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.

Good day, everyone. This is Dalen over here. And today I have with me a very special guest. His name is Johnny, and he is a seasoned designer with over two decades of experience spanning various industries, including comics, automobile, and secondhand goods, which is the company he's in right now. So Johnny believes that exceptional design should seamlessly blend into our lives and

offering intuitive experiences that feel like second nature. And Johnny is also very, very passionate about all facets of design and is someone who is also a coffee drinker that drinks at least a cup of coffee every single day. And today we'll be asking Johnny to share with us his career journey

journey pivoting from being an art director to a UX designer and today one of the key leaders in the Malaysia product design industry having recently organized the Design Leadership Kuala Lumpur Conference

with a fully sold out event. And at the same time, we'll be asking him to share with us his experience working for startups like Qasem and muda.my, which is part of the Carousell Group in Southeast Asia. So Johnny, welcome to the show. My name is Dalen and this is Working in UX Design. How are you doing today?

Good, I'm good. Excellent, thanks for having me. Excellent. So today we're going to talk about your career. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Like how did you turn from an art director to a UX designer? What was the story behind that? Yeah, sure. So I grew up in jail. So after studying my secondary school, so I...

continue to pursue down a job. So all this while when I was young, I like to draw, you know, these, these, uh, if you, if you know some of those textbooks that we have, whenever there's a blank page or there's a blank space, I'm going to draw on it. So yeah, my, my, all my textbooks full of my drawings. So it can't, can't be transferred to other people because they complete a lot of drawings.

So because my passion and my interest and also hobby at that time, I like to draw, I like art. Then I thought I want to pursue in creative industry. So back then, I think during the 90s, there was no such thing called a wax designer or even UI and wax.

There's talks among the people and also my relatives saying that, "Hey Johnny, you should be in advertising. You should draw advertising." Because back then, all the advertising posters are hand drawn. So my first job is actually nothing to do with design. My first job is actually making rubber stamps. So because that company, they

offer to train me. So how to do the rubber sand is that one of the requirement is you know how to use one design tool called CorelDRAW. So back then CorelDRAW at Adobe was like the top

app design tools in the market. So CorelDRAW is the second, I think Adobe is the first one, but because Adobe is so expensive, so some people opt for Corel brand. So the tool is called CorelDRAW. And from there, I self-learn how to use these sort of design apps or design software to start learning about those basics like typography, alignments,

colors and draw rectangles and placing here and there. So from there onwards, I started my design career journey from being a rubber stamp maker to DTP artist to become graphic designer and up to art director in a local agency. So afterwards, I sort of want to take a little bit different job setting. So I

I moved on from my art director work and moved to Sydney for a year. So in Sydney, I took a student visa and studied and doing part-time. So long.

So like, give me a new perspective, learning about how to design for web and how to design for apps. So at the same time, I'm also taking freelance, you know, designing social media banners, digital banners, and also landing page for simple. Johnny, just to stop you a little bit over there, when were you in Sydney actually?

Let me remember correctly, around 2014. 2014, it looks like you went to a school in Sydney. Yes, 2014. Okay, excellent. And you mentioned, but in the school, it says that you're studying audio production. So how did you end up doing web-related stuff? So back then, there was this...

music school, music production school. But it's not really like a full-fledged school. It's more like a small institute where they are certified Ableton training center. So, at the same time, I'm also like, I like about music. I want to learn about audio production. So,

Just want to explore a little bit here and there with web design, app design, and also audio production. Because one of the course in the audio production is that you can create sound and make sampling. So I thought maybe if I happen to go back to KL, then maybe I can continue my creative career where I'm on board as a multimedia designer, where I can create videos and

maybe jingles or maybe anything that relate to audio design or audio productions. So that's why I complete my audio production for Bossin Sydney.

Awesome. So I'm very curious, who gave you your first break into, I would say, web design, right? Because that's really the entryway into doing UI and UX. So who was the company or who was the client or who was the, that gave you that first big break? So from there, I was there, I was in Sydney for a year. Then after that, I come back.

