Let the fig leaves fall where they may! A Chef’s Journey into UX
Prior to becoming a UX Designer at Vanguard, I used to be a chef and food stylist in New York City. As you can imagine when I tell folks I used to be a chef…I get a lot of fun questions!
· What made you transition into UX?
· How was working in Michelin star-rated restaurants?
· Food styling? What’s that!? (lol)
Entering the UX industry has felt like a natural transition. As I’ve embraced my past experiences, it’s those moments, working with food, that have made design easy to pick up. Boiling it all down to its core, it’s problem solving… just in a different format, creating something for someone else.
Getting here didn’t take over night, and I find that the journey your career takes, as you move through different roles, companies, and stages of your professional life, is limitless as long as you put in the work. At least that’s how I look at it. My background and my transition into UX give me a unique perspective on how I approach my work as a designer.
Part of my story is linking hospitality and UX together. I do this by referencing a snippet from one of my favorite books, Setting the Table, written by restaurateur Danny Meyer. He talks about a term he coined called enlightened hospitality, commenting on how companies like the Container Store, Timberland, and JetBlue, embrace this philosophical approach to their business. And I quote:
“Yes, they have an excellent product; yes, they know how to deliver, but that’s not what bonds customers to them. It’s the experience. Service is a monologue: we decide on standards for service. Hospitality is a dialogue: to listen to a customer’s needs and meet them. It takes both great service and hospitality to rise to the top.”
What I love about hospitality is that it transcends not only the physical space but the digital space as well.
Take a look at a simple definition of UX from the Nielsen Norman Group, “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
Both the Nielsen Norman Group and Danny Myer underscore the importance of a customer’s entire experience, their touch points, and a genuine commitment to continuously improve through active listening.
At Vanguard, our UX team is a devoted group of problem solvers, who prioritize the needs of our clients, using data-informed decisions that drive business strategy and development. This is a similar concept in hospitality, where we get to know our guests fully.
When I worked in restaurants during our pre-shift meeting, we’d review service notes from the night before, reservations that were made, and other guest interactions, building out opportunities to make their night extra special: a splash of champagne for an anniversary, a candle for a birthday or a complimentary dish. Our goal was always the same, create a menu that anticipates guests’ needs in the hopes of creating a memorable experience for them. Whether it’s for an anniversary, or a birthday, hospitality workers show up for life’s most celebrated moments in the same way that UX professionals show up for clients who invest with Vanguard.
During my culinary career, I focused on delivering exceptional experiences, working at Restaurant Daniel and Gramercy Tavern, but also building out processes for efficiency as a producer at NBC, and learning the art of food design as a stylist at Bon Appetit and Food 52.
One of the greatest lessons I learned and that has helped me in my design career was during an ad campaign for a large retail brand. Our food budget afforded us the ability to create an elaborate kitchen scene with seafood, macarons, and a champagne flute tower. It made you feel like you were in “Beauty and The Beast” in the “Be Our Guest” dinner scene: elaborate, luxurious, and just a bit magical.
The lead food stylist gave me a plain white cake, some berries on the side and simply told me, “Make it look good.” Wrapped up in my own thoughts, I felt stiff, overthinking the situation. With a gentle nudge, she effortlessly laid out fig leaves over the cake and said, “Let gravity do the work.” The design she created was unforced, dare I say effortless. A design process that unfolded on its own but knew took many years of experience to craft. It was then I decided to let go of this idea I was holding on to, trying to make things look perfect.
When we are rigid in what we envision success should be, having a perfect solution or idea in our heads, it makes us miss out on opportunities for growth and what could have taken shape with flexibility.
That inner creative confidence gives us the space to turn our focus from ourselves to the user. Perfectionism, however, can cripple us from building empathy with others and can negatively impact how we problem solve. Overly concerned with our own performance, we neglect the needs and feelings of those around us.
In contrast, embracing hospitality truly means going beyond the surface and striving to understand the significance and impact of our actions. Danny Myer said it best and that the goal of hospitality is when a guest feels like you’re on their side. In the same spirit at Vanguard, we build experiences that connect us closer to the user. It’s not just decorating a cake for them but understanding what it means to them.
For me, the most joyful moment as a chef is sharing food with a group of people I love. Food has that superpower where you can establish intimacy with people you’ve never met before and provide an opportunity to find commonality in others.
I think this is why I’m so fascinated with design. In the same way that food is transformative, design is approachable and helps others feel like they can contribute in some way. The UX ethos is about giving the user an opportunity to have a say in the design of a product.
If you think about it, a tested recipe that anyone can recreate at home is considered good design. A successfully executed food segment on live TV is good design, simply because it’s gone through review and feedback sessions where we’ve identified areas that might sound unclear or confusing. Incorporating variations or substitutions suggested by others, the design acknowledges different journeys, preferences, and contexts. Design is never perfect on the first try.
From a UX lens, what sort of examples can we carry over from other industries and improve user experiences? These ideas are what push design forward. People with unique career journeys and backgrounds help diversify the UX industry, offering up fresh ideas, challenging assumptions, and fueling innovation. Without this, designs start to lose their meanings and we become a monoculture that unintentionally excludes others.
As we continue to create human-centric experiences, I try to draw inspiration from those interactions in food and hospitality, embracing my background and creating authentic stories that resonate deeply with others. When I try to envision what success looks like today, and success in UX, it’s an exciting journey, guided by curiosity and a shared search for better meaning!
This article is part of the “Chart a Course” series, which features Vanguard crew telling the story of the different career pathways to becoming a UX professional.
