Lessons from Filipino Microsoft Imagine Cup Champion & Sakay.ph Co-founder
Episode 007: Problem Solving Unicorn
Philip Cheang is the product lead of Sakay.ph, is a website and business developer, and also a UX and product designer. His passion revolves around problem-solving, whether it’s making games, creating apps, or building websites.
“I really hold a place in my heart for, like, fixing problems, or making something that’s actually a solution to people’s problems.”
Humble Design Beginnings
Philip always had a problem-solving mindset. He started small, with lego kits his parents gave him, which, upon looking back, he considers to be the very foundation of his design mindset. He slowly got into computers throughout grade school. When he got into programming in high school, while studying complex codes and whatnot, he realized that something being easy to use, or something simple is kind of empowering. This was the first time Philip really understood what good design is:
‘Design is important, it’s not just about how something works…if no one can actually use those features, then what’s the point?’
His design philosophy revolves around the idea that design is used to provide solutions for all — it doesn’t have to be too complicated. It has to be available for use and access to all. For Philip, design being overly complicated is a bit elitist. Not exactly user-friendly. We should strive for these things to be more accessible to more people.
In high school, he dabbled in photography and realized that he liked the artistic side as much as he liked the technical side. This was when he realized that he wanted to make games. For him, ‘it’s a meld of both artistic and technical things.’ It was the problem-solving activity, with both the creative and technical aspects hand in hand. It made him wonder how to make something that is appealing, that would lead the user to do a certain thing. Which lead him to wonder how we can build the structure, the technical components, to make sure the idea works.
Career Jumpstart
Philip and his friends, who also happen to be designers, joined a lot of competitions in college. In 2009, one particular competition changed their lives — Microsoft Imagine. It was the same year Typhoon Ondoy struck and it was their problem-solving mindset that realized people help each other out when there’s a time of great crisis. For Philip, ‘these big problems need big solutions but it’s the collective action of many individuals that’s why we decided to make a game about that.’ This idea became the very core of their award-winning game Wildfire.
The premise of Wildfire situates your character in randomly generated cities. In each city, each building had a task you could do in your city with different social issues. You talk to people, gain followers, bring these people to parts of the city and have them work on the tasks, all while you’re spreading awareness about different issues. These issues include universal education, environmental sustainability, and global warming, to name a few. Just like most games, Wildfire has certain antagonists would get in the way, hindering your progress. It’s titled ‘Wildfire’ because you’re talking to all of these people, you’re spreading awareness in a way that would sort of spread like wildfire.
Wildfire won because they had a very deliberately stark and minimalist aesthetic, paired with a clear narrative. It was very evident that they put effort to make sure that the gameplay served that message — from the way that you talked to people, to the visual metaphor of the people in the game being predominantly white-colored become red as they become more ‘aware’ about the issues you’re advocating.
By Implication & Sakay.ph
After college, they realized they could create games like Wildfire for a living. They quickly realized that making games for a living is difficult, especially with the business side of things. The team ended up doing consulting and client work for startups, government agencies, and big corporations, local and abroad. These are the projects that took up most of their portfolio until Sakay.ph — a tool used to make sense of the chaos of commuting here — came along.
Sakay.ph is an app that helps commuters find a route to get to their destination. It started of as their side project after working on it for a competition organized by the World Bank. The concept came about when they realized that when people travel, they almost always use Google Maps, so why not make a more local version that could take into account the chaotic time tables of the different modes of public transportation. Philip and his team simply wanted to help everyday people at scale. For them it was partly passion, partly opportunity, and partly problem solving. A design trifecta.
After the contest, the app got a lot of media coverage and users without much promoting. It was then that they decided to make it a full-fledged product of By Implications. Before that, they simply did the bare minimum to keep it running. Their decision to focus on it made them see how much work they needed to do to make the app simpler to use. They wanted to lay down a good foundation so that whenever they decide to add more features, it won’t just be like slapping them on. The feature would have a place to grow. This meant a complete revamp of the design and the data supporting it.
Here’s what the team learned while working on Sakay.ph:
1. Incorporating user feedback
When working with an app such as Sakay.ph, it’s really important to 1) do a lot of field research and UX research, and 2) communication to the users. Apps like these should always take into consideration the actual experience of the users. The accuracy of Sakay.ph will determine if they get to their destination on time, the amount of time spent on the road, and how much they’re going to have to pay for transportation. Knowing even the smallest of details can make a huge difference.
2. Getting A LOT of feedback
For their Sakay.ph revamp, they had to collect a lot more data. They spoke to the drivers, the people who commute, trying to really understand how else the app can help the users and improve their commuting experience. This also meant talking to the people who actually use the app and get all the feedback they can. Their definition of success for the redesign was that they’d get more feedback. Though getting comments isn’t always positive, this allows for both the UX designers and the users to receive and give feedback, allowing them to improve the app faster and better.
3. Managing expectations
What’s important for the team is that they don’t let people down because when you do, you can really ruin someone’s day without meaning to. It’s especially problematic when you’re working on a commuting app because you’re claiming to really understand commuting and how to improve it. You are essentially claiming to solve a tough problem, so you have to manage expectations. Keep them realistic not just for users but also for themselves.
Making it sustainable
Now that they’re focusing on Sakay.ph full time, they have to make it sustainable. But how? Advertising. They understand that usually it’s not the best answer because people have learned to tune ads out. In-app ads don’t make the same impact as they used to. They also compromise the core experience, their very objective of being on the app because it can take up screen space, instead of more space for the actual map or route.
Approaching it from a problem-solving aspect, they thought of putting up ads that give value. This idea came from an insight they gathered, speaking to a user. They realized that when actual people give you directions, they use landmarks. They also realized that this provides the opportunity for brands to present themselves. Since they’re giving pedestrians directions, they’re giving users and brands help. For example, a user is trying to reach the next bus but it arrives in 30 minutes. The ad will come in the form of a suggestion, telling customers that one of the brands they’re affiliated with is right next to the bus station. Maybe they could wait there? A simple yet value-adding ad can go such a long way.
For Philip you stand to bring more value to businesses by having ads that do matter. People tune out ads that have no relevance so ads like these, though it has a smaller reach, it has higher engagement. It’s definitely better than slapping any random ad. This is one of those cases where advertising can improve the experience more than just being a layer or something that people ignore.
Focus, focus, focus
With Philip’s vast experience, here’s what he has to share with up and coming designers: Better to have just one thing to focus on. At a young age, it’s nice to work on several projects. You get to learn different things with different people, solving different problems, most of which are things you’ve never personally experienced. Take on all sorts of jobs, expand your horizons, step out of your comfort zone, but take the time to find out the thing you want to do the most. Focusing on one project gives you the much needed space for creativity. Once you’ve found your groove, focus allows you to refine that craft. When you focus on one thing, in your down time you can start to have eureka moments. Necessity, after all, if the mother of invention. This focus is where one can learn a lot as a designer.
“Once you’ve found your groove, focus allows you to refine that craft.”
