The Future of Design: Skills and Strategies for Tomorrow's Leaders

you're listening to the Far Side with founders and Leaders Podcast the podcast that gives you a behind the scenes look of some of the world's most amazing founders and leaders looking at their journeys and how they got to where they are today hello everyone and welcome to this latest edition of the fireside with founders and leaders podcast today I am delighted to be joined by James Ferguson aka Fergo who has worked at companies as a design leader companies including Skyscanner whereby and he's now currently VP of design at OVO the energy company so we have a really great conversation all about his leadership tips things that people can be doing to help themselves to try and find new work in this new world that we're working in especially with AI being so prominent looking at what he's been doing to level up in terms of being AI first and driven by the new products that are out there that can really help people to do their jobs and really help to elevate designers in the world that we live in so we talk about all about that some really great tips and hints loads and loads of other juicy stuff so I'm just gonna let you get straight into it and enjoy hello Fergo welcome to the podcast hi thanks for having me thanks for coming in all the way from sunny Brighton yes I mean it is actually a little bit it's sunny at the moment I mean given the weather we've had the start of this year so uh yeah it's dry at least so yeah nice to be here happy days well yeah really really good to meet you yeah so finally so we've been talking for a little while now yeah um we've got some interesting topics related to the design industry leadership in the design industry something that's pretty close to to your heart and your career as people will find out but so let's let's talk into that so tell us a bit more about sort of you your career how you got to where you are today and and how it all started yeah sure so yeah I'm Virgo um I'm currently leading design at OVO Energy um and I spent like the last 20 years or so um in various kind of design leadership roles um from kind of b to B sass through to kind of travel um and a bunch of kind of other industries in there and I think for me like the one constant is that I've kind of always joined companies and teams at different levels of inflection points whether that's a big technology shift whether that's a kind of cost transformation or or kind of otherwise and I think that's probably one of the things that has stuck with me throughout my career is that that kind of transformation angle um and that that kind of leading through shifts um whether that was back in the day around the shift to mobile yeah um or at the moment like the shift into AI which I'm no doubt will end up talking more about as well so um yeah that's something that I guess is is always gonna stay with me there's been lots of shifts right over the years so you talked about so the shift to mobile was probably the I say the original one actually the shift to just online yeah exactly moving from print yeah well my first job was at a um a design agency where we were going through that shift like I joined in the digital space but many people were trans transitioning from print into into digital at the time where flash was the cool thing yeah flash for all the kids that don't know doesn't exist anymore but it it used to be thing it did it did I saw a post literally yesterday about about flash and like oh like I love that it did have a place for me it was good it was good although it used to crash quite a lot oh yeah I can't remember yeah so lots of frustrations of why isn't this working yeah it should be exactly there we go uh so lots of transition so so internet mobile what other things have you seen sort of you're transitioning you mentioned obviously AI which we'll get into of course but sure I mean even even that shift into kind of more like specialist design roles and then I guess as we're seeing kind of things almost kind of come back together as well that we kind of seem to split from having a designer that did absolutely everything into individual roles for things and specialisms and now we're seeing I guess the rise of the generalist again I'm coming back and I think again the AI piece is only amplifying some of that um I think for me the other kind of shifts has been around like ways of working um like into your kind of cross functional teams like the kind of the idea of this kind of squad and tribe model that kind of um really I guess kind of um came from that kind of Spotify type way of working um is now the standard but I mean if we think back wasn't the way we had centralized teams and massive handoff between disciplines so um yeah I guess lots of different types of shifts from tooling through to kind of more cultural pieces through to kind of how we work with each other so yeah massive nice there's been lots of changes you say that in terms of the way people work I think I don't remember where I saw it or who I spoke to but you talked about the Spotify way of working and they started with that but by the time everyone I think adopted it oh yeah they were no longer working in the Spotify way with no irony it's still called that isn't it it's still a fair to say that and you know it's basically what was two blog posts and a couple of videos yeah and I still remember like the hand drawn videos that they used as part of it and it's like well yeah everyone just believe that as gospel and I think everyone's been on their own journey of what does that actually mean yeah what does this mean for our business and like how do you adapt it and yeah they're they're not exactly following that to a t anymore either no I don't think so I think they've they long they've moved on as as people do and that's the thing about everything that we do right generally without being too philosophical like people move on things move on yeah like things progress depending on which side of the fence you sit on you either see it as progress or you see it as something as decline yeah um I think most of the time it's it's progress yeah for for most people but the design industry I think from the things I've seen there's lots of noise around um it being in decline mm hmm from people I don't necessarily see that myself I'm maybe because I'm a half glass half full type person and I see the the progress and just the evolution rather than OK this is in the decline this is things are just changing right we've moved as you say from having disperse teams where you've got teams of product ah product designers there there you go I'm still still in in the the newer mode of thinking but now we're talking product designers people who are more well rounded and all rounders whereas before it was very siloed UX research UI they were different things and like there was a time where if I spoke to someone as a potential customer of of mine and they said oh I want someone to do UX UI I'd say absolutely not you need two people yeah now I'm saying actually yeah we can find you someone you just gotta find out where the balance is in terms of what you want yes someone to to do ultimately but what's what's your opinion on sort of how things have gone in the design industry over the last last couple of years I mean I think for me I'm I'm actually quite energized by the the movement right now I think it's an incredible uh exciting time for for people that just love making product and I think that's a bit that we may be lost along the way is that um for those that truly love building great products there's never a better time to be in because um the accessibility to be able to build stuff is so much more readily available than it's than it's ever been so yeah I think that to me is a bit that's really exciting as a real kind of maker at heart it's like actually I can actually create what I'm I have in my head now um and that is super powerful I think um but I think if we're if we're realistic like the design industry's always been in some sort of existential crisis like I don't think I've ever I don't think there's ever been a time where like designs like yeah cool like we're all sorry we're at the top yeah we were engineers what are they needed for exactly you know so like I think you know there is an element of cool yes this there is a I think what is challenging for folks at the moment is is the rate of change and and the the speed of which things are moving because you know I sometimes feel that as well like I said I'm loving this I'm I feel like I'm trying to read and consume and try every new tool and every new way of working out there it's exhausting as well um and I think like