Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
That's how we get to know ourselves, right? In relation with other people. So I'm like that person, but I'm totally not like that person. So think about designer types, personality types in designs, types of roles. You do this exercise, which might feel silly in the beginning, like what does it matter? Because I'm trying to find my own voice. That's how you find your voice.
You look at different types of voices and then you identify with some of them very strongly and you identify very little with others. So that's the kind of exercise and calibration we do all the time. Just explore how different people work and then it will help you articulate your own strong points, weak points and whatever.
Hello UX friends and welcome to a new episode of Honest UX Talks. It's actually the first episode of 2023, so no pressure for us to get it right. But I have to admit, I do feel some pressure because I've been off to a very, very slow start in 2023. I haven't been very productive when it comes to creating content and putting myself out there on social media in any way. So I think I haven't posted at all.
all on LinkedIn, which is not what I typically do. This is the first serious content creation I'm doing this year. Yeah, just be patient with us. And also the topic for today is pretty abstract in the sense that we have a very free conversation that's about to happen. It's totally unscripted. We didn't really plan for it or have any meaningful ideas. We just want to start with something that's fun and
Maybe it will resonate or it will facilitate introspection for some people, but at the same time, just be simple and amusing. So we will be talking about types of designers. We're going to allow ourselves to be very stereotypical and just put people into boxes. And then, yeah, see what comes up out of this. And if we're able to bring up some value, surface some interesting things.
So hi Anfisa, I'm very happy to restart our Honest UX Talks. Yeah, let's start with our classic ritual. How was your past month? Yay, welcome everybody to the next episode. Very long time, I guess. Yeah.
I already forgot how to do it. So bear with us for a little while, like Joanna mentioned. My last month was actually pretty cool. I'm not going to say that I have enough of the vacation, but I totally agree with you, Joanna. I did not have many, many productive days yet. Yeah.
in this year. It's already like what, almost the end of the first month. And I totally, totally was, yeah, it's lazy, let's say. So like basically at the end of the year, we finally moved into my apartment, something I kind of talked about in the last episode.
So the whole moving part was challenging. Let's be honest, it's end of the year. We moved into an apartment that had no furniture. The only thing we had was one table and one shelf. So like we had to sleep in the first night, not knowing if we have sofa or not, but that's all right. We figured it. We were a bit sick, kind of tired. By the end of the year, we finally had all the furniture to survive, like kitchen.
kitchen and stuff. But the second day of January, we already had to start working. So not that I would have a lot of rest. And I think that actually translated in having the very slow beginning of the year. So just like you, I did not do much. I barely able to keep up with my work.
I don't do many side projects. I think this is like the first or second day that I'm starting to feel that energy coming back and sort of I'm starting to feel like I want to do something. As of right now, only end of the first month, January, I start thinking about this year, planning some projects for this year. So today I worked a little bit
on one of the old case studies that I am promising myself to finish for like three years. All the case studies from 2019. So very, very old one. You know, the drill when you start doing something, redoing something old, you want to really reshape it from scratch. But...
Yeah, I'm kind of holding myself back. So yeah, I'm kind of starting feeling that productive energy, but it's still very slow. Other than that, cool thing that happened to me in that January was that we went with my company to Barcelona for like three or four days for the team offsite. So that was really great sort of motivation kick to start off the year and meet everybody, kind of have some fun.
cool time together. Our leadership was really great at providing really nice experiences, not only like we worked, but also explored Barcelona, had some really fun experiences, observations, workshops. It was just fun. So yeah, I got a bit like motivated from that trip and now we're changing the way we work at my company. So from Scrum and Kanban and very typical agile environment, we're going to move to slightly different way of working called ShapeUp.
but probably talk about it later, maybe in the next episodes. And if you want to learn about it more, do let us know under the Spotify stickers. So that's it on my side. How about you, Joanna? Have you been up to something in this last month? I've started by saying that I'm not very productive these days, but I'm not productive when it comes to creating content. So when it comes to being present on Instagram, keeping up with the real pace that I was delivering on in the past, that's the area in which I feel I'm most drained.
because my energy is going into my daytime job right now. I feel like I'm at this point in my career where I've reached like a synergy. So everything kind of comes together into this, what I feel should be my magnum opus, right?
