S6E10 An interview with Natalia Vargas, Director of Product Design for Cariloop

Speaker A: Admitting that you don't know much and that you're there to be a sponge and you have that learner and students mindset. You're not set in any way. So you're very open minded and that is amazing for empathy to really try to seek to understand something.

Speaker B: Welcome to the what Is UX Podcast, the show where we interview design leaders about their journey and experience so that you may learn from them. I'm your host, Pak Phong Pat. Hello everyone and I hope you're doing well and thank you for listening again. On this episode we have Natalia Vargas. She's the director of Product design at Careloop. Previously she was user experience manager at PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers, a large consultancy, as well as Bottle Rocket, an agency serving as user experience design lead. Welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me. Peg. Hey.

Speaker B: Ah, you're very welcome. So on this episode we'll be talking and learning about, you know, if you're transitioning from a different career to ux, we will talk a little bit about that. So useful to folks who, who are in that transition. And also really useful topic that I'm personally interested in because this is relevant to her work right now is designing for really stressed out users. In a nutshell, could you tell us a little bit about Care Loop, the platform and your role?

Speaker A: Sure, of course. Care Loop is a caregiver support platform that is employer paid. So it is free to employees. And essentially we pair you up, uh, with a dedicated care coach that walks with you through your caregiving journey and they are there to support you through all of the very complicated healthcare system, health education as well, challenges that come about whenever you are caring for someone.

Speaker B: Thank you. So definitely the users, the caregivers themselves use this and the care, the people who have, are getting care, uh, users on this platform as well. Like on the other side or how does it work?

Speaker A: Not necessarily. So it is mostly the caregivers that are using this platform that are caring for, you know, the caregivers in their very different journeys. You can have a case for yourself. So you are caring for yourself. I certainly have been helped finding providers, you know, like nutritionists and dentists that have been really helpful for taking care of me.

Speaker B: So yeah, um, so yeah, and caregivers, they're probably going through, they don't have a lot of time. They're probably stressed out because they're providing care and so designing for them. As we will get into, I'd love to learn more about some of the considerations.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely. Caregivers in their journey are extremely stressed out and they really just want somebody in their corner, somebody that can listen and understand. And so we place a lot of emphasis in our platform on that care coach, caregiver relationship. So on the, on our side, on like the user, uh, experience side, the things that we do to really reduce that stress for them is like, reduce like for example, cognitive load. The number of options that you give someone can, can really be very stressful and especially if you don't have the time to sift through things. We try to make things as easy as possible to get through and understand. That enhances the sense of control that they have really in their lives because I'm sure that they feel very out of control in their very stressed out journey. So breaking things into smaller processes that are achievable steps and moving them closer to their goal and moving them closer to just spending time with their family and just being present there for that caregiver. Because we deal with such complex systems like health care, we really try to make things, um, very familiar and remove ambiguity from the process. We try to be as clear with our language and as clear with what the next step is as possible. We value their time so much because we know that they don't have a lot of it. I think the final thing that I would say is to really try to humanize the process as much as possible and to, to understand and to come from a place of empathy and support in our language and our, in how things look and feel and move as well. It's one of our core principles, is to be emotive and human.

Speaker B: How do you think about, you know, the choice of words and stuff like that and the content within the application?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. We're lucky in that we have a storytelling team as part of our overall large care loop team and they spend a lot of time thinking through that empathetic voice of customer and writing for them and really simplifying language so as easy to understand as possible. I would say that is their biggest emphasis as far as in our UI and our digital experiences. We often place extra, um, emphasis on the accessibility of language. So like really breaking things down into their core messages and being as clear as possible. You know, I love Brene Brown and she says clear is kind all the time. And I, I want to bring that kindness into the language, especially when we're dealing with such complex topics and emotions that come up with caregiving journeys.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm actually taking a writing class. It's like a six, seven week class uh, just to learn how to write better. And one of the things that help, one of the pieces of advice is in terms of keeping things simple or economical is to use simpler words or cut down on fluffy words or their phrases where there's an equivalent single word for it and simpler words. So for example, currently you can just say now or at a time or at the time you just say when or in order to. Yeah, I'm just looking at this, uh, their references in order to. You can just say to. But to. You know, that that was one takeaway is we tend to stuff our sentences and our writing with words that are not necessary. And I think that that was a good takeaway in terms of being more economic and clear and simple with our writing.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you can translate that into experiences. Right. If there are steps that you don't need to take that might be helpful for the business but aren't helpful for the user, really keeping them top of mind, um, we try to remove those barriers and make it as frictionless as possible and as easy to just get help. You know, come to us and get help is, is really the core of, of what we're all about.