people are are feeling that um as well so I think part of it is around well how do you stay enough up to date so that you're not you know you don't become irrelevant but also like how do you give yourself a little bit of a break around some of this as well because um there is just so much out there um yeah and why do you think then that designers tend to feel undervalued I think because in some organizations it's seen as a a a bit of a kind of cherry on top yeah um like it's it's not like fundamentally about solving problems um and I think that's what design is to me and I think for a lot of people that got into design is because you wanna solve actual problems and it's creative thinking yeah and I think for a lot of people it that has that often gets done in other parts of the organization and people are handed finished solutions not problems and I think that's a bit that really I think people struggle with um for sure so yeah I think there's probably something around that around like how are people actually able to show up and do what they feel is their job so that's a misunderstanding and misalignment between business leaders or CEO whoever it might be to say this is what we actually need versus what people in design can actually do yeah totally and I think like design for me is probably one of the few rules I'm not really thought about any other rules so maybe the only rule is where you need to fight to do your job yeah um and I think that's really interesting why is that I don't know because like when you've got organizations that are like yeah we need to find the best designers and you'll see this as well in your line of work like all the effort that goes into that and you find the best you bring them in and you've not created the environment for them to succeed you're like well what a waste of everyone's time and money yeah um it's money like it's just absolutely not so um yeah like it's it's such a crazy thing of like yeah we need this and we need that but then we don't enable them to actually kind of deliver on that as well so like I think that's a big part for us as design leaders as well is to lean into that and create the right environment for for people to succeed and you've probably seen like the good the bad the ugly and organizations as a design leader you've probably seen both sides of that right places that are set up to give you success but also places that are not set up um to give you success yeah essentially set up to fail so how as potentially a design leader can can you go and try and engineer the the success side of things so that you know you're putting things in the right place giving people the opportunity to go and do their job so it's not such a constant battle yeah what can we do well I mean I think a great example for me when I joined Oval it's it's fair to say that it was a big transformation project the team had gone without much love for for a bit of time no fault to anyone in particular but that's the reality of a I I joined with the mandate from my boss at the time which was can you fix design yeah um well okay that that's that's a brief isn't it go yeah I was like yeah I could do that no problem yeah to solve exactly fix good um so yeah but like like what unpack that what does that even mean yeah um and I think for me there was there was it was multiple different levels like I think initially the gut was like we need to get the team you know we need to sort the kind of performance part of the team we need to be able to kind of deliver on what we're doing but actually we also needed to I need to spend quite a bit of my time at the other side of things trying to connect what design can deliver against the the business strategy and how does we how do we translate what we're doing against that and so like a lot of what I do and even still is around that translation piece and like how do we connect this back to what the business cares about because um for us a big thing is around cost to serve around complaints around you know customer satisfaction um those are the things that the business are measuring um and if we are sitting here in a design team banging on about the usability here or the heuristic thing here or whatever else it's like yes that's important but how does it ladder up because if we don't show how it ladders then it just becomes again another kind of design piece that that doesn't actually um that no one really cares about if we're honest yeah um we care about it it is important but if we can't tell why what's the value then what's the value in the measurement what are the metrics rather than I think design is often measured on outputs and like screens flows journeys things like that yeah but actually you should be thinking bigger picture of how does it affect the business the business metrics the business outputs that then generate revenue that make it easier for the customer to go in and purchase whatever they're purchasing or yeah go through the the journey that they're going on uh I think quite often um when you ask people what's design accountable for in a business no one can answer that yeah um which is very telling um like what is product accountable for oh well there's these KPIs there's these metrics there's the the PNL there's whatever like totally the business person looks after this or engineering responsible for this security like you can you can go through it very easily what is design actually accountable for people stumble what do you think design is accountable for I mean for me it's about the overall quality of the experience yup um like it's can the customer do the job and does this help us translate what we're doing into a a a business outcome yeah we're trying to deliver yeah fundamentally um and I think for me like we all probably play a part in that um but but design can really I think really can help with um shifting shifting that yeah it definitely can turn the needle on yeah we talked about like tools and things that you're using now with the the day and age of being able to build things and do things quickly as well you can take things from your mind and put them onto a I was gonna say a piece of paper there you can put them onto a piece of paper but yeah onto a screen more realistically these days yeah um what tools are you using what are the must haves these days I think we're leaning heavily into the AI prototyping space yup um so we've been on a journey um it started off with kind of Figma make because it was very accessible to the team given it was you know people use Figma yup thing I think like a lot of people um we've had hit and miss experiences um more recently a bit more hit than miss but um we've kind of hit the limitations I think around that um and then the next natural piece for us was around like how do we use cursor and like we've seen cursor being adopted by many design teams in the industry as this kind of intermediary intermediary between like design and code and that kind of prompting environment and that kind of safe space around that felt like e e next kind of step for us and we're very much in the kind of piloting of that um I think at the same time cloud code uh and more kind of like uh terminal based tools is exactly kind of where we're leaning into and I think that's probably where um the future is for us um to be honest so um yeah we're getting much closer to to the metal around like um around what we're creating nice and if we if we fast forward maybe like five years from now what things do you think designers are doing day to day now that they won't be doing in five years and where is it going big question so yeah big big question I think when you you think about like all the manual tasks that that folks are doing right now whether that's um you know synthesis of research or whether that is um like hand cranking all the copy for things or hand cranking every single screen or detail I think all of that type of stuff will be significantly reduced and I think more importantly what they will be doing I guess rather than maybe what they won't be doing is is probably thinking more like a a product person a builder and I think that it comes back to this piece around judgement and taste being key skills um for me when I'm hiring designers like one of the the the biggest skills or the things that I've always looked for is that that curiosity and that kind of ability to explore a problem properly I think they'll be doing that way more than they'll be doing today because they'll have the time and the space to do that and but I think there also needs to be that that shift in that mindset as well for some people that that maybe think that design is screens um because actually like we're seeing a lot