So my best work yet, hopefully not my final best work, but I feel like this is a moment in my career that's extremely shiny and exciting and big and it can fundamentally change my life as a designer, my interior life as a designer. I'm not saying I'm going to get the best job in the world after this or whatever, like external validation or external reward. But like on an internal level, I feel like I'm going in just a new place.
as a designer. And I think this is happening because now I have a lot of seniority that I didn't have in the past. So I've been doing design for, I don't know, seven, eight years now. I'm getting close to the 10 year mark where I can say I've been a designer for 10 plus years, right? And so I feel like I understand what I'm doing at a deeper level, at a level where I feel the most confident
I've ever been. And I'm working on a product that's just super innovating. It's like an incubation kind of product. We don't know exactly what this market will be because it's in the AI space. So nobody knows where the AI space is going. Like so many things are changing from one week to another. It's hard for even professionals that are working with these technologies. Like I'm lucky enough to be now. I can't keep up with the progress and the news and the
conversations and the themes and the ethics of everything so it's just it's it's it's a revolution and we're all gonna sort of be dragged into like it's probably comparable to mobile phones like the way they reshape the world so I feel like I'm in in this wave of things that are happening and I'm not really making too much sense out of them but I'm trying to embed everything into my product thinking and the design decisions I make and just stay open-minded experiment and
and kind of bridge this external revolution with the product I'm building in and how does it make sense in this landscape. These are the main three things. On one hand, it's me. I feel more comfortable than ever as a designer. And then there's a really exciting product I work on and with brilliant people around me. So I love my entire team, the development, the product manager, the other designers I work on.
We have a researcher. So it's a great setup. And then also the thing that's going on in the outside world. So everything is coming together nicely. And I hope I'll manage to make that impact that keeps me up at night. May I just say that it's just super inspiring that you feel at your top, at your best after a pretty big gap, right?
for the maternity leave. And now you're coming back and just kind of inspiring everybody to not be afraid of it, that you're not falling out and not feeling like you're a part of something, but instead you're feeling like a part of something bigger and even more empowering. So I think that's just great message.
Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. It's actually it surprised me as well. So I thought that I'm going to be rusty. And for the first couple of weeks in the office, I did feel like I'm like a new employee and it felt awkward. And what am I doing? I have to like plug myself back in. But then if you start working, you start getting back on track. So just by just by doing a lot of work, I felt like I'm back.
in business and very quickly, much quicker than I hoped for. For me, it's incredible. I thought that I'll be burned out by maternity and everything. And it's still a balancing act. It's not easy. But now my daughter is going to kindergarten full day and we have the grandparents helping us. So I have a lot of space to work. And I'm lucky enough to be in UiPath right now on this particular product. Everything is very exciting for me professionally. And that's what kind of
keeps me away from content creation. It became deprioritized in this landscape, but we'll see. I will hopefully inform my future content with the work I'm doing right now and the experience that I'm building. So we'll see what happens. And then I was sick for the entire holiday, Christmas to New Year's. I just went through all the viruses that are circulating. Yeah. Nobody gets away without meeting them. And that's it in a nutshell. And
And yeah, I'm very excited for what's to come. And I'm very focused on the design craft. Like I announced everyone that I will be very focused on just doing design work and I'm doing it. And I'm pretty happy. So sorry if it was a very long intro, but when I start talking about it, I'm extremely excited. I just can't stop.
So let's move into the topic for today, which is types of designers. It sounds really fun. We don't have a clear structure. I'm very curious and open to see where this conversation will take us. Who knows? I have a couple of questions in mind, but let's start with the first, let's say, most obvious question.
What are the types of designers that you have in mind when you think about this? So what's the first thing that comes up in your mind? Like different categories or different like criteria? What's the criteria for judging designers? Yes, I mean, definitely it's going to be a lot of stereotyping today, but
Definitely take it with a grain of salt. It's just us trying to have fun thinking about who we worked with, who we are maybe as well as designers and really just trying to see what's happening with design market. So definitely I didn't do any research. I don't know the classic types, but when I think or look back on my career, I can reflect on working with a couple of types of designers, I guess.
me included, I was one of those types. So the obvious types, let's see if we can kind of brainstorm more while we're going through it. But the very obvious types for me was always pixel pushers, obviously. So those designers who in the beginning love the craft, like jumping right into the Figma or whatever tool of their choice and start kind of ideating and creating, pushing pixels and creating beautiful screens and becoming like those dribblers.
where you're really focused on interactions and fancy, beautiful UI. So this is like a very, very, I think one of the biggest categories we can outline right away. Then I'm kind of thinking of the other category that I worked with for a little while, which would be the innovators. So those are the challengers. Those are the designers who think beyond the screens, that are always asking hard questions, that are always trying to think, what would Steve Jobs think about it?
