#110 Designing for Impact: Balancing Business, Ethics & the Future of UX with Amy Heymans
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Hello everyone and welcome back to the future of UX. My name is Patricia Reiners. I'm your host and innovation UX and AI design leader from Zurich, Switzerland. Today I'm joined by an incredible guest by Amy Hermans.

Amy has been working at the intersection of design, strategy and future thinking for over 25 years, helping businesses create better experiences while making a real impact. And in this episode, we will dive into some really important questions like how can we balance business success with ethical design?

What does it take to think strategically as a designer and how will AI and automation change the future of UX? And if you ever thought about starting your own design business, Amy has some amazing insights to share. So I really love this conversation and I think you will too. So I would say let's dive right in. Welcome, Amy, to the future of UX. I'm so excited to have you. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm excited, too.

Awesome. Thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to talk about lots of different topics with you like strategy, ethical challenges. But before we are diving into all of that, please do a quick intro, tell the listeners who you are and what you're doing. Awesome. So I'm Amy Haymans.

I've been working at the intersection of design, experience, innovation, and futures thinking for the past 25 years. I have a passion to use the transformative power of design to help people to craft ideas

a bold vision for the future and then figure out how to get there. So I believe in co-creation, interdisciplinary teams, starting with the end. And I've put this passion into practice specifically in health to improve health outcomes and health experiences, in finance to improve financial well-being, and in government to help serve people better.

So it's a very exciting moment, of course, now with everything going on in the U.S. government and with AI. And, you know, as I've evolved in my career, I've been an entrepreneur focused on healthy organizations and growth. And so right now, I'm bringing all of this experience to business to help businesses figure out how

How do we create a virtuous circle between what the business is aiming to achieve and what people want most in their lives so that we get both business outcomes and positive human outcomes? So a sort of virtuous circle that lifts all as opposed to sort of the broken systems that can lead to the downward spiral, if you will.

I think super inspiring and very, very important thinking about the business and the user perspective. How does that work usually when you're working with a client, whatever industry it is? How do you balance success between the user experience, the user, the human, but also the business experience?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we know as user experience designers in the course of any project, we want to make sure the voice of the people we're designing for is heard, is a part of the process, right? And that's at the beginning to understand mental models and contexts.

and behavioral archetypes. And then it's, you know, the feedback loop where we're testing concepts to make sure they're landing correctly. Of course, we're balancing what people say, and then the neuroscience and the motivational psychology, right? Because people are really complicated. So we need to like optimize for that. But we can also do more open-ended research around

What do people want most in their lives? So I view it like layering. There's sort of the transactional elements of how somebody works with an organization, how they interact with an organization. If I have a banking relationship, I want to be able to check my balance and transfer money. But then there's also my financial journey. Where am I financially? What is my financial status? What are my debts? What are my goals? What are my burdens? Where am I hoping to get to?

And in the financial context specifically, helping people to hope for what might be possible, avoid pitfalls, get the knowledge that they need to optimize at certain points. So it's the financial journey. And then the layer above is their life journey, right? Whether they're a student entering their career, mid-career, planning for retirement, dealing with a financial crisis, those sorts of things. And so

When you look at evolving from user centricity to sort of human centricity in terms of human outcomes and impact, you can start to guide clients to be proactive in how they align with those journeys to provide value along the way. And

Proving it out where this is going to get a connecting the dots between leading and lagging indicators, for example, how trust is going to turn into retention and how goodwill is going to turn into brand advocacy. Right. So we can make these changes.

from research to hypothesis to testing to forming the the business case including roi and presenting those ideas to the client so sometimes the client will come with the knowledge that what's good for people is good for business and we want to pursue avenues to move into adjacent markets or expand our service offering to improve these experiences

Other times, teams can sort of do their due diligence sort of behind the scenes or side of the desk to promote these ideas and incorporate them into their work as they move forward.

