Pioneers: May-Li Khoe
Summary
TLDRこのエピソードは、デザインと技術の融合を探求するシリーズ「パイオニアーズ」の第6回。ゲストはMaylie Kuで、彼女はプロトタイピング、ダンス、DJ、グリッター、工学を愛し、世界との新しい相互作用方法を作り出すデザイナー。Appleでの経験からKhan AcademyのデザインVPまで、そして最近はVirtual World「Makespace」の共同創設者。会話の核心は、身体性とデザインの関係、感情とデザインの相互作用、そしてデジタル空間でのコミュニケーションの未来についての洞察です。
Takeaways
- 🎶 メイリー・クーはプロトタイピング、ダンス、DJ、キラキラ、そしてエンジニアリングを愛し、新しい対話の方法を作り出すデザイナーです。
- 📱 メイリーはAppleで初代iPhoneやForce Touchを開発するチームの一員でした。
- 🏫 メイリーはKhan AcademyのデザインVPを務め、教育の未来可能性を探る長期研究グループを共同設立しました。
- 🌐 メイリーは最近、多数のコラボレーターと共に、Zoomのようなビデオチャットツールの矩形を革新的に変えるvirtual world「Makespace」を立ち上げました。
- 💃 メイリーのダンスの情熱は、彼女のデザイン思考に大きな影響を与え、インタラクションとアニメーションのデザインに身体的な要素を取り入れています。
- 🎭 メイリーは、スペーシャルインタフェースの会話において、空間性がどのように展開するかについて議論し、ダンスやパフォーマンスにおける舞台上の動きや遷移をデザインに取り入れています。
- 🚀 メイリーは、インタラクションデザインにおいて物体がどのように動くかについて多くの考えをし、重くても軽くても、それが页面上の動きやそれらがどのように関連するかを考慮に入れる重要性を述べました。
- 🌟 メイリーは、デザインにおける感情の重要性を強調し、ユーザーが製品を使い始める前に感情的なつながりがあると感じられるデザインを目指しています。
- 📚 メイリーは、教育において視覚的なデザインと創造的指向を重要視し、学生が楽しい学習体験をすることが教育の目的の一部であると感じています。
- 🌍 メイリーは、デジタルメディアにおいて文化的な反応や臨場感をどのように取り入れ、それらを反映する方法について考えています。
- 🔍 メイリーは、デザインプロセスにおいて注意深く、そして意図的なアプローチを重要視し、成功するデザインに導くために小さな選択肢から大きなループまでをカバーする構造を提案しています。
Q & A
Maylie Kuがデザインとエンジニアリングを統合し、新しいインタラクションの方法を考案する上で、ダンスやDJなど彼女の趣味はどのように影響を与えていますか?
-Maylie Kuは、ダンスやDJなど彼女の趣味を通じて、物体の動きや空間性について深い理解を持っています。例えば、Appleで働いていた時に制作した最初のiPhoneのエディットアプリの画面アニメーションは、太多にヒップシェイクを伴うタヒチアンダンスに似ていたと語っています。彼女は、趣味を通じて得た这种感觉をデザインに取り入れ、インタラクションのアニメーションや移動を考案する際に、より自然で魅力的な動きを提供しています。
Maylie KuがKhan AcademyでデザインVPを務めている時、教育の未来についてどのように探求しましたか?
-Maylie KuはKhan AcademyでデザインVPを務めている時、教育の未来について探求するために、長期研究グループを共同設立しました。彼女は、教育の可能性を最大限に引き出し、学習体験をより魅力的かつ効果的にするための潜在的な将来の方向性を探求していました。彼女の取り組みは、学習体験をより学生に合わせたものにし、学生が単なる知識の受信側ではなく、学習プロセスに積極的に関与するように工夫することで、教育の将来をより明るく、希望に満ちたものに変えることを目指していました。
Maylie KuがMaylspaceという仮想世界を立ち上げた背景にはどのような意図がありましたか?
-Maylie Kuが立ち上げたMaylspaceは、現在のビデオチャットツール如いZoomのような矩形の画面の中でのコミュニケーションを刷新することを目的としています。Maylspaceは、ユーザーに対して空間的な自由度を提供し、仮想空間でのコミュニケーションや協力を楽しむことができるようにすることで、オンラインでの交流をより富人化することを目指しています。Maylspaceの開発には、遠隔地での知識労働が主流となった現代の状況下で、オンライン空間をより人間味あく、創造的な文化を育むことが重要であるという考えが込められています。
Maylie Kuがデザイン思考において重要視する「物体の動き」において、どのようにして重いものと軽いものを見分けるか?