You know, those kind of questions. Reinventing the world, forgetting about the constraints, thinking what if the world would be an ideal place. These kind of people who don't really go into nitty gritty details, don't really interact a lot with like developers, maybe PMs,
Sometimes, I mean, they definitely talk to users, but they think about the perfect world without thinking about the reality check. So again, I would call them innovators, challengers, reinventors, whatever. And I'm lucky to work with those people because it's always like great reminder to not always focus and be super stuck in your daily grind with like all the constraints you usually face. Then I worked with designers who were great talkers. They would always impress you with the way they present themselves.
with the way they think, they would be always like really inspiring when they present or like explain something. And you would start learning from how they actually put themselves out there, how they beautifully kind of explained a very basic thing. In reality, very often I would notice that those people are great talkers, but not great doers. So those people would talk more than do, let's say. So like they would constantly present, they would constantly stand out on the meetings.
But when it comes to providing like some sort of deliverables or ideation or create a lot of options and go abroad, I would not see this happening often. But again, you need the balance always. So that's just one thing. On the opposite side, right from this category comes out another category. And this is people who are doers, but not great.
talkers. So for me, that would be the category where you would see people just constantly designing something, constantly not wanting to share anything, just like constantly in the pixels, constantly want to create more and more options, maybe create more ideas. But when it comes to presenting, they would not always do a great job. So you'll see really great files, everything's structured, a lot of, a lot of options. You think, oh my God, this is great. And
But in the communication, it's sometimes not great, right? So they would not always follow up or inform you about the milestones or communicate to you about whatever they have achieved and kind of where they are in the process, or even when they're presenting their work.
it's just not selling itself. The work is great, but when they talk, it could be boring, let's say so, or not making sense enough. So that's another category I can think of. And let's see, I think another category I worked with was when I was doing a freelancing and I was collaborating with a few other designers. And those were the people who were
like brief feelers, let's call them so. So these are the designers who don't really, let's say, challenge the process. Those people would work with usually one or two stakeholders, usually the clients, like business owners. Those business owners will tell them exactly what to do, right? They will send a beautifully outlined brief, like I need this website, I need...
sometimes even like button here, this kind of content, literally as specific as it gets. And like those designers would just fill the brief, right? They will create the design, the client asked for, hand it off, not caring how it is done, not implementing it or anything, just like, here's a design, go figure what to do next. So maybe not a big collaborator's
There is a pros and cons always, right? Being on time, always delivering, and that is a great quality. But on an opposite side, not really collaborative designers who are like challenging the brief, challenging the questions, collaborating with developers, making sure it's developed in the right way and stuff like that. So let's see how many so far we've got. We have pixel pushers, we have innovators, we have great talkers, we have great doers, and now we have great brief fillers, I guess.
Anything else we can think about, Inuana? Don't want to take everything. So feel free to drop here anything that comes to your mind. I
I don't have any clear other archetype in mind right now, but one point that I want to make is that I'm thinking about the Jungian test. Actually, it's Meyer Briggs reinterpreting Jung's personality types like introvert, extrovert, thinking, feeling, judging, perceiving, whatever. So I feel that these archetypes we're looking into and just what we've discussed, I think I have elements from all of them.
It's just probably most of us are just a combination of probably I'm 70% in the talker, but then I'm also the doer. And then sometimes I'm not a good talker and I'm a good doer. It also changes. I think I kind of,
borrow elements from all the archetypes. Sometimes I'm the brief filler as well. So I'm borrowing elements from all of these categories. But then based on the project, the moment in my life, how burned out I am, how important that is, how motivated, how free I feel in a project.
I'm going to be more in one category than the other. So more creative, more innovative, or just very pixel pusher, very brief feeler, depending on what's going on. So I feel that if people are listening and they feel guilty, oh my God, I'm like that. I feel briefs. I mean, we all have aspects of all these design personalities and it's just, I think it's interesting to be aware of them. So I think this conversation is more important than we think. Yeah.
because it sheds light on the behaviors that we should encourage ourselves to foster or observe.
