#06 - The future of UX tools
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Hello and welcome to the Future of UX podcast. I'm Patricia Reiners, UX/UI designer and creative president at Adobe. In this episode, I had the great honor to talk to Koi Ving. Koi is the principal designer at Adobe at the moment. He's also a writer and generally a leading figure in the design community.

He writes a widely-read blog on design and technology which is called "Substraction" Many of you probably know it already. And he hosts "Vireframe", an awesome documentary podcast about design. Previously, Coy was co-founder and CEO of Mixeril. He was also the design director of New York Times Online and he also co-founded a design studio.

He was named one of Fast Company's 50 most influential designers in America. So I'm so happy to have Koi on the podcast today. And yeah, Koi shared his vision about the future of design and the importance about democratizing design in our society. And we also talked about the future of tools since he is working on a design tool, which is called Adobe XD.

probably many of you already know it and this tool shapes the way many designers design experiences so I think this is super fascinating. Enjoy this episode with Koi and don't forget to rate it on iTunes or share it with your friends or your colleagues if you liked it and if it inspired you. So let's start. Thank you so much for your time, thank you so much for taking the time for the interview today.

I am a big fan of your Wireframe podcast, so I'm feeling super honored having you in my podcast today. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. And I really can't wait to talk to you about the future of design and how you see the future at Adobe, but also for the creative industry.

And yeah, before we are starting with the main topic, I would love to get to know you a little bit better. And for those who maybe don't know you at all, give them a little intro about what you're doing and a little bit about your background. So yeah, if you want, you could talk a little bit about your role at Adobe and what you're doing there at the moment. Sure.

Sure. So at Adobe, I lead design for Adobe XD, which is our new UX UI design tool. And it's a team that's spread across offices in San Francisco, New York, Bucharest, Romania, and Bangalore, India. So it's a pretty big team across a lot of geos. We're

adding new features to XD every day to make life better for UX/UI product designers, anybody who needs to design digital experiences. And I've been here at Adobe for four and a half years now, and it's been a really fun ride. It's a real privilege to get up every day and think about the problems that designers, people like ourselves, think about and try to create solutions for them.

Before Adobe, I had, I've been in design a long time. I've done design at studios, agencies, I've done design in-house, I've done it at startups, tech companies, media companies. I used to run design at newyorktimes.com. I co-founded a studio in the early 2000s. I've freelanced for a bit. I've done consulting. I've done

almost all the different kinds of jobs that are available for designers to do. I just really consider myself a designer first and foremost. I really am passionate about the field and the industry and the people. That sounds awesome. Such an interesting background. Now you're working at Adobe. So what is a typical day in your life look like? So what are your responsibilities at the moment?

So I lead a team of designers. And so I meet frequently with the, there's a staff of managers who report into me and they're running squads of designers working on various aspects of Adobe XD and also working with other teams at Adobe building bridges to other products and services. So there's a lot of product work, but I'm also a part of the leadership team for this business unit that is

developing Adobe XD into a real business, a real franchise. And so I work with the vice president of our business unit. I work with the leaders from engineering and product and marketing and program management. And we're essentially...

thinking at a strategic level, plotting out the future of Adobe XD and the business and trying to turn it into the next big revenue stream for Adobe. Awesome. That sounds super interesting, especially talking to all those different areas like development, business and those kind of things. Do you see that as well as an important part for the future of design? So this is something you're just doing because you're more in the management position, I would say.

I really do see it as part of the future of design because as design has become more influential, we've seen that it can have many, many consequences, both intentional and unintentional. And for designers, I think it's incumbent upon us, it's our responsibility to try to guide the power of what we do to the best possible outcomes, the best possible effects. So

The only way to do that is really to go beyond just the design of a product or an experience or an app or a website, and to really engage with the business with the industry at large to make sure that the path forward for design is.

is clear that we're contributing to a holistically beneficial solution for our users and that we're getting to design the whole job. We're getting to solve the whole problem, not just a slice of the problem. Yeah, that makes definitely a lot of sense.

