the ux matto show

Taking Risks

Duration:: 1h 9m
Broadcast on:: 01 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

In this conversation, Ildikó Tóth shares her journey from engineering to product design, discussing the complexities of design, the role of AI, and the importance of ethics in the field. She emphasizes the need for feedback, accessibility, and mentorship while reflecting on her personal growth and the challenges of the design industry. The conversation also touches on the impact of legislation on design practices and the significance of understanding user needs.

Takeaways
Ildikó transitioned from engineering to product design after discovering her passion for user experience.
The complexity of design increases with technological advancements, requiring a balance between user needs and development.
AI presents both opportunities and risks in design, necessitating careful consideration of its implications.
Ethical design is crucial to prevent potential harms and ensure user safety.
Feedback is essential for personal and professional growth in the design field.
Accessibility is becoming a more significant focus in product design.
Mentorship can provide valuable support and guidance for emerging designers.
Legislation may play a role in holding companies accountable for ethical design practices.
The importance of understanding user needs cannot be overstated in product design.
Personal growth involves setting boundaries and prioritizing self-care.

Chapters
00:00 Baby Open
05:04 The Switch from ENG to PD
09:15 AI Will Fix It! ....
18:40 Risk Tolerance and How Far Can We Push it?
39:31 7 +/- 2 Questions
39:52 What's one thing you would change about your profession?
48:44 What's one thing you wish people cared more about?
52:14 What accomplishment are you most proud of that you weren't paid to do? 55:34 No salsa, mild salsa, or spicy salsa?
55:51 What's your favorite place on earth?
57:49 What do you wish you'd done differently?
01:00:22 What would you do for a living if you left what you're doing now?
01:05:17 What do you hope to not be carrying anymore?

Keywords
Ildikó Tóth, product design, UX research, AI in design, ethical design, mentorship, career transition, accessibility, design complexity, feedback culture

You're a baby, well, the microphone's quite nice. It takes up everything. Build a co. Hi. Who the hell are you? Hi, Matthew. Um, I think you know me better than I know myself. I don't know. You might have said something else. I do, but, uh, alright, I'll take the milica. So it'll go. No, no, I'll let you do it. I'll let you do this. So, uh, so I am a person on this earth and just a person went out of like, you know, feel like I can't say an exact number because there's people being born every second. So yes, many, many people and I am kind of a interesting. I think, I guess to say like my, my background for work, I can just explain that. Um, so I moved to Oregon. I live in Oregon and I moved to Oregon in 2011. Before, before that, it's like a whole other chapter. So I'm not even going to get there, but I moved here and I start. Okay. Go on, go on. Yes, I'm listening. We can go back. You could, you could do like a hobbit. You know, you start ordering rings one and then we can do like the prequel afterwards, but, uh, anyhow. Cast your mind back. The year was 1917. I'm not going to say any dates just to not date myself. I'm sure it'll come out later. So it's fine. Um, but yeah, I moved to Oregon in 2011 kind of on a, like, fine. I'll try it out. I used to live here in middle school. So it was pretty fun. So I had kind of a not high expectations, but I'm still here. Let's say over a decade later. So I guess I must have, it must have been a good choice. I do like it here, but I moved here for a job. So I got hired by Intel, an engineer and I have a background in mathematics. So I guess that makes sense, but I also studied graphic design and IT. So lots of things. I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. Um, and I didn't tell, I just, I really started to discover myself and I realized that I'm not really an engineer fully, like, I could do it, but I just didn't find as much enjoyment in it as I do in now I'm a product designer and product design. But my journey there was definitely not short and it took years and self discovery to, to get there. My first job, I really just noticed that I, I don't enjoy the engineering process itself, like the coding and the debugging and, um, testing. Um, I, it was okay, but I really enjoyed like the, the four parts, which was talking to people that were actually going to use my code and what their issues were. And so, you know, it kind of, it really starts to sound like UX research, right? So, um, so I really enjoyed that and started looking up like, okay, what kind of job does this like more and more is more like customer focused and like thinking about the human, not just like the code itself. So I moved towards product management business, analysis with my, in a data background. And then after that, took a leap of faith left Intel and went back to school. And, um, and it took like a little career break, but really it was just a career transition into product design and, you know, many names has many names, UX design, UI design. I'm sure you could find many diagrams about how things overlap and whatnot, but, uh, made it over there to that side and, and, uh, I was sevenish years ago, six, seven years ago. So I've been doing it ever since I love the process, I love the work. And so I think I found my place, at least for now, AI might change everything though. So I can't quite predict the future. All right, it's just going to change everything and everything's going to be great. And there's, you know, definitely conflicting views on this. Oh, are there? Okay. Well, I mean, we can discuss that at some point, uh, and figure it all out, I'm sure. Sorry, that was a long story, but that was a long story and thank you for sharing it. There's no, there's no length requirements on the show. So it's not like, you know, you've got to stick to a script. That said, uh, the, uh, they're holding a few cards. Yeah. Do you think that's the wrong one? Yeah, animal husbandry. What? Okay, let's go with it. The switch from engineering to product design. Was there like a moment or some experience that said, oh, I want to be go. I want to go do that. Um, I feel like it built up over time. At least I was working. It was a group where we were really focused on like speed and just getting things done as fast as possible. So it was a really, um, like one person just took like an area of interest or an other area of like specialty and did all the tasks. So I was, you know, you could say I was like full stack designer developer, like everything. And we didn't have a UI. So in that sense, it wasn't really like creating a UI. It was creating behavior of, um, like basically it was like air traffic control and deciding which products it was in a factory, right? So factory setting, like which product would get preference and like it was just like