And this brings me to my second question. Do you feel that any of these archetypes are more successful than others in their career? I mean, if I'm, let's say, a very good doer, but I don't know how to present my work and I don't inform people on what I'm doing, can I have a good design career being like that? Or do I have to strive to be a talker as well? What are your thoughts on that? Which are the archetypes that succeed most often? Yeah.
First of all, before we even go into the next topic, I also wanted to say that I love how you always bring in the psychology into our conversation and always thinking what's beyond the stereotype. Why is it happening? I enjoy how you constantly think beyond the obvious. So that makes our conversation more interesting for me as well. Like you said, I think it's true that...
We do have natural habits and tendencies and behaviors and those translate in how we work and how we usually, I guess, perform. Maybe it's true that sometimes it's more comfortable for us to be doers because I feel better by doing and I feel more confident and I know that I can generate better work, but I feel maybe shy when it comes to presenting it and not very confident and just this part of my personality, right?
So it's true that it comes from who you are as a person. And I think we with Joanna love to talk about always self-reflection act and like trying to understand who you are as a designer, what are your skills, what are your natural talents, those skills that you transform from other industries and how you usually worked in the past. That's a really great thing to look introspectively.
Talking about your question and thinking right about like, what does the success look like, right, for the design career? I think it always very subjective to where you are and in which context you're working. I feel like each of those categories that I was just kind of coming up with
I'm sure there is more actually, but I'm sure that each of those categories would fit in perfectly into one or another context. When it comes to being great talker, I feel like this is a very common archetype in the enterprise, big corporate environment where you really need to talk to different people. And it becomes like a habit of yours where you really need to constantly present, articulate, sometimes play the politics and kind of making sure you have your way in
to sell the idea. It's not that if you're not a great talker, you will not survive on the market. It just means that in specific contexts, it will be harder for you to make your way in, right? And to perform better in that specific company or in that specific environment.
For example, I can see that doers would really strive and survive much better in the startups, right? When you don't really have a lot of people around you and you constantly have to iterate and constantly try new ideas, constantly build and scrap it and like try again and constantly try out things. Again, you don't have to present unless you are, of course, rising the seed and you're the only one founder who needs to...
be a great talker. But if you're just a designer and you have a great CEO who sells the idea, then probably that's just perfect, right? And you can succeed and the product could really go far. Or if you are a freelancer and that's your business model and filling the briefs, sort of filling that basic, what client asked me, I did it, that makes it a great business already. So it really is dependent on where you are and in which context you're working and
how it manifests in your work, I guess. Obviously, I think that all the skills we discuss constantly in this podcast are important. So being a great talker, being an innovator, being a challenger, being a facilitator, being, I don't know, a doer, making everything on time and kind of communicating with your team and engaging your developers into the process and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All of these are important, but we definitely have our sort of starting point that is more natural to us and other skills
we are building as we are changing those different contexts in which we're working, right? I think we kind of gave this advice in the past, but I also always recommend to try out different contexts, especially in the beginning of your career where the stakes are lower and you're not risking to lose your career because nobody's expecting you to be the smartest person in the room.
So again, trying startups, trying freelancing, trying working in K-labs, enterprises, et cetera, it's a different context. So you can understand where you fit best. Or also if you don't fit well there, at least you will learn some skills that will
enhance something that is not as great in terms of those skills that you have. So you definitely will be learning from those experiences. What's your take on this situation? I love the point you just made. I love the idea that thinking about these archetypes and surfacing an introspection exercise by thinking about them will essentially help you understand where you fit best as, right? So it's exactly like I'm
I'm getting back to my Jung-Meyer-Briggs metaphor. So if you know that you're a very extroverted person, that's thinking type, but very perceiving and then whatever, then you know that you might be very good in a public career. So you might thrive. And even the test that you take on 16personalities.com, it will suggest potential careers for you. And so that's exactly what we can do as designers. Just have fun thinking about these models
of working as a designer, like personality types, and then thinking, okay, I think I'm more in this area. I feel like I lack or I'm completely bad at this.
being a talker. So I'm going to try to grow that area. But for now, I feel like I would be most successful and most fit in a startup. So that's where I'm going to head towards. I see a lot of designers that don't feel valued, that don't feel seen, that have a lot of internal frustration and they don't feel appreciated.
because they're in the wrong medium, right? So people who are very, very thoughtful and they have great abstract thinking and they're really curious people, but they just can't rush the process to deliver on a certain date and like be the brief feeler
or the constant doer, they need thinking time, they need a lot of exploration. So they're more in the category of an innovator. And so they're very frustrated most of the times with their role if they don't find a setup in which they're allowed to break the boundaries, to have the time they need to unpack a problem deeply. So what happens is that if you don't understand who you are,
like with anything in life, then you're not going to be happy because you're not going to go towards the places in which you can thrive and be appreciated and useful. And so, yeah, having fun on this line about archetypes, I think it's probably one of the most useful conversations we've had. Pretty surprising. So...