Speaker B: Yeah. Tell us more about kind of breaking stuff into steps and all these like, micro achievements. It sounds like when I hear stuff like that, it feels a lot like game design. Almost a lot of games, they, they kind of break this down so that you're having little moments of microachievements.

Speaker A: Yes. Actually this is very timely because we are working through some processes internally where we're trying to set a beginning and an end to processes like breaking down these caregiving steps into, um, smaller, more digestible chunks of the journey that can be completed and that the user can see. Like, oh my gosh, yes, I'm done with this need. I am done. You have helped me. You have actually helped me. So we're in the beginning stages of, uh, thinking through and implementing things like that. And absolutely we're going take inspiration from gamification in that whole sphere. Achievements. There is definitely a line to walk there because caregiving and that journey is, can be really heavy and stressful and you don't want it to seem like it's making a mock of it or it's too, too light. And so that's going to be a very fun challenge for us to keep things light. But know that we are professionals and serious. Right. We can't completely go duolingo and like bursting stars and like treasure tests and gems and whatnot. That would be fun. But it's not. We have a more professional line to walk, but we do still want to bring in that delight to our experience, for sure. And chunking things out into tasks and to dos that are achievable and that make you feel like you are progressing and you are doing a good job as a caretaker for your caregiving.

Speaker B: You touched on storytelling. So how does that fit into the conversation and the work?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So our storytelling team is part of our brand team, and they would be, I guess you would consider, more typical marketing, but a Care Loop, we consider them storytellers because really they listen to all these stories from our wonderful coaches that do such a phenomenal job, and they're often very emotional. We have this meeting a month, I believe, that is coaching stories, and the whole company tunes in. We hear these caregivers stories and they're. They're certainly a part of it. So recording it, making sure that they're told accurately, and then really bringing in that, that empathy. It's not, it's not just about marketing or about selling something here at Care Loop. It really. Our service, our, uh, core service is the care coaches. And so in order to, to, you know, bring justice to the work that they do, we really need to tell really good stories. And so the company has focused a lot of time, effort and energy into a department that can. That has people that are excellent writers, some of them are journalists, so that they can understand and be able to share those stories with. With the world in an impactful and accurate way. So very different than a lot of marketing, typical marketing. And I have a background in marketing. I have a minor in marketing that I've been a part of. For sure. There's a lot more emphasis in the, the humanity and the experience and wanting to tell that in an accurate way.

Speaker B: Thanks. Thanks. So you're originally from La Paz, Bolivia, and now you're working remotely and from in Dallas, Texas. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into design.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Born in Bolivia, but I've moved all over the world. My dad works in the oil industry. I've always been a very creative kid. I loved traveling. I loved meeting people and being part of different cultures quickly. I think adaptability has always been something that I've been good at in my career because I've had to do that very early on in my childhood. And so when it came to choosing, uh, a career, I wanted to stay creative. I went to school for communication design, and I focused in art direction for advertising. And that was really Fun. I love big concepts. I think in school too, there's this aspect of like, here's your client, but make it as cool as possible. The brief is just, you know, have a great piece for your portfolio. And that was super fun. I absolutely loved it. When I started interning in advertising agencies, I don't think it was what I expected, and I think the real world came. Came a knock in and I really just enjoyed the more digital experiences of the campaigns that I was building. Building websites, microsites, apps. I had a friend at the time that was working at Bottle Rocket, which is a, uh, mobile app development agency in Dallas. So I met with their Director of User Experience and, you know, frankly, they didn't have a position at the time that I could take in that interactive portion of the business. But I really fell in love with the culture, the very smart people. And so he offered me a, uh, marketing internship that could be followed up by a year in their marketing department while they trained me and they brought me speed to the experience that I needed and I took it. I was so happy. I could have been a janitor there. Honestly, it was such a wonderful experience. Any free time that I had, I would nudge designers and ask them, what are you doing? What is that? And how do you, how can I learn that? And they were, you know, generous enough to mentor me for that year until I transitioned into that interactive design portion of the company.

