UX Design: More Than Just Making Things Easy with Andy Silvestri

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0:58Welcome to Built Right, a podcast by Hatchworks where we help you learn to build the right digital product the right way. In each episode, we'll deconstruct the layers of successful product development, break down popular trends, and offer real advice to help make sure your product is built right? We may not have all the answers, but we've built a lot of digital products across a lot of industries, and we've seen a thing or two. Let's get into it.

1:33All right, I am pumped to be joined by Andy Silvestri. He's a true master of his craft with nearly 20 years of experience in digital design, including graphic design, creative design, user experience, customer experience, and even product strategy, even ran his own customer experience strategy and design firm field for about 10 years before joining us at Hatchworks to lead our product design practice. And today we're going to get into the crucial role UX, user experience plays in making sure you're building the right solution, which is, that's a big component of built right, but welcome to the show, Andy.

2:12Hey, thanks, Matt. Yeah, Yeah, it's a pleasure to talk with you as always. And I'm really excited to dive in deeper. It's funny you mentioned field. That was like another life. That's actually how we met back in the day when you were running field. Yeah, really excited to get into this. We're going to go deep on UX. Andy is a master of the whiteboard in the workshop. I see myself in awe every time I see him lead a workshop. I'm just like in the back taking notes, like, how is this guy doing this? But y 'all are going to love this episode today. But Andy, let's start off like high level, the tipping point of UX, because it does get confused.

2:50But what's the goal of UX? What's the goal of user experience? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, like, you know, UX is used in a lot of different ways. A lot of people talk about UX, this, that, you know, I think that, you know, there's this general mindset out there that, you know, UX is all about making things easier for your end user, right? and, you know, minimizing clicks and that kind of things. But it's really more about just, I feel, enabling an end user or a user base, right? Like making them have or giving them the ability to be successful in your solution, coming in, doing what they need to do, getting the information or getting this, you know, getting to completion of a certain task and getting out, right?

3:33That's really it. And so obviously ease of use is a factor of that, but it's really more about enabling your user. Because complexity is a good thing sometimes. There are systems that need to be complex because they're trying to convey very complex ideas or they're trying to allow a user to do very complex tasks, right? So it's not just about how many clicks can we minimize or, you know, how can we combine things so that it's in one place? It's, again, just all about that enablement. Yeah, that's great insight. And that's a big thing. It's like everybody's trying to get to let's make this super easy, you know, super painless.

4:08Yes, that's good. But I mean, some systems can be complex. It's like, how do you make the complex simple? And that can be a difficult thing to do. That takes a lot of hard work on the research side of it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you touched on a key point there. I think that obviously, the further you get in a system, the more complex it becomes. systems, the more, I guess, specialized whatever it is that you're doing for your users is, the more you need to understand what your users need, right? And you need to be talking with them. So the research component, which I'm sure we'll get way deep in because it's where my passion lies, is a big factor to being successful and to having that validation and that understanding.

4:53And when we talk about the goal of UX, you got different stakeholders. Who are you considering when you're looking at user experience? I mean, people typically go straight to the user, but it's more than that. Who are you like, who's in your thought process when you're starting your research on the user experience side of things? Yeah, so, you know, research kind of goes both ways in the sense that you, you know, you do need to factor in key stakeholders of a business, right? So there is that component of making sure that, you know, whatever you're doing within the system, whatever you're creating for your eventual end users.

5:29Those could be external customers. Those could be internal employees, that kind of thing, right? They're your user. But the stakeholders do have business needs that kind of drive the foundation of a system, so to speak. And so really making sure there's a consistent kind of narrative or a specific kind of objective that you're getting to and having the buy-in of the business is a big part of it. So that has to be kind of factored into, hey, how are we kind of approach enabling our users? As I was saying, what do we need to offer them? How are they successful? What does it mean for them to be successful?