-Maylie Kuは、物体の動きにおいて、その重さを感じるかどうかによって重いものと軽いものを見分けます。例えば、何かを削除する際には、その行為が「重い」ものであるため、実際にの操作も「重い」感じ shouldBe すると考えています。一方、問題が大してないようなシンプルなレイアウトの変更は、軽い感じ shouldBe すると考えています。Maylieは、UIがその操作の結果を反映し、何が起こるかについて明確に示すべきだと考えており、そのために物体の動きや遷移が重要だとemphasis しています。
Maylie KuがAppleで働いていた時、Force Touchを発明した際の考えとは何でしたか?
-Maylie KuはAppleで働いていた時、Force Touchを発明しました。彼女は、直感的なタッチインターフェースを提供することで、ユーザーがより自然な方法でデバイスとインタラクションできるようにするという考えを持っていました。Force Touchは、ユーザーがスクリーンに触れる力强弱によって、デバイスからの反応を変える技術です。これにより、ユーザーは細かい操作や強調など、より高度な機能を使用できるようになり、より豊かな操作体験を提供するものです。
Maylie Kuがデザインに取り組む際に、どのようにして失敗や問題を解決するか?
-Maylie Kuは、デザインに取り組む際に、問題や失敗に対処する際には、まず問題を明確に認識し、その問題を解決するための方法を探し求めることが重要だと考えています。彼女は、問題解決に向けて、継続的に注意力を集中し、解決策を模索することで、問題を改善していくことが可能です。Maylieはまた、失敗を恐れず、失敗を通じて学ぶことができると信じており、失敗を回避するのではなく、失敗から学び、改善することで、より良いデザインを生み出すことができます。
Maylie Kuがデザインにおいて重視する「感情」とは何ですか?
-Maylie Kuがデザインにおいて重視する「感情」とは、ユーザーが製品やサービスを使用する際に感じるエモーションや心情です。彼女は、デザインが単に機能的であるだけでなく、ユーザーの感情にも影響を与えると信じています。例えば、ユーザーが喜びや興奮を感じることを促すデザインは、ユーザーの体験をより充実させ、ユーザーが製品やサービスをより好意的に感じることができるようにします。Maylieは、デザインがユーザーの感情を考慮に入れることで、ユーザーとの関係をより深め、ユーザーのニーズや欲求に応えることができると考えています。
Maylie Kuが言及した「第三の場所」とは何を指しますか?
-Maylie Kuが言及した「第三の場所」とは、家や職場を除いた第三の場所を指します。これは、人々の交流や相互作用が生まれる場所であり、例えばカフェや公園、図書館などが該当します。Maylieは、現在のデジタル環境ではこの「第三の場所」が欠けていると感じており、Maylspaceの開発でもこのような空間を再現することを目指しています。彼女は、このような第三の場所が、人間関係を豊かにし、より自然な交流を促進する役割を持っていると強調しています。
Maylie Kuがデザインチームで働く際に重要視した要素は何ですか?
-Maylie Kuはデザインチームで働く際に、最も重要視した要素はチームメンバーの創造性と表現の自由度だと述べています。彼女は、デザインチームのメンバーが自分の意見を自由に表現し、創造的なアイデアを提供できる環境を作り出すことが重要だと考えています。また、彼女は教育の分野においても、視覚的なデザインとイラストレーションの重要性を強調しており、教育の品質を向上させるために、美しいデザインを提供することが必要です。
Maylie KuがMaylspaceでの実験的なアプローチの成果はどのようなものですか?
-Maylie KuがMaylspaceでの実験的なアプローチは、仮想空間でのコミュニケーションの新たな方法を模索する際の刺激を提供するという成果があります。Maylspaceは、ユーザーが空間を自在に操作し、雰囲気を作り出すことができるインタラクションを提供することで、ビデオチャットの標準的な形式を刷新しています。また、Maylieは、Maylspaceの実験を通じて、ユーザーが仮想空間をより自然で愉悦に利用する方法について学ぶことができました。
Maylie Kuがデザインに取り組む際のアプローチはどのように変化しましたか?