It sounds like you're really passionate about the whole topic, especially Adobe XD. And I was wondering, what are you enjoying the most at the moment in your design team? What kind of work are you enjoying the most and the least? Well, I'll say the best part of the job and also the hardest part of the job is the people. And that's really what has kept me at Adobe is the people have been just great generally. But

making sure that the designers that I work with and also that our partners in the business are working well and getting what they need, both from a sort of functional standpoint, like are they able to do the actual work of design? Are they able to work with their partners in engineering and marketing and so forth effectively? But also making sure that they are engaged

at a career level and they're engaged at a passion level with the work that they do and that they are on the right track and moving forward. That's some of the best and also the hardest work for any design manager. I'm sure it's not unique to my situation because if you can really find an opportunity to help a designer activate a new part of their repertoire,

that is really amazing and you can help them flourish. And if a designer gets into a funk or into a situation that's less than inspiring for them, that's really difficult. You really have to figure out how to make sure that they are really able to contribute to the best of their ability.

Like, what are the things which help people usually to get inspired to enjoy their work, especially like workflows and those kind of things? I know that you're talking about those things at Adobe a lot. So I'm interested to hear your opinion on that as well.

Well, the question is what helps people get inspired or what helps people do their best work. It's really a sense of agency. Are they in charge of the problem that they're working on? Can they make decisions? And to create an environment where they have agency, it's sort of a multi-level problem. You have the organizational level where you want to make sure that they are engaged

working with the right people and they have the right responsibilities. And then there's also the problem of, are they getting the time and the, the, the resources and materials that they need in order to fully activate themselves and do their best work. And, um,

And then there's just like a, you know, the, the level of, you know, their personal idiosyncrasy. I'm tripping on that word, but just their, their particular needs or their particular desires or, or challenges. And you, it's different for everybody and you want to,

sit down and make sure that even the best org chart and the best conception of how a team should work together or how squads should complement each other

Even that is sometimes not going to be a great match for somebody who might otherwise just be a terrific designer who has a ton to contribute. And so working with them to adjust to an org chart or working

with managers to adjust the org chart to really complement the people that we have. I think it's a really important balancing act. And what you just said about like giving people like agency or helping them to feel in charge of something. Is this something you also promoting or like

want to support in Adobe XD, for example. I know that-- I'm not sure if that's a good example, but I remember when you inquired Savespring and integrated voice as one of the features. So we as designers are able to prototype for voice. It's also an awesome thing to be in charge, do our own thing and not wait for developers to build us a prototype or something like that, right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. So when we think about features in Adobe XD, there's the challenge of just creating a tool that is just really fluid for them to use. But we also try to think about it from the perspective of what's going to make a designer more successful in their job. And so, yeah.

That's why we have tried to integrate lots of different aspects of the design process into XD. So you can create a design, lay it out, and do all of the visual, intricate visual work that's necessary to create a really effective interface. And then you can quickly wire it up and turn it into an interactive prototype that really helps you communicate your ideas. You can also

animate aspects of your interface so that they really come alive and you can add another level of intuitiveness to your design and you can share it out with people. If you

are working on an experience that includes voice. You can prototype for voice right there in the same environment. You can type in what you want the prototype to listen for and when it hears it, you can tell the prototype what you want to hear back and there will be a synthetic voice that speaks it back. And so all of this is available in one seamless experience and that gives you the ability to

to really let your imagination run free, you have the agency to solve the problem in the way that you see fit without having to rely on developers, as you say, without having to jump to different tools or master different interfaces and deal with all that friction that's necessary in order just to visualize your idea. So when we're talking about Adobe XD, for example, or like any UX tools or so,

If you think about the future, who are you actually seeing using Adobe XD? So many people are like,

experimenting with different things. So who are actually the people who are going to use it? So the primary user of Adobe XD, who we really build it for is product designers, UX UI designers, people who are trying to build world-class apps and websites and experiences of all kinds. And that's really our main focus.

audience, our main customer, that's who we focus on the most. But what we try to do is build a tool that is not just powerful enough for those folks, but also simple enough for them to take up if they are switching from another tool or are trying Adobe XD for the first time. And that focus on simplicity has a kind of a halo effect for people

who are, I guess you could say, tangentially involved in the design process. They may not be designers themselves, but they are involved in the creation of copy, for instance, or they're involved in setting the strategy or, you know,

meeting certain goals for the performance of the product. So those people, they can interact with what designers create through web links. So the designer creates 20 or 30 screens for an app, for instance, and wires them up in XD. They can, with a push of a button, export them to the web. And their partners in the business, their stakeholders can see that we're

work and comment on it. And developers can also get the specs they need and download the assets that they need. So in that way, the idea of Adobe XD is not just an app, not just a program. It's really a platform that allows a lot of people to become involved in the design process. And the ultimate goal is to make

design teams faster and also make design faster in all kinds of organizations. I think it's so interesting what you just said that

like those new UX design tools actually help to democratize design in some way that not only designers but other people are designing as well or are more integrated in the whole design process which is super interesting because if we look back or so if I don't know like InDesign, Photoshop those kind of things only designers were able to use that like understand it and you know like could do all the magic and

