On adapting your design mindset when working with another culture
Felipe started working at Superb this year. We talked about his experience so far in regards of working remote, and working with a different design approach.
Q. What did you do today at work?
I was adjusting some details based on the feedback I’ve got for some iPad screens. I also updated some components in our design system that were pending, just some buttons with icons. Now I’m talking to you.
Q. Have you always been a UI designer?
Yes, I’ve always been. Since I was a boy I was that student which the teacher always called on to draw on the blackboard. I’ve always loved drawing. Today I don’t draw as much as I would like. My design journey began for real when I joined a band and got tasked with designing the band’s website. I took a course in graphic and digital design, and I quickly realized I prefer the digital part, instead of the graphic. Since then, I have been immersed in the world of digital design, working in the area for over 10 years.
Q. What do you like most about UI or UX?
Well, in my opinion, it is not possible to separate UI from UX — which is why I find the relationship between them most interesting. Today I understand that if you deliver something beautiful without being functional, it’s not much help. Besides that, I enjoy communicating with the user because in UI you already have a baggage of knowledge in regards to design, composition, type, color, etc. It’s kind of fixed knowledge, doesn’t change that much. With UX, however, you are always learning because once you change the product, you reset your previous knowledge.
For me during the user UX part is when I use 100% of my brain and in UI part I relax and execute what I already know.
Q. How does working remotely influence how you work with UX? Especially as a Brazilian designer working at a company with a Scandinavian mindset. What role does culture have to play?
The process here at Superb is a little different than my previous workplaces since I’m remote.
My process in Brazil was before opening any artboard, I would gather as much knowledge as possible on everything done inside the house — all the screens, all the components, etc. After this investigation, I try to map the user’s journey by making a design sprint. That means, using different methods in a short time to get fast conclusions and test them.
We would spend at least a day or an afternoon doing a CSD exercise (certainties, assumptions, and doubts), where everyone says both what they know and what they do not know about the product and the journey. The idea here is to align the knowledge of the whole team and hypothesize problems & solutions.
I think by talking to the user we can understand the biggest flaws of the product.
Let’s suppose that we were able to elect 3 major problems within the team. So, after that, we prototype a solution hypothesis and from there I materialize all the correspondent solutions — bringing it into a more high-fidelity environment. The next step would be to test our creation with the user and iterate the feedback until the team creates a solution considered mature.
Another thing that is important to consider is to keep track of how the user interacts with the product after being implemented, because a lot of things that got positive feedback on the qualitative tests, might not work quantitatively.
Today, working remotely, a lot of this process is split into different departments. The Customer Experience team, the ones talking to the client every day, collects all the requests from clients and once they’ve gathered the most persistent problems, they communicate it to the Product Manager.
From there the Product Manager evaluates, prioritizes these issues and plans any necessary qualitative or quantitative data research.
Right now we are prototyping our solution, and with that starting a metrification culture. Since all we got was legacy now it’s time to tidy up the house. Therefore, our next step is to make product delivery more mature, validate and measure everything. A very positive aspect that comes with this way of working is the speed. We have a very agile culture, so between making a screen, passing the necessary tests, to the implementation of this screen, there is not a lot of waiting. This results in us having quicker feedback and these issues solved in a short amount of time.
Q. So now what are you doing more is taking the knowledge of CX, validating it and creating a solution?
Yes. Because, for now, the usability adjustments are small, we are making more of a visual brand change. We already have very strong evidence, through watching the user navigating and allowing us to define the main pain points.
Q. Now, the aesthetic style here is quite different than the Brazilian one. A more classic, minimalist approach. What is it like for you to work with it?
I’m enjoying it. Here in Brazil, everything is very popular, colorful and full of information. While in Scandinavia most of the layouts are very conceptual and as minimalist as possible. For me, this is very good because it ends up removing certain distractions. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to balance this minimalism and the usability part. Sometimes less is more, but sometimes less is much less.
But I like this line of thinking, and it’s a new learning because I’ve always worked on very popular products, with a lot of drop shadow, gradients, information, and warm colors. What you would stereotypically expect from Latin culture. Here we work with a conceptual product. Our customers are extremely conceptual in their own product delivery, so we need to be able to provide that to them too.
Q. Where do you find inspiration?
When for Scandinavian design inspiration I see a lot about furniture and Architecture. Based on that, I’ve been able to understand the basics and the overall principals about the Scandinavian Design. But there is very little information and content concerning UI using that approach. I have been able to find a lot in CSS galleries like awwwards and by exploring other products made for the scandinavian market.
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Read more at
www.superbexperience.com/blog