6:08And how does that refer back to the success of our business, right? Our platform, giving them this ability equals something on the business end, right? And it hits the bottom line somehow. So again, And having both of those threads from a research and an understanding perspective is critically important, I think. And again, part of the process is marrying those together into eventually what becomes, yes, the end user experience. Quick break in the pod. If you're listening to this podcast, chances are you've been thinking about how to actually use AI inside your business. And that's exactly why we built the AI Opportunity Finder.

6:45It's a free tool that helps you uncover high impact, tailored AI use cases based on your business, your goals, your pain points, and your industry. No fluff, no generic use cases, just real ideas that fit your business and the ranked by ROI potential. It takes about three minutes to run and it's like having your own personal AI strategist for free. If you want to try it for free, check out the link in the show notes or go to hatchworks.com backslash AI dash opportunity dash finder. yeah and it's you hit on it too like if you're building a solution it's got customers it's got to be viable it's got to make money you can keep continuing to offer this thing to your customers that's that balancing act where if you if you sway one way too much on the user side or one way too much on the business side you can be in a bad spot it's finding that kind of harmony between the two, your user and your business, something your users love and something that your business loves in terms of being viable and, you know, continuing to be self-sufficient in the future.

7:49Yeah. And I mean, having that feedback loop is critical, right? Because what you want to do is of course, you know, have continuous research and be built in to kind of the DNA of how you're approaching the user experience of your product or just your business in general, right? So So at the end of the day, you want to have that feedback loop from customers, users, you know, what are they saying? Okay, how are we kind of bringing that back up the chain and, you know, presenting that internally and either debating that or folding it into existing initiatives or at least having some level of conversation around, hey, this is what our users are saying.

8:25We're looking here, but maybe we need to be looking there because of what we're hearing, you know. So again, it's very important to have that as a, as kind of a backbone of how you're approaching, um, creating the experience, updating the experience, you know, having the experience expand all those kinds of. Yeah. And it's kind of a good segue into the next thing I was wanting to hit on. So you talk about a UX mindset, right? This thing's a mindset. It's not, it's not just reserved for a couple folks in like the, uh, the product designer UX or side of the house. it's a mindset within the whole organization.

9:01Take, take us through that. What do you mean by a UX mindset and go down? Yeah. I think, yeah, I think there's, there's a couple layers to that really. Um, you know, on the surface, there's obviously the, the idea of like, Hey, we want to be presenting a good experience, right? We want to delight customers. You know, you hear that all the time. Um, and then there's like kind of this idea of like, do the UX, you know, like, like just, just UX it. Do it, Andy. Do it. Yeah, just do it. But I think that, you know, like a user experience mindset really starts with that kind of design thinking mindset as well, which is kind of, you know, starting with empathy for your user, understanding what they need, right?

9:42Getting inside of their heads, kind of, you know, walking in their shoes. And a lot of customers, a lot of times, like just assume they know, right? Like they're just like, oh yeah, yeah, we get it. Like that's, that's cool. We're going to just do this because we know that this is what customers want. And they, you know, you start to kind of peel the onion and it's something completely different. Right. So I guess like in a way you start with that empathy, you understand kind of walk in the shoes of your customer, your user. And then from there you start to define and you from there start, you know, you continue to iterate and prototype and present things back to the customers and continue to kind of narrow the focus, right.

10:18Or get more and more validation. And so really like that's the cyclical, when we say a mindset, that's really what you have to have throughout the process of creating your product or your solution, right? You can't just go in with assumptions and, and, and lean on those. You have to have that validation. So the more you can kind of just have that again, as, as a directive, um, of we're going to empathize, we're going to, we're going to get inside the head and try to understand, not just ask them questions, but try to understand who they are, right? Like realistically, like who is my customer? Um, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of emphasis sometimes put on creating personas out of your user base, right?