And one of my ex-colleagues who happened to establish his own digital agency, which is called Digital Symphony. So these ex-colleagues of mine, his name is Goheng. First, he hired me as a part-time designer to design some of those digital banners and also landing page. And then from doing part-time, from that to become full-time. So that is the turning point of me

from being in graphic design, advertising, all the branding industry, transitioned to the UI, UX today.

So the lesson over here is that you kept in touch with this guy and he happened to start his own agency and you ended up working for him because he did a lot of digital work and digital projects. And I saw after that you went on to take on various roles, such as being an art director, such as being a digital lead for various startups.

Was that a deliberate choice that you joined startups instead of joining a bigger company?

Not really. So after that digital symphony company, my colleagues one, so I move on to another startup. So one of the startup is actually in travel tourism space. So they just started not long and they hiring a creative manager to oversee the whole creative and the design part from digital to offline. So and then so happened that

My profile fit to what they're looking for. So I onboard and, you know, taking care of the full design from the revamp the whole website to creating and designing their tour packages, like all those posters, banners, and social media content.

Okay, so I think that's really some interesting stints you had right there. And I would say the first break into a very prominent startup is probably your first gig with 123RF.com, which is a stock image website and quite a famous one as well, competing with the likes of the big boys out there. So how did you end up at 123RF?

So back then, there was this small issue happening in that travel startup. So that's why from there I shift my focus to try to get on board on a fully UI/UX role. And then one of my friends introduced me to 123RF. And then after rounds of interviews then, we sort of like, I got hired.

So in the one-two-three area, basically I'm overseeing the team of UI/UX design and also in charge and leading the product UX directions and also strategy.

This is really interesting because a lot of people don't know this, but this is an international stock photo website, but it's actually the headquarters and the founders are actually in Malaysia. So what does it feel like to work on a global product? Because so far you've only worked in the Malaysia market, but now at 123RF, you have a product or a website that is visited by millions of users all over the world.

How does that feel? First of all, the audience is a global audience, of course, definitely. So one of the interesting is that the whole business operation is actually streamlined in Malaysia office. And of course, back then, before they restructure, I had a design team in Bandung actually. So there's two design teams in KL and also in Bandung. So one of my

Us is to travel between Bandung and KL to guide and grow the design team there. In order to JRF, it's interesting because the audience is global. So whatever design or any sort of strategy, any sort of improvement or idea that we do,

we need to take into account that they are international audience where they see and read content, copy, user flow, the checkout requirements, everything is so different. So we can't have like one size fits all. So especially on the checkout part,

It's one of those companies that we still have a conventional method to allow our customer to do payment. Like let's say in Malaysia, they still allow for the customer buy credits through cheque.

So they will be depositing the check and then email the receipt to the customer support and then the credit will be transferred into the account. So this goes same to some of those regions in localizing the payment method. That's really interesting. So what were some of the key markets you were designing for 123RF?

The site itself is actually accessible by almost all the major countries in the world. The only difference is that, so starting from the user journey, starting when users search for something for a stock image or for asset, radio asset, it's all the same. The only difference is that at the checkout process, that is one

one thing different. Secondly is that some of those laid out that we need to consider shorter content, like example, the English copy will be probably two sentences long. But when user choose Chinese language or even Japanese or even Korean language, then that two sentence copy can be like super short, like really, really short.

Some of those things that we consider is also the language, the characters that the local country use. These are the differences that we need to consider when we improving our user journey, when we applying any features or changes that might apply to the localized functions.

And I'm reading your profile and it says over there that you led a team of seven designers. Is that also the size of the UX design team at 123RF back in 2018? Yeah. Back then, so there was, if I'm not mistaken, there's four in KL and three in Bandung. So basically handling different areas of the design. So...

Back then, the one trip there is a two type of users. So one is the usual one and another one is the enterprise user. So the bundle team where they are most of the time they focus on the enterprise side of things. Okay.

That's really interesting. And the fact that you hired designers from Bandung, I think that also is a testament to the creative talent there in Indonesia. I happen to have visited Bandung myself, and I feel like it's a very nice and lovely city. And the people are also very, very creative. Did you grow the team during your stay over there or it remained to be the same?

