Episode 18: Inclusivity in UX Design with Ning Goh, Senior UX Designer
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Hi everyone, I'm Dalen, founder and design educator at Curious Core.

Welcome to our Working in UX Design podcast series where we interview a UX design leader in the industry on their experience in this emerging field. We've had UX professionals from Grab, AirAsia, Google and more join us previously and we're bringing you more exciting interviews this year. Stay tuned for this week's interview with our special guest who is working in UX design.

My name is Dalen and I'm the founder of Curious Core and we help mid-career professionals to transition into a few of user experience design and product management. Today we have one of our very own Ning who is working as a senior UX designer at OCBC Bank and we will be having her share with us about inclusivity in UX design

Ning is someone who is always very passionate about accessibility and the element of accessibility in UX design. So I think it will be a very interesting event where we can ask her more questions about it, especially in banking, which is something we all experience. And Morver has also worked in companies like HR Easily as well as Choke as a designer.

Welcome, Ning, to our live session. Hope all is good over there. How are you doing? Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here today. Awesome, awesome. I was just wondering, can you just share a little bit more about this topic on accessibility and why are you so passionate about it?

I started to notice you getting interested when you were in our program. So I'm just curious, like what got you so interested in accessibility? Right. I think for me, it really stems from experiences that I've gone through since I was really young. I come from a family that's very academically driven and I remember all I wanted to do was to draw. So I have always been that black sheep in the family, right? And

Being the black sheep, you definitely feel like an outcast and you start to be aware of feelings that are conjured up in you at that very young age. And I think I was, I'm not sure whether the word fortunate is the correct word to use here, but I think I was made aware of invisible impairment since I was very young as well, because

Growing up, my mom has an anxiety disorder. So I know that there are days where she look fine. She look perfectly fine with makeup on and, you know, with her office suit and stuff. But she is battling with panic attack inside. Yeah, so I think knowing that at a young age kind of really shed light on the topic for me.

And I think this is important to be made aware of in society. And I think further on that topic, right, growing up, I made friends with Teresa Gold. So just a little bit of context on who she is. She's actually a Paralympian swimmer. And I think being friends with her and hanging out with her and having conversations with her really changed my whole perspective on accessibility.

She, for me, is somebody that's really strong and challenges the notion of a disabled person in society. And I think that really shed light on how

how things can actually be designed inclusively for everybody and not just a specific user group. So I think for me, usability really stems from a place of concern, how technology is advancing so quickly, but yet we are leaving certain groups of people behind. We tend to actually tag products to able-bodied people and leave the others out. Thank you so much for sharing that story. And I'm sure some of us here in the audience know

be able to relate to that condition. And I think there's something very interesting on your LinkedIn profile where you put yourself as like a design ally. So you put like a one-one under the word. I'm wondering what's the deeper meaning behind that? So actually that's a tag code for accessibility. So that's what they do in engineering, right? And I think with that, it's also a symbol of I am part of

and advocate that advocates for accessibility. Yeah, and I'm really proud of that. I think that more people should come on board. If you feel that you are concerned and, you know, it stems from a place of genuine care, then, you know, feel free to join the advocates, the accessibility advocates, because we do need more people out there spreading the good word.

Wow. So if I'm interested and let's say I'm inspired by your story, where can I go? What should I do to find out more about how to be an advocate? Right. I think to start off, right, you can actually go online, have a search on WCAG, which is the Web Content Accessibility Guideline. I think as designers or inspiring designers, the guidelines there are sort of our Bible in that sense.

on how to create designs or rather systems that are inclusively designed. Yeah, so I think there's a lot of topics about contrast. There's a lot of topics about how colors, for example, shouldn't be used as the sole indicator of something that is in focus. And I think on this topic, right, I was on LinkedIn this morning and I saw a post posted by a designer. So it was one of those posts that asked you to vote for the design that matters to you. And

the design is basically a menu and I think there's like three options there. So for example, home notification and account, right? So the home is active, is selected and it has, the first design has a line under the word home. The second design, same options, but it has a little indicator on the side of home.

So it's basically horizontal and vertical. And people were voting in the comments. And someone who commented actually gave his idea of what the ideal design should be like. And basically, he has removed the indicator, the little rectangle from the side and the bottom. And he says that this is the best design. And that particular post actually garnered about 200 likes.

that particular comment. And as I was scrolling further in the comments, there was a PM who commented about how this just violated the whole WCAG guidelines because colour shouldn't be used as the sole indicator of something that's selected. So in this case, is the menu inclusively designed? I don't think so. If somebody has low vision or can't really perceive colour properly in that sense, so colour blindness, they might not be able to see that the first option is selected.