-Maylie Kuのデザインアプローチは、職業経験を積むにつれて変化しています。Appleで働いていた時、彼女は技術的な面に重点を置いて、革新的な製品を作り出すことを目指していました。一方、Khan AcademyやMaylspaceでの取り組みでは、ユーザーの感情や体験を重視し、デザインがユーザーの生活にどのように影響を与えるかを考慮するようになりました。彼女の現在のアプローチは、デザインがユーザーのニーズを満たし、感情を豊かにするものであることを重視しています。
Outlines
🎙️イントロダクションとメイリー・クーの紹介
このエピソードは、コンピュータ技術の発展に貢献したデザイナー、エンジニア、発明家との対話シリーズ「パイオニアーズ」の第6回目です。メイリー・クーは、プロトタイピング、ダンス、DJ、きらめくデザイン、工学に情熱を注ぎ、新しいメディアを手中に持つことで開かれる可能性を捉える眼を持つデザイナーです。メイリーはAppleで初代iPhoneやForce Touchを開発し、Khan AcademyのデザインVPを務め、教育の未来について探求する研究グループを共同設立しました。最近、コラボレーターたちと共に、ビデオチャットツールのZoomなどの矩形を革新的に変えるvirtual world「Makespace」を立ち上げました。
💃メイリーの身体性とデザインへの影響
メイリーの身体性は、彼女のデザインの考え方と大きな影響を与えています。彼女はダンスを通じて、スクリーン上のアプリの動きやエディットアプリのアニメーションをデザインしています。メイリーは、ダンスやパフォーマンスにおける動きや舞台の入り口、退場、最終幕の流れが、彼女のデザイン仕事にも影響を与えていると語っています。
🎭メイリーのデザイン哲学とMakespace
メイリーは、物体がページ上でどのように移動し、互いにどのように関係するかについて考える際、重いものや軽いもの、移動しやすくないものなど、重要な次元を考えています。Makespaceは、オンラインでのコミュニケーションを革新的なものにし、通常のビデオチャットツールとは異なる新しい方法で時間を共有できる場所を提供しています。Makespaceの価値観は、人間味を強め、オンラインでの時間を過ごす際に、より親しみやすく、ケアと創造文化を促進することにあります。
🤖VRとUI/UXデザインの課題
メイリーは、VRが理論上は直感的であるべきであるにもかかわらず、実際の経験では期待外れであることが多かったと述べています。VRの技術的な問題や、ハードウェアの分裂、経済的なインセンティブの不足など、多くの要素がUI/UXデザインの進歩を阻害していると見なされています。
🌟パイオニアーズのProvocationと将来の展望
メイリーは、パイオニアーズが多くの人々に刺激を与えたと感じており、新しい発展が期待されています。しかし、Makespaceはまだ公開されていないと述べ、現在のプロトタイプ段階に留まっています。メイリーは、Makespaceが5年後に何地处するのか、どのように使われるかを明確には言えていないが、その空間が人々に共有され、最も必要な人々によって使用されることを望んでいます。
🎨感情とデザインの結びつき
メイリーは、デザイン時に感情を考慮することが重要であると強調しています。デザインは、人々が学ぶことや話すこと、製品について感じることに影響を与えるため、デザインが単にデータのアップロード先ではなく、感情を引き出すものであることが重要です。メイリーは、自分のデザインで取り組んだいくつかの感情的な要素を举例しています。
🌈学びと教育のデザイン
メイリーは、学ぶプロセス全体において、注意を集中させることの重要性を述べています。学ぶことで、失敗やコミュニケーションの困難さといった感情的な側面があるため、デザインは単に知識を提供するだけではなく、学習プロセス全体に関与しています。メイリーは、教育のデザインにおいて、学生が感じることを重要視し、デザインが学びのプロセス全体にどのように影響するかを考慮するべきだと述べています。
💡デザインの注意と細部へのこだわり
メイリーは、デザインにおける細部へのこだわりが、ユーザーが製品を使用する際の体験に影響を与えると語っています。デザインの細部に注力することで、ユーザーが製品にどのように反応するかを理解し、改善することができると考えています。メイリーは、Appleのデザインや自己のデザインプロジェクトで行った細部へのこだわりの例を挙げ、それがどのようにユーザー体験に影響を与えたかを説明しています。
Mindmap
Keywords
💡インタラクションデザイン
💡プロトタイピング
💡メタファー
💡デジタルメディア
💡教育
💡VR
💡ユーザーエクスペリエンス
💡コラボレーション
💡デジタルインタフェース
💡創造性
💡フィードバック
Highlights
Maylie Ku's multifaceted background in design, prototyping, dancing, DJing, and engineering has led to innovative approaches in interaction design.