None of the categories you've described feel essentially bad. If you're a pixel pusher, that's not bad. We need pixel pushers. We need people who also push the design beyond a certain, the first immediate obvious solution and material design. So we need creative UI designers. We also need people who think about problems a lot. So they're doing more thinking and then people who are doing more talking and then people who are just doing more. And then so we need all these categories.
Is there like something really toxic that we're missing? So are there designers that are in a very... Like, you know, and even in Jungian archetypes, there's no bad archetype. Even the trickster who's like the... Or the shadow, the things that are pertained to the darkness, let's say, they're still good. I mean...
bad is important in our lives as well so the force of evil it's just it's part of everything and in design it's the same like even if you think about the very basic ui stuff like contrast and like white space my point is is there any archetype of designer that really causes problems i've seen that in my career that's why i'm asking because some people are problem the problematic archetype have you
Have you met? No, I agree with you. There is no like a bad archetype. And if you're doing this, you're definitely going to fail or something like that. Absolutely not. I think like I was trying to think about those categories in a way that you have pros and cons in each. You definitely have weaker parts and then have stronger parts.
For example, some people who are great talkers, they will not be able to be great facilitators, right? And with more and more time in design, and design is always involving, we see that the facilitation and being able to run workshops has become an essential skill for many designers. Maybe one of the most important skills, which doesn't really manifest in like
producing pixel perfect work, but really results in a better outcomes for the company or for the product. I think there is no specifically bad category. However, I think there are traits actually that could be relevant to any of those categories. So whoever you are,
that would take you down, in my opinion, and maybe we could even categorize it as some sort of old schoolers. I think we had this episode on working with old schoolers. And that's all about this being close-minded, very confident,
and not open to learn, to grow, to learn from each other, to experiment kind of person. And I think that parts of it we can find in every single category, right? It was like, well, maybe if I'm very strong, brief filler, I'm not open to collaboration and maybe I would be, but I don't have time for that. So, and I have maybe my family to feed. So I just don't have open...
mind slowed for that. So I feel like this negative, in my opinion, trade could be present in any of those categories, but we could also think about being an old schooler, being close-minded designer. This could be a separate category probably. And that is a dangerous category to be in because like I also mentioned today already, the design industry is crazy evolving every single year. It's totally different industry than it was 10 years ago when the typical designer was a web designer.
and sometimes still working with a flash in Photoshop. And today we're talking about AI and designing literally by just typing, please design an app in this category for these hybrid users. And then some AI is already producing the outcomes for you. Let's say outputs for now, because I don't think it's outcomes.
comes just yet. But the idea is that if you are being closed and you've learned one skill and you're just holding onto that skill for as long as you can and selling that skill, that's a very dangerous space to be at because in the sometime from now, you'll not be very relevant. It will be very hard for people to work with you. So this is, again, the reference back to that episode we already had, I think maybe like a few months ago about the old schoolers and people who are very strong, who they are and
And they know it all. They have been in Korea for many years and they believe that what they know is Marx and that everybody else is just
I don't know, needs to get to their level. But in reality, those people are just closing themselves off from growing farther. Yeah, I guess my point here is the dangerous zone if you're shutting yourself down and closing yourself, closing your mindset and not trying to grow anymore and being open to new technology, not being open to new ways of working, collaboration, developing new skills, extra skills, new understanding, new contexts.
and especially learning from other people, be designers or other stakeholders in our team, like even developers, right? Sitting together with a developer could teach you so many things. Yeah, that's my point, I guess. Anything that you think about also that could be a dangerous zone?
I love your category choice. I think it's pretty clear to our listeners that I've been in and I'm currently in a very introspective thinking, like psychologically explorative mindset, because I'm going to throw in another quote this time from my therapist.