And now other people are able to learn it really quick and can do their design, do like, or interfere in the design process as well a little bit, especially with design systems and those kinds of things. So how do you see,

the future on those things actually, like in like five or like six, seven years, what is the role of the designer of the UX designer there if like more and more people are being integrated in the design team and doing their own like adjustments, design, prototypes, testing and those kinds of things. So where's the role of the UX designer, product designer in this team?

Well, first, it's accurate to say that we really believe design is going to become really a key discipline in every kind of organization. And it's going to become more prevalent, more influential, more critical to the success of all kinds of businesses going forward. And so, yes, you'll absolutely have more people involved in the design process and they will get their hands on the work product of designers more and more.

I don't think that that is going to diminish the role or the importance of the designer. In fact, I think it's only going to make designers more and more important in businesses. And I've talked about this and written about it a lot, but the more we democratize design, the more we are actually elevating designers. And that runs counter to a lot of concern that if people...

who are not trained designers get involved in design that designers will somehow be shoved aside. I think that's actually completely the opposite of what will happen. And we can take a look at engineering and technology as a parallel because design is so closely linked. If you think about technology, engineering, coding, programming, what have you today,

many, many more people are involved in that part of the business than before. And, um,

As that's happened, you can take a look at the role of developers. They've only become more and more essential to the business. And so I see that happening with design as well. We're already starting to see that happen. We're seeing more designers becoming parts of executive teams, leadership teams, becoming more critical to the evolution of any company. And so I look at it as a good thing for designers

the world of design if we become more and more inclusive of all the kinds of partners and stakeholders that we work with at companies. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree on that. I think it's super interesting to see that what's happening at the moment, everything around UX design in general that

design really gets some value. Design is really like how you say, get a seat at the table and be able to discuss certain problems. Of course, from the design perspective, but it's super, super valuable back, I think, from most people's perspective if they know what it's all about, right?

And especially if we're thinking about new technologies, which is a huge topic at the moment, voice, for example, I know that's a huge thing for Adobe XD. So how do you see the voice, especially, I know this is one of the features you integrated, but where are you seeing some opportunities? We are obviously really...

bullish on voice because of the investment that we've made to it. I think that's a really strong signal as to how we feel about it. If you think about the world of immersive media that we're entering, whether it's AR or VR or what have you, it's really clear that regardless of which path we go down, that voice is going to become a really important complement to

these immersive experiences that we build because voice is so direct and, you know, in theory, so relatable that it becomes just a powerful or very effective anchor in these new experiences, which can be quite disorienting. And voice is also, of course, just taken off like wildfire with Alexa and Google Assistant and Siri and

And once you start integrating voice into the way you work or even the way you live, we've got smart speakers all over our house. It just becomes really, really natural and almost transparent or invisible to you. It just becomes a part of the way that you live. And that's just a sign of successful technology. I think voice is still in its early days and there's

a lot of growth to come and of evolution to come in these voice assistants that we've got. And I think part of what's needed is the

participation, the contribution of designers, because I mean, part of the reason that we jumped on adding voice to XD is we saw that the way people design these Alexa skills and, you know, Google Assistant actions and voice apps of all kinds is

that we saw that the process was essentially the same as a product designer, UX/UI designer might undertake, except generally without visuals or with visuals as only the secondary layer. And so it is UX design, it is product design. It just happens to be less primarily visual. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's super interesting.

hearing you talk about like those visions kind of and I assume that your your team has a lot of like visions for the future and I'm wondering how are you able to you know staying in the details and thinking about like all the details of things which are like you know next in the pipeline but also keeping like the vision and the future and those kind of things um in mind and not forgetting about that so not getting lost in like you know details

It's not easy. And I think I don't know the secret to it because you really have to get the details right. And every day you are pulled into...

the reality of trying to ship new features, to ship new products. And that is very, very time consuming. But we have set up our org in a way and also set up the way we operate in a way that we are periodically trying to make sure that we keep our eye on the horizon, make sure that we're seeing what's coming and

And we're planning accordingly. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that. I mean, I think there's always room for improvement. And there'll be some curveballs that we have to contend with, I'm sure. But it's a balancing act, for sure.