Her work on the first iPhone and inventing Force Touch at Apple showcases her ability to integrate physicality and emotion into technology.
Maylie's experience as VP of Design at Khan Academy and co-founding their long-term research group highlights her commitment to exploring potential futures of education.
Makespace, a virtual world she launched, aims to transform the dry, rectangular format of video chat tools into a spatial and enjoyable experience.
The concept of embodied thinking in design is exemplified by Maylie's approach to interactions and animations, drawing from her love for dancing.
The importance of spatial interfaces and the flow of performance work, such as entrances and exits on stage, influence Maylie's设计理念.
Maylie emphasizes the need for UI elements to make sense in terms of movement, placement, and transitions, reflecting a deep understanding of user interaction.
The balance between heavy and light elements in UI design should reflect the significance and ease of user actions, such as deleting content.
Maylie's heuristic for design involves considering the physicality and emotional impact of interactions, aiming for a UI that reflects the outcomes of user actions.
The challenge of creating a 'vibe' in digital spaces, as opposed to physical ones, is a central focus in Maylie's work on Makespace.
Maylie discusses the importance of design in creating mental models for users, helping them understand how different elements of a product fit together.
Her experience with Japanese stationery and Apple design highlights the emotional connection and care that can be instilled in products through meticulous design.
Maylie's work at Khan Academy reflects her emphasis on visual design, creativity, and the need for educational tools to feel inviting and fun.
The conversation touches on the importance of attention and intention in learning and design, and how focusing on these aspects can lead to significant improvements.
Maylie shares her approach to life and work, which involves setting overarching goals, creating structures to track progress, and allowing for flexibility and creativity.
The discussion highlights the need for a balance between intuition and user testing in design, drawing from Maylie's experiences at different organizations.
Maylie's method of prototyping involves gathering related materials, starting with small steps, and gradually building up to a more complex prototype.
The conversation concludes with Maylie's thoughts on the importance of valuing both the creative process and the structure needed to ensure that actions align with long-term goals.
Transcripts
hello
i'm devin and you're listening to the
sixth episode of pioneers
an ongoing series of conversations with
the designers engineers and inventors
who shaped computing as we know it a
quick housekeeping note
you're probably familiar with the show
by its original name tools and craft
that name has now expanded to refer to
notion's entire blog
which is coincidentally where you can
find all past and future episodes of
this series
pioneers so today i'm floored to be
talking to maylie ku
maylie is a designer and she has tightly
integrated her loves of prototyping
dancing djing glitter and engineering
into making
all sorts of novel ways of interacting
with the world
she has an especially sharp eye for
recognizing the opportunities that open
up when you have new mediums in your
hands
melee has worked on too many cool things
for me to list them all
so here's just a tiny sampler while
melee
was at apple she worked on the first
iphone and she was also part of the team
that invented force touch among
many other things later she was the vp
of design at khan academy and co-founded
their long-term research group
where she explored what potential
futures of education might be
and just in this last year she launched
a virtual world called makespace with a
number of collaborators
which takes the dry boring rectangle
that zoom and other video chat tools
take for granted
and instead turns it on its head and
makes hanging out with friends or
collaborating with people in virtual
space
spatial and fun so melee thank you so
much for taking the time to have this
conversation
hello thank you thank you so much for
having me
i've been really really looking forward
to this uh because this hits a bunch of
my
favorite topics and also i just wanted
to hang out with you more for a long
time so
this is going to be a blast yeah awesome
yeah totally so so one of the themes
that
has really jumped out at me from
studying your work
and from talking to you is just how
embodied your thinking is
you have a lifelong love for dancing and
that seems to have had a huge
impact on the way you design
interactions and animations for example
you've talked about how the apple edit
app screen animation is a lot like a
tahitian dance
with that has a lot of hip shaking in it
if anyone has no idea what i'm talking
about
if you have an iphone or an ipad and you
like go to try to edit your your home
screen of apps
you'll see that your app's like chic and
you can kind of imagine hips way so
i'm really curious like how have you
involved the physicality of our bodies
into interaction design like the first
thing that jumps into my mind is just
having conversations with people about
how things should move
i don't know if this happens to other
people but just having these actual
movements like dancing out with my hands
or my arms how
things should move or be arranged in the
screen you know it's something that you
wind up losing
when you've got a bunch of static mocks
and you're not having face-to-face
conversations with each other but i
would say it's definitely permeated in
that way and just just the way that i
talk or think about things
and sort of similarly to that i think
the entire conversation about spatial
interfaces and how spatiality
