of these things because they're very compatible. Um, uh, so yeah, I mean, but also like, uh, in regards to, uh, the type of person that is doing this, it's usually quite different because, um, UX research is, um, being done usually by people who are more into general research. Some of that comes maybe from psychology anthropology, even, um, uh, the web development while you, Y it's usually by people who have classic training in art design and so on, like visual art.

Jonathan:

Yeah. So it's sort of like, you know, research and development R and D can be the same, but maybe for the bigger, the company, it's better to have to have two different, different demands...

Milan:

Simply because they can dedicated, right. They can dedicate more time to a smaller task. And I think it's more efficient. Depends on the size. Like you said, you know, like if, if you are a small startup and you still wanna, there's many designers who can do both of these very nicely.

Jonathan:

Awesome. So that was a lot of theoretical background. So let's dive on in, and imagine that we want to build a landing page for the product XY, right. A random company called XY. How does the whole UX look in practice or better said, how can we apply what we've discussed to this example? So what would be a product, a fun product that you would, you would like to, to dive into same example?

Milan:

Something comes to my mind from my recent recent experiences, like toys, let's say toys.

Jonathan:

Perfect!

Milan:

Yeah. Um, are you selling them already or do you want to start selling them? You'd still, don't start

Jonathan:

Let's start from scratch.

Milan:

From scratch. Alright.

Milan:

So before you even start, of course, you would need to see, to do some user research and some desirability testing, you know, before you go and see what's there. First of all, you have to do a little bit of business research and understand that, uh, toys market is huge and there's lots of competition. So this would be kind of like your first test to see like, yeah. Uh, can I do something differently? Yeah. Is there, is there something that I can offer that others are not doing? So then you would do some business analysis. So this is also part of UX. Um, and it's important for, I hope some business owners that are listening to this, like that UX designers are actually very much into, uh, thinking about businesses, um, which is, which is great, because like they can talk about some tools, right. With the business owners, improve (inauditable).

Milan:

Uh, so yeah, if this all comes to, yeah, we can do something interesting and different with the toys. Like it's a huge market and still we can do something interesting. Right. We can attract someone, uh, despite the competition, then you would try to get, to see, uh, to find out who's your target audience. So we would have already an idea about this because you're building a business, you have some kind of a hint, there is something there, right? So you already have a certain, um, uh, user group that you would like to, uh, to attract. And you would find this, you define this target audience and find them and do ask new questions, you know, try to find what their behaviors are, what their motivations are, why are they buying this while they are not buying that, you know, like you would, you would try to find also some public information, see what's selling best why, it's selling so well.

Milan:

And because of these questions, you can ask the users, um, why are they buying this? Like, why, why what's the, what's the job this, this toy is doing for you? Are you buying it actually for your friend or buying a, for your, a child or for a friend's child, you know, like to see what the behaviors are and the needs user needs. Um, and so then you would create from all of these, um, you're using a certain, uh, process called I'm sure that you heard, uh, design thinking process. So it's a five stage process. And the most important part is that is an actual process. Um, and designers who are not working with, uh, (inauditable) process are kind of struggling. I know this because I was one of them without process, you know, you would get a task and then you would design basically something to look good in your portfolio, something specific like you would use colors and fonts. You were like, this is what gives the bad name to designers actually in...

Jonathan:

Exactly.

Milan:

So it's not user centric, right, it's self-centric.

Jonathan:

Exactly. Exactly. And this, this is something that I'm having these aha moments as, as, as you're telling me about this, just saying from a product of, of kids toys, you know, what's the age range? Who is it specifically for? People go, Oh, it's kids from like two to four years old. Yeah. Get more specific. Okay. It's kids from two to four years old that maybe have a learning disability and need, needs specific toys to help their, help them learn in their specific way. Great. We're getting more, more specific.

Milan:

Exactly, more specific. But like one thing is important. Like, are we talking about, uh, making or just selling toys?

Jonathan:

Selling, sorry.

Milan:

So, okay. So of course there's a market. Yeah. For a certain age, most of them don't have such a, uh, uh, a tight market. Most of them are selling for bigger range, but you have also some that sell only for babies of course, and like really specialized. Um, um, but like, if you're just selling, you would probably go for like the whole range, you know, we'll go from the babies to bicycles.

Jonathan:

Right. Um, babies to bicycles. I like that.

Jonathan:

Something like this. Uh, so where was I? Yeah. So you're employing this, the design thinking process, and the first part is, uh, empathize. You want to empathize with the users, like really understand them, you know, to get the feel what they feel.