this, you know, kind of intelligent thing that had to organize so many different like products, like I'm just, yes, there's like thinking back, there's so many like jargon words that I'm trying not to throw them at you. But in that sense, like I got to do everything. And after a while, I just took a step back and I was like, okay, I've been here, you know, three years or four years. And like, what am I really enjoying out of this job? Like what's, what's my future look like? You know, as you come in as like a first job, you're just like, yeah, I have a job. And you start working it and you're trying to figure out like, you know, how to do your job. And at some point you're like, okay, I think I got this. But like, is this really what I want to do for a long time? Is there are people on my team who had been doing this for like decades? And I'm like, do I want to do this forever? And the answer was no. And so then I was thinking, okay, well, what's next? What do I really like about this job? And kind of thinking through that probably is what sparked that interest of like, okay, what's next? What do I need to do to move on to something I enjoy more than what I do now? Yeah. For me, it wasn't maybe a specific moment, but it was a series of conversations over a very short period of time because I started off as a tech writer. And then so I was writing like online help and manuals for the software that was being designed. And I kept having to explain how things worked. And I was like, well, you know, if this was just designed better, we wouldn't have to explain it so much. And someone said, oh, there's a team at the company that does that. And I said, there's a team at the company that makes this crappy software. Let me add them, not in the let me add them, but like, please, please, may I join? Is it a pay rise? I'll take it. Yeah. And that's how I jumped over because it just was. So different. Yeah. I was like, if we could just fix the screen, we wouldn't have to write the help or at least write as much. And they were like, well, if you're so bent out of shape about this, you go join this team and I'm like, okay, I'll do that. And now I'm a crappy software. Yeah. Yeah, let's not go that. It was. It was good. Yeah, no. Let's be real, even after so long, we are still not making the best products we could be making. There's two main variables to keep track of and. There's just, it's more and more complex as we get more and more technologically advanced. There's more complexity and like personalization and different types of customers. I mean, I forgot to mention currently I'm working as a contractor at Audible. And being in the Amazon ecosystem is just eye opening, like how wildly customized they are. And you know, working at smaller companies, they're, you know, they're just trying to do their best. And they're like, well, is there something we could, like, is there a solution we can use so that it covers everybody, all the use cases, all the type of people that might be using this software and Amazon, it's like, no, we want to personalize for all these different cases. And so, you know, before working here at first, I was like, man, I wish we had more of that. You know, and now I'm like, oh, we need less of it because it just complicates, really complicates like a simple problem. You know, you might be like changing two buttons and you're like, well, for this user, I should say this and for this user, it should be this color versus that color versus, you know, they could just, but you're really just solving one tiny little, like, seemingly simple problem. So that there's a, I don't know what to say, you're just sort of like common, like, maybe known fact that the more complexity you take on as a developer designer, like, basically internalize the complexity, the more simple it is for the customer. But if you don't, if you say, well, whatever, the customers deal with it, we'll just make it simple on our end, they're gonna have a harder time. So there's trade-off and you have to kind of find that middle ground where, you know, like, spending two years to put something out there. But you're also not causing problems out there for your customers to deal with. Right. So. Or the best of both worlds where it takes you eight years to launch and you're also producing terrible stuff that pisses off your customers. So. You're there then, I'm sorry. No personal experience with that. Okay. That's, you know, to your point about, you know, needing it to be one way for some people and another way for others, like, that really is a, is an environment that allows decision fatigue and, um, as a phrase I'm trying to think of, I can't think of it, but basically for the, for the, for the people making this stuff. People just get tired of the making the decisions over and over and over again, especially when you've made the decision already and you have to make it again, because someone got back from vacation and now we have to reopen the issue again, because they have an opinion. And it's just, it's so tiresome that people stop. Over time, they stop fighting, fighting. Sure. Uh, fighting altogether, you know, standing up for what's right, standing up for better ways of doing it. And the focus then becomes how can we just make progress? But I don't know the extent to which that it's, how can we make progress toward a shared goal? That's the part that I think a lot of teams have a lot of trouble with. Uh, it's that, that shared goal aspect of things, especially a lot, or even just across a company, like what is this company trying to do? And maybe that's not your experience, but I do know it's your experience in some things, but, um, maybe not right, right now where everything's all buttoned up. No, I'm kidding. Like, is it any place really all buttoned up? No. No, never. I mean, I've never worked at some place where you come in, everything's just working great. And there's no issues. I mean, that's why you have a job. But AI shouldn't mix that. So it's like, it's like, I mean, or it caused more problems. We have a book club at audible, um, the first book we just started up. Yeah. And it was, uh, more on the AI. It was audio books, of course. Yeah. And it, you know, this is a book that also look up the author, I don't remember, but it has a few look, if you have audible, it's like red colored. I don't know the, so you could look at morality. It's like the booksellers, even like in physical spaces, the booksellers worst nightmare. So I was in two weeks ago and there was a red book on this table. Can you tell me the title? Hey, I'll look at a morality AI that didn't spell morality right. AI, I'll fix it. Yeah, yeah, it's not even coming up. So, and of course I have like a million test accounts. Book club reading the book. Yeah, it's, it brings up so many good examples of how AI has really helped. And also how AI has really not helped. And it's so overwhelming. Like, I think before I listened to this book, I was like, okay, yes, AI has its like practical purposes. And then sometimes it doesn't help because maybe it's