more like non screen based interfaces like voice and all the rest of it continues to be kind of on their eyes so um how are we thinking more about the problem space that's that's where I expect people to be spending more of the time it's really interesting because you talk about like screening people as designers for people who are solving problems right I think if I and again completely made up stats here but if I probably did a an overview of all of our customers and clients and the things that they ask for across design product software engineering the three core pillars of of our service that we offer and said to them what are the main things that you look for in good slash great people in inserts discipline yeah they all say problem solvers whether that's engineers product managers or designers yeah so do you think it's fair to say that that's really what we need to be looking for when we're looking for great people yeah in our organizations we need to test for people who are problem solvers and then how do we do that how do you test for someone who's a problem solver how do you find out that curiosity for me I think you don't always see that through your traditional portfolio reviews and because I think in a world now anyone can create if you super slick portfolio um you can run your stuff through chat GPT or any other tool and spit out a formula type thing and it's like it's very and it feels formulaic um I think you really need to dig into like what were the challenges um around this like for me like when you when you're interviewing a designer or anyone I'm less interested in in like the little bits that you did and how you followed that process I wanna know about the stories behind it cause that's the interesting bit because nothing was ever super successful but we all talk about these like examples like it was like yeah we did this we did this and we got this and it was all perfect it was all perfect it was easy um you know cool bullshit on it exactly that is not the case like you know there was this person that you disagreed with you fell out with this person like you you struggle to get buy in for this like yeah these are the things that we wanna hear about um and like these are the bits that are really unique to you and what you bring to it so I think like focusing on those types of conversations um and teasing that out as opposed to like cool you follow this this strict process like cause nobody does yeah um yeah I think someone once said to me the difference between someone who's a senior and not a senior yeah person in design it was we're actually talking about design but it could be could be related to anything is someone who's been through those challenges and those problems and they can articulate this was the challenge and this is how we solved it so they basically they've been to battle yeah already yeah they know they know how to handle certain situations whereas someone who is a bit more green in the industry yeah they just won't have been to battle and they won't have known how to solve those problems they can probably do it but they won't have done it before and I think that's a bit that that separates the good from the great there as well like and the you know the more the more experienced you are the more you've probably faced these things and the and the level of complexity and the problems that you've had to overcome yeah are only bigger yeah as well so um I mean I think back to some of the things that that maybe I'm solving at the moment um the approach I'm taking is not that different to maybe how I would have done it as a more kind of junior designer but I think the the learning across there is has been the key thing to build on that to be able to solve some of those um some of those problems so why do you think then in the industry as it is today that there's there's a an issue and it's not a massive issue but there is an issue with with ageism whereas you know some more so senior designers they've got experience they've been battle Hardy um they've gone through lots of lots of different things but they're being shelved because they're older or whatever it is I don't know why what's what's your opinion on that yeah I mean I think looking at it I probably can't point to that many older people that are in the design profession and that are not in senior leadership roles and and I think when you look at that you it's interesting why I think from a lot of peers and and folks that that I'm speaking with I think there's a lot of people that are are tired and are like actually I'm not willing to kind of go through this for much longer yeah or almost like taking themselves out of this world I've seen that I've seen plenty of that actually people who I've worked with for for years they've suddenly gone I don't know what I'm just gonna do something else yeah totally I I guess I'm seeing a lot of that um but yeah in terms of when it comes to um like designers and and thinking about the the hiring piece I guess yeah I I generally I haven't really given that a huge amount of thought as to as to why those folks are um maybe not being hired as much um I think when you look at right now like we're all I'm seeing quite a big gap in hiring more juniors and people fresh out of college and that type of thing yeah and I think it's always been a problem as well I think it has and I almost think that right now and you know I face this challenge personally but I think right now if you can go and hire a bunch of grads that are kind of super green but super enthusiastic and are growing up with all these new tools and ways of working and chances are you're going to be able to turn around some pretty awesome things and you'll be able to teach a bunch of other things and I think maybe the slightly older side of things like how are you keeping up to date and how are you keeping yourself relevant because that design process and those tools that you used are moving and you need to move with it and I think there is a bit of a resistance there not just from older folks by any means but but generally like how do you keep yourself relevant in this ever changing world is that resistance to change is it yeah because I speak to people and sometimes they're still sort of stuck using tools like XD which is a great tool don't get me wrong XD has its purpose but good for forms if you're purely yeah exactly if you're purely wedded on that and saying that's the be all and end all Figma's rubbish it's not a proper prototyping tool you're not prepared to change and that's probably where I see that sort of gap here and then sometimes it's perceived as ageism which I think is sometimes slightly misguided because it's not the fact that they're older it's just the fact that they're not prepared to change yeah their ways there are plenty of like older people that I know uh mostly contractors actually if they're still practitioners um but they keep up to date with with different tools they're trying different things with AI and yeah you know shock they they keep themselves in in contracts yeah and I think that's a bit especially with the AI kind of shift as well is that it is quite divisive um as well and definitely there are people that are not leaning into that space that I have no doubt that in 2 3 years maybe even less than that will be unemployable um because they won't have the skills that businesses are looking for um so like that's a real worry and that's something that I always think about about my team around how do we keep our teams relevant um and like how can we bring people on that journey and it's not just a case of well use AI like why should we use it what should we be doing what does good look like um but that is a real worry that I sit with around how how how is this team and people around us going to be employable in the future in a world that is changing every single day do you think AI gives design an advantage I think so I think it enables people to create stuff that they've never been able to create before um a lot of the blockers to to things has been around maybe um the the engineering or the coding side of stuff that's now fully accessible like like everyone I'm vibe coding every every idea I have whether I should or not is another story yeah um but I but but that's that's been a real um liberating experience of like I have this idea I can now create it like it's not gonna sit in a Figma file I can create something and ship it to the App Store or put it on a website and and get people using it like that's really exciting um uh and I think for a lot of people like that that level of of accessibility to these ways of working is is huge um so yeah I think that's that's a real interesting