Well, it remains to be the same. Because back then we already working in a very optimized team. The only thing that we grow is basically the skill set of the team whereby

The industry itself is evolving very fast. So in a way we got to catch up with our competitors as well. So there are new things to learn. There are new areas of exploration that can reuse in the design and also in the business side of things as well. So example, like back then one of my team is actually building the whole

AI driven design tool. So it's basically that time AI still yet. That was, that's very, that's 2018 we're talking, 2019 we're talking about and your team was already working on AI. Yep. Back then there was a few product of AI driven product that we, you know, start to explore and also start to build it.

that can help in video creating that are voice to text and text to voice and also the new AI video generator. Wow, that's pretty amazing. So you got to touch and also experience how to design a generative AI products during your spin back there in 123RF.

Okay, that's really interesting. What was most memorable for you working on, say, a international stock photo website? I think one of the interesting part is that

Because the product that we are so-called selling is actually the stock image. Majority is by image. I mean, there are social vectors, there are social fonts, there should be stock videos, but majority will be the photos. So the imagery, the technology in imagery itself is so huge, is so broad that there are plenty of room to explore in terms of

how we revolutionize the imagery search, how we embed AI into the technology of imagery. Let's say example, how we can build an AI that can recognize image that help our content moderation. So because we call them from Trulitan, so they are photographers basically. They have all their photos for sale.

So some of the photos are actually sensitive in certain countries. So we set those rules, we set those proclamations, we apply certain AI features to recognize the sensitive part of the image.

So those are the interesting area in this side of the technology because it's super niche, super niche yet very broad in terms of there's a lot of things to explore, a lot of things to revolutionize.

And I think that is actually really, really early hit start in terms of working on AI and using AI as part of the stock image business. So I'm sure there was a lot of interesting things. Myself, I'm pretty surprised that you only had such a small team working on it, but you're already delivering so much with that.

And after that, you went to join Qasem, right? So for those of you listeners and viewers who are not sure what Qasem is, and Qasem is in the business of buying and selling used cars in Malaysia, and they are actually noted as one of the unicorns in Malaysia. Even this year, they are sort of saying on the business time that they're waiting for the right timing to IPO.

So, Johnny, you went from an international startup in Malaysia to Qasem, which is growing at that time back in 2020. How did you end up in Qasem? Back then, there was this new opportunity that knocked on my door saying that they're looking for someone that can lead the design team and also can help

expand the team as well because back then 2020, I think around between those plus minus one or two years, Carson has been rapidly growing and expanding very fast. And they also sort of like keep restructuring to optimize the whole team. So back then they are starting to organize the team in a way that, okay, we need like a

a leader in design. Like we need someone to lead the design team because there's so many tools and products they start to build that time. So yeah, I after I think in around March, March 2020, I joined them. I remember because

Just after a month, the whole Malaysia was going to go down. Oh, so that was during COVID. Yes, during COVID. So I just used to go to office for a month, around a month, meeting colleagues, getting to know the office and traveling to the office. And then all of a sudden, the whole Malaysia went lockdown and everyone was sold for I think almost one and a half year. Yeah.

That's definitely something of an experience. How was it for you as a leader leading a team that suddenly had to go fully remote? Well, back then it was something new because...

I mean, personally, I never had a chance to work from home, like locally, I work from home. Of course, when dealing with freelance clients, of course, I do work remotely. But that time, because there are a lot of people like

their product team, their tech team and business team and also the leadership team and the BI team. So there's a lot of teams going on and then everyone locked down, everyone goes from home and we all keep setting meetings back to back

I have discussions, I have brainstormings, you know, I want to talk to you. So I can't talk right now. I'm in a meeting. So can you schedule with me? So it becomes just a normal conversation turned into a scheduled meeting. So that's why back then the whole calendar was full. And one of the challenges is

We are unable to, at least for me, unable to do some of those work that's supposed to hands-on. So I have to push my own personal work until after hours.

Well, it's work from home anyway. So we all work from early in the morning until late night. Wow. That sounds really, really intense. What are you most proud of when you're at Carstens? And I remember at that point in time, Carstens was rapidly growing. They were trying to also target markets outside of Malaysia. So what is something that you're most proud of that your team delivered? I think back then, because

The whole Product UX team just started and at the time when I joined, there was just one UX design and then slowly I hired one more and then another one more. So I did end up around four of them. Then because back then there's only one product, there's only one product that require UX design.