And do you always use the same layers for each project? You know, like the live layer and like, you know, what you mentioned about the different financial situations from the user. Are those always like the same layers or like how does the layer system works? I'm super curious. Yeah, so I'm a framework junkie. I love frameworks and I will look to learn about all the frameworks and apply the frameworks in my work. I like to develop my own frameworks and

But if you think about people at the center and then you think about it from a systems perspective, right? You have the person, you have their friends and family, you have their employer or their educational institution, you have their community, you have society at large. I also like to look at the systems perspective.

put forward in the book Donut Economics, where it's like we want human vibrancy, but without overshooting the natural limits of our culture.

planet, right? So looking at those things, but then also looking at the elements of the journey and sort of like tearing it out. So it's not always the same, but it's really taking a systems level view at a person, their goals, their needs, and how they're living their lives.

That framework does also apply in health, right? If you think about, I worked for one year at UnitedHealthcare leading their design practice as chief design officer. And so I know that this applies also to health where a health insurer is responsible

helping people hopefully to understand their coverage, to find a doctor, et cetera. And that's the sort of transactional layer where we want to empower self-service. But then again, it's the health journey. Am I concerned about symptoms? Do I have a recent diagnosis? Am I trying to figure out if this treatment is working? Am I taking care of a loved one? And then the life journey. Again, am I planning a family? Am I, am I,

Am I recovering from a crisis or some grief or a mental health challenge in my life? And so it can help you think about things along those lines and have more context around what's driving the experience in the first place. Yeah, I think super fascinating. I have never really thought about those different layers. I think this was super interesting for me. I will definitely maybe do a little deep dive on it and learn more about it. I think it's really fascinating.

Could you share a little bit about the process when you work with clients on really defining not only the layers, but the strategic needs, the user needs? What are some of the biggest challenges when it comes to these strategic decisions? Yeah, it's such a good question. So you have me thinking for sure. So

The hurdles, again, you'll hear me talk a lot about systems, especially in the United States. I'll sort of zoom into health, right? So we have a for-profit health system, though with Medicare and Medicaid, some of it is subsidized by the government. But if you look at the for-profit health institutions, right?

They have the opportunity to help people along their path of health, to achieve better outcomes, to get healthier, to get a diagnosis, to seek a cure, to seek a treatment.

In some aspects, there are perverse incentives where the incentives are not aligned between what a person wants and what an organization wants, where the organization might profit the sicker people are as opposed to profiting the more healthy people are.

And there are those situations and I'm not naive to them. However, there are also situations where if we understand what people want most and we figure out how to help them get there, that is going to create a win-win situation. However, we also have to do it within the constraints of the system and the way it operates. You know, for example, there may be a situation where

a health organization is not able to stay in business if they're paid primarily by insurance because insurance might not reimburse enough for them to provide the value that they could provide and actually save lives. And so what are the different financial models that can be explored? Now you could say, well,

It should be reimbursable by insurance and that should all work out. But the business dynamics at play would drive that company out of business, thereby not being able to provide the value to improving human health and lives. And so all of these things have to be weighted and balanced and hopefully, like I said, find that balance.

um overlap in those win-win situations so this involves analyzing everything about their business the business model where they're most profitable how can they optimize cost how do they look after the health and well-being of their internal constituencies doctors nurses to make sure they're not

burnt out and burdened um so and how do we leverage AI to do that so that we're giving humans superpowers uh so that they have more time to do that to do what humans are best at right which is the the empathy and being there for one another yeah I mean I think 100 that makes so much sense

So there are a lot of designers listening and some are working in strategic roles, but most of them, I mean, heard about strategy, but maybe want to dive a little bit deeper into like strategy or like the strategy part in their design team.

so when you come across those design challenges that you just mentioned what are some of the tools that you use to maybe get a little bit more into the strategic mindset and do it the right way even if you are a designer designers can be strategic but most of the times you you don't do a lot of strategic um decisions so what are you what are tips from you yeah sure um

So I mentioned I'm 25 years into my career and I would say to designers just starting out or mid-career, you know, the world is your oyster, first of all. Second of all, we are so well needed because the way that I view it is that

We're advocating for people that might not be advocated for. If you're working within a business, sometimes the business can lose sight of how people are thinking about the business, what they're wanting from the business, the harm the business might be doing. And

Yes, there's NPS. Yes, there's verbatims. Yes, people call the call center. But it's really hard for businesses to synthesize all of that information and develop a point of view on what is the biggest pain point? Where should we focus? So I view people who are taking a human-centered lens, designers, user experience people, we are advocates for the human beings who are affected by this business.