And I know that at some point in a conversation, she had something that kind of struck me and stayed with me as a mantra. I'm not sure if it's necessarily a universal truth, but I kept it with me. So it says always choose change. So it's counterintuitive because you want to protect what you have. You want to protect your know-how. You want to protect what made you succeed, right? What got you there and what you've learned throughout our years and the way you're doing things.
which is the value you bring. But then at the same time, changing and learning and staying up to date can only make you grow more because you're not going to forget the way you were doing things like one year ago. You'll still be able to pull out those qualities from the past archetypes you've explored.
but then you're adding new layers, right? And I know I can totally understand. I think it's a very interesting category, the one you mentioned. I find it fascinating because I can deeply resonate with it. I mean, I can empathize with all the categories you've mentioned, but this one in particular, it's really hard to see that some things that were once
the most valued, the most interesting, the most important, like the process or I don't know, whatever framework, Double Diamond. And that's what everybody was talking about. And you were the god of Double Diamond and you were like, you invented it, right? And that was what was valued. And now people are more like, even companies right now, they're hiring people
strong UI designers for their product design roles. So if you want to get a job as a product designer at the big companies, Facebook, whatever, name it, Spotify, you have to have strong UI skills. So they're not going to hire you if you're just a good facilitator and like the classic UX archetype.
And I think that leads me into the last part of our conversation, one that I feel many people would have listened to this episode for. I was just thinking that maybe people would expect us to talk about what is a researcher? What's a UI designer? What's a UX designer? What's a content designer? What's a UX writer? Like types of designers as in roles in design. And we were just talking more about archetypes and design. But how do you see that?
segmentation in the market. The pixel pusher, they're automatically a good UI designer, right? And then the facilitator, they're automatically probably a service designer or something along those lines, right? So is there a relationship between the archetypes and kind of the roles we land in? Do you want to maybe unpack the types of design roles that might come with these categories of funny people?
Yeah, it's actually a good point. I didn't think about it. I didn't kind of immediately thought of, you know, if you're a facilitator, then you're probably a better service designer, but that makes sense. And I think that if I start thinking about it, we can definitely map it out. And then actually that's something we discussed in the past, I believe, because I think like we did talk about how your natural skills could translate in having speciality in the career. And that, especially last year, a lot of talks we had is about
understanding your speciality, your strong powers, what you're selling, right? Sort of doubling down and kind of going all in and finding that perfect match with your potential company that needs exactly people like you, where you need to ask them questions about their pains, investigate it and see if that's the skill that's natural to you, that you know you will be blossoming and like really helping that company to grow. It's a very interesting exercise that I
thing we can try to do but I would be struggling right now to map every single category into role I
I think that indeed, like the very obvious comparison would be that pixel pushers are typical UI designers. I would not say that it doesn't mean or instantly correlates with producing beautiful UI work, but we usually mean that, you know, more time is spent on that skill, the better you become, especially if you reflect and ask for advice or mentorship. But yeah, there is like correlation probably that you can draw that, let's say pixel pushers are great UI designers, right?
And then innovators are probably like, I wouldn't say if innovators would necessarily mean UX designers. I would say UX designers are those people who are like more into research. And that's my mapping, my categorization. Maybe some people would think differently. Maybe like category like innovation for me stands more on the typical companies you fit in, right? Like when you think innovation, you always think maybe AXA.
Some categories would fit rather into way of thinking rather than role and correlation to the skills. Whereas again, brief fillers would not even fit well into one specific company unless it's like agency type of company. I think brief fillers are better fitted for like generalist, maybe like freelancers slash design agency designers, I guess. So yeah, I don't know. I would have to spend some time mapping it out, um,
However, I think the point I can see coming from this conversation is that, and maybe that's something I already mentioned in a different form, but I think it kind of makes sense to try out different things to become different categories, to grow as a designer, right? To go through each of those stages.
And then in reverse to that dark skill, like I said, like being stuck, being close-minded, not being a gross mind thinker. So basically going through all of those stages, categories in order to grow, reflect and become the next person. And at some point, hopefully becoming a well-shaped, well-rounded designer is
that could do everything, right? Of course, it's still important to know your very strong skill, what is natural to you and develop that speciality. But if needed, you can always adjust with a very different and very growing market that is changing constantly. You can always adjust and adapt to that market, right? To also find new interests in this area and find relevant skills in your portfolio. What's your take on it?