As the company expands, as the business expands, then they start to venture into another segment of the business and then they venture into education and then they venture into doing refurbishment. So a lot more product get required in order to accommodate those new business ventures.

And back then, I knew that the product design is going to scale very fast. And if we're not deliberately prepared for it, then it will result in very messy in terms of the design management. So I sort of like start to create a design system with one of my designers.

And then back then the design system was relatively very small because it's only one product. And then when there's another product, then we adding more components into the design system. And then the design system start to be built. Because back then most of our product is mobile app based. So the design system mainly surrounds the mobile app designs and all the components from it.

until the point where we work closely with the mobile app team to build the whole full-fledged design system that can be applied in any new product that the business required to build. So that is one of those moments where I think the design fulfilled, not to say fulfilled, but we managed to show our design values where we

start to build the design system and with this design system it enables us to deliver the product design the iterations the brainstormings in a very fast manner so there's no need to you know for the stakeholders to wait us long turnaround time you know to create wireframes to create a new user flow or accuracy back well

Given the chance to do it all over again for Qasem, what do you think you might do differently? I think I would still do the same. Because back then, how we understand, at least how I understand the business is that they are very heavily...

It's a very operational heavy business. In every of those operation phase, they need a tool or at least they need an app to ease their work. Like regardless if it's a sales operations or it's an inspection operations or it's a refurbishment operations.

It's very operation driven. So user, which means our internal employee, requires the mobile tool we all have and easily use it and access it anytime. So to me, I would still do the same where we create a system that upgrade our framework that can still do any of the product or tools or apps that the business require.

So that is one of the ways that how we understand the business and how we apply the design values where it fits to how the business goes. Excellent. And I hear you were headhunted to join muda.my, which is part of the Carousel group. And Carousel is one of those

regional players, which is almost like the eBay of Southeast Asia or Asia actually, because they're also in Taiwan. So yeah, how describe your experience? You've been there for more than two years now. Today, you're the head of UX and creatives at Muda.ny. How was your experience? How's your experience working at Muda so far?

Well, it's been good in terms of I get to do most of the things that I wanted to do, which is one is to manage and expand the team and grow the team. Secondly, is to be part of the bigger picture in the business and also in the organization. So this is where one of those rare opportunities that I had

that the business and the leadership team, they are open to share what design can bring onto the table. So, and because of that, I felt that maybe it's time for me to, you know, do, take a different level of responsibility. So in Muda, I, you know, managed to

change a certain level within the organization and also in the business, sort of like influencing how the business make decision and also how the business are helping business to shape the product and also the user experience.

Yeah, so I just noticed that Muda also does a marketplace for cars as well. So I think there's a lot of transferable experience that you had from Qasem to Muda. But I think the bigger picture at Muda is that, of course, it's about selling pre-loved items, very, very much like what Carousel is delivering here in Singapore. And I'm wondering...

As the head of UX and creatives, what are some of your focus areas at Muda? So my team consists of UX designer and also brand designer. So overall, my team overseeing the whole design from end to end. So it's from starting of the user journey

where the user learn about or being exposed to what Voodoo is. So regardless it is for the user who looking for cars or for someone who looking for properties or even jobs as well, or even second hand goods. So from there, how we plan the user journey to convert them into a Voodoo user and then how we

educate and onboard the user onto a Muda platform and also keep them stay relevant until, you know, any point in time. Because in Muda, it's so relevant that you can actually

use Muda for everything. You can find from cars to properties and able to any of the second goods, services, jobs, and also do hiring as well. So Muda is already like a household name in Malaysia. So where my team are looking after the user is not just from the design, the UX design point of view, but also from the offline side of things. So let's say as I'll go