Okay, and so we can bring that empathy, that superpower and infuse it into the organizations we work with, business, nonprofit, government. We are so well needed and let's not ever forget that. And so in any situation, whether it's small or large, we can bring that advocacy, but

not with an idealism where our consideration of the business is completely absent. In order for this business to have an impact,

It has to stay in business. And so to understand the measures that matter most to the business, to understand how the business works, its financial cycle, how decisions are made, who are the people in a position of influence and power, making friends with those people, giving them PowerPoints for goodness sake, so that they can tell good stories and make good things happen. So being really businesslike

business aware, business savvy. I think as designers, we can be idealist and be sort of like, you know, anti-capitalism and I totally get it, but let's work within the systems that exist, okay, to make the good things happen. I would love to sometimes, you know, blow it all up and start all over again, but the reality is that we need to do the best we can with what we have in the moments we're in. And so in terms of

toolset I I just I would say like let's let's eradicate imposter syndrome okay let's harness our beliefs and our intellect

And let's show up with the intelligence and savviness that we have. We use craft, but we're not only craft. Okay. We're more than craft. And so that, that would be the advice I give. Use any tool at your disposal to connect the dots between what is going to be good for people and what is going to be good for business.

Sometimes it's, I would say, like two different directions. Sometimes the things that are actually good for the people is not what's really good for the business, for example.

How do you find that balance? Because I think this is a really big challenge, you know, with all the dark patterns out there and all the sneaky business tricks of like tricking users and things that's actually not good for them. Thinking about social media, for example, or AI, a lot of shady things happened there. The people basically were tricked into agreeing that their data is used for the training. And all these things, good for business, amazing for business. Yeah.

top very needed for business but for the user not so much so how do you find the balance and advocate for the right thing which is I mean we are designers so definitely uh we are standing with the user but you know how do you how do you find a good balance that's ethically yeah this is where ethics come into play right and philosophers have um explored these topics for generations

you know, and there are different schools of thought. I mean, just even exploring, you know, does the end justify the means? You could talk for, you know,

talk for years about that. So I think every individual needs to know what matters most to them and what are their must-haves and their absolutely nots with regard to the organizations that they dedicate their time, their passion to. On the one hand, you can say, you know,

The woman at McDonald's who got apple slices put into the Happy Meal may have done more to affect

you know, the nutrition of children than, you know, any other sort of particular intervention. So on the one hand, she's working for this fast food company, processed food, not great, but she's making an impact. On the other hand, you could look at somebody who is founding a startup that is dedicated to improving the nutrition of children or working in government to make sure that people understand

nutrition from a public health perspective. So all of these people have the same goal, which is improving human nutrition, but they all might have a different makeup internally in terms of what battles they're willing to fight, what teams they want to work with. Look, any human organization is going to have problems. So you kind of need to pick which

which flavor of crazy you want to sort of engage with, but also know like where your line is, you know, for example, some systems, people might realize that some systems it's really hard to change, right?

You know, I realized that in my work at UnitedHealthcare, it was too difficult for me to sort of drive the change that I wanted to drive. And so I opted out of that and I decided the biggest impact that I could have as a person would be to work across organizations to start to infuse this sort of thinking and empower and inspire their teams to do more and do better.

and become an entrepreneur eventually right like build your own exactly yeah so i was an entrepreneur for 20 years and then in the corporate environment for a year and then back to entrepreneurship so i think that is my preferred you know method um because you think that you can make a better impact or a bigger impact

So for me, yes, definitely. I think that for me, I like to...

understand the systems and then figure out how to break the rules. But a lot of organizations are run in a more sort of rigid way where the system is sort of calcified. I struggle with that. So I'm more aligned with individuals and teams that are really looking for new ways, really looking for ways

what is that vision for the future that we want to run towards? So I can feel very stuck if I'm within an organization or a team that isn't interested in that. And relate. No, I can 100% relate that that can be very frustrating. And I assume that a lot of listeners can also relate because that can be very frustrating, especially if you have this

like, you know, innovative mindset, if you like to explore the future, if you think about like good solutions, so it sometimes can be a bit tricky. What advice would you give people generally who might, you know, be in a similar situation as you were back then, and are interested in like entrepreneurship? I mean, this is basically switching the topic a little bit, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on that, like entrepreneurship, especially for designers. How do you how do you see that? What potential do you see there? Yeah.