just not advanced enough or whatever. But I didn't think too far past it because like, you know, you live your life and you never think about scenarios like that you're not really emboldened. But it gives you like literally hundreds of different examples of how certain AIs have like helped, you know, solve or save someone's life. But at the same time in other cases, it actually killed somebody or, you know, has caused a big detriment. And you're just, as a designer, like, holy crap. How do I, how do I get in front of this? I can't. There's, it's coming way too fast. It has a mind of its own. A lot of times like we're talking about gen generative AI or like even, you know, talking about like cars. I mean, there's many examples out there, but where there's sort of a black box, these are throw information in and then something comes out. And that something that comes out can be very good or very bad. And sometimes you don't have the time to assess that and you just have to make a decision. And that could be dangerous, but yet at the same time. I mean, I mean, this actually really good analogy that I personally like, maybe unbiased, but I rock climb. So there's, there's this concept of are these things called carabiners. You everyone probably knows what they are. And some of them are non-locking. So you can just open them. So those are probably the ones you get from like REI for free or whatever. But then there's ones that are like, you have to lock them. And there's an actual action. There's, there's like a, you've screw it or whatever. You have to, you have to actually do something to lock it. But then there's also ones that auto locks. So it's basically you just do a slightly different motion and it, you can open it. And then when you let it go, it just automatically locks. So I, in my metaphor, that's the, that's like AI, where it kind of just helps you. And in most cases, it's great because you don't have to perform an extra action to keep yourself safe. But in some other cases where maybe someone hands you a different carabiner that doesn't do the auto locking, you forget that it doesn't. And then you don't do the extra thing that you need to do to actually keep yourself safe. And therefore cause one's death or your death or your injury or whatever. So it gives you that help. But then if you have to resort back to a less advanced technology, then you could very easily make mistakes. So what's, you know, what's, what's better? Like we're going forward, it's better to have that help. But at some point, like how much help is too much? And, you know, in some cases, the, the, the rep or cushion, maybe the questions we need to be asking is what is the worst case scenario here? If it's harm to someone's life or like, you know, at that level of like, this is a problem and it can be harmful. Then we need to take a closer look. But if it's not, then maybe we just let it cook as the new generations. Gen Z just tends to say, just let it do its thing. But, um, but no, if it's, if it's dangerous, then it definitely needs more scrutiny. And, and yes, it will take longer to launch something. But we need to be doing that otherwise. Yes, although it's like sci-fi movies will come to fruition. We're like, you know, people are dying left and right because of technology. Anyway, the other questions. I, well, I guess the question. No, what I thought of while you were explaining it is, you know, thinking about the worst case scenario. You know, I've had, I don't know, maybe because of my mentality, just who I am. It's one of the things that I tend to look into is what's the risk with this? What is the worst case scenario? What could, how could this be used to hurt somebody? Every single place I've ever worked, the business, trademark symbol, is not interested in that for the most part. Or, if they're regulated to some extent, then they are a little bit more interested in that. But they really don't want to talk about how their product could be used for ill, or how it could get somebody in trouble, or how it could hurt somebody. And I'm wondering. Why not? Well, because they have to ship. We're, I saw somebody had screenshot of the message, I think from, from Twitter. But some start up person saying we're, we're too busy shipping things to worry about ethics right now. Like our priority is shipping. Our priority is getting our product and our customers hands. Our priority is, and you know, the background there is our priority is to stop hemorrhaging money, just start making money wherever that line is with whatever the company is. But, you know, for the most part, I think the people who are in charge of whatever's being built. And I'm not going to put this on product management, or, or engineering, or whatever. It's, it's, it's a group effort. They're really focused on that. Let's just get it out there and see what people do with it, or, or testing, we're learning. And this just no appetite for, hey, let's slow down for a moment and say, all right, um, what if we give someone the wrong answer and then they use that information. And I'm going to pick on it and they put glue on their pizza so that things stick better. As Google's search AI search stuff has told people to do. And I just, I, I always find it curious, like, have you found any way of like, getting the attention of somebody to think about the consequences of their actions? I mean, in terms of the company, like, actually paying attention to that question is how we can hurt somebody. I mean, so I hadn't really thought about this as a designer as closely as I really should have, I think. Um, but I am definitely like, I've watched the social network. Like, there's been lots of precedence of, like, technologies being out there and causing a pretty horrible issue. And, you know, you could be that, like, person who's like, I'm going to try to, like, avoid that before it happens. But really, you can't prevent everything. But is it, is it going to slow you down that bad to just ask the question, at least make note of it? Even if you do ship your product without actually, like, designing for all these scenarios, it's really good to at least document. And maybe attack each of those possibilities, you know, one every quarter or something where you're actually chipping away at it while you're not blocking it. At least that's kind of how I would approach it, you know, is where you, you know, you have that pressure behind you, sure we're all in capitalism when you just deliver and they need to make money. But at the same time, do we have to say no to, like, absolutely not even looking at that question at all, period? Like, I don't think that's the right answer. Um, and I guess I'll bring up, there's a book I read by, Eva Penzi-Mogue, I don't pronounce her last name, but, um, designed for safety. And after I read this book, this was, it's not that long, actually, I have it with me. It's not that long, but it has an outline process of, like, what you can do to at least do something about it. Like, there's obviously she details the whole process that she recommends, but