Take example in cars category, how we introduce to your user that they can actually sell directly to MoDA. And then from there, our offline operation will bring them to our inspection, up to our retail hub. And then from there,

all the designs that being set in the retail center are streamlined to what they see from the online so that means we have a consistent branding we have consistent messages and we have a consistent user experience even the moment they take their car the moment they take any of our brochures or seeing our ads on anywhere on newspaper or even on a billboard

all the look and feel is the same and you know it is my mother and and i think that's so important uh that ux isn't just about the digital experience but it's also about the physical experience and uh it's the offline experience as well and the fact that you come from a

background, first being a rubber stamp maker or designer, and then eventually being an art director and print designer. And all that sort of like accumulates to what you're doing today, where you have to take care of all the different touch points in design from print to online. And I'm just wondering,

from your perspective now looking back, right? And

And you're quite ahead of your sort of the industry itself because you're one of the few senior, local-born, few senior sort of like design leaders within the industry itself. So I'm wondering what kind of advice you would have for your juniors in terms

Malaysia, right, who are looking to join and head into UX and become UX designers. Would you recommend that they walk the same path that you did? I would say by all means, go ahead. The reason is because

In the US, the US field itself, you know, constantly evolving. Like last time, from last time it was called web designer. And I don't know, was it even before web designers back then? I was too young to know. The first encounter in this field is, or I know what it's called, web designer. And then become mobile app designer. And then become US designer. And then now become product designer. What?

Coming in future, then there's more specialized and niche title like UX evangelist. I know there's so many weird name that come like could be. In this path, there's a whole, there's many branch to it. Whether you want to become a very specialized UX designer or you want to be a generalist or you want to

cap into a managerial role in the leadership path. So there's no right or wrong in design because everything that we do is always come back to what user really wants, how we improve the life, even one user, even for one user. And we can see that and we can see the impact. We can see the outcome of it.

compared to the conventional graphic design area.

But I don't mean that doing graphic design is no good. Of course, I've seen really great design, branding, masterpiece, all those creative ideas that won multiple awards. Of course, no doubt in that. But if anyone wants to transition to UI/UX, I think definitely they can feel the impact even though it's small.

When they feel the impact, that is, I believe that's one of the source of inspiration for the UX designer. Even if you are a junior, one idea, one small idea that can impact the lives of all your users or majority of the users, I think that's enough for you as a junior designer to keep on going in this path. So yeah, it's highly recommended and to me, transitioning is just

a small steps to it. And between conventional graphic design and UX design, there's a lot of similar skill set and also identical software tools, methodologies, and also the creative mindset as well. Hmm.

And thank you for sharing that because I personally, now that we're in Malaysia and we've trained both in Singapore and Malaysia at Curious Corp, we definitely believe there's a lot of potential in the field of UX design. And we also do believe that it is one of the most impactful jobs any designer can undertake in their career.

And I'm wondering what's sort of your perspective on the Malaysia tech ecosystem, especially when pertaining to UX talent or pertaining to product talent. What would you say, like, what's your observation in general? So far, when I'm doing hiring, at the same time, I'm also looking at

what are other companies that's also hiring the same regardless if it's a junior, interns, mid-level or even senior. And I noticed that some of these companies I never heard of, I've never seen before and their nature of business is not quite

tech driven nature of business. Like some can be a very commercial business like sales are both selling textiles. Some even like they are in finance sector. Some even like start up in various areas in laws, in pharmaceuticals, in the healthcare. So

what i what i observe is that nowadays every company every business they recognize they need a ux designer but they yet to know what exactly a ux designer can contribute to their business most of the time they hire let's say example i'm just a startup and i had a ux designer

But I will ask the UX designer to create posters, to create banners, to create this logo for me. All those are a conventional digital designer or even graphic designer work. So that somehow is not good for the UX landscape because designers will have a bad impression of what UX design really is. Only if the

the company, there's anyone with experience or background in design, in UX design, then when they hired any level of UX designer, I think that is something need to be aware of. So for those who looking for jobs really need to check their background, ask the right questions, if

what is the expectations of this job because job description can be very templated like they copy from here copy from there and then they just attract talents and oh i like you i like your work and hired but do the not same as the you know the original job description tend to be

So what I hear you say is that companies misunderstand the job school of what UX designers can actually do and how they can deliver business impact. That sort of shows that the industry is still quite in its early stage in terms of maturity. What about from the talent point of view? Do you have options?

and good options from graduates or from the local talent pool to hire local UX designers or product designers? Yeah, I would say there is. So not every university, not every education institute, they have a very professionally curated

UX course. Most of them, most of the graduates, they will undertake a bootcamp. They will take a very short professional course like a share up by Google, the general assembly and all those to get certified, to get to know what UX actually does and also to create a portfolio.