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Milan:

After that you want to define. So from the empathize phase, you, you gather all of these insights, you know, and then you want to, uh, define and find how to analyze and synthesize all of these findings. Um, and you synthesize them in a shape of, um, certain artifacts, like problem statement, the hypothesis statement. So on you make, um, a user persona is a really popular thing. You might have heard about them, our listeners, some of them, um, that are kind of old there to externalize and not design for yourself, like to think about user, uh, these are the artifacts that are a collection of your insights, basically. So after that only you go into ideation stage where it's, which is usually quite quick, because you already gathered many ideas and insights to kind of like it's brewing in the background, just waiting for like, uh, for the release, you know, uh, handle, like to release all the ideas that you have, where you kind of like also do some drawing tools and, um, brainstorming.

Milan:

So on, uh, to, to get, to generate a bunch of ideas. And then after that, the team usually kind of like identifies, yeah, this idea is really going well with what we found during the research. You know, like most of our respondents say like 60% of them want to buy green toys, you know, like, or I'm I'm of course, um, uh, I'm uh, I'm simplifying this. Um, yeah. And after that only you go into doing any kind of a prototype, any kind of, uh, thing. And first of course, you don't go directly into a building us full branded, polished, feel of a prototype. We do something called the mid-fide. So middle fidelity, where you can like do a black and white website or app, uh, just test out the...

Jonathan:

Yeah. Like a beta test.

Milan:

Not the beta, but like, uh, to test out without being distracted by, uh, the colors and the brand. So, yeah. A nd you can also test this with the users, with potential users to give them tasks. So you want to buy a green dinosaur toy, and then you, this is a task, right. And you give them just that. And then you, you see, like there's really beautiful remote testing. You can send them really nice. Uh good-looking prototype already and tell them like, yeah, try to, uh, uh, finish a certain tasks and so on. Um, and test like prototypes. And only if you, when you went to like a good testing phase of mide fide, this is when you invest time into a Hi-Fi. So like a polished, full color branded version. And after you test this one only, then you go into implementation and it's a really flexible process where you can go and iterate on each of these stages.

Jonathan:

Love that. So that was going to be my next question, but you answered it already. What's the specific steps, you know, and I love it empathize then, uh, define do the, then define then ideate, then the fourth one prototype. And then the fourth one is the, is the test.

Milan:

Yeah.

Jonathan:

That's awesome. And the thing is, like we were saying in the beginning, most people are like, yeah, but I just want a website. Yeah. It's going to be Spotify, but it's like, no, you need to do all these things to get to that point, right. Sharpening the ax 11 hours. So you can chop down the tree if you want.

Milan:

If you wanna make a website, like a local website for moms and dads taking kids to football practice. You don't need this. Of course only if you have a business that you want it to grow, um, then, then you do all of this. I mean, because it takes time.

Jonathan:

Exactly. Now this skill set and with design thinking and everything, that's not something that comes easy to everybody. It's something that needs to be taught. Um, so what are some skills that you look out for when you're hiring a UX designer, other than understanding the five steps of design thinking we just spoke about.

Milan:

So all of these are quite easy to teach someone, um, but what's not easy to teach and to, to, um, express and to show, uh, is like a mindset. So this is what I would be looking for. Yeah. If you have someone that's obviously passionate about something and demonstrating like that, they are capable and really willing to do something. And also very importantly demonstrating a little bit of humility. So not being, you know, very pompous about and too proud about being a designer, and so on. Someone that is, is, has some humility to them. And, um, so like no rock stars, you know, like rock stars are not easy to work with. So someone that also fits the team, someone that fits the mindset of the team. Uh, so these are more important things to me then than skill set, because we have all of these tools.

Milan:

And since I'm teaching a bootcamp that like in nine weeks, I really teach people to be designers. So it's quite a short period. It's showing me that you can teach people in short period, like really advanced skills. Yeah. Uh, but what's not so easy, is this mindset, you know, how to work well with others? How, uh, how to want to share, how to accept and give feedback. Uh, these are the something that we call the soft skill, but it's because it's called a soft skill. It sounds less important. But I think it's not, I think that the soft skills are actually more important, um, than to have someone like (inauditable), sets it down and all like and drum the whole song on the first take.

Jonathan:

Yeah. I think it's something that's so important that if anybody's worked in any team, they understand this concept, right. Being a team player, having a good mindset, there's always that one employee that's always bringing the group down or always complaining. And when they're on vacation or when they call in sick or my goodness, when they leave the job, um, the energy in the, in the group, in the team heals, it gets better. Right. So that, that's, that's such a good answer. What do you look for in a, in a UX designer you can teach skills most definitely, but what's harder to, to grasp is to have to come in, in the, in the get-go with a good mindset. That's an absolutely fantastic answered that question. Thank you for that.

Milan:

Thank you for liking it.