But yeah, so keeping in mind such guidelines do help us to become better designers. Thanks for sharing that. So as designers, we should be aware that color shouldn't be the only thing that we should be using to help improve accessibility. There should be other things to consider as well. Do you have good examples of apps or websites who have done accessibility right or have done it very well?

So I did a mini project, a private mini project before, and I was speaking to several blind users. And I was asking them what their preferred platform is. So it's not exactly an app, but I think a lot of them are actually Apple users. And I think it makes sense because Apple was the first one who came up and said that my platform should be accessible. And there isn't a way. When they came up to say that, right, there isn't any guidelines on how you should make things accessible. They championed it.

So I think in that sense, Apple managed to capture a large part of people with impairments that are leveraging their system to make their everyday life better.

Sorry, can I get back to the question that you asked? No problem. Yeah, of course you can. You can do so. So use mobile apps, right? Apple being one of the good examples. So Apple OS, definitely. Yeah. And I think because I'm researching on design systems right now, right? There are certain design systems that are CAWG compliant. And I think Salesforce Lightning is one of them. So I'm actually trying to look at how they design their components and how they select their colors and

in order to make it CAWG compliant. I think it's very interesting. I think accessibility itself as a topic is something that's not governed enough. Yeah, and CAWG is just one of those guidelines and organizations that comes up with like guidelines to kind of govern it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think there needs to be some standards and obviously it needs to be thought through. Yeah.

obviously people need to hold other people accountable whether it's meeting those standards or it's filling those standards so it makes perfect sense and you're right I think most of the time we design for more able people you also mentioned you're someone who champions diversity you're

And I know today in your Zoom background today, you have this very colourful Zoom background with the hashtag pride. Can you tell us a little bit more what this means and why is it important to you? I'm actually wearing my Proud Spacers shirt, by the way, for the event. And I think inclusivity for me is important. Diversity in the sense is important. And I have this rainbow background because it's nearing June and June is Pride Month. Yeah, so...

Happy Pride Month, everybody, in advance. I think for me, I do identify as a queer lady. So LGBT rights is very important for me. And for any chance that I get to champion that, I will. And I think it really stems from an experience that I had when I was young, where you are basically with your partner at a bus stop, holding hands, and then somebody who would light up from the bus yells, says nasty things to us. And then...

When you're like 15 or 16, you are wondering if you are doing something wrong. And I think that scars you in that sense. And growing up, you realize that, hey, there's nothing wrong with that. You just need to embrace who you are. And if people don't agree with that, then that's on them, right? So advocating for LGBT rights is something that I'm passionate about just because it's very personal.

For me, how I try to advocate it is I try to run events. I try to educate people on why certain policies are important. And I was very fortunate because the first tech company that I joined was Chope. And the leaders at Chope, Arif and Dinesh, kudos to you guys. They led by example. They are very, very inclusive people. And it translates into HR policy. It was the first time during that marriage leave I was extended to same-sex couples.

And that for me was eye-opening. And that for me indicates that it just can be made for progress.

Yeah, so I think when I was there, because there was a very supportive group as well, when it was in 2018, and I think Pink Dot Singapore was running their 10th anniversary, they were asking for a proposal from various avenues to run events to celebrate their 10th anniversary. And I remember going to my HR manager, Joshua, and then telling him that, hey, there's such an initiative, would Choke be interested to take part?

part. He was really spontaneous about it and he said, yeah, let's brainstorm an idea. And I think within like three hours, we had that idea nailed down and we were going to run a kind of a career fair to showcase inclusive companies and in particular local ones. Because I think there's a whole notion of how only foreign companies or big MNCs are inclusive, but they don't see that there are companies like Choke. There's companies like the Low and Behold Group that

are very passionate about driving diversity and they are very inclusive places to work at as well. Yeah, so that was a very eye-opening experience for me to actually organise it. And on a very tight budget, we only had like $1,500. ♪

Thank you so much for sharing that. I don't ever know about hearing you identify yourself as queer. And I think that really helps me understand why this topic is so important to you as well. And how is it like as a queer person trying to apply for a role or job in Singapore where it's actually quite traditional and people, they make their own judgments about this group of people. So do you even tell your employees like, I identify as this, like, is that okay?