10:55And that's a great tool for organizations that need to have kind of that crystallization of understanding. But at the end of the day, it doesn't have to be that cut and dry or that polished. You can just still have, you know, a running understanding and a narrative of like who your user is just by talking to them, right? And documenting that and continuing the process. So that's really what I mean about it being a mindset. It's more about, you know, we're not just here to do the UX, meaning we got, we need some wireframes. We need some, we need some user flows. We need to understand. We need to have that, that understanding kind of be the backbone of what we're doing.

11:31Yeah. We weren't planning on going here, but give me your hot take on personas, the, uh, you know, Jill that's 40 years old and likes, uh, uh, comedy. I mean, I, I think that there, again, they can be very valuable when, especially when you have a larger organization that needs to kind of rally around and understanding and you need to disseminate this persona to multiple business units or multiple groups within an organization that might not be very well, you know, very closely tied to product or design or, you know, you know, the kind of, you know, management side of a product, right? I've seen this happen with large, you know, typically much larger groups, but, you know, you can create marketing campaigns around your personas for internal use, right?

12:13You can do that. And I think it's very valuable in those organizations when you're trying to kind of, again, disseminate a particular perspective on our customers, just so it's top of mind for your employees and the people that are working within your organizations. So again, I think that they have their place. They do absolutely have value. But it's not necessarily something that always has to happen. There's this, you know, there's this idea that even in the early phases of just user definition, meaning that, hey, our users are this, this and this, and we have like, you know, kind of a dossier on them.

12:48Doesn't have to be to the level of it's personified as, you know, you know, like you said, Jill from Ottawa, who, you know, does this or that. Right. So, you know, but I mean, again, to your question, they do have a very real value. And I think they're, you know, an important part of the overarching universe that is user experience. And so much of it's like, what is their goal? What are they trying to achieve? Starts getting into that path of your jobs to be done. That's where you start getting those nuggets of how you, you know, architect and design a solution for your users. And the cool thing, actually, I mean, just to kind of keep digging on personas for a second, like the cool thing is that they can evolve, right?

13:28And so like you can have them established one way from like an initial body of work. And again, if you're keeping that mindset, you're continually doing your research, you're continually talking to customers, you can bring that back into reevaluating your persona. You might've started with saying, hey, this is, again, these are the ways we thought they sliced out. Maybe that's not true anymore. Maybe there's more of a, you know, maybe there's more gray area than you initially thought. Maybe there's more personas that are using your platform, right? Maybe there's more ways in which they're using your platform or your solution that you never really thought of that you're learning again through this continuous discovery and research.

14:02Yeah. And you mentioned a word a little bit ago, assumptions, which great to have assumptions. You got to have some ideas, some hypotheses. I think where we see breakage happen is you're not validating the assumptions. Take me through that. The importance of validating, because I can't tell you how many times, and we've been burned by this in our past. I'm sure you have to do where you think you know your customer and you have an assumption and you run with it. And then you build something, you find out later that it's not the case. Yeah. Right. And again, like that's, that is a very common and it's very attractive way to approach, you know, creating something, right.

14:42Is let's just let, you know, like, let's go as fast as we can. Like, we know what we, we know, we know what we think we know. Right. Um, and it's typically, you know, there's a, maybe there's a perception that to do the proper level of, research and getting the right data to validate your directions will take a very long time or it will be a very significant investment. But that's typically not the case. Realistically, going into even a handful of conversations with customers or your end users can be extremely valuable to getting some level of that validation. And again, there are a lot of thoughts out there around like, you know, what's the proper level of research that you need to be doing?

15:25How many people should you be talking to? You know, going all the way up until, you know, you need to talk to at least 24 or 36. There's usually some divisible, divisible by 12. I don't know. But in my experience, honestly, you know, even after, you know, doing some pretty pointed interviews with, again, your target customer. So that's a pretty big caveat is that you have to you have to be targeted in who you're talking to, right? Which comes with, you know, kind of, you kind of get there from earlier definition. But long story short is if you even talk to like, you know, half a dozen people, six to seven, you're going to start to see themes emerge that should marry to helping validate your assumptions or disprove them, right?