trying to find the page where it says this, but it's, you could do the first two steps and then stop there. So it, it says the total time of all of this, you know, research, creating archetypes, brainstorming possible problems and solutions and testing it would take three to four days. So is that worth it? I think yes, in not a CEO, I don't think I would ever survive being one, because I just don't think that way. I'm very, I'm much more cautious. I like to sort of see the whole landscape and make decisions based on all the whole picture. And if this is part of the picture, then I want to know about it at least and do something about it if I can. So this book is great. I would definitely read it as if you're a designer, even if you aren't able to implement any of it, just spread the knowledge and it's, yeah, I think it's important. It's just good to think about before you launch something, spend a day or two on it. Like, is that so much to ask? I know. I haven't had personal experience though, like actually getting this through to a small company. In their larger company, I think it's a little bit more easy to get this kind of thing through because they already have a lot of loopholes they have to jump through, so then this isn't really a legal loophole. We have tons of illegal advisors that it is part of our design process when we have any change that's especially like, I think pretty much almost every project I worked on, we had to have a meeting with legal and show them the new designs and the new copy and whatever and just make sure there's nothing sketchy about it, unless it's been previously approved. And of course, then there's new legal legislation coming into effect all the time and that also needs to be considered. So, I mean, maybe it's the answer is legislation, you have to put this in your process. I don't know how you would do it, but to make it streamlined across all companies, but you know, they've already have this like culture of like, we need to make sure we're not causing like a lawsuit to occur, as much as possible. It still happens, but. Yeah, so I wonder, I was thinking about while you were explaining that one of the I don't want to say this, one of the things about, we'll just say broadly being a designer that I think is, I'm going to start this sentence over because that was terrible. One of the things about being a designer is you've got your job description that helps guide what you're supposed to do. And around that is the culture processes, things like that in the company that also guide what you're supposed to be doing, what your expectations are. And I'm wondering if there is a, you know, maybe the answer is legislation, maybe the answer is legal, but I'm wondering if there's a way to, and I don't know, this isn't the best way to put it, but a way to have a career description or a profession description that includes part of your job as a designer is to reduce harm. That's, or I'm sure there's a positive way to say that. Who knows what that is. That's not my area of expertise, because one of the, you know, you just said, you know, not sure how to make that happen across an industry or across a bunch of companies, but like the common denominator of sorts is that there's a bunch of designers that work with these companies. And if I'm not saying union, not not saying union, but, you know, if we could have a way of expressing the importance of this, that is something that everybody's doing. And I know that not everybody's going to have the same level of success with it, depending on if it's your first job, size of the company, there's a lot of factors that go into that. But if we're just continuously expressing these ideals and have that show up in our work, have that show up in our conversations, that we could start edging people toward setting aside a few days to investigate. Even if we find something, we assess the potential risk for it. If it's, you know, medium, whatever that ends up meaning, maybe it is something that gets launched, but you immediately start working on amendments to it to make it better. Because I understand too, you know, the need to keep moving with these things. Although I do think there is a large aspect of this whole, we need you working with a sense of urgency. We need you working really quick. You've got a ship ship ship that it's a bunch of people saying that. And so it becomes true. But the motivation for it, the real reason for it, isn't really there. Like, we don't actually have to go so fast to still ship something. That's not every company, but I think it's more companies than... Yeah, and just being smart about what you're shipping. Because sometimes, you know, sometimes a question like, why is this particular feature that important? And just not really anything to back it up. It's just like maybe the the people running the company think they're important. I mean, in some cases, like you have really smart, really like kind of into people that are leaders that are really good at intuiting like what customers need. But that's rare, I find that someone knows that. So sometimes, like the feature is just like, well, just in case, or like, oh, that's, you know, and so you could really trim down what you're shipping and just make sure that it's the bare minimum of actually the full slice. Like, obviously, you want it to be reliable and work well and cause a little bit of delight, you know, that not just like get boring and functional, but you know, put that in there. And as you were talking, yeah, I was thinking over my career, like at first, like, you know, when I studied UX first, like back, I mentioned, I went back to school and there was not really too much focus on like, for example, all the different aspects of accessibility, or, you know, there's not like a huge focus on copywriting, like copy UX writing. And these are all sort of specialties. So like a bigger company is like, at Audible, we have copywriter, it's more than one now, but there used to be only one. It should be a lot more of them. There's people that tailor there's their, their whole job is to make copy better. And same with accessibility, there's somebody who's like an expert who can just look at a design and be like, boom, boom, boom, these are the things that need to be improved or like annotated or whatever. And I'm not saying like, there should be this person that does the job for everybody. And like, you know, the rest of us can just kind of sit back and let them do their job. In fact, we need to be involved and learn from those people. And that's what the accessibility expert at our team just did recently is say, okay, there's this process. And I think it's an Amazon process. So she just brought it into our team and said, like, this is the process. These are the annotations. These are the things you need to look at. So things like what heading, but the button, actual screen reader might read out, you know, somebody who can't see but is using a screen reader. And it's really complex. So it's like really intimidating. And I felt personally intimidated