I think to answer that, right, I do look and gauge the energy of the person before I open up. And especially when it concerns my career. So when I was considering the job at OCBC, it actually took me a while because I was wondering if I should be even joining them.

because it's a very conservative bank, right? I think in fact, it's one of Singapore's most conservative banks. But when I started speaking to the people there, they were really nice about it. And they were really empathetic, a really nice group of people. And the energy was good. So I decided to go on board.

And so I didn't tell my boss, but I did open up to my peers within the journeys team. Yeah, so there's different teams and I was in the journeys team helping to craft user journeys and they were all very receptive to it. They were all very accepting. So that was a huge relief for me. But back on the topic of trying to find a job, right? And being a queer person, trying to break into the industry, trying to find a job. I have been...

to an interview where I mentioned that my partner was female and then I got a weird reaction from the interviewers and they start saying things like oh that's interesting and then they start laughing about it so I mean obviously I didn't take that that job but I mean it got me thinking about how you are still different right even though we are still progressing in the right direction and

And therefore, I do choose to be a little bit careful about who I tell. I'm very open. But when it comes to job, I tend to gauge whether you're okay with it or not because I also don't want to put you in a position where you're uncomfortable to have that conversation with me. Yeah.

So I think what is really helpful for me as a queer person is that the other party initiates the conversation first. So if you ask me if I'm attached, I'm very open. I'm very happy to actually let you know. And then if you do ask about my partner's gender, I'm very willing to share. Thank you for sharing, by the way. And I think this is also very inspiring for people who might be

identify themselves as queer and might be a little hesitant to be honest, truthful during the interview process. I think your story and your example would really help them. So it's kind of like a bite check and you do be truthful in the end. And that's something that you don't like from your potential employers, right?

It pays to be truthful at an interview because you get to see the other side of the interviewers as well, right? If there's somebody that is jeering at you for being queer, would you really want to join that company? I don't think so. I think that makes a lot of sense. So you're wearing this t-shirt and can you tell us more about what you mentioned, Proud Spaces, right? Like what is it about? I know you started this project in 2018. So tell us a little bit more.

It's really to showcase companies that are champions of diversity and inclusion as well. So we were, initially we wanted to just bring local companies on board, but I mean, it was really hard to find within that really short period of time. So we kind of leveraged on the Chope network, right? So you see groups like, you see companies like Low and Behold Group coming on board because they are a restaurant group down Chope. Yeah. And obviously when we start

kicking off that event, we do reach out to partners first. So they were one of those that came on board. We do then reached out to bigger companies because that was a strategy that we were going for. We feel that with the bigger companies on board as an anchor, smaller companies would then want to

be more keen to come on board. So my sister was working at Airbnb, so I took that as a leverage and I asked her to connect me with their diversity champion. So then moving forward, we had a conversation and then they were really happy to come on board. And I was really happy to have them to come on board because the moment Airbnb was on board, I had Salesforce coming on board. I had 99.co who wants to come on board. So we have a huge range of companies. We even have really small one-man or

Yeah, a small setup. Like there was a lady, I think her name was Eileen and she was running like a gym and she was a personal trainer and she wanted to just come on board as well. Yeah, so I think we did set up a booth for her. That was that, getting people to come on board. And then because we have to work on a very tight budget of like $1,500, right?

We needed an event space because the CHOP office was not big enough then. I think we were renting out WeWork. I think it was Purvis or South Street. I think WeWork is one of the more well-known companies that champion diversity as well. So we just basically one day decided to approach them and just ask them, hey, we are here already. We are running this event. Are you interested to join us? And then I think there was a bit of negotiation because they said that on Saturdays, their place is open for

for those that have rented to them until like afternoon. And then usually in afternoon, they are more empty and therefore they are willing to actually let us have the space. And we just told them, yeah, we'll take it. And that's the story behind the event space. And I think additionally for publicity, we had pink dots. So we didn't have to worry about, they have a very wide pool of users. They have their own like social media person, Ching, that did us a lot of favor about advertising our event. So that was that.

That's really awesome. And are you looking to do something again this year with everything opening up? Because the last two years, everything's closed. Right. So actually, Proud Spaces continued to run in 2019. And then I was really happy with the outcome of 2019 because we had companies like Visa, MasterCard and Johnson & Johnson coming on board.