Then they would use those sample of work, use those use case to trade it as, "This is my portfolio and here you are." And whenever they apply for any at the junior level jobs. So there are some talent, but it sounds like at least it's still sufficient based on the current demand.

right now. But you foresee, as I hear earlier, that this demand is going to keep growing and businesses are going to start to mature and understand what UX designers can actually do

And also thanks to community efforts like what you're doing recently. So I had the opportunity to attend and also be one of your speakers for the Design Leadership Kuala Lumpur Conference, which was held recently at Samui University.

So what's the objective of doing it? Because I understand that you started this community four years ago. Yeah. Back then, I think it started when I was with 123RF. 123RF, I would say, is a more proper managerial robot that I get into. However,

I'm a bit struggling that time because when you get into this managerial role, leading a team, no one, not to say no one is going to teach you, it's just that you need more guidance than ever. You need someone to ensure that how you manage your team, all those communication skills, people managing, it's the hardest part of the job. And I thought,

Why not I set up a community event and invite some of those design leaders and share them out about what's being a design leader look like and also creating this

One of the objectives is also to give back to the community. So at the same time, I want to help the UX landscape in Malaysia, particularly KL, to grow to mature.

and let everyone know, let all the UX designers know that they are not alone in their battle. They are not alone in what they are doing. Like I mentioned just now, most of the company is understood UX design, what they actually do. So when they join this sort of community, they get to know, oh,

you doing the same, your company treat you the same, or we are doing the same thing. So they don't feel alone. They can get advice from each other. They learn from each other, especially from the design leaders.

So it was then that's the first community meetup that I organized. And I find it very insightful and I learned a lot from the first, I think two design leaders, which is back then is a head of design. So I don't know. It's a lead, GYUX, Sharif, and also another lead designer, John Takash, which is also part of the design leadership conference speaker.

So both of them are my first guest design leaders in the community event, in the community meetup event. And then fast forward to today, it grown into a conference deal. Yeah, that's amazing. And congratulations for having a full house in the conference. There was a few hundred people in attendance at Sunway University, I saw. And how...

Four years running a community event. What's your plan? What's the vision moving forward? I think I can still continue this monthly basis community event. I think it's a good session on a monthly basis for everyone to get to know each other. And this is only one of those

reasons the designer coming out and meet each other for real instead of, you know, hey, let's grab a coffee and then, oh, I can't, I'm busy, this and that. So I think this can be a good reason for everyone, I think in a larger audience to get together and know each other. And also, I want to continue to grow and, you know,

foster the design audience, the design community in KL, particularly in KL. And also the conference is like, I would say it's a success and probably looking to do another one next year. You know, finger crossed. Yeah. So that's my plan, you know, to continue with the community event. But of course, one of the ideas is that probably

tell the committee that if other states like example in the north or maybe far in the south, June 3 is getting enough demand from both regions. Well that's a good plan to really start off as well but I did meet a couple of people who flew in from Penang and I think there were a few people who

flew in especially for the event itself even though they were not from Malaysia. I remember there were a few of folks I know in Singapore who flew in for your event as well. So all the best in growing that community and helping to elevate the understanding and the impact of design in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia. And I'm just wondering

you know, as what are your lessons from, from building a community? Right. Uh, I know some of it is during COVID, but I'm very curious. How, how does the work that you do in the community support the work, uh, other than learning, right. Support the work that you do professionally or, or, or how does it impact you as a professional? Yeah. Um, so, um,

I believe this, by doing this community event, it allows me to learn more about the actual use case. So often we read articles that are written by any designers. It's not really, not quite action based on the use case. So during these SOC meetups, I get the opportunity to

dig deeper into what's going on from that company and also what does this designer do? What actually are the challenges? So it's constant, continue learning professionally.