That makes sense. I think one of the awesome visions you definitely accomplished is that it's so, like the whole Adobe XD design is super minimalistic and so easy to learn.

And this is something I find super fascinating because our job as a designer is like lifelong learning. So we are learning like all the time. But I am interested actually to hear your opinion about how to learn for the future. So how to educate yourself, how to stay up to date, which is not only about like learning, you know, like a product, like a software or something like that, but more about learning

technology and understanding and human beings and those kind of things, right? So do you have any tips or tricks? Yeah, I say that the challenge is really to stay curious and and

Try to remember that technology is constantly changing and that that's part of your job is to to be aware of the change to adapt to the change to To remain Interested in the change open to the change and and it's hard It's it's hard just because you know acquiring the skills just to stay current is not a

for sure. You really have to do both. It's sort of like the last question that you asked. You have to remain focused on the details while also thinking about what's coming in the next year or decade.

I find that reading a lot is a huge help and also writing. I think writing is a really valuable skill for any designer because it helps you process what you read, the ideas that you expose yourself to. It helps you formulate new ideas and also helps you tell the stories that

that really underpin every successful design. Every design is really just a kind of narrative about how people can sort of benefit from technology. And if you can do that in written form, even if you never end up writing something that gets put in front of a user, it's still going to help you tremendously to have that skill of being able to formulate, you know, words, sentences, paragraphs, like a whole proposal or a presentation deck, what have you,

to help people understand the vision of what you're trying to do so that's incredibly valuable yeah that definitely makes sense um and i'm wondering um so i already said like we are already talking about your own podcast the wireframe podcast so how is it for you um like

preparing those episodes. I know that you're always focusing on one specific topic and then doing a lot of research about that and seeing different opinions on those kind of things. Is this for you also something where you learn a lot or is this more something about just sharing what you already know? So how do you see that? Yeah. So Wireframe, I should say that there are so many great design podcasts out there. What we try to do with Wireframe is create

a podcast that sounds like a documentary, sounds like something that you might hear on public broadcasting or BBC or something where we tackle a single topic each episode and the topics might be anything from

dating apps to privacy and security to... Yes, yeah. And what we try to do is find the story that tells people about how design matters to that subject. And we...

interview people, we go out into the field and we get audio from real locations. We bring people together and facilitate conversations. And then we edit it and turn it into a story, like a full story from beginning to end that hopefully reveals something about the world of design and how it's everywhere and helps people understand how it works and

I learned a tremendous amount every single episode. I've learned a lot just working on this podcast because I'm not traditionally a broadcaster by any means. So I've had to learn a lot about that audio storytelling and what works in this medium.

And I've been really grateful to hear when people say they enjoy it and that they learn something too. And also not just designers, but also people who might just be curious about design. And I think, you know, it's one of the best things I hear is I'm a designer and I really, really enjoy the show, but more than that, my, my spouse or my, you know, my, my,

my mother, my father, they've been listening to this too and they find it really fascinating. And I think that sort of gets at this opportunity to help explain what design is to the world at large and making design more relatable, more understandable. And I think that goes back to the idea of democratizing design. If you can really just help design design

go everywhere, be everywhere, influence everybody, be understandable to everybody. That just creates a whole new opportunity, a whole new vista for what design can do. Yes.

Absolutely. And from my experience, more and more people are getting interested in UX in general. If they once understood what it actually is, they're seeing it everywhere. It's the same with design. Once they realize that, they're seeing it everywhere and they appreciate it even more. The same with UX failures or something like that. Or like

your user experience to switch are like completely thought through. So people are appreciating that more and more because they, I think they realized what it actually is or what it actually means, right?

So one question I'm asking everyone and I'm also super interested to hear your opinion about that, although we already spoke a little bit about that. If we are talking about the future, so the next like 10 or 15 years, where do you see the role of like product, UX or like general designers in our world, in our society? So how do you see the future of UX?