So that for me was an accomplishment to be very honest, because you start something really small, you sit something really small thinking that it's going to be just one event and that's it, right? But even though I was not with the company anymore, they decided to take it and run with it still. And then bringing all these like really big companies on board and we have really good speakers and

and gave like fireside chats and stuff. I think that said, I think 2020 when COVID hit, they decided to lower the scale of it. So it was more like a fireside online chat about how restaurants and F&B industry can benefit from diversity. And I think 2021, I can't recall whether anything was done, but this year. Yeah, sorry. I actually see that being held. In fact, I'm looking at the Pinkfest website right now. It looks like Dinesh, you're,

is the moderator for CrowdSpaces. So it looks like Choke is your ex-company is anchoring during the event. So it looks like you definitely left a mark over there. And I think it wouldn't be possible without the leaders there being role models. I think they really do practice what they preach and that's what I really, really liked about Choke. You know, every day...

When I was at Choke, every day was like going to work was like going back to family. So that was really enjoyable. I think OCVC is a little bit tricky because it's a bigger organization and they do have their own like employees branding, right? I think unfortunately, they're at a stage where they are still not ready to open up. And I'm pretty confident that in future when things get more progressive, they will. But it's just not the right time. That makes a lot of sense. So yeah, like back to the question in 2022, are you going to do anything for Pouty?

So I don't think so because actually Pink Dot is happening next month. I already saw the whole event list. And yeah, I think unfortunately, I don't have the bandwidth to actually take part this year. Maybe next year, I am actually thinking of connecting back with my HR manager because we're really good friends, right? And perhaps we'll put together something for 2023.

I think talking about diversity, you're also one of the few women in tech, right? Because talking about techs being predominantly male-dominated, how do you think we could get more women to be interested in the tech industry and to be here designing great products with us? I think

think the tech industry is progressing in the right direction if we are looking at product design in particular I think product design is actually having its moment right now right I think design in general is having its moment right now where the spotlight is on how we can use design as a problem solving tool I think to get more females into tech I don't think

the issue is in female not being interested in tech. I think it's just that they are there, but they're not getting enough visibility. So I think if you are a lady in tech, right, there's always a lot of groups to join to actually be a bit more visible. I think ADP Lease as well is one of the places where you can go and say that, hey, you know, I'm a leader in tech. My feedback is different from somebody who is predominantly male in a male industry. I can give you advice that is crafted to your needs.

And I think when I'm saying that, I'm coming from a perspective of you are a female student or mentee who wants support in that sense. Are you also like a mentor on ADB list? No, I actually haven't signed up for it. I did consider, but I think maybe when I have a little bit more bandwidth, just to be fair to like the mentees out there,

Well, I know some of our students who then went on to join like really companies, they just decided to give back some of their time back to the next generation, which is really great. I'm also wondering, like you talk about being a UX designer and you've worked with very different companies of very different sizes from startups to MNCs. Would you want to share a little bit about the difference between working for a startup versus working for like a bigger MNC, like an OCBC bank?

I think one of the biggest difference for me was speed. Yeah, I think when I started my job in startups, usually I'm already working on the project in my first week.

But when I was in OCBC, the onboarding process itself was like two weeks. And there's a very good reason behind it, right? Because they are such a huge company that they need you to be aligned to certain things. So I remember for my first week there, I was spending almost every day just completing online lessons, like online courses. Yeah, so there was courses on like anti-money laundering, etc. that you have to go through in order to be part of OCBC. Finance too. Yeah, exactly.

So you would understand. So that is really one of the biggest difference for me, speed. I think scope as well, right? So in a big company, there's basically a wider product suite.

So if we take OCBC, for example, you have your premier banking, you know, online banking, offline banking, merchant banking, and you have like maybe things like digital wealth where I was sitting. And then a smaller company usually don't have that many product pillars, right? Usually it's one single product and then like different modules under it. So scope is very different because in a smaller company, you have the luxury to see things end to end.

You may be involved in a project that is in discovery phase. You help to find the problem to solve and then craft the solution all the way to the delivery of the solution, which is the whole double diamond framework that you learn in school a lot. Whereas in OCBC, you still use the double diamond framework, but it's really condensed into a project scale that is slightly smaller. Usually, it doesn't involve discovery. Usually, it's more like usability and how you can make things

or how you can iterate things better. So I think that's important as well because if you are thinking of joining a larger company, bear in mind that you probably won't be learning end-to-end. You will probably be quite focused into that particular project that you're on.

Yeah, thanks for sharing about that. And I can definitely echo and attest to the fact that bigger companies are slower. And also more traditional companies are also slower, right? Because naturally the product design infrastructure hasn't been built and there's no cadence or rhythm to doing projects at a certain speed. And I was just wondering here,

You're talking about OCBC Bank, you know, what are some of the things that you're able to share with us that you're excited about working on the UX team or the journeys team, as you mentioned? So I think when I was there, I joined at a junction where the team was scaling very fast and then there wasn't a framework in place yet.