piece for me I'm in there and you've done a fair bit of work around building design systems and traditionally design systems have been created so that they can things can be easily reused and you've got a structure um and a framework for for the rest of the business and team to to work from but AI can change some of that can't it cause it can be a bit more dynamic in terms of the approach so how does how does that change things do you think so for me design systems they were kind of born out of largely designers wanting consistency yeah and wanting control around how things are delivered um I was there as a designer wanting the same thing yeah that's that's kind of where where it came from but I think if you look at it like it is a tool that really helps accelerate teams to deliver things and how do you get that idea how do you go from idea to delivery much quicker um so for me it's about efficiency and it's a cost saving um piece um because it enables people to focus on the real problems um than than anything and I think again thinking about AI like like a big part of what inspires me is around how do you go from that idea to validation yeah whether it is a good idea or a bad idea but how do you get the signals and I think a little bit like design systems that the AI pieces enabling that so like what I've kind of been spending a lot of time on right now is like how do you how do you teach AI or or how do you enable AI to be able to use the design system how can it be a bit more of a co pilot um with you as well and that like how do you work with AI yup to to realize these ideas and you want to do it in a way that's consistent with brand that's consistent with the rest of the experience I'm and all the rest of it you want all that good consistency levels there I'm in the quality I'm but we're almost creating design systems for AI like on top of design systems like yeah right now the experience that I've had is that we've got so many different markdown files that it's just full of rules to tell the to tell AI how to interpret the design system right it seems super inefficient and but it's where we are and we're going through that and who knows like in a few months years whatever it might look very different I'm sure it will I hope it does yeah we cannot just live on these markdown files like right now like it's nuts um but like again we're we're it's a huge step forward to to where we were like even like six months ago type thing as well so um we're probably achieving about I don't know 80% levels of consistency um with AI and our design system um right now which is it's pretty decent like there's some designers that don't achieve that so like you know it's pretty it's pretty good sufficient yeah right and if you were starting from scratch tomorrow today whenever uh building a design system again knowing what you know now about sort of AI and the evolution that's coming at a rapid rapid pace where would you start like what would you what would you start by doing I mean I think I'd probably start with a bunch of basic rules around the foundational pieces um like your your token level essentially yeah um I'd start I'd start at that level um and equally what can you leverage off the shelf um whether that's frameworks or things like that as well um like classic 1 right now of um like Shad C N and using tailwind are are the ones that are you know really kind of um delivering across the board so how how would you plug into this because you probably don't need to create it from scratch yeah um as much as the the designer or the maker in me is like oh it'd be great to start from scratch like of course it would be yeah but again how do you move quickly why are you doing this um you're doing it to be able to take away some of that pain that you've already got so how can you get to that quicker and so yeah I'll be leveraging stuff that's that's off the shelf and and focusing on that token level piece to to enable enough consistency or enough delivery and I guess what is enough to you and to someone else might might vary but um yeah if I was starting from scratch that's probably how I would approach it interesting cause you said the maker in you sort of would probably want to start yeah from scratch and I think actually most designers that I know would be more excited about a if I was telling them about a project of we're building a design system from scratch we're doing this like completely greenfield it's exciting project to get involved in than something where we're taking something off the shelf they probably be more excited by the the former as in the building from scratch so yeah how do how do we balance things out so that people are still engaged in the work they're doing but also using the efficiencies that are available yeah I mean I think it also goes back to like the signature experiences um like what makes your experience uniquely yours um why does it why does it feel like your brand your product that type of thing so where where do you go deep because otherwise everything will just look exactly the same um and you see that from in any AI species right now you just generate anything and it's just it's all bland and I think that's where it looks the same it does it looks the same because also it's trained in all the same stuff of course it does yeah yeah um it's a pattern matching game and like you're just gonna end up with the same stuff so like I think that's where the role of design is again needed even more than ever that level of taste and craft and because where are you gonna sweat the details what is gonna make something unique and and how do you solve that in a really interesting creative way and like these are these are things that you're not gonna get out of AI yeah at this point in time but who knows who knows but I think that that to me is like the the where like we're seeing designers really succeed as well those that have that high level of taste and craft and and and thinking to be able to challenge what is essentially AI slop that comes out a lot of the time yeah and that that's most of you know the things that we see is yeah say AI slop I think that's a that's a nice way to put it it is it's defined yeah but but exactly but I mean that it's so easy though and in a world where anyone can make anything it's like it really comes back to that should you like just because you can should you well no definitely not yeah I think um and I think that's the thing like I was joking with a friend the other day about like some app stuff that I've been doing and they were like The App Store's just gonna get flooded with with rubbish I'm like thanks but thanks for that appreciate it exactly yeah but it's true though true but but true um and like even like how do you think about like how is Apple Android whoever thinking about how to maintain that quality bar when anyone can create anything um because you are just gonna end up with stuff um there it's so easy I even I who am traditionally not very tech savvy I'm more of a turn it off off and on yeah type guy but used lovable for the first time the other day and built a couple of websites in half a day yeah it's not hard they're not great websites bear in mind but they're they're good enough yeah uh I think I probably paid someone a couple of thousand pounds to build them yeah 12 months ago yeah but but what what takes something from good enough to great yeah and I think that's the people that's where you need the design part and I think that's where companies that invest in that will see that and you'll see that kind of huge leap because everything else will probably look feel work roughly the same or or OK and it might be OK and it might be fine for that product or company to be like that but the real differentiator I think will be those that that really invest in that and do something a bit different yeah nice and and you mentioned earlier about designers being able to become almost more more product LED more product management sort of focused in their approach yeah I think that that's absolutely spot on from the things I see and I think this is a real opportunity for designers to uh not sink into the shadows but to come in step into the limelight a bit because you can now the the lines have always been slightly blurred between product and design but I think they're even more blurred now and you see the best the best product managers becoming more design and engineering focused and then the best designers becoming more design and yeah sorry product and an engineering focused by by typing in prompts to create code and things like that and then the best engineers will try and become a bit more product and yeah design focused so I mean