Jonathan:

Um, let's move on over to the importance for business and, uh, and the advantages of, of that. So many of us associate UX as an area that is only concerned for web designers. And, but, but you even said, you know, for businesses, they have to think about this and, and the, the business experience and everything. So can user experience also affect other business areas? Like for example, can marketing managers benefit from UX? And if so, how?

Milan:

Um, yeah. Yeah. Uh, because unfortunately marketing is not driven by design, by UX decisions. Um, the, they should also base, like I told you, um, a company to convert it, to be design driven. Yeah. This also is including the marketing. Right. So if the core company is following a design, uh, then, then also marketing is following the principles of design.

Jonathan:

Um, it's an extension, isn't it?

Milan:

Exactly. It's just part of it. And unfortunately, a lot of these smaller startups, uh, design is part of marketing. Uh, so it's, it's the outlook the other way around. Because they don't see the value of it. And this is, this is a huge problem. If they would see the value there, everyone would do it. But as I told you, like, it's not easy to get this value into their brains.

Jonathan:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing, you know, if you have a great marketing campaign and it's all, you know, uh, explosions and, and fireworks and everything, but then people actually go onto the website or actually go to the product and it's soft, cuddly kittens then than the marketing managers aren't listening to, to the UX design. They're not following through, it's not the extension of the, of the product and the way that the businesses run.

Milan:

Yeah. I mean, the way you explained it is actually quite nicer than the reality, I would say because, uh, the reality is that, uh, uh, a lot of businesses are just investing in, uh, online marketing. So a bunch of businesses, they don't have any original ideas. They don't have any value per se.

Jonathan:

Just throw some Instagram and Facebook ads on it. And they'll go.

Milan:

Yeah, ads like Facebook ads, Google adverts, uh, this is what makes, makes it make the clicks. You know, like if you're ranking high on Google search, then you have a business and this is not an illusion. This is harsh reality. This is what it means. You're high up in Google on the Google - you have a business. It doesn't matter what it is. People don't go on the second page of Google.

Jonathan:

No, no. And I mean that, that's another question that I have with UX and SEO, can Google analyze or filter pages with a good user experience and rank them higher. Does, does having good UX gets you higher up on the first page? Is there a specific criteria that you have to align your design to?

Milan:

Actually there is, and, uh, yeah. Google is also doing this, uh, and this year they had, uh, um, I can, I can, I should be honest. Like, I didn't really follow up in detail to see what it is about, but they're, uh, apparently this year really pushing for like the quality of the UX and usability of the website. It's not something new. They did this before, uh, because people would hack, you know, people would, would do stuff to get better rankings. But when you go to the page, you would see that the pages like unusable. And so they realized this end and because of that, they are constantly updating their terms and like their, uh, their rules for ranking. So they are, I mean, it's, it's not, it's not, um, I mean, it's not that they are, uh, altruistic, I think it just also for them, um, uh, practical, you know, like if, if, um, they're selling, uh, because Google, of course, they're, they're about like, uh, advertising. They're not anything else, right. People think it's a search engine. It's not, it's advertising, it's advertising platform, but if their advertising platform doesn't work, um, if it proves that it's just about the rankings and when you go to a website it's like scrambled, but it doesn't, then it doesn't have a value. So they actually have, because of their own business, they need to follow up on this and to update and to polish, to brush up on their rules. Right. About the rankings. Yeah. Unfortunately I would like to tell you like some concrete things, uh, but I didn't follow up on this. I was really busy.

Jonathan:

It's fine. Because, because the, the, it just makes sense, doesn't it ? With, with user experience, if like, like you said, if, if you click on a link, that's, that's been hacked. It's like, it's going to be number one on Google and people click on it. And it's not a good user experience that reflects badly on Google because the person found that link through Google. So Google of course, wants to make the best connections possible and have the best user experience not only for the end destination, but also going through Google to get to that end destination. Now it's all clicking in my, in my brain. It makes sense. Doesn't it? So UX and SEO are completely integrated and it makes you go make it. This is, could be something also for a lot of marketers or businesses that are like, we don't need UX. This could actually be a deciding factor to say, listen, you don't think you need it, but SEO, Google, if people are, if you're on the wrong end, then, then you're

Milan:

It really is important. Then there's something you, in addition to that, there's something called a UX writing. So it's kind of like copywriting, but for UX, for digital products. And this is really important for the rankings, because the way that you are, um, writing down copy for a headline, how many keywords it has, um, is it actually, uh, corresponding to what you're selling there is really important also for the rankings and also for the usability for your website. And your homepage is also really important how it's structured, because like, it leads you to other pages on the website and by having a really good usability there, it's also good for, for the ranking. So, yeah. Yeah. It's quite important to have someone do, uh, do UX and the UI, uh, properly for your website to exactly be able to rank. So it's not just about paying, right. It's actually much cheaper. I would say to get someone to do it properly, properly than to just throw millions of euros or dollars, uh, on, on campaigns.