So the team was just one very flat hierarchy. And then I think about three months in, they start breaking it into teams. And I think I'm very fortunate to have been placed in the journeys team because the journeys team was all about discovery research and all about crafting user journeys. And I think that really opened up the whole scope of service design for me. And I start seeing how UX fits into service design and how it's really important for, I would say, every designer to know about service design because

I think that's your mothership. If you're looking at like, you know, UX as a really small like spaceship, I think service design is your mothership.

and I start being quite aware about how the user discover your product. So from the emotions that they feel, right? So everyday things that they do, things like they wake up and they don't get that coffee, the coffee machine breakdown, that's already a negative emotion. And then how it translates through the day and how it influences the way they use your app. And I think I recall my mentor in OCBC always say, right, so there's 24 hours in a day, but

the customer can only be on our app for only five minutes but in that five minutes you can actually create joy for that person and

And I think that really resonates a lot, right? So how do you make that five minutes delightful for that person by truly understanding what they're going through? So I think one of the things that was discovered was why people do not want to use our like pay anyone app. And I think the reason, the insight was that it was really, really slow. And so you imagine somebody who is trying to pay for like a meepong, right? So now they accept pay anyone app.

at a coffee shop and you want to pay for like Meepok at the Meepok store. In some context, the pay now is a cashless kind of transaction. Yes. QR-based, you know, thing. So yeah, Meepok is like a very...

Street food in Singapore where you have fish balls inside. Yeah, so sorry, that's not very inclusive of me, but thanks a lot, Daylon. No worries. Yeah. So imagine somebody who is rushing, right, rush hour, lunch hour, trying to buy a bowl of like fish ball noodles, bracket mee pok at the hawker store and they are opening an app to pay and it's taking like a minute to load.

And there's a long queue at the back. How do you think she feels, right? How do you think he or she feels? It's going to make her feel really frustrated, really embarrassed. So these are the negative emotions that we try to sieve out. And therefore, it translates to the next time they use your app, which is there's a fear that, you know, they're going to hold up the line and therefore they might switch to a faster platform. Yeah, so I think these are really lessons that I took from OCBC that would really stay with me for a really long time.

When you say you're a journeys team and you do the research and you discover that this is a blocker, what do you then do next as a UX designer? How do you then pass it to the rest of the design team to execute on? So I think how OCBC functions is that there's the journeys team that is in charge of research and usually conducting of the interviews and crafting of the user journey. And I think working parallel to us is the UI UX designer or

We call them interface designers, where they are working strictly on the digital experiences. And with that is the PM and engineers. So what we usually do is that when we're conducting the interview, that discovery interview, we invite those people, those stakeholders, as we call them, to always sit in and do the transcribing of verbal themes.

Yeah, so then it's easier to show than tell, right? So we show you how we conduct the interview. So we are conducting the interview and you're there and you're actually listening to the findings from the horse's mouth. And you know that we won't be, you know that nothing will be lost in translation because they're there to listen to the insights themselves, findings themselves, sorry, not insights. And so what happens is that after...

a certain insight has been found, the UI UX designer will usually work with us to craft the user journey. So that's when the design sprint happens, right? So your crazy aids, your mapping, your seating field, everything comes out

And then once that is done, we do prototype testing as well. So we move from discovery phase to deliver phase. And that's when we test the prototype in labs again. And once we are satisfied with the testing, then we'll move ahead with development. Yeah, so in general, that's how OCBC works. What are the benefits of OCBC?

Thanks for sharing that. I mean, it's nice to see how it works in a larger and more developed team. Personally, I'm aware that among the banking industry, DBS has one of the largest UX design teams and OCBC is not too far behind. I mean, OCBC and DBS were one of the earliest

banks in Singapore that started investing in UX design, right? And really tried to drive that change organization-wide. And they have come such a long way to be an organization that is mature in terms of the UX design practices. So you've been a designer for a while.

How does data play a role in your work? I think when we talk about data, it's about defining what kind of data. So I personally feel that data matters, but it also doesn't matter. And there's a reason why I say that, right? So let's look at quantitative data as a base, right? And what it translates for us

So if you're collecting data on your website, for example, it's telling you what the user is doing, where they are going, where they are dropping off. But I think what is lacking is that insight behind that behaviour,

and why the user is dropping off at a certain page. So I'll give an example about, say, an online furniture shop, right? E-commerce furniture shop. And people are actually adding items to their cart, but they're not checking out. So people are not converting in that sense. And I think the question here is, why are they not converting, right? There's a lot of speculations there. And one of the speculation could be that, you know, the checkout process is very lengthy. So maybe let's just reduce it to three clicks.