So the learnings is already different. Like last time, it's all about learning how to manage the team, how to become a manager. So at this point of time in my career, it's more of learn how to better strategize the design, better in influencing the company, the organization, in bringing more value to the users. So yeah, I think constant learning is one of those things.

things I enjoy by doing, you know, these kind of events. And I want to hop on the last point you mentioned, which is about helping to elevate the companies as well. And we have a question from the audience over here. From your point of view as a design leader, how do you scale up

the design maturity of an organization. And I'm sure you've been in organizations where things are not too mature when you were there. So how do you navigate that where even some companies might not be familiar what UX designer is? Good questions. So first of all, I think as a designer, we

need to learn about the business, our employer business, the company business. Learn as much as possible from everyone, not just from the manager, not just from the boss, but from every corner of the company, from customer support to if you have any, if you have a physical store, then go down and talk to the sales assistant or whoever work in the store.

every corner of the company, I just learn about it. From there, you will realize how the business operate and identify the opportunity to improve from the design point of view. So I mentioned this before to one of my designers that not every problem is a design problem.

So as a designer, if we think strategically, if we think in a more broader manner, if we think the bigger picture, there are a whole lot more issues and problems around in every corner of the business, in every corner of the organization. I think from there, we're able to translate our values to what

we design actually do. Design is not always about pixel perfect, it's not about doing wireframes and doing screen design. It's always about helping the business solve problem. Your role as a designer can be a role as a solutionist as well. So we have the power, we have the skill set, and also we have the opportunity to bring people from every corner of the business together.

and help everyone realize that where the problem lies, where are the bottlenecks, where are the challenges, where are the difficulties, even, even offline or let's say business or operational based department. They could know one, one or two things about tech, one or two things about design, how we design, then they'll understand, ah, this is our user journey, this is what it means by end-to-end journey. So

When they realize that, when they realize what you're trying to do, then at the same time, I think every corner of the company will slowly complement and also accommodate and collaborate with design. So I think that's how one of the ways we can elevate the design maturity in a company.

I think that's a really good recommendation and the business will take a much longer time to learn about design and not everyone has the luxury to go to design school to learn about design and how we think. So it's really a good step that you're recommending that designers learn about the business and they should because it helps them communicate better to their stakeholders. It helps them to do the job much better as well.

And I hope the question has been answered. And I noticed that you're actually hiring a product designer for Muda.my. So I'm just going to ask the question on the audience behalf, you know, what do you look out for when you're hiring someone in your team? And this is what you put as a mid to senior level role, right? For me.

So what are you exactly looking out for beyond the job description? What is important to you as a hiring manager? So to me in this current hiring, it's a mid-level role. So in mid-level, what I'm going to teach is first of all, I will

you have to see your portfolio so from there i will judge if your ui skills is already at a master level or not because at mid level you should be able to produce a good or a decent quality of high fidelity designs and your design should be neat enough need enough in terms of when i see

the whole Figma canvas. Okay, I know what is it about that where you point out where to click, what happened from one page to another page of transition. So that is one of the requirements to be a mid-level designer. And of course, during interview, I would ask questions to gauge the product thinking mindset, how

how much of user centricity that you will apply in your design, your work, in your processes, how engaging you are with the stakeholders, even though as close as with product managers, like how often you work with product managers or tech or even business analysts. So from there, you can somehow

gauge how engaging you are. Because to me, I think in mid-level designer, they should learn how to talk to people. They should learn how to communicate and approach people.

I don't have to worry about the UI design, the pixel reflecting. By three to four years, you already know your tools, you already know the in and out, all the basic stuff about the grids, the typography, the comments, everything. So it shouldn't be a problem. So what I see the potential is that if you are a mid-level designer, you should currently for...

I'm not sure, I mean you should at your utmost curiosity level ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. What is it about? Why do we do this? Why you have these solutions? And by asking questions, it also shows how engaging you are, how well you are approaching people. Well, thank you for sharing these tips. And for those of you who are listening or watching the video, I think

If you, in case you're interested to join Johnny and his team at muda.my, please keep a lookout and prepare yourself accordingly for the role. Now, Johnny, we're almost at the end of our session and I'm just wondering, was there anything else you would like to share or say to our audiences here today? Many of them,

are looking to transition into their role or are in some way also struggling to help their respective business managers understand the value of design. So yeah, are there any parting words you want to share? So for those who are looking to transition into UI/UX, I would say by all means go ahead and do leverage the power of Kubernetes.