Jonathan:

Yeah. Buy cheap, buy twice. Buy properly, buy once. Right. You can make a proper investment. You know, you, you said something that I want to, I want to circle back to, and also add on top of it. You said, you know, you live in the, in the digital world and the virtual world and, and, you know, in the real world, we're where we're living right now. And, and is UX referring solely to the online world, or can we similarly apply it to tangible products in the real world? And if so, how?

Milan:

Yeah. I mean, there's a whole, uh, there's a whole profession called the product design, but not digital product design. It's a little bit unfair, a digital product designed to cover this, you know, so when you say you're a product designer, everyone thinks it's a digital product design. Wow. There's a whole, you know, really old, much older, uh, profession, uh, physical, digital, uh, physical product design, like industrial design, like a chair, you know, like a physical objects. And of course, um, the first user, uh, research came from this profession, um, some, somewhere in the fifties, uh, I think, uh, they started like to involve users while building, uh, the products, you know, before

Jonathan:

Fancy that, amazing concept, right?

Milan:

Before that it was like, yeah, kind of like, yeah, I'm going to make something that like, has a lot of the decoration or, you know, like what's popular at the time, uh, trendy and so on. Uh, but we

Jonathan:

Like it. You should like it too, but not testing it out.

Milan:

At one point, in the mid 20th century, like they really hit off, you know, like those designers started to think about like, yeah, we should maybe get some people to the studio to test, you know, like to test , to measure their heights, for example, to see what the, what the average height, you know, like when they sit, when they use something or for, for objects, like they would test to see how, if they're used well, and so on. So yeah.

Jonathan:

This, this, sorry to interrupt. This just completely is blowing my mind. Cause I'm just realizing, you know, the Eames chair, you know, that typical Eames that swiveled chair and, and, you know, the designers, Charles and Ray Eames, they were like, what's the proper incline dimension or diaconal degree of incline that makes the body physically relax. Let's integrate that into the chair. You know, that's where I go, Whoa, okay. So this goes, this isn't just UX. This is also, this goes way back to what you're talking about. This I'm having all these aha moments. It's fantastic.

Milan:

So, but it goes beyond that, you know, you have, um, what was his name, Serena and the finished designer. He also designed chairs, uh, in the 20th century. Um, he was thinking about the context as well. So it wasn't just about like, yeah, how comfy the chair is, but he was thinking about, I think, um, maybe misquoting by, uh, thinking about the chair in a room, the room in a house, a house in the neighborhood, the neighborhood in a city. So it goes beyond just this one chair. He was thinking about like, where this, this chair belong to.

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Milan:

And who's going to, use it. What's the context for using this chair?

Jonathan:

Yeah. That's beautiful.

Milan:

And this is something that reflects to today's UX, uh, UX design, you know, it's very similar, but just for the digital project, products.

Jonathan:

Yeah. Yeah. Now, this is all fun and good. And we're having all these amazing conversation and it's an, it sounds, you know, fantastic UX is the future, but I'm sure in any business and especially in any design project, there's challenges that come up along the way. And I think like you said in the beginning, you know, UX designers or any, any designers in general, they're, they're always finding the brief is we have a problem and you need to fix it. So are there any certain specific challenges that arise in UX design field and what are some of those solutions?

Milan:

Uh, so we mentioned already some of the challenges and, um, they're not so much within the tools of, I mean, the challenges itself, the challenges itself, uh, within, when you go into doing, uh, the process [inaudible] process, they're all nice challenges, you know, they're, uh, challenges you want, uh. Challenges are outside their external, like you said, misconceptions about what the nature of the profession. Um, or proving the worth the value of, of it to the business people. Uh, another challenge is like getting the right people because sometimes you might get someone that's really good at talking, uh, and seems that they know what they're doing. It's kind of easy to fake a robust process with UX, uh, especially to someone that's not a professional. Uh, so like making sure that all of this research is making sense is a challenge. Um, another challenge is something about, um, pairing up UX, UX, uh, with agile, uh, methodology and with the modern, uh, project management tools.

Milan:

Um, I didn't know how much you and your listeners know about agile and scrum. It's basically sprints that are really, um, the tasks, uh, separate in really tangible, um, little tasks, you know, like everyone in the team has. Um, and everyone is a very, what the others are doing and they're really measurable. Um, and in a sense, look how much time they're gonna take and how much, um, uh, you can charge for that, for this. So it's really like, well measured the whole system while UX is not like this. Exactly. So sometimes if you really want to go and dive deeper into some research, it might not fall into exactly how you imagine that during the project planning. Yeah. So, because of that, like it's a restriction on, on really a deeper, um, on a deeper level of UX research, uh, where you don't have the time to finish up everything you want, but you just have to move on. So this would be kind of like a bigger channel, challenge to the user research.