by like accessibility, like, speaking accessibility, like, what does any of you mean? This crazy, like, there's different disabilities of all kinds. And how do I make sure that I'm checking all the boxes? And there's tools out there. So you can do that. You just have to do it a few times and get more comfortable with it. And then as time goes on, you get better and better and better. And I feel like this thinking of like morality and ethical design and making sure we're not causing harm unintentionally is just another slice. So like, it's kind of like, you know, is this design accessible? You know, there's percentages that 85%, 95%, you know, is there a way to like market? Like, yes, it is. And then is this then through the ethical, like, steps? And if it hasn't, then it's not, probably, maybe it has some loopholes or maybe, you know, there's in the book they describe like specific features that are like at risk for these issues. I think one of them is like authentication. So, you know, if you give access to your account to somebody else or, you know, there's like a share function that's not necessarily constant over time. You might give access, but like, oh, a year later, you broke up with the person, maybe the relationship is soured and therefore you want to remove that. And is there a way to do that? And is there a way to make sure that that person is logged out from all of the devices that, you know, like, is that a step that is part of the software? Another thing is cameras and connection to CarPlay. I mean, there's these like tenants, like, if your product doesn't really have that, then you at least can check and say, nope, we don't have that. So, that's not an issue. And so, so, it's not like you need to, you know, you might get a list of like 20 things, you need to check and like half of them don't apply. So, maybe it's not that complicated, but it can be very overwhelming at first. Yeah, I was thinking that you were saying that, I was thinking about how like long ago it was, oh, this person deauthorized me from iTunes, or, you know, now it's changed their password on Netflix or whatever. I think that's one of the, one of the things I think a lot of companies regardless of their size, level of maturity, when they launch a new product, they really aren't interested in the story of how does this person leave us? Because there's some aspect of the thinking, why would anyone ever leave? This thing we made is great. And also, if they leave, then when we report our numbers of how many accounts we have, like, well, that doesn't service very well for shareholders or for private equity or whatever. But it tends to just come later, if it comes at all sometimes. You know, like Facebook is a good example of this deleting your account on that is very, very difficult. Deactivating it is easier. I remember deleting my account and how hard it was. And when I, for some event that I wanted to go to, they were doing it all via Facebook messenger or whatever it was, you need a Facebook account. So I logged back in, they still had some of my information that they pre-populated. So it didn't delete because, you know, why would we give up that data? And it's just, again, it goes back to this whole, how can we help the companies also have the motivation to support their customers, not just engineer an environment where it's easy to extract money from them? Go. Yeah, I mean, it's not as the whole, but ultimately, like, I think it's not just on designers to push these forward, but there's got to be legislation for some issues. There is a new legislation, I think, related to basically FTC. You need to make it possible for someone to cancel their membership to whatever subscription. And there's millions of subscriptions out there. But there's like rules coming in to affect about, and I think Europe kind of led the way on this. I think there's also a new rule around like, you know, telling somebody that there's cookies being saved. So like, you know, accept the cookies. And, you know, at this point, it's like a knowing where a lot of times I'll say, "Sure," but sometimes I'll say, "No," and sometimes the buttons are like, they say, "Okay, continue," and then the no option is like super tiny, and you can't even see it. There are some cases it's like when you go to the customize your settings, it's like very not friendly. So the fact is there was probably legislation, but the way it's executed is not necessarily defined, and I think legislation, they try to make it such that it's like not super, super rigid so that you can blur it to your situation. Like they don't want to like lock it down to one person type. And I mean, I don't even know how they do this. This is like beyond me. But that's where like some legislation, if there's nothing, that could be a lot worse. But if there's at least something that says like, you need to make it possible for them for a customer to completely delete all their data off your platform. Whether however you do that, it still should be possible. Then that's a rule that needs to be followed. I don't know. And then, you know, if everybody has to do it, then it sort of levels the playing field. So, you know, that like shareholder concern, you mentioned like people leaving. Well, if you have to make it possible, you have to make it possible. And maybe part of the ruling is also like, you have to make it a two-step process or easy or like just as easiest the sign up or the creating in account is. So, there is legislation that can be made. It's just that's a different career that I'm probably not going to switch to. No, no, not time for a career. Okay. I mean, if I get frustrated enough, who knows? There you go. There you go. I mean, ideally you do it before I take your job just saying, but yeah. All right. So, now it's time for seven plus or minus two questions. Are you ready? These are hard hitting gotcha questions. Every single one of them. Especially the four-time, yeah. So, it doesn't have to be anything we talked about so far. Question number one. What's one thing you would change about your profession? Can I ask a follow-up question? Let's see if there's legislation in place. Yes. Yes, you can ask a follow-up question. So, my profession as in a job and I'm doing the job or is it also around or can it be also around looking for jobs that are around or what I need or what it might industry basically? Yeah, I didn't follow that. I'll say it can be whatever you want. When I originally wrote these, I think I intended it to be about what you're doing now. Okay, I got it. But it doesn't have to be limited to that. I'm all about options here for you. Okay. Okay. Just for you, not for any of the other people I had conversation with so far, they're suckers. You're great. You're an edit that outright. What would I change about my profession? I feel like it depends on the job. Like, if you're talking about the current job I have, I'm trying to think, like, is there something across all jobs that I've had where there's one thing that I would change and that's really hard because every job