there's a the classic memes doing the rounds right now of the Spider Man scene but they're all pointing at each other like and it's like we don't need you you don't need you don't like and it's just like you know but it's it I've missed that one yeah oh I've been go go check it out but yeah like it's yeah they're all just pointing at each other like yeah product doesn't need design design doesn't need engineering engineering doesn't need product like do we need anyone anymore no not just let AI AI do it all exactly take over um but I think for me it's about like how can we lead into these overlaps because that's super exciting and I think when you start seeing teams get smaller as well like that's a real trend I'm seeing as well that because you can work much tighter together and you can achieve so much more like a product manager designer and engineer working super close now I'm not saying that that's the ratio that will be there forever but but certainly these smaller kind of teams can deliver way more than they ever used to be able to and so that's also I think quite a shift that is that's coming or is is happening right now definitely and it's it's a it's an opportunity for people to step up and if they are truly problem solvers yeah you got problem solvers in all of those three disciplines but if the designers that are there are proper problem solvers they can then go and get something shipped really quickly they don't as you say they don't have to wait for you know the the ticket the Giro ticket to be be read by someone in in engineering which might take two weeks they can go to a your customer even if there's no product person in between and say is this what you're talking about yeah great this does that does that make sense does that work for you totally yeah it does I think that's where where we're really leaning into that prototype in space for that reason like how can we test this idea and how can we make it believable rather than a set of like flat clickable prototypes that you know if we're honest are are never really felt properly like that's part of the problem isn't it yeah with design is that when you take a flat clickable prototype to to someone who's not a designer they look at it and they go yeah I don't get it yeah oh they touch they touch they touch the screen and it doesn't work and you get the the blue flashy boxes cause that's where you're supposed to click yeah they feel stupid cause they didn't know that but yeah how would they have known it cause they didn't see it and it's just like the whole thing is just so artificial like I think for me it's like how do you can get things in front real things in front of people to get that feedback much quicker still look like they should yeah actually be out there live in the market totally yeah and then the the other bit on top of that is that how can you pull in real data as well because yeah OK you know we joke slightly about the kind of the act you're kind of thing but like you know being able to pull in real data into these prototypes and make it feel a bit more real as well is also a kind of big step forward and I guess like thinking back to some of the kind of act your days and stuff like that is that you were some of those things you were able to do and yeah kind of lost a little bit because we've got very static ways of of working now and just linking screens and objects together yeah yeah how do you so thinking of that that sort of um comment you made there of getting real data into the platforms cause there I'm sure there are some sort of privacy um so regs that that would restrict the ability to do some of that yeah that sort of thing which is why most times people use dummy data so it doesn't get lost in some sort of data leak or anything like that but how how can we try and circumnavigate that do you think I mean I think it's there's probably still an element of using dummy data like do you need to use like live customer information probably not and you probably shouldn't yeah just to be clear yeah ha ha um but actually like what does that data set look like it's not about having perfect data because actually there'll be loads of gaps in the actual systems like if I think about some of the challenges we got over right now maybe we're missing a postcode maybe we're missing information about this type of meter or maybe we're missing this type of information here like that to me is if if you've got data that simulates those those experiences all the edge cases that's real data as opposed to you've designed for the happy path again and you've got the the perfect set of data because actually that's that's not the case when people are are calling us or using their app or whatever else like things go wrong because there's a lack of data and things and I think you can simulate a lot of that now more easy more easier than you could before yeah absolutely and and you talked a bit about um when you're hiring for for designers looking for people who are problem solvers going beyond the portfolio um looking for someone who can tell the story what are the things that ultimately become a a straight no for you if you're if you're going out and hiring in the market yeah when you're looking at portfolios or when you're speaking to people depending on so where where you get to in the process like what are the things that you go that's an absolute no no go yeah you're not coming to be part of my team um I'd say visual craft right now they don't have a a a decent level of of visual craft and I think we've done ourselves a disfavor in the industry over over the years because we've often referred to um design being this kind of visual layer on top of everything else and I kind of talked a little bit about that before but honestly I think we need designers to be able to create good looking things as well as solving problems like it's it's both and I think we've lost that along the way and I think things like a lot of the UX bootcamps and like the over hiring that we did through Covid and all all these kind of things like has taken away from like we need to create some beautiful looking and working things yeah and like nice things sell and no one I'll use the example of no one really goes out intentionally and buys an ugly jumper yeah you know it happens um but but no one goes out with that intent um and like you know nice things sell and you see that um so that's subjective though like nice things because you know beauty is in the eye of the beholder I think is the the phrase so one person the ugly jumper right yeah someone actually looks at the jumper and goes I love the jumper it's great another person goes hmm it's not for me yeah so um how do you how do you get past that subjectivity in the visual craft of design yeah I mean I think there's always a level of subjectivity in there I think you just need to acknowledge that okay um as well like I like you know what I like and what someone else is like is is gonna be different um but there are some real kind of basic kind of level and parts of design like your kind of core like gestalt principles if you like um that you know your your layout your rhythm your spacing your typography all the things that just make something feel well crafted yeah and I think individually is a customer gonna notice that probably not but all of these things add up and the when things just start to feel a bit off that's when the trust levels go yeah and or when people feel that this doesn't feel quite right like and I think it goes back to that piece around what is those signature experiences as well um like when you look at some of the you know the best design LED companies like the the classic kind of you know apple for example yup like what makes that feel like apple um like um one of the things is like this smallest detail around how they treat border radius yeah yeah like it's such a tiny detail but if that was slightly off and you know you see that in the latest version of Mac OS and those border radiuses are wild and I do wonder like how the hell did that get through um but like you know like those details matter yeah and I think for me like when you're hiring designers you want someone that really cares and cares about the detail when and sweats the detail when no one's looking so like even if that's just how they organize their Figma file or how they put a presentation together like what's the level of care that they bring because if they're not bringing that care to to those levels of artifacts then how is that actually gonna show up in an interface or something you're shipping to a customer and how do you test for that without having a portfolio that details sort of everything um going through this