Jonathan:

That's awesome. That's fantastic. So are there any examples of companies that could optimize business processes and achieve higher ROI because of a good user experience that they're not using now?

Milan:

Too many.

Jonathan:

To list? We don't have enough time to list everything. You see it all over again. Yeah. Yeah,

Milan:

Of course. Like, I don't even know where to start.

Jonathan:

The world needs UX. So what is an example, without naming names, what would be a bad example that you're like, Oh, this drives me nuts because I can't do this with it. Or I look at this and I just go, Oh, they only did this.

Milan:

I mean, coming back to Amazon, I mean the whole website is kind of like, it was evolving slowly because they're really scared of changing anything. You know, if they change just a little smudge, it might mean, you know, 1 billion less this year, it's such a big impact, you know, on changing anything on Amazon. Um, so like those bigger systems, you know, that are slow and slow evolving. Um, but they're already have people working on this, so they are aware of the problem. Um, um, I'm really now trying hard to think of something that can use improvement. Google's product could use improvement, um, and they're all free, you know, and some of them, I really dislike and think their usability is low. Um, I don't know. I mean maybe, I mean, it's easy to judge. It is to say like, yeah, this doesn't work well, well, you don't know like internal process.

Jonathan:

Right. You only see it from the outside.

Milan:

Yeah. Everyone is using Netflix for example. And a lot of time I was really judgmental about like, yeah, they changed this. Like, I really hate how they change it, but actually I'm saying this without really knowing what they're doing, you know, like maybe it's actually good. Maybe not for me, but for some, the majority of users, it's really a good idea because I know for example, Netflix has a really robust, uh, design system and also a really capable team, um, that are also, you can find their, uh, talks online and conferences and you can see like what they're doing. Um, and it's a really smart company. Um, but sometimes it's easy to say, like, I don't like how they did this, or maybe they even didn't do something. Well, maybe they are going to come to that. Maybe there was an (inauditable).

Jonathan:

Maybe it's in the pipeline. Yeah. You don't know what's on the other end, what's in the backend. There's something that, that Netflix just did recently of, uh, you know, I have the tendency to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and then it says, should we play something for you that we think you would like? And I just go, Ooh, they got me. That was a good use, a good UX experience right there. Like they know me so well that just like, should we just play something for you that we think you'd like, I'm like, well, okay, not bad. Not bad.

Milan:

Yeah. Well, there's a few of these, um, these, um, kind of paradoxical, uh, usability gems, like this one, like, uh, out of play, you know, like on Netflix and YouTube and other like video streaming, um, also the infinite scroll for Instagram. These are all like, really incredible usability ideas, but they're not good for the humans.

Jonathan:

Exactly. It's a, it now it's a question of ethics.

Milan:

Exactly. It's a question of ethics. I don't know if you watched the social dilemma and yeah. Um, yeah. Fascinating. Definitely. So it's for anyone that didn't see it, I think it's also very good and it's very connected to what we're doing in UX /UI. Um, ethics is big part of this. Uh, it's a whole topic on itself. It's also the, yeah, we touched on, on the, uh, dark patterns and also like these usability patterns that, that they thought that was a good idea about the end, uh, was devastating for a lot of people to waste a lot of time. Yeah.

Jonathan:

And that's the thing with, with UX, isn't it, you're not only thinking of the dream client and their experience from A to B, but also what happens B to C, C to D what's the entire experience. What rabbit hole does it go down and can it be the most ethically and positive experience of them all, right.

Milan:

Yeah. The chair in the room, the room in a house, the house in the neighborhood. Exactly. Think about exactly how you said, you know, the bigger context around what you're doing.

Jonathan:

Exactly. Exactly. You know, there's a statement out there on the web that says, uh, that in case of a bad user experience, we would immediately notice, however, in the case of a good user experience, we wouldn't be aware of it. Um, I also remember that very similar thing to a, um, an airline company in the eighties that was their, that was their, or the nineties. That was their slogan. You know, when you fly with us, you don't notice any of the bad things because they just don't happen, but you don't notice anything because all the things are happening before you even expect them to happen.

New Speaker:

(cut out)

Jonathan:

So we were speaking about the dangers of ethics and which, which way to go, you know, the chair inside a room, a room inside a house, a house instead of a, of a neighborhood. So let's touch it. Talk about the dangers of homogenization. So in the context of user experience, we can see a sort of, I don't know, like a secret formula that's emerged for a webpage to serve as a successful business tool. So for example, a user-friendly design, there's visual elements, there's a value proposition, it's optimized SEO, and of course, a call to action or a CTA at the end. But how does that affect the creative part for designers? Do you think that all webpages are starting to look the same?