There's a lot of potential right now with the organization I founded a couple of years ago, Beneficent. We're working with a team of consultants who are all independent and piecing together teams depending on the client need.

And I'm also working across a network of small agencies to band together to get amazing work done. There are amazing independent consultants out there right now. And there's sort of power in that network. And people can learn from each other and stick together and refer each other business. So I think through sort of testing it out, maybe moonlighting a little bit,

testing the market, talking to folks, networking, seeing how you would position your services. It's definitely, it takes a lot of work to work on your brand, your value proposition, how you're going to approach marketing and lead generation and business development. It's always sort of

25% of an entrepreneur's job to do that while also making money. So you kind of need to be comfortable with the volatility and risk associated with, okay, when this project's done, I don't know where the next one is coming from, but sort of be confident that I'm going to take the

the right steps that I know work that are going to deliver me that project. And of course, setting aside money for taxes, setting aside money to pay yourself when you're on vacation. I mean, all of these things are super important considerations before sort of venturing out on your own. And I know a lot of people that they will collect the paycheck at their day jobs, may

Maybe it doesn't nourish their soul. Maybe it isn't where they find their purpose. They do that through their hobbies and through the nonprofits they're involved with. And that's totally fine too, right? It's sort of whatever works best so that you're getting that nourishment, but also able to take care of your family. Yeah. Yeah. That's super important that you really find that balance, but you need to have a creative outlet, right?

that can be anything you know what you mentioned could be your hobbies could be your job but I think like you need that to keep or to still keep being inspired and also bringing value to the table and I mean I can totally relate to everything you just mentioned you know I'm a design entrepreneur myself for many years so I know about the struggles but I also know about the opportunities and I feel like

also when i'm getting into or getting acquired or hired for for a project then you have like definitely a bigger impact because you are the consultant so people are listening to you you will you know you also need to deliver something that's that's definitely a huge difference to being part of the team where you're just like you're part of this team so you are secure and everything's nice but you're just part of this team and um that's it pretty much

Yeah, and you're so right. You know, I miss, I loved my team at all the organizations I've worked at.

I miss them. I loved that sense of community. Working independently, it can be a little isolating. So I need to make sure that I'm meeting with people and having lunch and setting up those phone calls to get that collaborative dynamic. But you're right about the opportunity. Like when I give a client advice and they're like, oh my gosh, thank you. This is amazing. This and that. I mean, I'm on top of the world, right? And also the autonomy. I think it was last week in December,

the last week of December, I was like, you know what? I want to go to the Consumer Electronics Conference. I'm going to go. I didn't have to ask anybody. I just decided. And I went and it was amazing. And I met people and I picked up a new client and I was able to write about it. And I had inspiration and fuel that's now helping me add more value to my client engagements. And so

It can be really fun. Yeah, no, I think that's also a great example of going to conferences. You don't need to ask anyone, you just go to explore and you always get something out of it. I'm also curious to hear your thoughts on now we're living in a very interesting time right now. Generative AI is basically changing the way we work and we do things and metaverse, so many things are going on right now.

So how do you think all these tools are changing, especially design entrepreneurship?

It's such a good question and one I've been thinking deeply about. And so I made it through the dot-com bubble and then mobile. And now we're here looking at how to leverage and incorporate AI into our work, but also to design it and how to help organizations apply it to improve their internal workflows and the customer experiences they're delivering to the people they serve.

from a consulting perspective. I mean, again, when I was at CES, I had the epiphany. I'm like, oh my goodness, with agentic AI,

agents could found a company and the company can be employed by agents and super agents to the point where there could be an ai consultancy come to find out that already exists and instead of it being an exclusively ai consultancy uh what it is is a platform of agents and super agents that

innovators and designers can leverage to do more in their work and so these things are happening we're going to see it more and more kind of platforms that go beyond what software used to do to link together you know multiple points in the process and i know you teach about this and train about this i think it's going to disrupt consulting in a major way i think the more that um

consultants can leverage and align with these tools and to bring greater value to their clients, the better we're going to be. I think we're going to be able to do a lot more with a lot less, and hopefully that whole experience will be valuable. But I mean, even if you had all the answers for a business in a report, say AI could like develop a report,