was the process this is what happened this is what went wrong measurable outcomes whatever it might be is there a way to to test that level of detail with someone I mean I think you see it in um the first interaction like yeah so you see like I don't know potentially it's someone's CV that comes through yeah like can they lay out their CV does it look like a considered piece of work cause that's the first impression and what's your choice of words as well cause words are as much design as as as the pixels so how are you thinking about constructing things and again in a world where you've got AI to help you with some of this that maybe wasn't a core skill set there's almost no excuse yeah and so how are you communicating and spelling yeah spelling simple stuff real simple things formatting like yeah all of that type of thing like that really matters and that's a first impression that I think a lot of people don't think about no and they'll fire over an unformatted word DOC and hope for the best and like they're LinkedIn my LinkedIn profile but the downloaded PDF version yeah which I get sometimes I'm like that's not a CV yeah just so you know no or the the LinkedIn doesn't match the CV and you're like OK so you're not telling the story here so like I think there's a bunch of first impressions where where you've not really thought about how you're how you're landing things yeah OK so people need to really make sure they're looking out for those things yeah to showing that cause everyone says attention to detail one of the things and that always makes me chuckle when you say attention to detail and you're like by the way you've spelt the wrong yeah exactly yeah and again there's no excuse yeah um and I say this and I'm sure people watching this but I will have a look at your LinkedIn I need to have a look at that yeah yeah yeah probably yeah yeah don't look at mine yeah yeah don't look at mine I'm just judging everyone else yeah that's fine I just don't like that um but I think like there is almost no excuse for these types of things right now um as well with the tooling that we've got available to us and we've had spell check for long enough that like I think we're fine although sometimes there may be the element of with with all the tooling that's available to us throwing in the odd spelling mistake just to make it seem more human yeah exactly yeah um and yeah make sure there's no m dashes no no m dashes that's a pain in my life I think now uh not chat GPT has got used to the fact that I don't like m dashes it comes back whenever I'm so I use it for creative posts on LinkedIn yeah cause I can't can't bother to write them myself now I just get it to do it for me and it comes out saying with no m dashes here's your post I'm like brilliant thank you yeah you finally got that finally yeah after the hundredth time whatever but I don't know uh yeah and that is another problem that I see generally in all of the markets is some of the CVS and they start to look a bit uniformed and people having problems so picking profiles apart yeah even portfolios whereby they all look so uniformed uh and I go well it all says the same sort of thing is this carbon copy of someone else's or yeah like what what should I do like how do I pick these people apart and especially if you've got I think we're we've moved past the the hundreds and hundreds of applicants coming through cause the market has so picked up and is now fairly normalized levels across the the board but when you're having lots of applicants coming through for for jobs that you're looking at is trying to differentiate things that all look the same like how do you do that um I think a part of that is as well like how how do people stand out as well like in in in a bit of a crowded market there like I had um a a a portfolio recently that I saw that had like a almost like a TikTok style kind of video that was per kind of each kind of case study and I was like just it was a different approach and it was like OK cool I might have a look at this I'm not gonna watch every single video cause I don't have the time but it was like a way of standing out and that was like really key as well so I think like how people can be think about standing out is is is a key bit there as well because otherwise everything does look the same yeah OK as well so getting someone's attention is that is that interaction initially isn't it yeah first impressions you said getting someone to actually right read it yeah otherwise you're just gonna be going into the same file as everyone which is hmm maybe yeah exactly um so I think yeah thinking about it almost a bit like a design project like what's the problem you're trying to solve or like problem with your CV or the the the problem I think you're trying to solve with your CV is can I get a conversation with a recruiter mm hmm um and then the next thing is like with your your portfolio and I was giving a friend some advice about this recently as well like you don't need to have every single detail and case study in that portfolio that's what the case study round is for yeah um so like again this should be like how do you get the the eye of the hire manager how do you show that you're a good enough designer to get a conversation so like at each point of the process what's the problem that you're trying to solve yeah and how are these artifacts and and things showing up for you and doing that work um is is such a key bit I'm always very conscious that I try not to give too much advice on my CVS formatting and my portfolios even my because I think actually it should be down to the individual and as a designer you should have your personality come through in the things that you're doing the only thing I normally say is similar to you is I tell the story that's yeah what most people want to see is telling the story and I'd say I think what we were just saying just then was you don't need to have like 10 case studies yeah one or two what one or two good ones in there and with enough depth that it shows that you can think yeah and it shows off your craft and then the rest we can fill in during a chat yeah um like we do you do not need to go into detail um as someone that I mean I confess I don't read anymore yeah um it feels weird like I don't write and I don't read alright but but it's true like we're all so busy and we're all kind of used to kind of like quick short snappy you know things um like if you're gonna send over a case study that is like you know 12 pages long there's no way that hiring manager is gonna read that cause they're looking at however many other people at the same time so how do you capture the attention how do you land the key bits and the rest can be a conversation you talked about the person who put like the mini TikTok sort of videos on the yeah the CV what what sort of other things what's the best thing that you've seen in a portfolio or a CV that's really grabbed your attention um I think the thing I've seen more recently is actual live work um so they've been able to because of again because I've been able to vibe code and all the rest of it being able to show links to actual kind of prototypes and experiences like that that's really stood out to me um and again a real signal that they are like kind of at that kind of more cutting edge of the technology side of things as well so not just flat visuals and not just videos which you know of videos of of products the actual product and the actual feature and I think it's always like if you can see people's thinking and like what they've discarded and how they've got to that solution that's a key bit as well cause too often I think we're all a bit guilty of this is like oh first idea cool that's done move on cause you know there's pressure there to ship or there's pressure there to move on to the next thing um but what how have they got to that decision and how did they show that in their processes yeah is such a key bit you talked about like bootcamps and yeah juniors coming coming in getting grads through do you think degrees in design and and UCD still have relevance I don't know and I feel a bit of bias here cause I I never properly studied design yeah um I did a part time college course um so you could certainly say that I did a level of of study but um I didn't go to university yeah um and I I so I didn't do me any harm uh so but you say that as a no that's not relevant so no I don't think so like I think you know it has its place for some of the kind of core theory and stuff like that but but honestly like there's nothing beats real experience um and and for me like starting out I kind of like 17 kind of 16 17 in an agency um like learning the craft and