Milan:

Yeah. This is a great topic. Um, and there are many reasons for this, it's real. Uh, a lot of people are writing about homogenization, uh, but we first have to think about like, who is noticing this, are the users noticing or designers noticing? People who actually know about design or, or, or creators like digital creators? You know? Um, sometimes I feel like, uh, some people are asking me and not just my students, but other, my colleagues, it's the same topic. Yeah. But everything is looking the same, you know? And I feel that it's kind of like, um, a graphic designer in them screaming for a poster design for a New York ballet. You know, I'm not really asking yourself, like, who is this design going to be for? When you open a book and read a book, physical book. Right. You don't really think about the font or the the, or typography at all.

Jonathan:

True. Yeah.

New Speaker:

You just think about the content, right? So most of websites actually are like this to the users. They don't think about actively about any design, they just wanna accomplish tasks or find out information. So if we're talking about websites like this, then what's the problem with homogenization. You know, it's a tramp tramping, tramping or trumping, um, creativity. Yeah. Um, what's creativity, you know, like, should you be creative for, for certain websites? No. I mean, you should not be creative. You should go to the robust design thinking process and make something that's suitable for the users.

Jonathan:

Yeah. That's going to fit the user exactly. For the user sense. Not for your own free own (inauditable) sense. Yeah.

Milan:

So this is the first question that we need to answer, but I'd like to, um, to answer like in more general sense, um, it it's quite natural that this happens because, um, as we said, UX, uh, proved very useful and true. So all of these, um, usability, uh, methods that we are, that we were thinking about when we're designing a website or, um, or the tools, anything that we actually use to, to make a good usable website is proving to be a pattern, you know, like yeah. It's proven to on, on e-commerce websites like that, people, when you do a certain thing in a checkout, it's going to be good for majority of the users. So you don't even have to use the research, you know, this, you know, as a good pattern to just replicate.

Jonathan:

Yeah. So this works.

Milan:

Yeah. You know how it works and it works well. And um, all of these patterns emerged, and this is why we have a lot of similar looking websites. Yeah. Another reason is like that there's a lot of templates out there, uh, WordPress templates. Um, there's a, there's a bunch of, I don't want to advertise now. Like there's, there's many companies sell actually like these simple templates, you go on the website, you buy a domain, you choose a template, you have like...

Jonathan:

Click it in and you're done.

Jonathan:

Exactly. Click and publish. Um, and they're all kind of also similar looking. So this is also driving this homogenization. Yeah. Then we have, um, from, from the engineering part, we have, um, something called a bootstrap. And when they, uh, invented it, like this forced the creators to actually follow a lot of the patterns that there, there were there, um, the material design was made by Google to standardize, uh, their products and uh, on the Google play, uh, marketplace, you can, you can see, uh, I mean, there's a lot of rules, you know, when you go to material design, this is a design system and there's a bunch of rules that you have to follow.

Milan:

So it's not, yeah. It's not allowing you to do anything like outside the rules. So standardization, um, and these templates are actually also pushing, uh, pushing for this homogenization. Um, not just the frictional frictionless user flow. It's something that's called. It's a, it's a thing, you know, like frictionless, meaning like people are just going to, without any friction accomplished tasks and by easy, yeah. So this is also something that is part of this. Um, and finally it's also become a mental model for the users. So the users are expecting it to look a certain way. Yeah. So when you go to a certain website or a certain type, you kind of like, if you see something two different, you're going to be reluctant to spend your money there user or trust them. Right. Um, so it's also about these expectations that the user have. Yeah.

Jonathan:

I mean, I think two examples come to mind in two opposing examples. So one example where you don't want too many changes, because then it's going to disrupt the user. It's an airport. Most airports are pretty much laid out the same. So wherever you are in the world, you can go to the airport, check-in go through security, get to, walk through duty free, and then get to the gate and maybe have a coffee somewhere along the lines. It doesn't matter where you want the general basic layout of every airport is pretty much the same. Like what you're saying. It just makes sense for usability. But on the other hand, in the fashion world, there's usually some trendsetter, right? Who develops an extremely creative couture on the runway that nobody would wear on the streets that year, but five years down the line, everybody's wearing it on the streets.

Jonathan:

You know, I think of the movie, the devil wears Prada where Anne Hathaway comes in and says to Meryl Streep, you know, I'm just learning about all this stuff. And Meryl Streep says "stuff" like this, this blue was picked five years ago by Oscar de la Renta. And it trickled down to a bargain basement department store where you fish that blue, blue sweater out, and you're wearing it today. This color was chosen for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff. So it's this, it's this fascinating mix of like, how much do we want to be in the airport where we know how to around it, don't have to think that much, but how open are we to seeing new trends trickle down from these crazy awesome designers to something that might be integrated into, into our day-to-day into UX? What, what's your take on this? Where do you see the trends going without disrupting too much?