has been so different. I feel like this is very specific to designers and it's like the job interview process. So, I guess it is specific to us. It's so, I feel like, I mean, maybe it's accurate for other industries, but it's kind of crazy because there's some jobs I've, like, I got this job in 30 minutes. I had one 30-minute interview granted it was through a recruiter. But after 30 minutes of just chatting, showing a little bit of my work, like, two days later, it was like, okay, we want to hire this person. Literally the easiest job interview I've ever had, like, pants down. And I was, like, thrilled. I was, like, sweet. That's really all it should take. But in some cases, that's not what it process looks like. So, we have whiteboard challenges, take-home assignments, all sorts of things. And I totally get the purpose. Like, is this person, like, have what they say they do? Like, sure, but at some point, especially when you've got, like, a decade of experience or something, I mean, you probably have more than that even. It's like, why, why would you need to prove yourself in terms of, like, your work quality? Like, if you, like, it comes down more to, like, how you work with the team? How, what is your conflict resolution style? Are you able to switch how you communicate with people because everyone's different? It's those soft skills that really matter in the end. Because if you have a decade of experience, like, you're going to have, you've gone through those, all those motions. I don't know. It's like, I really don't know how to, how, what the solution is, but sort of the problem comes down to, like, why is it so hard to get through a process and land a job and, like, I don't know. It's kind of like dating, so I really don't know how to solve their problems. Okay. All right. I like dating. But that's, that's one thing I was the last time you dated. Come on. It's been a while, but it's still, it's just stressful and you're worried that you didn't have the right make-up on or, you know, whatever. It's like, I worry about that all the time. I hear what you're saying. Yeah. I know. I had a conversation yesterday. You brought your hair. I had a conversation yesterday with a hiring manager for a position. And I think it went well, and that's why I think I'm not going to get it. You know, just because it went too well. You know, it's, you're right. It is a dance that most of the moves don't have to be there. I wrote something like 12 years ago, 10, 12 years ago at the company. I worked at the time how we hire. And it's basically, I said, I know if you can do the job from your resume and talking with you for five minutes, the other, you know, 55 minutes of our conversation or the hour or whatever is really trying to figure out, do I want to work with this person for the next three to five years or not? And that's really all I want to know. And, and I would say as the hiring manager, you're hired. I don't need to put you in front of the team and see what they think, because sorry team, suck it up. You've got a new team member, learn how to work with them. Like I hired them because I feel like they fit in with what we're trying to do. I work together. Like, I don't, I don't need, I don't need their input. And if I do need their input, because I'm down to two people or something, then I'll say, Hey, could you come talk to this person? But this, you've got to talk with 17 people over the course of six weeks, because we're urgently hiring, um, is ridiculous. So please change that. Yeah. And just like a 30 minute example of a different, like my husband's and he just physical labor for the lack of whatever he's basically worse in a van building shop right now. But his interview was literally like, he just went in there and it's like, Hey, I have, I have, I built this van. I'm thinking of making some changes to it. Um, you know, here are the things I'm thinking. So the owner of the company came and checked out the van, which is basically the portfolio. And I was like, okay, cool. Yeah. And here's what I would change, whatever. And this is for real. Like he actually wants to make changes. And, and then he went home and then it was kind of like a networking interview thing. And then later on, he just said, Hey, uh, I'm actually also looking for a job. Like, do you guys have any openings? And he's like, yeah, call me in, you know, two weeks. And oh, he did. And then he went in, basically just started working. And they basically, the first week was essentially like a trial week where they made sure that he wasn't, he didn't like tell them that someone else made the van, like that he made the van, but someone else did. And he was like, actually, does anyone else? Yeah. Like, while we work around power tools. Like, yeah, so it's so different. And, you know, always worried. I'm like, who is going to find a job? Like for me, it's like, you know, you have to send out so many resumes. And he literally just walks into shops and he's like, Hey, can I work here? And like, sure, try, like, come in tomorrow and you can do some stuff. And they kind of just figure it out as as you go. And of course, he gets paid for that day, but it's, you know, if someone's trying to fake their way and they can't. Yeah. Right. So yeah. And that's the thing. Like, you know, I think people who are in knowledge work versus physical labor work, physical work, I think will rationalize that it's different somehow. And that you need to be more thoughtful and then you have to take more time with somebody. But I'm still, you still sign an employment contract that says you work at will and we can fire you for any reason, anytime. Like, if it doesn't work out, you got a thousand applications. You can go look through that and hire the next person if it really isn't working out. Anyway. All right. So well done, both of us, we solved that. Make it faster is what we're saying. The end. Right? Sure. No. Yeah. Make it less painful for everybody. All right. Less painful. All right. So next question. And there's no constraints around this at all. I'm sorry to do that to you. What's one thing you wish people cared more about? I guess improving themselves. People cared more about their effect on others in this world. So equally vague response. I don't know. That sounds pretty specific to me. I mean, you could apply it in any context, whether it's a relationship or friendship or boss and subordinate to the right terminology manager subordinate. Whoever reports to you, yeah, like that relationship, you know, no one's perfect. And I feel like whenever I get feedback on improving one thing or another, I'm like, yes, finally someone's telling me how to get better. So I want to get better over this course of my life. I don't want to just get set in my ways and just like do things the way they are. And sometimes a feedback can be very like hard to take. Because you're like, I've been doing this forever. Why didn't anyone tell this? Tell me this. Like, you know, there's been this parsley stuck on my teeth for 10 years. Like, the one told me like, what the heck? And it's like, you're embarrassed or whatever, how you feel like these feelings that come through. But ultimately, once you get past those feelings, it's like, great, that someone's told you that this is how they feel. And it might be subjective. Like, maybe that person more sensitive to something like some way that you are or something. And that's a moment you can take where you're like, okay, it depends, but still getting that feedback is important. And then sometimes I've given feedback and I've seen like zero change in people's. But other times it's the opposite where someone's like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And then they literally change the behavior overnight. And yeah, I think that, you know, let's all be, I'll be like, nice to each other and kind to each other and think it'll be a better world. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think there's, to me, there's a difference between being nice and being kind. And often nice is a way to avoid being kind. Because kindness is to tell someone they have part personally in their teeth. Because that person is like, well, I'm a parsley connoisseur and I like keep it there. Like, okay, conversation over. That could be a reason for why they do what they do. But, you know, the idea that people don't say anything because they want to be nice, like I feel like that inhibits positive change over time. It's a great distinction between the two to be kind. Because being kind can be potentially hurtful sometimes, hopefully temporarily. But so, all right, next question. You're going to hate this one even more. What accomplishment? Yeah, what accomplishment are you most proud of that you weren't paid to do? Yeah, I became a mentor recently, more officially on ADP list. And I'm not being paid to do that. And I'm proud of it because I was really holding back for probably a little while, because I was worried that it would take a lot of my time. And, you know, I tend to really get into helping somebody out. And the boundaries there can be hard to really set. But I guess it helps that this platform is really, it's good at like telling you how to take care of yourself as a mentor, like not overdo it, not take on too many people. And, you know, I sat down and really thought about it before going out and signing up for it, because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get burned out and it wasn't going to be overwhelmed. And so far it's been working great. And I've mentored like over 500 minutes or whatever, probably around eight different people. And I actually set up this series. So when people book with me, they get three 30-minute sessions. And they're spaced out every two weeks. So it gives me more time to breathe in between them and also gives me time to like, you know, review any like resume or portfolio they have that they might want me to look at or whatever else that it is. And I write down notes so I know what we talked about and then continue on the next one. So I've not been burned out by it. And I've definitely been able to keep it to like one a week type of thing. So it's 30 minutes. Usually we go over by 15, sometimes like we take a whole hour, but it's very limited in time. So I don't have to like do too much prep work for it. And then in between it's limited, I, you know, don't sign up for too much. But I'm proud of myself for two reasons. One, because I actually signed up to do it. Like I was like, okay, I'm going to dive in and do it. And then the other thing is I'm proud of myself for putting those boundaries in place so that I don't get overloaded and overwhelmed, which has been pretty hard as a person who doesn't like to think of themselves first often. And I have to do that more now. I'm also a new mom. So one year old now, so, you know, knowing what my boundaries are is really important so that I can be a better person, better parent, better partner. So that's definitely been something I've recently have developed and still working on it. It's cool. I like that. Next question, this is, this is the hardest question. No salsa, mild salsa or spicy salsa. Mild, absolutely. Okay. Good talk. All right. Next question. What's your favorite place on earth? The North Cascades. Where are those located in Canada? No, mostly in northern Washington, but maybe it would extend if, you know, technically speaking would extend into Canada potentially. So what about the North Cascades? When I go up there, there's usually no cell service. It's super, it's like remote, just the ruggedness of it. Like I could just sit there and look at the mountains around for like a long time and just be happy without doing anything. I mean, obviously when I'm out there, either hiking or climbing, but even if I'm not, I'm just sitting by a lake or camping or taking a break, whatever it is, it's just so beautiful. Like it's, every time I go out, like if I'm stressed out from work or life or whatever and I go up there and I just do the hike or the climb or whatever, by the time I'm done, like, you know, I'm usually sore and exhausted, but on Monday when I start work again, like I'm way more like, I just feel a lot more centered, a lot way less stressed out, way more productive. Like everything about it just improves like my brain function, my body, everything is just set back to like good. So it's kind of like my church or whatever being out there and experiencing that. Yeah, sounds wonderful. Does it involve going outside? Unfortunately, yes, Matthew. Oh, okay. Well, hard passing. No, I'm glad that you have that. So all right, next question. Relative to what first comes to mind when I ask this question, what do you wish you'd done differently? Okay, first thing that pops to mind is I would have gotten it gotten into product design sooner. That's the first thing comes to mind. I think the details have yet to be thought of, but I don't know if you want me to elaborate or just talk about loud about it. Like I said before, like the point of these conversations is I want it to be a conversation between us that just happens to be recorded. So there's no right wrong answer to any of these things. It's more like, if that feels good enough to you, then that's totally fine. Yeah, I mean, career wise, now if I think about it a little bit more, another thought pop. The thing is like anything they go back and change, like it would have taken me down a completely different trajectory. Maybe I wouldn't have met the same people. Maybe I never would have met been to France after college if I had like maybe switched schools because it's one another thing that came to mind is like, I know I didn't really enjoy my college experience that much. I was just like, oh, like I studied hard. I spent my, I did way too many things and I ultimately was just a very stressed out constantly stressed out person and I didn't realize it. I probably could have improved my experience by either reducing some of those things, switching schools, like doing something different. But yeah, I might not have ended up in Oregon or I might not have ended up