Speaker B: It sounds like your, your curiosity, natural wanting to learn also helped you a lot.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's definitely something that I give as a piece of advice when I mentor designers, is be hungry, be curious. For sure. It's paid off in a massive way for me. Yeah. Ah. And, you know, even after all these years, I, I keep that spirit. I, I love learning. I love asking questions. I think that's part of being a really good designer is, is asking good questions.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, in terms of advice, you've mentored and lots of people come from kind of different walks of life, different careers. What are your thought advice on folks who, who come to you looking for advice on how to be a better designer and kind of what they're struggling and going through?

Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if it's because I put this energy into the universe or what it is, but I get a lot of designers that are transitioning into the user experience field and I get really giddy when I read those descriptions that come in through. I use ADP list, shout out to them, they're wonderful. So I get really excited when I, when I see that because my, it's been my experience that they're really not starting from scratch if they've worked somewhere before. And I see that they come at it from a perspective of like, oh man, I'm starting over. I don't really know what I'm doing. Which I mean can't, can feel true. But oftentimes, you know, they're educators or they've been part of like sales organizations or even developers. Right. Engineers. And that's not starting from scratch. If you've been part of a team, you have communication skills, you have emotional intelligence awareness, you have empathy, you have self awareness that it takes to work in teams and you uh, shouldn't necessarily discount that. I think the skills that you can learn from user experience will come with time and you're actually at a place of a lot of power which is just admitting that you don't know much and that you're there to be a sponge and you have that learner and students mindset. You're not set in any way. So you're very open minded and that is amazing for empathy to really try to seek to understand something rather than come at it from a place of like, oh, I think I know how this is going to go. And so those are my biggest pieces of advice really is use those strengths. And I love to cheerlead people and make them feel good about the experience that they already have and help them realize that it's all very transferable to this field.