Milan:

Well, the trends are, it's obviously very different from fashion industry and...

Jonathan:

Yeah, that's an extreme case.

Milan:

It's really extreme. They're actually dictating, you know, what's going to be on the market. It's, uh, it's just about the brand and the brand value or the color that you mentioned is dictated by Pantone or like which color they're going to produce the most is also based on their, I don't know what they're doing. Like, uh, uh, my wife knows more about this, but like, it's like the more color they have this one is that one they're going to push in the next year. It's not, it's not about like any other value. It's like companies dictating what you're going to wear. In UX, the trends are, um, there's no trends in UX kind of like research, right? There's the trend is always about like getting people what they need.

Jonathan:

Yeah.

Milan:

Very important. Not what they want or think they want it's about what people need. Um, and, but like in the UI, uh there's there are trends of course. And, um, they're changing all the time. Uh, and, and when we're talking about the whole, coming back to homogenization is, uh, this is the UI part, right? Not the UX, not the UX research part. Um, and yeah, it's quite a, quite a lot of trends. If you want to see, what's trending, you go to Dribble. And this is what I tell to my students not to do, uh, because like you get oversaturated with information, you know, when you eat too much candy.They go to get inspiration, you know, quote on quote, which is bad for you. It's kind of like eating a bunch of chocolate and then you feel overwhelmed, (inauditable) happened and it's not helping you.

Milan:

You're not inspired. Or going to a museum, you know, and seeing like the whole Louvre in one day. That would be similar to that. Uh, so to come back to the trends, yeah. There are trends, uh, whether it's going to be like, uh, uh, flatter design or less flat design, or like a skeuomorphic design, you know, they're like looking like something from the physical world, like these are the trends that are kind of like going in circles more or less. Um, this, this last thing this year is really trendy. What's, uh, what's happening in 3D. So 3D illustration is becoming more easy to get to make. So 3d illustration is really trendy. Uh, some certain colors are really trendy. So some, some of these trends are resembling, resembling the fashion industry because they don't do any, they don't have anything to do with usability or, uh, or user needs.

Milan:

You know, some of these trends are just fashion. So it's happening here as well. But I don't like to, uh, to go into this topic and to, to, um, to tell my students to kind of follow these because, uh, they give us the bad and bad name. You know, a lot of, uh, lots of people who think about designers immediately think about people who are good with colors and typography and drawing, which should, we should go away from them away from that and not use the terms like creativity, inspiration, and all of these esoteric, magical thinking properties that they think we have, you know, it should all be based on data and on user centric decisions.

Jonathan:

Exactly. Cause the color that is in this year is going to be out next year. And that means every single year, if you're following all the trends, you're going to have to keep changing that color, that typography, which is not good brand consistency, because you want people to come to the website and get what they need, like you said, but if it's constantly changing, there's no trust there. So the future of UX to wrap this, to wrap this up, what, what future developments good and bad can we expect in the area of UX.

Milan:

Like I mentioned, like there's a, there's an article I read a few days ago, a dear colleague of mine shared with me. Uh, and it's from one of the founders, one of the most prominent figures of, uh, uh, of UX design, uh, Jesse James Garrett. And he made a, an interesting article, um, like I think it was called like helped shape UX design, and I'm, uh, scared of what it's turning into. It was a little bit of radical take on what's going on. Uh, but basically he's talking about like, um, uh, that it's using, you're losing its value by being pushed into the process. You know, being, not the process of design thinking, but like being pushed into the, uh, project management and trying to get everything really measured out. Um, and in, in two sprints. So this is kind of like, um, uh, a problem that we need to deal with and that can also give us bad name because you get, uh, something that seems like a robust process, something that looks like you did everything you did, all the research, you did all the, um, uh, the UI while, uh, but in the end, like, it doesn't work for some reason. And you cannot pinpoint why, why it doesn't work. So this is a challenge and this is also something I don't see, uh, being, uh, easily solved in the future. So other than that, I actually, UX is quite prominent now and has a bright future and we're living in a really nice era for UX. Uh, there's a lot of, uh, jobs there, more and more companies are realizing the value of it. So I hope this is not that we're far from the golden a golden age, but like it's really, uh, doing well in the recent years and still doing well.

