ASEAN Tech Interviews #2

iñaki villar
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

In this second episode we are traveling to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to interview Taylor Ling.

If you are Android Developer I’m sure you know him, he was the First GDE of Design/UX in the region. He has been awarded with multiples nominations and awards of his company Fabulous and you can see him in the most recognized conferences around the world. His lectures are the best example to remember us that without designers there is no product.

Malaysia @ Taylor Ling

Hi Taylor, can you tell us more about you?

Sure! I am Taylor Ling, a designer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had some experiences working in 3D printing industry in the past (on UI design for surgeon’s software), then led the design direction in a highly passionated app development house Snappymob, and now co-founded a human behavioral startup, Fabulous, with another 2 co-founders, Sami and Amine.

Fabulous, your company, has received multiples awards, the last one was the nomination of best app on Google Play. Can you tell us more about the app?

Fabulous, at it’s core level, is a habit forming companion that helps people form healthy habits that can stick to their life and achieve a better lifestyle. We approach the problem slightly differently by adding ‘human’ element in it so it doesn’t just feel like a tool to track your goal, as well as carefully crafting the different journey that can help you slowly achieve your goal. We fully understand forming habit is a long process, so we always start small, and slowly you will be able to achieve more throughout the journey. Sami, our CEO, is a behavioral economist always coming up with great content that helps keep our users motivated to reach their goal.

Of course, besides great content, we also putting in a lot of effort in making the design right in Fabulous because we think it’s crucial to deliver the core value of Fabulous.

With which award do you feel more proud?

For the team, we are proud of all awards and nominations. But for me, it’s no other than the Material Design Award given by the Google Design team — it meant a lot for the whole team, but at a personal level, it has a even greater meaning. I am always a fan of Material Design when it came out in 2014, so I am stoked to be recognised in using Material Design for our app — it’s definitely one of the big achievement for both myself and the team.

Nowadays more of the content/conferences are focused on developers, however, we have seen you in the best developer conferences around the world, do you think we should include more Design topics at the conferences?

Absolutely yes! That’s the reason why I wanted to travel around in different dev-focused conferences to talk about design, because I truly believe that design isn’t just meant for designer. It’s crucial for developer to also look into the design world and understand the things that they should be aware of, so a better communication can be formed in between designer and developers, which is important to deliver great product.

I still remember the excitement from the attendees when I was showing the tools of the trade in design in Droidcon Bangkok — I am in love with this kind of sharing session, even though it may have no relevance at all to their day-to-day task, but they get to learn new things and who knows, it may help in the long run.

Do you have other recommendation to have a good synergy with the Design team in our companies?

Communicate — that’s the only way. It’s very important to have both teams sympatise and understand each other to reach the same frequency during the collaboration. Designer doesn’t need to know how to code, but they have to have some logic sense about how things can be done in the coding world. Developer doesn’t need to know how to design most of the things, but they do have to understand some basic design principles so they are able to implement design as intended.

Try to have a monthly sharing session between 2 teams about some interesting stuffs that happened in the design/development world may help create that bonding and synchronisation.

How is tech community in Malaysia?

They are certainly things happening here and there, however, looking at the overview, it does seems that there is a need of effort in pulling everything together to make the tech community stronger and wider. The crowd is definitely there, but the application of industrial standard technical/design knowledges are still scarce, unfortunately.

Some of the biggest companies in South Asia like Grab or AirAsia have born in Malaysia, what makes Malaysia different to facilitate this situation?

This is strictly based on my limited knowledge and personal view — I think one of the driving factor is that many Malaysians have this strong desire for new things/services that can improve their lifestyle, and hence the local market is adequate enough for an early-stage launch and stabilise before going all out to the other countries/regions. You can already see that in the 2 examples that you mentioned — both Grab and AirAsia started here, getting some great result, and pushing towards externally and become successful.

Last year we visited Penang, we were impressed how one non-capital city had an amazing community, what other hubs of technology have Malaysia?

We do have another hub of technology at Cyberjaya that many technology companies are located, as well as relevant government organizations like MaGIC and MDEC, which had many tech events happening around this area.

What are your future plans for conferences/events?

So far there is no plan yet — so if there any conferences that are interesting to have some design speakers, let me know ;)

What is your favorite dish from Malaysian food?

This is a really touch question that I don’t think I can make up my mind to just pick one: Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai, Chicken Rice, Bak Kut Teh, Asam Laksa……

Thank you very much Taylor.

If you want to know more about Taylor and Fabulous check this great article.

See you next month with another Asean Tech Interview.

Check previous Asean Tech Interviews:

Thailand @ Oh

iñaki villar

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