Reach out to any UX group on social media, regardless where is it or what group is it. Just reach out to people. Don't isolate yourself. Don't work alone. Even though you are a solo designer in the company, but don't let being a solo designer stop you from growing and reach to the path that you want to be.

I learned this as a mistake when I was young, a lot younger. I'm a very shy person, so I don't really talk to people. I don't really approach people. I keep all the things to myself. That ended up not good. I did a lot of mistakes, didn't ask the right questions and waste a lot of time, waste a lot of energy.

As a designer, one of the skill set that you have that you must, should have is people skills, in order to solve skills where you communicate to people, you learn how to approach people. Just a simple say, "Hi, hello, how are you? I'm Johnny from Wudadog. My way or so on." So that's a really simple opening to talk. Simple gesture to open an conversation. So don't shy, don't be afraid.

have more courage to reach out to the community, to anyone, doesn't matter if it's design leader or junior or even any role that they are in the design community group. Reach out to them, say hi and learn things from there and your network, your knowledge and your accessibility will grow from there. Once you have a certain level of accessibility, I think as a designer, you have more than

online resources. Online resources is, you can reach out at any point of time, you can just search on Google, but the resources that you have on the ground at your local community, nearby people, the same industry, the same nature of business of people, this is where your real learnings

And I think that's such wonderful advice to ask designers to network. Your network is truly your net worth. And as you can see, Johnny's network is a rich one and he has built it and invested in it over the years. And we have a career related question from the audience and I thought it's also relevant. Many of our audience members here today are actually participants in your recent design

Design Leadership KL event. And he said that he has four years of experience as a UI UX designer, but he's facing an issue where during interviews, and if interviewers asked if they have experience working in UX research, but not much experience. So...

this designer is considering starting a side project related to UX research. What are your thoughts about that? Would it help with this application? I actually don't know whether it's a he or she because there's only a surname over there. So yeah, thanks for that question, Tan.

I think in my opinion, if you have the time, I think it's great to do a side project. Like myself, other than full-time as a head of design and creative in Huda, my side project is doing this community media design conference and whatnot. And this also somehow helped me professionally. So I think your consideration of starting a side project related to direct research is great.

super relevant and it also can be really helpful if your actual work, if your full-time work, your company don't have the luxury to do UX research by all means, do a side project to demonstrate your skills and your passion in UX research. And do keep in mind that UX research is very broad. So there are a lot of methodologies that you can do. Maybe you can find one of those

topic or content that actually impact people's lives. Like you don't have to, you don't know, you don't have to be a business owner to have something to create impact. You can, you know, like do a, let's say example, just an example, user research about your neighbors, neighborhood condition. Like, oh, I approach your neighbor and ask, what do you think about

the trash collector, do you think you do a good job? And then you can do your own user research and summarize those findings, consolidate those findings, and then put up on the media or any of those platforms. And then share it out. Share it out. Who knows one day that your neighbor council will actually read it and improve your neighborhood condition. So we don't know.

what's going to happen. But definitely if you do some UX research based on actual situation that can potentially create impact, then by all means go ahead. I would definitely also echo Johnny's sentiment. And I would add that

Don't do it alone. Involve other people in the process. And I don't mean just users, right? I mean, involve your own peers. And if you have friends who are also UX researchers or involve them in the project, especially if you have a common interest in something, and you'll be able to learn from each other, right? Or like they would share things that you might not know and you can share things that

they might not know. So get together, work on something that you're all passionate about. Such a great question. And everyone, it's been a pleasure to have you here asking these fantastic questions. I also like to take a moment to thank our speaker, Johnny, for spending his time here today with us, sharing with him about his career in

transitioning from being a rubber stamp maker to a UX designer and also working for some of the most prominent companies here in Malaysia who are driving world-class design and world-class products. And Johnny, I wish you all the best with your team at Muda and also hiring that mid to senior level designer that you're looking for. Thank you for everything. It's been a pleasure. Awesome, Johnny. Thank you.

Thanks. 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.