I feel I want to start by saying that I think you've said it a couple of times in this episode that we've talked about this in the past. We've talked about that in the past. For me, it's heartwarming that we've talked about so many things. And especially now that it's the first time we're talking in probably one month or more, it's just...
It makes me nostalgic in a way. And it's incredible that, yes, we talked about so many things. And at this point, I feel like every conversation will repeat some parts of something we've discussed in the past. It's like what happens with me and my partner. Every time we talk about something, parts of what other things or other ideas that
we both know very well that the other person holds will appear in that conversation. So it's very hard to have a completely new conversation, even if we're talking about new topics completely. Parts of us that are very well known are in there. So it's exactly the same for us. I kind of sometimes feel what you're going to say or anticipate or understand what your position might be based on all the things that we've explored together. And I think that's very nice. I think it's a very
robust exercise to like map the archetypes and different roles and how they might work and how they might not work. And I think it's a completely different conversation about like career mapping or career types. Maybe could be like job types more, what kind of personality might fit into what job. So maybe that's an episode for the future.
For now, I would say, let's see if we can find three main ideas or three main insights. I have a couple, but I think it has to do with like, probably they're just my insights for from the past month. I'm like just squeezing them in the conversation, like nothing's happening. But I really love doing this exercise because I feel that again, it's just a pretext for introspection. So everybody who's listening for me,
I'm the kind of person who feels very easily guilty and so when you were talking about the different personality types it was super funny because that's what we wanted to do but then I kept wondering oh my god am I like that am I a brief feeler when have I been like the just a talker and I wasn't doing or when have I been the doer too much and I wasn't presenting and sharing my work what if I'm doing that now because I'm doing so much and am I talking with people and so
A lot of questions came up and I think that's what's supposed to happen in Jungian psychology and in psychology in general, when we talk about archetypes, we do that because it brings certain aspects of our self on the table. So it's just that projection exercise that sort of helps you understand more about yourself and your behavior. And I think in a professional space, it's really important to reflect on your behavior and see how you stand
It's really easy to think that you hold the truth and you could like, the process I'm doing is the best process. So I'm a pixel pusher because I'm trying to make things perfect. And then people shouldn't bother me with strategic conversations and North Star and stuff like that. Just leave me, push my pixels, right? So it's interesting to question the way you do things. I hope first episode for 2023, which would make it more reflective. That is supposed to happen in the beginning of every year. We hopefully feel, did that right? Yeah.
I'm not sure if this is an insight or anything, but I think that think about things. Think about like design types, designer types, personality types and designs, types of roles. If you do this exercise, which might feel silly in the beginning, like what does it matter? Because I'm trying to find my own voice. That's how you find your voice.
You look at different types of voices and then you identify with some of them very strongly and you identify very little with others. That's how we get to know ourselves, right? In relation with other people. So I'm like that person, but I'm totally not like that person. So that's the kind of exercise and calibration we do all the time. So just do it. Just explore how different people work. And then it will help you articulate your own strong points, weak points and whatever.
So this is one insight. I think the other one is that whichever personality type you fit into, I think on a personal level, it's harder to say, you know what? I've been an introvert all my life. So starting tomorrow, I'm going to try to be more extroverted. I don't think it works like that.
on a personal level but on a professional level I really feel that to Anfisa's point that she made a couple of times I think you can experiment you can really push yourself to like go outside pushing pixels if that's what you're doing and if you're a doer that doesn't share their work just
just start sharing your work. It doesn't come naturally. It will feel awkward. It will feel stressful, but just do it. So in a professional life, we have more agency, more willpower to say, I'm doing something that doesn't come natural.
we're not supposed to do that so much in the personal relationships, although you could argue that it's also the case. But like, we don't have to change ourselves so much and experiment so much in a place that's very personal. But in the professional world, we can definitely go wild in experimenting different types of companies, different types of
situations, teams, different ways of approaching people or just like, how do I position myself in this particular situation? Am I going to shut up the entire meeting or am I going to start speaking up and sharing my thoughts, even if they're like not interesting or even if they're stupid, I'm going to share them and see what happens. So that kind of exercise of experimentation is my second takeaway. And then I'm not sure I have a third one. I can pass it over to you.