It has all the answers like bang, bang, boom. It's not that easy to take the gems of insight and wisdom in a report, whether they were generated by people or generated by AI, and all of a sudden transform a business, right? That's human work. And so people are needed to guide organizations through this tumultuous period of disruption.

So, I mean, you kind of already answered my next question already, but I'm also curious to hear how you think the future of strategic design and UX will look like. I mean, of course, not everything will be automated, but how is everything that's happening right now affecting your business? Like the things that you bring to the table, that we all as designers bring to the table? What's your take on the future?

I'm balancing a healthy fear and skepticism with excitement and optimism. You know, humanity has faced many struggles.

Many disastrous things have happened. Many wonderful things have happened. My primary concern is the pace of change, because as I mentioned, in that sort of transformation and change management of applying AI in large organizations, that's a process, right? If AI starts to do people's jobs for them, how can humans keep up? How can we...

apply this as fast as it's sort of advancing also in terms of if AI at scale is doing harm it's going to do so rapidly and it's going to have huge impacts at scale rapidly so it's like speed to harm on the other side if it changes people's lives

It's that speed to value, speed to outcomes. And so that concerns me that we're doing large scale human experiments right now. I mean, social media in and of itself, wherever you fall on the opinion of, did it ruin, you know, the generation, the Gen Z generation? Do they not know how to communicate? Or is it the typical like older people wondering what the heck is wrong with the younger generation? Like, did we allow...

companies to experiment on our youth? What kind of experiments are we allowing on humanity right now? You know, the whole quote from Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldblum says, you know, they were so preoccupied with whether they could do it. Being a scientist, they didn't stop to think whether they should do it. You know, I think regulation and even just awareness of unintended consequences, like,

things are happening and we don't know what what where we're going to end up i'll use health as an example um i think when you apply conversational ai to health you're going to have all of the knowledge that humanity has on health in the palm of somebody's hand now will there be access to that so that people can get better information at the right time or will that be concealed from them

managed by corporations? Will it actually be used to drive down the cost of health so we can have lower cost but better outcomes? Will we figure out how to weave humans into the scenario?

you know all these questions uh remain and need to be explored um that's why i actually founded a conference called design for dignity last year with my colleague chris mccarthy to explore the applications of the application of ethics to ai but specifically

the intersection between health and social impact. So health not as an industry per se, but also as the means by which we improve our own human vibrancy and the health of our communities and society. So important. Also like designing for dignity. Maybe we can dive a little bit deeper into that topic. I'm super curious to understand this a little bit better of how this actually works.

Does there a framework consist, a system, or how do you approach design for dignity? Yeah, so the incorporation of ethics into the design process is essential. And many great folks are exploring that, have written about that, have spoken about that. So aligning an organization's brand promise and core values with ethics

sort of declaration of ethics that can be used to guide the decision-making process and as prompts for ideation is important. I actually co-created a canvas, a design for dignity canvas that is a workshopping technique that teams can use to consider where, what is the social contract that we have with the people we serve? What are they expecting from us? And

When do we actually harm them or where can we actually partner with them? What are the moments of dignity that we can help to empower or amplify? And what are the moments of indignity that we can seek to avoid and that we can monitor, that we can measure? Because

whatever is measured gets focused upon and improved. So measuring the right things is of extreme importance. Yeah. Where can people learn more about this and everything that you created there? Is there something online or what would you recommend? Sure, sure. There's a Design for Dignity group on LinkedIn.

And there's designfordignity.com where we're posting information about the upcoming event, June 3rd and 4th in Atlanta, Georgia at Emory University. So people can look there. They can also contact me for the Design for Dignity Canvas. It's on Miro and is accessible to everyone. Yeah. That's wonderful. Perfect. I will link.