learning by doing and learning by failing yeah um taught me way more than I ever got out of my college course and what would you suggest then to sort of any you know young new designers it could be young could be old we're not ageist here yeah um but people who are new to design so coming through we said earlier it's difficult for you know designers come through we don't see many junior roles entry level roles across the board in the market so how can people position themselves to get some of that experience what can they do to help themselves um other than going on a boot camp which I'm not sure either of us really think it's a great idea yeah um so what yeah what can people do yeah I mean not only is I think the quality of what you get out of those boot camps probably not that great their cost for it is astronomical and then they tell you you'll have a job at the end of it which is a load of rubbish exactly so like definitely no boot camps yeah um I think by doing the work like find a product redesign it have a point of view on it like take something you know we've all got phones full of apps like pick one of them and think well how would I approach this differently what what would it be like if we used the the Spotify experience for Airbnb like what would how would that feel yeah um and I guess start forming and having a point of view um and that really comes into that piece of run that product thinking um as well like have a strong point of view like obviously you know be able to have that challenged um but but starting with having a bit of a point of view and building up some um experience around that um and I think just start by doing um again in a world where you can create things much more easily than you've ever could there's almost no excuse now and so like and show show the work show the thinking yeah OK yeah so just get get out there do some actual work be all be it sort of your project work that you're not getting paid for but look at it have an opinion on stuff build some case studies yeah go and show people yeah exactly um and I think that's the thing of like just you know speak to as many people as possible like you know the power of cold outreach it does work yeah um like I've done it myself yeah and it's exhausting and you might have to contact like you know like 4 500 people to get three conversations but it does work yeah and uh and find that angle and find that way of like getting their attention and why they should speak to you um and I think like that perseverance is is a skill that like we're all so used to just getting things really easily now um like you're gonna have to do the work and it's possible I think it's good people get hired that needs to be be relearned especially by a lot of people coming through in in the market in all markets across all all things we do I think even in what we do in translating to to recruitment right yeah our daily daily job is ultimately going and trying to reach out to like 300 people and maybe speaking to three yeah uh so like having that that perseverance is a really key skill to help you yeah move forward in life and when in a world where there's so much noise you've got to try and cut through it yeah it's mean and I think part of that is like you're probably not gonna come create this generic message in an AI tool and then spam 300 people because it looks like that yeah um like and it gets ignored yeah shock exactly and you're all I've contacted 300 people you haven't really you know like you've sent the same thing out like yeah is it actually better to be a bit more choosy about it and and find like maybe say 10 to 15 key people and tailor something to them um uh and and find ways of speaking to them um as well so like I think that more considered approach um again in a world where you can create things so quickly um and and create the AI slop like how do you cut through that um as well it's probably through being yourself being human and and finding that real connection and we've talked then about so junior people coming into the market but what about people leveling up going doing what you've done so going from someone who's a practitioner operational very hands on and you're a creative person by the things you've just said yeah uh previously to then moving into that leadership role which is a very different beast overall when you suddenly stop being sort of hands on in the craft using the tools so how does someone sort of elevate themselves to move into that head of design role VP of design call it whatever you will yeah I mean I think there's a real shift at the moment around what the expectations are of people in these kind of senior leadership roles um it used to be all about pure people management um and I think we're we're kind of seeing a bit of a backlash on that for probably all the right reasons yeah um that there's still there is an expectation and there probably always should have been an expectation that there's a level of hands on I'm that still required so I think people that are practitioners thinking about maybe moving into kind of more leadership positions there's there's almost more ways of doing that than ever a a route that was probably never always there before was the well you can still be an IC um you can still deliver work at a much more senior level and a much more level of complexity and organizations and organizations are loving that um because you're delivering value that's actually tangible um and I think the other part is around OK if you are gonna lean into that kind of um people leadership type um role um how do you still connect back to the work how are you shaping the work shaping the outcomes it might not mean that you're any squad or whatever delivering work every day in Figma but you're still accountable for the overall experience and you can't do that without having a point of view without being able to kind of show what good looks like and a level of hands on is is always gonna be I think required and I think that's a bit we've probably lost over the years is that we've transitioned into design leaders that that that that can't do any design anymore yeah and it's like that's that feels a bit weird um feels like it's changing though I think I when I see amongst the team that we have when we get requests for people to be design leaders as you say they don't they're not gonna be in the tools every single day yeah and hopefully hiring people who are better at using Figma than they are to yeah do all of the yeah that's the whole point oh yeah I mean you don't you don't wanna see me in Figma like yeah I am slow and I still rather go back to using illustrator for most of the stuff cause it's just much quicker but um yeah I mean again I'll I'll be back in flash if I could yeah yeah yeah I was gonna say yeah be straight back in flash exactly exactly but um but yeah I don't think it's necessary about that level of proficiency in these tools and things like cause the tools always change as well but like like how are you shaping the ideas and how are you shaping that experience and equally let's go have a debate about the rounded corners like you know fine like it's fun but I think there's some people that maybe lost that element of connection to design and why they got into it because they've almost got distracted but I think right now we're seeing a shift in the industry and I think it's quite exciting yeah nice it definitely I mean there's so much change going on yeah across the board yeah I personally think it's an exciting time and as I said earlier a time and an opportunity for people in the design industry to really level up and OK yeah and get that proverbial seat at the table that everyone's always craving for yeah uh uh I mean be careful what you wish for yeah is what I always say like yeah I I remember there was there was a boss of mine once said uh when I was oh yeah I really wanna be on this leadership team like be careful what you wish for I got that I got that position I'm like oh yeah you were right weren't you what was it with the it wasn't uh wasn't wasn't what you wanted it wasn't I just think I was really exposed to like really what was going on in the organization okay and yeah like yeah ignorance is bliss yeah so um yeah but no I think there's I mean I joke aside I think we all want to have a level of influence and I think that's when we talk about seats at the table and things like that I think it really does come back to that influence piece and I almost come back to your question around like people that are looking to move into more leadership positions it's all about influence isn't it it's about influence and communication and like we're all probably somewhat bad at it in