That's actually really cool. I love how you always find a way to condense it all together in one pretty cool insight as we go. I feel like I'm a little bit more tactical, specific, details, and you're like always like this person who can think high level and embrace it and like reflect on it. Anything like that's great.
that we have those different sides to us. I love it. I love it. I think we come together to build this very whole experience of a conversation. Also, I feel that we're very much alike in a way, but different in other aspects. So it's always interesting for me to have a conversation with you. And I think for some people-
at least some of our listeners have said that they enjoyed our conversation. So yeah. Yeah. When you were talking specifically, when you were again, talking back about the different types of personalities, I've remembered that my new manager who have joined our company, like, I don't know, maybe like four or five months ago, first thing he did with me was,
scheduled a session called growth session. And that was all about like reflection and trying to understand what kind of designer I am. And I was just opened literally one second ago, a mirror board where this growth session was basically made of three parts when we reflected on different skills that you as a designer have. And that was really fantastic because you could really understand where you are at the moment, what skills you have developed and what skills you don't maybe still have well-developed or well-rounded.
And just to, again, be super specific and tactical, like I am, for some people who's interested in actually doing this mapping exercise, I can say that the first part was all about the personal skills. So exactly what we have discussed today, right? Like some of those categories would be very focused on those skills, such as tooling,
communication processes like domain knowledge right so those are personal skills develop over the time then there is like project skills that's the second category that we discussed and it was like all about the roles that you have mentioned just in a previous question so interaction design visual design research stakeholders management ownership and planning and survey design
Again, this is how those categories map to those project skills, or as we discussed it, maybe roles. And then competence skills were the third part of our discussion when we were talking much more about the growths and reflection, right? So that's maybe a third component to this conversation. Wow, how we got here.
So deep, right? But the third part of it was about the competence and the parts or points in that conversation were about the growth, the design team growth, the giving feedback, receiving feedback, and
and then competence marketing. Again, if you can think about it, it's exactly what we somehow outlined today from being very specific, what do you know, what's the skills that you're owing to then thinking about the roles, right? What kind of typical role you would fit in well or better and
And then the competent skills is like, how do you grow? Do you even grow at all, right? The dark side of our designers being stuck and not reflecting and then thus being like not agile in how we progress in our career. And a lot of it has to do with the feedback, with how you take feedback, with how you reflect, with how you realize and maybe, yeah, like just embrace it, I guess. This is like, not exactly.
the takeaway or one little specific nugget of insight. But I kind of found that conversation I had with my manager really relevant to our episode where it fits perfectly into the boxes. Everything we have discussed was exactly what we have discussed.
I was my manager and that session was called Cross Model. So by stereotyping and categorizing, we learn about ourselves and learn what are our strong sides, weak sides. And next time you talk to somebody like on the interview, for example, especially when you're searching for a job, it's going to be so common that
your potential new design managers would be asking you about your strong sides, your weak sides, and you need to know it. You need to embrace it. You need to do this self-reflection exercise as a homework before you even jump on that call. I guess that would be my one big takeaway for today. I absolutely loved how this came up in the conversation, like something very specific and tactical. And I feel that sometimes
if I'm a listener to a podcast and then at the end they say okay let's jump into the top three findings and some people might say you know what I'm not gonna listen to those because I've listened to the conversation I can understand what's coming up but we're always coming up with something that's sort of different and this time it was like surprisingly like an easter egg a whole surprise of a thing because it kind of points me towards the idea that we need to do
more tactical talking about how to evaluate yourself. So maybe a future episode about frameworks on how to position yourself and unpack yourself and yeah, just understand yourself. I mean, we just did that, but maybe we could do it even more, give it more time. With that in mind, I just want to thank everyone who's listened, who made it to this point. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening to our
honest conversations. They're very honest, unscripted, unplanned. Somebody was just asking me, we have a designer from Seattle in Bucharest and he was asking me about a podcast and they say, but I mean, how long does it take for you to script them and like prepare them? And I was like, no, no, they're honest UX docs. They're super honest. They're never script
that we meet and we start talking and see what happens. So there's something magical about that lack of preparation and just spontaneous attitude. So thank you for the first conversation for 2023. And thanks to everyone who listened. And don't forget to support our Honest UX Talks by rating us on Spotify, following our Instagram page, even though we're not
Right now, very active, but maybe we will be. Send us ideas for future episodes. We're very open to discuss whatever you come up with. Thank you so much for joining everybody. We hope you have a great beginning of the year. Productive, at least. More productive than mine was. And we hope to see you in the next episodes. Bye-bye then. Bye, everyone.