So that could be a solution. That could be a possible solution. But I think if you do speak to the user and understand why, it could be that they are just using the card as a bookmark feature. So they don't want to, maybe there's like a thousand items on your website, right? They can't find a bookmark feature for one. Adding to card is easier. So therefore they add to card so that they can find it easier. Don't want to register, right? Yeah, exactly. That's what I do with Amazon actually. Absolutely.

Just like I do on Shopee. I always do that. So I think for me, it's always about quant and qual working together and how it produces a piece of evidence that will give you an insight. And I think it's important when we're reporting data to always list out that quantitatively, these are the numbers.

but qualitatively, this is what the customers are saying. And then kind of triangulate the both, right? And try to come up with that why and come up with the best solution that will work around that. I think I would say that qualitative data alone, it's important, but it may not be substantial enough if you're only interviewing a few people.

Like if your user pool or your user interviews are too little. And I think one of the examples is, and this is not OCBC or any other companies that I've worked at, but I've heard this example from a friend before that the checkout is too tedious, but what

data shows that people are checking out normally. So if it's just one user saying that the checkout is too tedious, but you have data from a thousand people saying that checkout is actually all right, and they're actually rating it on the SUS scale of like, sorry, a system usability scale of say 4.5, would you be listening to that one person? Yeah. So I think there's always, you always have to come in from a neutral mindset, right? And balance out your data in that sense.

I always tell students that what people do is a behavior, right? And what people say is an attitude, right? So you always need a complete picture by actually finding about the attitudes and behaviors of the users. That's always been...

something. And I think using cross-referencing from different data sources also helps you to verify whether your hypothesis, as you mentioned, is correct. That's really meaningful. This is also interesting as a follow-up question. I wanted to know, you're now considered a senior UX designer, right? You've been in your career for a while. For people who are growing in their careers, right? This is maybe their first or second year in

their careers what advice would you like to give them as they are kind of starting their first year or they're kind of like growing into their second year and beyond do you wish you would have done anything differently or learn anything before you know like becoming a senior more senior UX designer

Also, I'll relate my personal experience. I deliberately switched to UX because I was interested in measurable design in that sense. And I think I was fortunate enough because my friend's company was looking for a junior role. And so I took the chance and I went in there. It was the first six months for me was hell, to be very honest.

I think a lot of time I was trying to figure things out on my own. I was trying to understand what a design system is, what's the difference between that and design library, you know, and basically on top of that is about how certain softwares work, right? How do you create components or

nested symbols in Sketch. That time I was still using Sketch. So there's a lot of things happening then. It was quite overwhelming. And I think it's about grit, right? G-R-I-T. If you like something enough, you will have the grit to go through with it. Yeah. But that said, right, always learn to look at the positive side of things and have fun. So I think that's really for the younger designers out there or those that are

starting out their careers because the whole journey is going to be it's not going to be like wah up up up all the way you know you're going to face like situations whereby you have to dig into like a lot of dirty quant data and then

come out with that insights or build up a research plan on your own. Yeah, so learn to enjoy the journey and always learn to give yourself enough credit, which is something that I also don't do often because you are always your worst like critic, right? As they always say, I think for people who are in their second year and looking to go in UX, I think what I was looking for when I reached my second year mark was a mentor and

and I have been reading articles I've been watching like TED Talks and I realized that so I'm a big fan of TED Talks by the way yeah and I realized that having that mentor that will guide you along and having that community that you can fall back on is very important and I think they learned that was when I found you because um I was looking for a lot of resources online and I signed up for Interactive Design Foundation uh

where it was like e-learning platform. You sign up, you get access to your courses. And I realized that in Singapore, Curious Call was the anger community. So again, being very curious, I went to your site and I realized that, hey, you know, maybe I should be enrolling this program to connect with more people. And I think that was what I did. And, you know, no regrets because I made friends and I worked on really good projects.