Everything in the show notes so people can check it out, have a look at it. Are there any other resources that you would recommend designers to have a look at? Maybe about strategic design, ethical design, something like this. That's a good question. I recommend Donut Economics for sure. And that designers consider that they are business people. They are...

program managers, they can be product managers, thinking about design and human centricity as a lens that can be applied to roles and positions inside organizations that, you know, make an impact. So that's why I recommend that sort of more, you know, economics focused book. But also for folks to sort of

if not get sort of a mini MBA or crash course to just really get familiar on the inner workings of what makes their organization tick so that they can be sure to apply their superpowers in the direction of adding value. I'm fascinated by synthetic personas and

you know, concerned with them because, you know, where's the data coming from and how do we make sure it's real? How do we not leave humans out of the process, but also how do we leverage them? Right. So I think that if we do it right, synthetic personas may be able to in real time, give businesses insight and feedback that they,

is easier to sort of implement into their business process or scale. And so I'm just really considering that more and would encourage folks to approach it with an open mind so that we can shape it. I mean, somebody said to me recently, I want to happen to AI. I don't want AI to happen to me. And so I think, you know, to have that mindset is really important. Yeah.

Yeah, I really love that phrase. Like, I want AI to happen and not happen to me. I got it right. Yeah, I think I need to remember that. And also, I'm fascinated by synthetic personas as well. I think very interesting. The only thing, like, from a design perspective where I think, like, we need to be super aware of is that this can't be the only research input. You know, we still need to... This is basically like an assumption, pretty much, you know? Right.

So you start with assumptions and then you need to validate them. And I think people need to get it right. And I feel especially non-designers sometimes rely too much on synthetic personas, for example. The quick answers. Yeah. The quick answers. So...

This is definitely a big challenge, but also something that we need to educate. We need to help people to understand how to use them. First, we need to learn this our own. We need to make our own experiences, try those tools out and see what actually works and what doesn't. And be also critical, but curious and see how we can leverage that. I think that's the perfect mindset right now. Yeah, and I think it could be an amazing tool for...

scanning the internet for social sentiment to bring that into the persona. So, for example, I worked with a health insurance company once. There were death threats on their app. And I mean, this was 10 years ago. But then see what happened with the assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

I think when we go so deep in talking with folks about the specific subject matter, I think we can lose the forest through the trees around the frequency and severity of human impact of an organization. And so I think I hypothesize that AI might be able to help us synthesize broader data sets and sort of bring them into the fold.

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, this is such a good point. Because this is still very difficult if you do like qualitative user research interviews, you don't have the variety of people. But there are so many more parameters or data points that you actually need to pick up. Yeah, very difficult, especially for health organizations who have like millions of patients, right? So like millions of people, and they all have their own

problems. Of course, you can group them somehow. But still, there are certain things that you miss. I think this is such a good point. Also to incorporate AI, because it's a big challenge. I'm seeing that on LinkedIn basically every day. I also shared some stuff on it and it was very controversial of how to use AI for user research and synthetic personas and everything.

But this is exactly the approach, thinking about where does it really make sense and where are we not really getting the most out of the research method that we are currently using. And it's not that every research that we are doing or the methods are perfect. Sometimes we don't get things right. This is, I think, such a good example with the help organizations because there's so many data points. How should we analyze that?

Yeah, super, super interesting. So where can people find you online, Amy, if they would like to maybe ask you a question or dive a little bit deeper into conversations with you? What is the best way to reach you and maybe continue this conversation?

Yeah, definitely on LinkedIn. I'm Amy Hemans and I welcome conversations with people. I'm constantly giving people career direction or mentorship when they need it, as they need it. And then from a business perspective, Beneficent.design. Beneficent is an English word. It means for the good of all and it sort of encapsulates my personal mission.

Amy, thank you so much for being in the podcast. Super inspiring. Lots of insights. Super interesting. All the projects you work on, all the different thoughts you had about the future. Absolutely fascinating. I'm going to link all resources in the show notes so people can check it out, connect with you on LinkedIn, see what you share there and continue learning from you. So thank you so much, Amy.

Awesome. Thanks for having me, Patricia, and keep up the good work. You're doing amazing stuff. Awesome. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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