meeting my husband or I might not have all these things. Like I don't, I just don't know that what would have changed. And actually, there's a great book out there called the midnight midnight library, which I recommend because it totally talks about how, how you change like, basically it does this game of like, what if you change this fact about in the past, like what your path looked like and it actually goes down a story line and I don't want to, if you haven't read or listened to this, then maybe turn this off. But the end sort of just talks about how like the way things are as they are is probably the best outcome anyway. So, so don't, don't worry, just look at the future and look at the past too much. Okay. I don't know. What would you do for a living if you left what you're doing now? I'd like to be a helicopter pilot. Yeah, I think it's a, and not airplanes. I don't care about airplanes. They can't land anywhere and you need to run away and like, I don't know, just airplanes now, but helicopter, yes. All right. Absolutely say more about that. What else do you said? I don't know. What, what's the draw? I mean, I understand planes are dumb, obviously, but what is the draw to being a helicopter pilot? I mean, just how you could see the world from above and that's in itself cool, but you know, it's a lot of times people get helicopters to get rescued or do some like scientific research or I mean, there's obviously very dangerous flights to out there where you have to land a very high altitude or navigate between things that are close together and you have to be really on it and really like focused. And I find that sometimes at work, the opposite of that because there's like 20 things yelling at me at the same time. And it is absolutely exhausting and by the end of the day, you just feel like you did nothing. And you know, the things that make me more relaxed is when I'm completely sounds counterintuitive because you, you know, as helicopter pilots, it's definitely not relaxing because you have to stay in the air and there's probably a lot of variables you have to deal with and that. So it's, there might be 20 things coming actually, but ultimately you have one mission is to stay afloat and maybe go from point A to point B. And I'm not a helicopter pilot. So if you are a helicopter pilot listening to this, like, I might be completely off the rails and I might decide after a year that I don't want to do this. But like, I don't know, my vision of it is, is that it's something where you have to be really focused on the task at hand. And it's not like you're being asked to, you know, design this and answer to these five Slack messages and also brainstorm some new North star idea, like all at the same time. Like, try, you can't, you can't fly five helicopters at the same time. It's not possible. Nobody expects you to do it. But somehow at work, I'm being asked to fly five helicopters at the same time and it's exhausting. So I don't know, it just sounds like a fun change, interesting career. I like that one. All right, well, let's get you signed up for lessons. I did take like a, like a 10 or one hour, half an hour, just like a test flight where there was an actual pilot sitting next to me, but she let me maneuver the time helicopter. And it was cool. That's cool. You have been up in the helicopter, I think once. But not as pilot. No, not as a pilot. I don't think I want to be, yeah, I wouldn't want to be a pilot with passengers. Like, even when I ride my motorcycle, like, unless you're bleeding to death, you're not getting on my motorcycle with me. I don't want anybody else. I don't want to be responsible for someone else's life that way, you know? I don't even like riding with other people, because like, I ride slow anyway. I would do the same thing with the helicopter. I'd be flying slow. I don't know. Well, I guess you and I don't know that responsibility gets me excited of like, I'm responsible, something big, and like, I can do this. And it just gives me that like confidence that sometimes I feel like I lack in the day-to-day work. All right, so more helicopter at work is what we're saying now. Okay. All right, last question. I'm not sure what you said, helicopter or helicopter. I wasn't sure what you said. He, who knows? It's, I've heard it both ways. Okay. Anyway, okay, last question. Thankfully, right. All right, so imagine it's a year from now. What do you hope to not be carrying anymore? Do you want to really literally answer? Why did I agree to do this? As you always ask him, these stupid questions, Elika, what do you hope to not be carrying anymore? Any answer is welcome. Okay, I'll give you the joke answers. Okay. I don't want to carry my then-to-be toddler in a backpack, because she's already getting heavy and my back hurts from this weekend, so she literally had a hike pretty fast, because I'm tired of that. All right, well, we got a year. We can get her set. Yeah, she just started walking. She just started hiking faster than me, so. She just started walking, and she's already running, basically. So excellent. But metaphorically speaking, what I don't want to be carrying, this answer would have, like, I would have actually had a good answer for this, like, I don't know, when I was younger, because I was always, like, worried about what other people think about me, and, like, kind of, like, that little bit of neuroticism. If I said that correctly, so the weight of, like, that stress. And I think, as you get older, you just get less of this, because, after a while, you're just, like, I don't care what people think about me, I'm just the way I am, and, obviously, if I'm hurting something, I'm going to change my behavior, you know, speaking of the earlier chat we had. And maybe there's still some of that sometimes, but that tiptoeing around is just not, like, speak who you are, and, you know, obviously take assess, like, how you're behaving around people, and don't be an a-hole, but if you're kind, and you're a certain way, like, don't question yourself and keep that burden, like, carrying that burden. Just be who you are, and if you can't find a job, just keep trying, because today's work, it is definitely, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's basically my answer. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, old ago, fiddling with something again. Yeah, I know, I know. All right, let's stop talking, then. Have you seen Ted Lasso? Yes, I know. TV series. So we're watching it right now, and it reminded me of the scene where and really bad at names, but basically the assistant coach went over to the other team. So, sorry if you haven't watched this, this might be a spoiler, but yeah, like, when he goes over, and then basically talks crap about Ted, Ted does not attack back. Like, similarly, he just makes fun of himself and wins that way. And I thought that was excellent. So, good job. Well, you're welcome. I am amazing. And that veered too close to a compliment for me, and now I'm super uncomfortable. So, let's really stop talking. Okay. All right. [Music]