the interview: Teresa Man

Teresa currently leads design at Superhuman — an email experience for people to get through their inboxes twice as fast. She believes in bringing people together to create a sense of belonging, and is also leading community at Elpha, a private space for women in tech to talk candidly. Previous to that, she has led design teams at a digital consulting agency in New York and Toronto. Outside of design, she is passionate about volunteering, mentoring, cycling, climbing, and all things books.

What made you want to join Superhuman?

I joined Superhuman back in May 2019 as a design lead. When I first came across the website through a “Sent via Superhuman” signature, I was quite skeptical of trying out yet another email client, especially one with a price point of $30/month. I remember arriving in our old office and meeting the team for the first time. It was immediately obvious to me how much energy everyone had towards what they were working on — building the best and fastest email experience. In a world where more and more products are built to drain our attention, I was very intrigued by the team’s passion in designing an experience that makes people more productive in their online world so that they can have a more meaningful offline time every day.

Email plays a huge role in our daily lives at work (and outside of work) — how do you think about designing for a more enjoyable and productive email experience?

It really boils down to one thing — no fluff. This means that our interface will never have superfluous elements that get in the way of what you need to do. In fact, the overall design philosophy at Superhuman is one of minimalism. Actions like triaging your emails and switching contexts are done via what we call Cmd+K, our shortcut central, and we’ve done away with UIs that are inundated with buttons, menus and submenus.

We also introduce an element of joy when you clear your inbox and reach Inbox Zero with photography that’s intended to inspire and delight. Outside of visuals, we think deeply about ergonomics to create a productive email experience that is easy to use. For example, we make sure the starting position of any actions, shortcuts, or gestures is optimized for where your fingers feel most natural on your screen or keyboard.

With the shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, have you noticed any trends or changes in usage of the Superhuman product? Have any behavioral patterns emerged that have you rethinking elements of the current design / approach?

Since pandemic-induced work from home has really taken off, we have seen email usage shift away from mobile and onto our desktop app, which makes sense because people are spending less time outside of their homes and thus on their phones. This shift has led us to some of the design rethinking we’re doing right now. Last August, for example, we introduced the ability for people to create calendar events within Superhuman on desktop, with standard parameters such as guests, location, time, etc. And as most meetings go virtual, we’re building new integrations into our calendar feature to make it easy to schedule with popular meeting platforms.

Zoom has had a huge year in video, while Microsoft is taking a full-stack approach to communication and collaboration with Teams. Where do you see Superhuman fitting on the spectrum of point solutions vs. comprehensive platforms in the long term?

I can definitely see huge and exciting opportunities for Superhuman as a comprehensive platform. With our existing email solution, we have developed a solid foundation of product philosophy that makes Superhuman the most powerful email client in its class. We work offline. We let you take any action from anywhere. We surface smart suggestions about what we think you need to do. Take all of these and apply it to what a series of Superhuman for X could be, and the possibilities are endless. From notes to calendar to tasks, productivity could ultimately mean a world in which all the fundamentals of Superhuman are amplified into a fleet of tools that are seamlessly integrated with each other, and I personally am so excited for this!

Technologies like GPT-3 have made waves for automating web page design, and there’s a debate around whether AI can truly create art. What role do you see AI / automation playing in design over the next few years, if any?

This is a wonderful question, and I have so many thoughts on this topic. First, on what seems to be the perennial question of whether or not AI can truly create art, my thinking on this goes back to Dadaism where found objects like Duchamp’s bicycle wheel and urinal are considered art. If we think about how the definition of art is ever-changing based on its perception and context, then truly, a single line of code, or single character, can be abstracted into art. Now, take the various GPT-3 layout builders where instructional text outputs website and app layouts. Many marvel at the technology but deem these to be uncreative, cookie-cutter templates.

But, I think we’ve forgotten how, on a macro level, designers and artists have constantly recycled ideas and adopted emerging trends. As hard as we try, there is an inevitable sameness at times across work like websites, landing pages, and brand marketing. So while an automated design may seem pedestrian at the moment, it does not at all preclude another designer from taking the same problem, solving it the same way, and including it in their portfolio as a design piece. All that is to say, I think in the philosophical debate of whether or not AI can be inherently creative, the conversation is sometimes centred too much on the source (machine or human) or process (algorithm or intuition) and not enough on the outcome. At the end of the day, we’re all problem-solving in our own ways, which is what design and creativity really distills to.

As for where I see automated design going in the next few years, I am most interested in initiatives like Project Phoebe from some years ago that explore the concept of mutative design, in which an experience adapts to physical and behavioral inputs from its user and its environment. We see this already with devices adjusting screen brightness based on ambient light, interfaces supersizing buttons based on detection of in-vehicle bluetooth connections, and perhaps one that everyone is familiar with: websites and applications responding to viewport sizes. A more evolved version of mutative design could present opportunities for better accessibility, with a focus on behavioral inputs. For example, imprecision in inputs could automatically increase tap target sizes or visually, the UI itself. Weak taps from those with limited dexterity could adjust the threshold of force needed on the device for a tap to be registered. Overall, I’m excited to see how innovation in AI can bring forth more experiences that are inclusive of everyone’s physical abilities and environmental constraints.

We’ve talked about productivity tools and artificial intelligence, but the future of work is obviously a much broader category that can span everything from benefits to solutions serving deskless workers. What trends are you most excited about in the future of work right now?

There have been many articles and studies that shed light on the disproportionately negative effect that the current era of remote work has on women. Because we tend to take on more of the domestic burden and childcare duties within our households, not going into an office isn’t necessarily something that presents a positive impact for us. Also, many women may have a limited physical presence in the workplace as we continue to stay home in a post-pandemic world. For these reasons, I am most excited about future of work trends that are aimed at equalizing gender inequity within our hybrid work/home model, such as virtual education curriculum for children offered by Bümo and Outschool, or collaborative environments like Teemyco, Sidekick, or TeamFlow that has an emphasis on copresence.

What is your favorite company in / around the future of work (besides Superhuman)?

Can I cheat and give two answers? :) From a tooling perspective, I use Height to manage my tasks. From the years of me trying out a gamut of task apps and to-do lists and then abandoning them a couple months later, Height is thus far one that I have continued to use and am very happy with due to its collaborative nature, ease of use and ~surprise~, a shortcut-oriented navigation via Cmd+K.

From a remote work life perspective, I am a huge advocate for Elpha (where I lead Community). Elpha is an online community for women to share candid conversations about our careers, struggles, wins, and personal lives. Having a space like Elpha is, to me, especially important as women navigate the world of working from home and balance that with the realities of our world, politics, relationships, and mental and physical health.

Connect with Teresa on Twitter and join the table, a community highlighting women in enterprise and deep technology, to receive interviews, insights, and resources right to your inbox.

Know someone building an exciting new company in future of work? Get in touch @ brittany@crv.com.

Thanks to Shawn Xu for the connections to women of the Anchor List.