some ways and we're all probably finding working our way out through that but but those that can really can build that that credibility through their the way that they communicate the way that they storytell and the way that they can ultimately influence and and and change and you know people and systems and teams around them like those are the folks that will always really succeed in those roles so we've talked obviously a lot about AI today which is again no surprise to to most people it seems to be the basis of most of my most of my conversations these days and probably will be for a a little while to come lots of organizations trying to implement AI into their ways of working it into their products etcetera but not always getting it absolutely right and sometimes bolting things on and etcetera we've all heard of horror stories of things that have not gone gone well so how can how can organizations really I suppose qualify first and foremost like what they should be implementing and then go about actually getting some value from it because yeah it's all about creating value rather than just doing it because someone said oh we should do this thing yeah totally and I think that's such a key bit again talk talking of of memes and things earlier like the the classic thing as well around well CEO wants AI we want AI all the things and it's just like you know before we know we're just doing things because but but we don't really know why I think like that's a big part I think that the approach that I've taken um with this kind of transformation around like AI first workflows is like why are we doing this well it keeps coming back to me about how do we move from idea to validation um whether it's a good idea or a bad idea but how do we how do we close that that gap and so everything that that we're doing is really around that so like that's that's our why so I think the first thing is what is your why why are you doing this and if you don't know go back and do the five wise exercise type thing and then I think once you have got that like one of the things that we've really invested in is a level of like uh baselining our AI maturity um like where do we wanna be because um I'm I'm I have a bit of a technical background I love jumping into code and all that type of stuff I realized the rest of the team isn't um and just because like I'm happy to spend my evenings and weekends playing around and tinkering with stuff I know that the rest of the team aren't at that point yet yeah so like what we actually had to do is meet the team where they're at um and that's meant actually real basics around what makes a good prompt um like you know I will admit I once put into Figma make with a screen make this that didn't really deliver what I wanted shock horror um spoiler alert exactly doesn't work that doesn't work so um yeah um but like how are we what is our maturity around even just prompt engineering um I'm thinking about how do you get things out of your tools like Gemini and Claude and other things like that first so most people don't know about no the prompts and I think most people are so probably I don't know again made up stat but 90% of people using AI products don't know how to prompt it properly no I mean how many people are using chat GPT and other things like this like Google um like so many most of the time exactly yeah it's it's not I still do it as well yeah sometimes yeah sometimes and I go that didn't give me what I wanted ah I didn't ask it properly yeah exactly and I think that's one of the skills that people are developing as well as a way to articulate yourself and like that's a journey that I've been on as well because like you like make this doesn't actually you don't get what you want um so like I think actually meeting the team where they're at has been such a key bit and thinking about like what's that baseline where are we and where are we trying to get to um and thinking about the various different kinds of streams or or things within that um the other bit says like it's not all about shipping codes like we've been using a lot of the tools for um like you know kind of research synthesis like using things like notebook LM mean a great thing to bring a repository of research together to be able to create a little kind of show reels of um like then they can a podcast feature or or things like that to be able to share on the business like there's things like that that we've been able to use as well so um I think it's about like almost exposing people to everything and then kind of seeing kind of what where where what sticks but also like where do you really wanna push on and and when is the time right for that as well so um like cause what we've noticed is that those that have spent the time learning how to prompt or or focus on kind of refining the prompt experience when they are putting this into things like Claude Code or whatever else they're probably using way less tokens because they're being a bit more accurate yeah well so there's a cost saving aspect yeah yeah yeah but they're also getting what they want much quicker as well so like it for us like that that level of of of um or that approach has been super key yeah nice and it's it's what do you think about those organisations that are resisting sort of the yeah implementing AI into their businesses so the other other way around yeah I mean I think probably need to ask why like again like what is what is it is it is it fear like you know there's naturally there's a lot of fear around like will this take people's jobs um and I think the way I'm thinking about it is it might take some of them like I think we should be honest like let's not say that you know AI is not gonna take anyone's jobs type thing but it's also gonna create so many new jobs it's the natural evolution yeah we've got like a super senior conversation designer in our team that like that role didn't exist how many years ago like yeah you know the person that we've got is awesome they're a borderline engineer as well and like just we just wouldn't have had that um so like there's so many things coming out and life to to organizations that maybe are slightly resisting about it is is it fear or or or what is what's that reason I guess it's hard to say like what my advice would be without actually having that conversation but I think it's probably digging into like what's that underlying piece around it yeah um is it a security thing cause that's real as well like you don't want people taking all your customer information and dumping it into a public um you know LLM um you know I think there's a lot of that isn't there there's probably a lot of that large organizations finance etcetera you know highly regulated industries like like like over is as well um like you know we need to be careful like yup you know there's there's certain things there's a you know approval processing things that that big organizations and and regulated industries need to have um so that's fair um but it's possible but like how do you think about that and how do you bring I think for me a lot of this is around what's the culture that you're creating yeah um around this because that's probably the hardest bit um like how do you shift that culture uh and I think for me a lot of it keeps coming back to that that that how did that learning culture how do you keep people learning um because it's moving so quickly and how do you keep them adapting um so that that'd be part of the advice I'd say nice and if you could go back to the start of your career and giving yourself a piece of advice to to get you to where you are now what would that bit be oh good question what would I say um I mean I'd probably say invest in your future network and building that future network before you need it yep um because everyone thinks about who their peers are who's around them and we almost get obsessed with like oh such and such is this job they're doing this type of thing you almost forget that actually those are the those are those people are not gonna help you get your next role yeah um it's gonna be the people that are above them and what happens when they move into those more senior roles um so like I'd say building on that future network whether you're a grad thinking about your first role or thinking about actually now I'm moving from kind of you know IC into manager or whatever else or now I'm looking at like a VP level role like OK cool your audience now is probably the CEOs in the C suite yeah and so how are you building those networks um like that that to me would be the thing to not get caught out by that you don't have the network when you need it and that's where I see it all the time is the No.