16:07So if you talk to six people and they're going one direction and you were thinking the other, it's a pretty good indication that, you know, you talk to six more or 20 more or 50 more, you're going to get that same kind of trend, right? So, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it's a lot about just, okay, how quickly or how efficiently or how easily, so to speak, can we get people's feedback? Can we talk to them? How can we access our end user, right? Is that a 15-minute phone call? Is that, you know, in terms of if it's an internal project, Can we talk with coworkers who are using this platform or this system, right?

16:49Can we spin up something that's a really low effort, you know, kind of objective really and like get them into just the conversation, right? Like that's really it. I think that it doesn't have to be some big, long, drawn out, like we got to plan out six months of research and we got to do this and that and, you know, but as long as you're staying on top of it, right? And you're not just being like, all right, we did six, we're good. But like you have the ability to continue to do that, right, over the course of your product. Or, you know, I think that that's enough to just keep it going, right?

17:24To always have that touch point and have it again be like we're talking about with being a mindset. Have it be a routine part of your mindset and your approach and your process. Yes. Yeah. So, all right, two separate threads here that I think are really interesting. The first one being you mentioned a minute ago, when people think of UX and starting, like they want to hit the ground running. They want to start giving value. They want to start building. And a lot of people think that the UX side of it is going to slow them down. But talk to that. It's actually a way to save some money in the long run if you can validate some stuff up front versus building, rebuilding, and all of that.

18:00Right. I mean, like I was just saying, I think the temptation is let's save the money. Let's start quick. And let's just kind of, you know, start doing things and creating things, right? But 99 % of the time, if you do it that way without, again, any sort of validation, any sort of, you know, feedback or input from your end user, you're going to be changing things sooner than you think. So you're going to lose that money that you saved up front in, you know, by redoing or having to rebuild or, God forbid, completely, you know, scrap something that you thought was the right way. Right. So, you know, that's just one way to look at it.

18:41You're either making the investment up front or you're making the investment later. And it's much more painful the further down the path you get. But yeah, the pain definitely escalates. So in that same vein, UX can be daunting for a lot of folks that are looking to take this on, bring it into their organization. But it doesn't have to be. How can folks get started? It's the MVP of UX for an organization that has not done it in the past. It didn't have to be this big, crazy thing. Talk us through where's the best spot to get started in kind of a minimal way. Yeah, I would say the best place to get started is to really do that kind of look in the mirror and say, how can we define our end user or end users?

19:30Like really just start with that definition, right? Because they're going to be the ones who are ultimately determining whether or not you're successful, right? So at the very least, drafting that up and saying, okay, this is who we're going for, right? This is our core target, right? And if that's multiple targets, that's fine. Doing the same process for multiple users is fine. Getting that kind of as a baseline is something that's really just about, again, that look mirror the internal kind of like let's let's do this let's make sure that we have the right the right understanding of who we're doing this for who we're creating this for um sometimes you know there's existing users that you have of course that it's easier for certain organizations than others um or you're starting from scratch from a cocktail napkin um you know so from there then it's about okay what are we enabling them to do like i was saying earlier what are the jobs to be done, so to speak, that's a framework that you can use.

20:37What do they have to be doing in this platform, the solution in order to be successful? And can we keep that at a very, can we start to think about what that is once we've kind of defined that a bit? What is that in terms of prioritization? How do we look at that from like a phased approach, right? So we know that there might be a dozen things that this user needs to accomplish to be successful in various ways. But what's the most important thing, that 80-20 rule? Like, what if we were to frame up this 20 % of a platform or a solution? What would give them 80 % of the value of it, right? Like, that kind of mindset, I think, is helpful.