Milan:

And the market is really big, um, which is good for me because I'm in education and I like educating people to become UX designers. Um, and you always are fearing that there's going to be too many of them, you know, educated for UX design. So far, it's still not saturated. Uh, but we need to think about like educators, you know, like if we are not producing too many, um, too many professionals there, so this is going to be something that, to see how it's going to develop there's new schools popping, uh, you know, I work in iron hack and it's well established school, um, education company. Um, um, so I can vouch for that one that is doing well and good education. Uh, there's many other schools that I don't know how they're doing. And, um, if, if they have, uh, qualified enough teachers, um, if, if they're, so all of these people that are being produced to coming to the industry, uh, I dunno if, uh, if this needs to be not regulated, but like, um, uh, it's difficult for people who want to come into the industry to decide where to go, because they are not capable of seeing the quality of the material quality of, uh, the teachers that are there and so on.

Jonathan:

Yeah. Milan, this has been fantastic. I mean, from the process of UX, to the role of a UX designer, I love how you said, you know, you can teach them anything, but, you know, do they have a good mindset? From the importance of, of it for business to UX challenges and solutions, and most importantly, the future of UX and at the end of the day, UX is not, it's not saturated yet. So UX is definitely here to stay. You know, some takeaways that I got was most definitely the, uh, the idea of, of design thinking, those five things. And let, go with, go through it with me again. Empathize. Then the second one is Id..

Milan:

No, the second one is define. You need to define all of this empathy empathize. Yeah.

Jonathan:

The third one is idealize.

Milan:

Ideate.

Jonathan:

Ideate, sorry, fourth one prototype, and fifth one is to test. To do it. Right.

Milan:

Um, and then if it works well, you can launch the product. Yeah.

Milan:

Yeah. Of course. Just, uh, just the small clarification. Some, some companies have a different take on the design thinking process. They call it different process, but it's more or less like around four to six steps and they are more or less like very similar. They would make changes based on their internal processes in the company. Not because they want to be smarter than, than, than, than this. Uh, so yeah, it can be called a little bit differently, but more or less it's, uh, it's a similar process.

Jonathan:

To make it work for each, uh, each business's needs. Yeah.

Milan:

Am I allowed to add something to self-promote a little bit?

Jonathan:

Yes, please do anything else that you to want to share with us before we close up.

Milan:

So, um, from there's another, another challenge here, um, in education and that I recognized and, um, it's because we are educating like, um, separately designers and web developers and other professionals, um, but we're not educating them together. So this is going to be my next challenge. Um, I'm for, I formed my own company with, uh, some partners. Uh, so, uh, we are gonna do our really nice and lean sustainable in numbers, um, uh, accelerator for people who already have some experience with design and with front-end development. Uh, and it's, it's about growing empathy between, uh, between them, um, and to understand what the others are doing so they can work better together and come out from this accelerator as like really capable collaborators that understand each other's professions.

Jonathan:

That's beautiful.

Milan:

Um, so yeah, I mean, just in the process of forming this and working on all the details, uh, suddenly I'm leaving Ironhack soon, uh, it's been two years there. It's a wonderful experience I had, but it's time to do something on my own and I like to, I still want to be in the education, but still, but I want to keep working on projects. So this is going to be something like that, you know, uh, being capable, be able to be involved in some really nice projects while teaching is something I'm seeking right now and also teaching a little bit advanced, um, to, to people who already have some experience. So yeah, I mean, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Uh, you can also check out like it's going to be, um, uh, online, I think, uh, before we publish this episode, I hope. It's called musecaselabs. Um, it's in collaboration with, um, use case UX design and technology studio from Stuttgart. Um, so yeah, I mean, we, we really want to do something nice and, uh, and do, uh, a really great experience for educating advanced UX UI designers and web developers together.

Jonathan:

That sounds amazing.

Milan:

Thank you for allowing me to do a little bit of promotion.

Jonathan:

Oh, my pleasure. That's awesome. And it just sounds like the, like the perfect fit, doesn't it in the right direction that you're going in. You said you can teach people how to, how to become a UX designer within nine weeks, but what happens after those nine weeks, right? How do you accelerate it? How do you take it to the next level? And it sounds like you're doing exactly that. Fantastic. Thank you so much Milan for spending time with us today. And I've had so many aha moments for myself, I'm excited to see all the other aha moments I have after the podcast. Next time I go on on the internet and just, like, and when I buy a book on Amazon or when I check things out, I have a much better tuned vision of, of what really is encompassed in UX and, um, how we use it in our day-to-day lives. So thank you so much Milan for spending time with us today and giving us an insight peek into the life of a UX designer and teacher.

Milan:

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure and hope to see you again on this podcast.

Jonathan:

Yeah. And thank you to our podcast listeners for tuning into another episode of CCTalks - The Cleverclip Podcast. Now to learn more about what we do at Cleverclip and how we create animated videos, and interactive experiences that help explain a complex topic and inspire your audience with an idea, hop on over to cleverclipstudios.com. Thank you so much for listening and have a great day.