Yeah, so I think that we're just at the beginning of design's expansion into our lives, into culture and society. And I think if we are successful in making sure design grows in the right way, meaning that it evolves in a way that is beneficial to us, then we'll see design, hopefully, we'll see design evolve

conversations in places we never see it today. We'll see design conversations on television shows and in the New York Times. The New York Times does not have a design column, the way they do an architecture columnist or a financial columnist. We'll see

Yeah, we'll see, you know, people everywhere who are conversant in the language of design who are perhaps able to with the aid of new software tools able to create experiences on their own to, you know, there are so many

the way technology is evolving, it's becoming so easy to harness the power of various apps and services today to your own ends and sort of create these micro applications or experiences that really service your own specific needs. And that is a kind of

sort of development activity. It's also kind of a design activity too, because you are essentially creating an experience for yourself. So it's, there's just a huge opportunity for design to become even more embedded into our daily lives. And hopefully we can do it in a way that's thoughtful and conscientious and, and really, you know, fully considers all the ethical implications or ramifications of what the,

the design can do with the power that we have. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, that's super interesting. I honestly have never thought about that the New York Times hasn't like a design column. I haven't really thought about that, but yeah.

Would be awesome to have that. Looking forward to that in the future. What would you recommend young designers who are just starting out now or in the next years? What should they focus on? What kind of skills do you think are they going to need to be successful? So I think that designers starting out today, I think

You really have to learn the tools, learn the technology that's available today and master it. And hopefully the tools today are easier to learn than ever before. I think that's true.

they also have to learn how to communicate and adapt and these echoing things that we talked about just a little while ago. They just have to learn to be curious, learn to continually be exploring new opportunities and new kinds of technology and new implications. So they can't

just be content to master the things that we're talking about as an industry today. The technologies or the methods or the tools, they have to keep in mind that, as I said, technology is in a constant state of change. And the true job of a designer is to sort of surf that change and make it

palatable, make it relatable, make it accessible to real people. Yeah, I think that's really great advice and probably super helpful for the listeners here, I guess.

We already talked about like resources and you were talking about books as a great hope to get better. So are there any books or blogs or something you can recommend to read? Anything that inspired you the last years? Well, at the risk of sounding too self-promotional.

I've been writing a blog for a long time at subtraction.com about design and technology and culture. Also, one of the things that I've been doing at Adobe is we've created this new online publication called XD Ideas. You can find it at xd.adobe.com/ideas. And this is a place where we're bringing together all kinds of voices from across the industry to talk about

user experience design not just how to do it but where it's going and how it's changing and it's it's even though it's called xd ideas it's not about trying to sell you adobe xd it's really just about you know our goal of making designers successful as thinkers of design as people who are charting the future of design and so i heartily recommend that you know we we're

posting tons of great stuff all the time. It just launched in November 2019, but there's already more than 200 articles there. And there's new stuff coming in all the time.

Awesome. I will link a blog and other things you already mentioned in the show notes so people can check it out. And I will also link your personal blog there. I think that's super interesting for people. You're also posting really cool things on Twitter. So everyone who's on Twitter should definitely follow you. It's always super interesting what you're posting there. So if people want to follow you, where can they find you? We already talked about your blog and about Twitter, which is definitely great.

good thing to follow you but where else do you have anything yeah i'm at coy on twitter i to be honest i am i'm trying to wean myself off of twitter uh not completely but uh you know there i go through periods where i spend too much time on it and i'm trying to be more present in my day-to-day life and i write at subtraction.com and um

If you ever want to ask me about anything Adobe related, you can just email me at [email protected]. Awesome. Okay, great. So people can find you if they have questions or something like that or should definitely check out your blog. That's super interesting. I'm going to link everything in the show notes so people can find you and check out what you're doing.

Yes, so Koi, thank you so much for your time, for your interview and for being so honest about the industry and the future. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I think it was super interesting. So thank you so, so much for your time. Of course. Thanks for having me on. This is really fun. I hope you enjoyed this amazing episode with Koi. It was a great honor for me having him in the podcast today and

I guess many of you already know that I'm a creative resident at Adobe at the moment, so I am super interested to hear more about Adobe's perspective about the future of design and experience design. And I'm also a huge fan of the Fireframe podcast, so yeah, it was really awesome having Koi today at the podcast.

So if you like this episode and if you find it inspiring and it helped you in any way, feel free to rate it on iTunes or share it with friends or your colleagues. And if you have any feedback, maybe feel free to text me on Instagram. You can find me at ux.patricia. I'm really looking forward to connect with you there. And yeah, stay inspired and hear you in the future.

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