21:14um and all of this is really whiteboard work it's nothing that that needs um a a a a super fancy degree or anything like that it's more conversation and analysis and again like retrospection you know and making sure that all the stakeholders that are involved in this product are present and have and have input right um and again from there you start to get some traction right around who this, who this customer user is, what are their needs and pain points. You might even at this point, you know, if you can bring in some conversations with those, those types of individuals to again, start that validation cycle.

21:53Right. Um, and from there, then it's like, okay, cool. This is framing up as a thing that makes sense. And we've, we've started again to get that, that validation and understanding we're aligned internally. our users who we, who we've, you know, you know, kind of defined have given us this level of input. We can start to look at bringing in the more formal process of let's start to frame up things to show them as prototypes or as wireframes or whatever it might be concept. Let's do that, that high level conceptual work and continue the process. So you're just kind of ratcheting up the fidelity a little bit, you know, but like, it's the same kind of process of like, okay, We started with like just words, you know, we've gotten, you know, we've gotten validation.

22:37We've gotten people involved that, you know, it makes sense to where we're, we're going. Right. Um, now let's start to show them things. Right. And those could be crude sketches. It doesn't have, you know, you don't have to be using fancy high-end tools for this was a lot of, you know, a million tools out there that allow you to do this kind of work. You know, um, that's really the process. And just kind of, again, like I was saying, ratcheting up the fidelity, getting a little bit more and more clarity and validation as you go along and keeping that going until eventually you're like, Hey, this is the system.

23:08And, you know, we have a very clear picture of what we're going to do first. And then you start to get into who of course implementing that thing. Right. So that's, that's where, you know, how UX turns into user interface design, but it also then starts to become a delivery and a development kind of process. So, um, but you can prototype all the way through that, right? Which is great. You can, and you can do so in a very crude manner, you know, if you have to, it's, it's not like, again, like there is a certain level of fidelity that you have to have to show people a concept, right? Um, I guess the one caveat there would be that just make sure that whatever your user is, whoever, whomever they may be, that they can consume what it is that you're presenting to them from a concept, right?

23:51Like, you know, sometimes your user base is savvy enough to understand what you're trying to insinuate through a very crude wireframe or a very rough sketch of something. Other times that might not be the case, right? So you might have to, you know, you might be more successful going into those kinds of scenarios with a more polished, maybe kind of prototype that's maybe more clear and maybe more direct. But again, that's part of you as an organization, starting from that basis of understanding your user and saying, what do they need to be successful and how can we present them options or, or, you know, uh, concepts and ideas, um, that makes sense to them so that we get the optimal amount of feedback in the, in the right way.

24:36Yeah. And you don't, so many good points there and you don't need like this, this focus group thing. That's this big, you know, expensive draw out. Just talk to some customers, start there. And I don't know about you, but for me, it's all about the qualitative. You can only glean so much info from a survey. Yes, they have their purpose, but the qualitative talking, picking up on these nuances, I'm almost thinking we need some type of a guide or tool because you see Andy work a customer interview. It's a thing of beauty. So maybe by the time we air this, we'll have something out there for that.

25:11But yeah, it's powerful and it's this process. And this is where it gets interesting. It gets back to that concept of the mindset, right? This is not a one and done thing. This is not something we do in the beginning. All right, we're done. Move on to the next thing. It's this concept of continuous discovery and continuous delivery on the build side. This is a Tim Herbig thing that I know you're a big proponent of, but it becomes part of the organizations like ethos. It permeates the entire organization. But talk us through that, that concept of continuous discovery. It's it's touch points throughout all of the process.

25:50Yeah, absolutely. And I think what's, what's interesting there is that, you know, at any one time you have those two threads going, you have discovery and delivery, so to speak. Right. Um, and at any one time, they're kind of like one hand washes the other, right. Discovery is being done in a way to inform the next phase of delivery, you know, delivery is being done in order to create artifacts and elements that discovery that could be used for discovery, right? So it's, it's this interesting, like kind of, you know, ebbs and flow. Um, and again, like the intensity of one or the other is, is dependent upon where you are in the life cycle of the product.