Speaker B: Yeah. And to uh, pile on to the advice. I think people, if they think that they don't have that experience or they're starting from scratch, they have the domain knowledge so they're actually more better suited than other folks who don't have that domain knowledge. If you come from for example sales and you want to get into the design, well, you actually know a lot about, you know, I, I, my recommendation would be to like, you know, help apply to companies that are sales software because you know a lot about sales, you know the, the process. You are the, the person who would be using this. You know, if you're a marketer transitioning then designing marketing software would be, you know, if you're a developer and transitioning, designing developer tools like you are that person before this role. So now that you have design skills and tools now you're in the power to influence that design and you know, whatever, uh, your frustrations were in your previous role I think could obviously very much translate to your future work if you choose to kind of go down that route.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Case in point, my junior designer actually came from sales and she works on our enterprise portal. And, and she is wonderful. A lot of the knowledge that she has and sales and how HR people are and the skills it takes to do those jobs have served her extremely well. She was able to jump in really fast even though she was a junior. I think a lot of the challenges she has had were more towards the tools and those skills than it was an empathizing and understanding that she was her own subject matter expert in that regard. And that was really wonderful to watch.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a funny related story, we um, one of our clients is a company called Twilio which they do like communications software and we're a partner to them but they. The reason they hired us to design their partner directory. Well, one, we're a design firm and two, we're also their partner. So we, it's like we're wearing both shoes. We're both a design agency, development agency, but also uh, as well as a partner. So we understand what partners need and what partners are looking for. So. And we also worked on the partner portal which is what partners see when they log in. So being a partner helps. Right. Like if you just picked any old design agency who, who's not a Twilio partner, who's not a partner to any software company, I think it would be a bit more challenging to, to wear their shoes, you know, kind of live in the shoes. Whereas we're already in those shoes.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. There's this understanding in the air already that takes time and you know, energy resources to develop. So you just jump in. That's wonderful to hear for you. That's awesome.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then, and more, you know, once you start doing that work, you get, you get more work like, hey, heard you guys did this. And we want, you know, in a similar company, want something the same or something like that. So your domain knowledge definitely comes useful.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: I know you're also like a talented artist in your own right. Not, not nothing to do with UX design, but how does that fit into your life, you know?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I've really enjoyed painting and drawing and really doing crafty things my whole life. I think I felt really good and confident about those skills. After college I would always create from a place of just wanting to give, just heart, just wanting to create something for friends. So right out of college I painted this pug painting for a friend that was moving to Seattle and just took a picture of it and flung it into the Internet. And lots of my other friends were like, that's amazing. Do you mind if you paint my cat or with my dog, my goldfish, whatever, whatever it is. And then, you know, that kind of took off. And I've just been kind of silently doing a lot of those over the years just for people that are interested that I know that, that I love. It creates a lot of, I think, mental peace in my mind. You know, logging off work, making dinner with my husband, and then from like 9 to midnight or 9 to 11, just putting on an old rom com I've seen a million times and just having fun painting and, you know, maybe sipping a little bit of wine. It's very relaxing, and I think it serves as a really wonderful reset for very busy work days. You know, the more, the higher up I get in my career, the more important it is to mentally disconnect and take those breaks. I do this thing in the morning as well where I walk an hour. It's my replacement for a commute from the pandemic because I work from home and I miss that drive a little bit. I don't miss the traffic, but I do miss that time where my brain just kind of ran wild before I needed to focus on something. And I really started doing this actually when I was planning my wedding. Huh. Last year. And it was just, I was finding it extremely hard to just wake up and sit at a desk with all of the other millions of things that I needed to think about, to plan and to do. And so I started walking an hour every morning. And the deal was like, okay, brain, think of all the things that you can think of. And it was extremely meditative that way. I would sometimes pull out my phone and like, write these to do lists and know that as I was walking, I couldn't do anything about what I wanted to do, but I could get a plan together. And for someone that sometimes has a hard time focusing, it really helped focus what tasks I needed to do when. So by the end of my hour, I would get to work and be able to fully focus. And then at the end of work, I had a to do list of all the things that I needed to do for my wedding or design or do for art projects and, and whatnot. So I think those two things have really helped balance out and keep me sane as I take on more responsibilities in, in my career and in my personal life.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I, I can relate to that. I, I too need to disconnect completely disconnect for that. I, I go to the gym. I. I can't paint. So. But. But I started at some point like you, I started walking. It's not quite an hour. It's, uh, not more like 10, 15 minutes. But every morning I'll take a walk around the block, you know, kind of like similar one to get out of the house. Because I felt prior to doing that, I felt like Groundhog Day where, you know, now that I work from home, it's like you get up, you go downstairs, you to the basement office, and you work all day, like zoom marathons. And then you come upstairs for lunch, you. You go down, you come upstairs for dinner, and then that's your life. And it's like, oh, my God, this is horrible. So I started walking in the morning and I found that very meditative, like you said. And it helps me think about the day, although I sometimes just want to concentrate on the experience of the walk. But sometimes, you know, I can't help but plan. Plan the day or think about my priorities. So it does help with that. Plus, you know, it's. It's good to get out and get some. Some of the vitamin D. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: And, ah, I used to get really mad at myself about what those walks were about because I was like, no, this is my one hour to listen to a podcast or read a book and not think. I need to. I need to reserve my thinking brain for. For work. I found that the less strict I was about that hour and how my brain just wanted to roam about, the better it was. And then, you know, when I got into meditation and I, you know, through headspace and saw that there was a portion of it where they did let your brain just do anything, I was like, oh, my gosh. I have been meditating this whole time, but I've just been doing it in a different way because I just didn't know.

Speaker B: Very cool. If anybody is interested in getting a caregiver is that, you know, do they talk to their employer about carrier loop or what's the deal?

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So Care Loop Caregiver support services. You know, statistically like 73% of employees have some sort of caregiving responsibility, be it parenting or caring for a loved one with a health condition. They're spending probably over 24 hours a week on these responsibilities that we know of and we partner with employers to offer these services so that the benefit is free to the employees. So, you know, I'm sure that your listeners have experienced caregiving or know of a colleague or someone that wouldn't use this kind of support. Reach out to an HR team member and ask if you have a benefit like this. And if you don't, I'd say go to careloop.com employers. Okay.

Speaker B: And how does one commission a painting from you? Do you have, like a. An intake form, a website or.

Speaker A: I just started an Instagram. The Instagram is mooseandmatmade that. And I am slowly working through a website and an intake form for and stickers. I also, I, uh, love to recycle paper, so I make stationary around the holidays of recycled vintage Christmas paper and all that fun stuff. So, yeah, stay tuned for that. You can follow me on Instagram.

Speaker B: Very cool. Well, Charlie, thank you so much. It's been very fun having you on the show.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It was my pleasure, Peg. Thank you.

Speaker B: Uh, you're very welcome. Thank you for joining us on this episode of what is ux? If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you leave us a review, I'll make sure to shout it out on the show. If you have any questions, send them to questionswhatistux.co, and our guest and I will try to answer them on the show. And you can always find us on whatisux. Co. See you on the next one.