And I think that really opened up a lot of doors. I think I'm still in touch with some of my batchmates, right? I think I see a Gabe in the audience. I don't know where is Gabriel. Yeah. And then like Siying and my team that worked on, that worked with me on like Banyan Tree and AirAsia. One of them, Steve, I think he's still in Malaysia, but we're still in touch on Telegram. So really, really happy to have found this group of people. Thank you for bringing your experience and enriching the,

learning experience for everyone as well. I'm sure a lot of them learned a lot from you. And as I remember, you always had glowing reviews as a team. I think that's really great. And something about that along those lines as well. Do you think it's more important to

improve your communication skills and leadership skills as you grow and to becoming a senior UX designer? I think more importantly is about looking at your UX trajectory and how you want it to pan out. Communication is always important. And I think recently I've been contemplating taking up an improv course because I'm not very good at improvisation myself. Yeah, and I've always wanted to learn how people can do that on the spot.

And I think that will also help with public speaking. So I'm actually looking at certain improv courses that I can take. So communication is definitely key. But back to UX trajectory, right? So there's basically a few paths to take, right? So you can be a generalist, you can specialize, or you can maybe branch out to be a manager, which is a scope that I'm trying to explore right now.

I think as a generalist, it's also looking at upscaling complementary skills, right? So animation has always been looked upon as a complementary skill. Maybe you will want to do that. Specialization, for example, could be taking up a, I'm not sure, research job.

certification with an end group, for example. Yeah, so really looking at where you want to go and then charting that and getting the qualification or skills to reach there. I think that would be quite important. Sounds like it depends on what you want to specialise, whether you want to be an individual contributor or a team leader or people manager.

And based on that, you try and acquire what's the missing skills gap. I'm wondering right now, someone from Hong Kong is asking me, how would you rate the prospects of being in the UX sector in the coming years? Prospects? Yeah, you can comment from a Singapore perspective, but this question came from someone in Hong Kong. How would you define prospects?

Yeah, like is it promising? Is it looking good? Is it looking bad? I don't know. What are your perspectives on joining the UX sector? I think I mentioned earlier, I think design is having its moment right now. So it's definitely a booming industry. And I think with booming industry also comes an influx of designers.

who are trying to get into industries. I think the market is going to get a little bit more saturated, a little bit more competitive. But if you're talking about prospects and how that will help you grow, in Singapore in particular, I think it's a great place to start your UX career. I think Singapore has always been looked upon as a base for APEC, so Asia Pacific region. And a lot of companies are setting up HQ here. So we do have like big names like Airbnb, we have Facebook, and we have our local unicorn, which is Grab.

And I think these are all great places to start looking for jobs because they're always hiring. And I think now the Singapore market is actually facing a talent crunch. So if you are inspiring, I think it's actually a pretty good time to go out there and try to get into the industry. What are your thoughts on the future of the industry?

I think I echo that sentiment. I mean, it might seem it has been several years since we've been like teaching UX and all that. But I think the fact is that the industry is actually growing, right? The tech industry is still growing. There's so much more venture capital going into the tech industry. And of course, they need to hire builders, right? And UX designers are definitely...

builders together with the engineers itself. And he was asking career advice as well and he's wondering like how to enrich my exposure to the UX area. I guess he's trying to get a job or trying to get into the industry. I think network is very important and I think that was part of the reason why I was looking for a community. I think I do

make an effort to keep in touch with my past product designer friends, you know, just because you never know, they might come to you with job opportunities and say like, hey, do you want to join me in my company? I'm actually looking to hire. And that has happened to me before. So, and it's not just product design, right? Your HR managers, your PMs, your marketing people, they are all potential routes that will open doors for you.

And that's when the whole people management skills or people relationship management skills come into play. I think career advice on how to broaden UX perspective, try to go out and join UX events because now I'm in the market is opening already, right? So there are opportunities for you to actually meet people face to face. And there's a bit of personal touch there when you get to meet people face to face.

I feel that it's a little bit more personable as well. Other than that, there's always plenty of online webinars like this one that you're holding, Daylen. Yeah, so they're a great place to learn and, you know, just network with people. So I think for me, when I was a little more junior, I do make an effort to join webinars and then I'll look at the people that are there, those that comment or speak directly

And I try to connect with them later on on LinkedIn. So I've actually reached out to a few and say like, hey, I really like the topic that you brought up earlier. I just want to stay connected with you on LinkedIn because by staying connected, I get to see what they post about, you know, I get to see what they comment about. So that will give me perspective into the future or basically a topic that

as well yeah that makes a lot of sense do you have any particular tips if let's say people are trying to network trying to they're kind of like in a job hunt phase do you have any tips to not be too creepy when you're reaching out to people or employers especially if it's not a warm connection like how do you network in a non-free I think

I think it's about being genuine. And I think if you look at the human to human interaction, face-to-face interaction, right? I think being genuine is about listening to what they need or just being able to just understand what they want at that point in time. And if you're actually looking to join a company, knowing that they have an opening and you know that the HR person is within your circle of friends, right? Why not do it?

a mini case study on how you can improve their product for them and, you know, send it across. So I think there's this really famous story about a student actually, a fresh grad who did a whole revamp of the DBS app and then DBS got wind of that and he got hired by DBS. Yeah, so I think that's a non-creepy way of trying to get the company's attention.

Yeah. That's certainly one of those things that is a little surprising. Not sure if it works all the time, but I mean, no harm giving it a try in one way or the other. I'm not sure if you're mentoring anyone at the moment. Like, do you get requests from people who are like, hey, please help me get a job here? Or like, yeah, I want to join OCBC. Can you refer me in? Like, I

how do you think they should reach out to you to sort of like help them with the introduction? I'm sure you've got some requests and maybe some of them are very poorly written. Like, yeah, do you want to share what are those? I think there were a few of my batchmates that reached out to me to ask if I could refer them in and I did. But I think it's about the whole narrative of why you want to join a company and how your portfolio is relevant to the position they are applying for.

So I think for OCBC, because it's a customer experience team, it's not exactly UX. If your portfolio is predominantly UX related items and you're not talking about the discovery phase or user journey phase,

I think it's unlikely that they're going to actually consider you. So I think it's always about coming back to context, right? What is the company looking for? Try to craft that narrative to suit that. And then that will actually increase our chances of getting the interview. Should they buy you coffee or anything like that before signing you up?

So I don't drink coffee, fun fact. I'm actually a tea drinker. But I'm actually happy to refer you to somebody. So just reach out to me on LinkedIn, you know, like don't be afraid. And I think that's the whole if you want it, go get it kind of mindset that I think a lot of people like. Because you kind of show that you're a hustler, right? If there's a will, there's a way. And I think that's something that's quite admirable. It takes a bit of courage to do that. Don't be afraid to reach out to people that you know will get you there. Okay.

A wise man once said, "You miss 100% of the things you don't take." Yeah, for sure. That's a good one. I was wondering, is there anything you would like to cover or is there any advice because we're kind of nearing the end of the session itself? I think because the topic is on inclusive design, I just want to share a little bit more about that.

and about how we should be building for the ages. So I recently was again watching TED Talk, I think, or one of the UX webinars because I used to, I let it run when I'm doing my work.

And I think one of the inclusivity champions, I think his name is Samuel Pollock or something. He mentioned something about how if you build for the edges, you get the media for free. And I think that really made me... You build for the edges, you get the media for free. Yeah, that's right. And I think it has been true, right? If you look at history, so I think a lot of the things that are universally designed are designed with...

a problem from a smaller group of people. So the bendable straws, for example, you know those straws with the little bendy tips, they are built for, I think, patients with Alzheimer's with trouble bending their fingers, for example. Sliding doors, automatic doors are built for people that are on a wheelchair, but they are used so widely right now. And I think GPS was traditionally built for people with sighted issues like visual impairment.

So I think if there's anything that I would like to leave you with is to always think about the edges. So never leave your edge case unattended. Excellent. I think that's really, really wonderful advice. Thank you for your time and your presence. And of course, sharing all your stories and telling us your experiences as a queer person trying to practice UX design and trying to design for inclusivity and diversity.

and truly practicing what you preach as a UX ally, as you say, like with a double L with one, one, which is the code. What's the code again? I don't, I don't quite. It's a one, one, why? Yeah.

So what does one one mean? One one means accessibility. Yeah, I think it's just a condensation or like a code, right? So code is one and zero. So they actually use like double L. That's wonderful. And I love that. I'm learning new things as well as I'm listening to you speak tonight. And it's really great to have you back as an alumnus. Hopefully we'll get to do some collaborations in the coming years. And we'll definitely keep in touch. And it's been a pleasure. With that,

Thank you everyone for coming and joining us for this live webinar session. We shall catch you next month in our monthly Working UX Design series where we'll have another guest joining us as well. Don't forget, June is also Pride Month, so you're welcome to participate in the events and maybe check out some of the initiatives as well. And with that, I wish everyone a very, very good day ahead wherever you are. Right? Take care. Bye-bye.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please let me know what you think. Get in touch with me over email at mail at curiouscore.com. I would love to hear from you. Do also check out our previous interviews and other free resources at curiouscore.com. And until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Take care and keep leaning into change.