plays out for both ui elements winds up
coming into play because as a dancer
or as a performer you think about how
you get on stage what you do when you
get on stage what happens when you're
going off the stage how you go off stage
you know what does a finale look like
what does the introduction look like
there's
there's a flow to doing um performance
work
uh as a dancer as well as the movement
itself and i think all of that plays
into the work right
like how does an element appear to you
on the screen what do those transitions
look like
do they make sense you know where does
the thing go when you're not looking at
it
i think a lot of that that's probably
played out in my work
almost in a way that it's like i
i don't even know that i'm thinking
about it
um but it's definitely jumped out a lot
when i wind up miming stuff in
conversations with other people
that's probably when i notice it the
most i'm like oh yeah
i guess i'm kind of dancing through this
i love that concept of performance i
think
my background is engineering and i've
gotten more into the product design
space in the last few years and
when i had my like pure engineering hat
on i was very much focused on like
what just like what are we trying to
achieve on the page okay does the page
show that okay cool we're done
whereas like that idea of you know
what's what does the entrance look like
what does how does someone get
introduced to this thing
how does information leave the page when
you're going to the next piece and
that's incredibly important for them to
understand how the pieces fit together
as opposed to this like big abstract
concept which can
it can be hard to build like a mental
model of what's going on with a product
if you if you don't have all of those
things tied together
yeah i think i think related to that is
also uh there's the mental model
and then there's there's the like does
the motion make sense
aspect of it like do you want this to be
a heavy thing or a light thing
should it be easily movable should it
not be easily movable like where is it
coming from
and also like is this pleasant
anyway those are all questions that wind
up coming up for me when i think about
like how things move on a page and how
they relate to each other
those are really interesting dimensions
to think about what's your heuristic for
deciding whether or not something should
be heavy versus light or easy to move
versus
hard to move i mean ideally and we
haven't gotten here
yet when it comes to interaction and
design but like ideally
a thing that's going to have
ramifications that are heavy for you
like deleting something should actually
feel heavy
while it's something that's just like
not that big of a deal like just maybe
rearranging things for example like
that shouldn't feel heavy so i feel like
it should
uh ideally ui like reflects the way that
you interact with it reflects something
about
what's going to happen as a result you
know it's kind of the equivalent of like
are you sure you want to delete
everything like
it's kind of funny how like is just it's
so easy to type but
it should actually feel like lead you
know
yeah wow
that's a great point you you were
talking about how um
now that everyone's basically remote
almost all all the time when doing
knowledge work
with some exceptions of course it's sort
of changed the way that we can
communicate with people when we work
with them um
as you've been working on makespace
which also like leans into that paradigm
of you know being being on the screen um
well actually before i ask this question
can you describe what makes spaces to to
our audience well so makespace is a
couple of things from an interaction
standpoint it's an entirely new way of
spending time together online
where you know you break out of the
little tiny
static rectangles that we're mostly
locked into
and you can actually have control over
creating a whole vibe and
move around while you communicate
and spend time with other people and
then sort of at the at the next level of
meta
the sort of the values behind it were
are all
about how to further humanize and create
care
and create spaces that are amenable to
care and caring culture um and creative
creative culture while spending time
together online
so i guess like another way of putting
it would be a lot of the time when we
spend together
uh spend time together online it feels
about
as cozy as a corporate conference room
how about
instead we create spaces where
uh we actually want to be in them with
people we care about and
are excited to go back uh and make them
feel like ours
so yeah i really like that i mean why is
it so hard to make a vibe
in in zoom um
there's a couple things it's like you
don't actually
the space doesn't exist it's almost as
if
you were walking in an infinite white
plain right and then you came across a
bunch of people for a second
and every time one of you talked to
everybody clustered and all looked at
you
including one person holding a mirror so
that you're looking at yourself
and and then that's all there is and as
soon as the conversation is over
you all disappear into that infinite you
know plane of white space
well as if you think about the way that
we gather in real life
you know there's the choice of where you
spend time
and all of the choices that go into how
that place is arranged and how you
interact
into it those are all design choices
that you're not making any sort of close
parallel to when you're in a place like
zoom
i'll say this as as having been a dj one
of the things that really irritates me
is when people set up a dance floor and
they push
all the chairs to the outside of the
room facing in right
it makes it so hard to start a dance
party because everybody's
looking at the dance floor and so you
know
what the la and what's the lighting
right if you keep the lights all the way
up a lot of times people are more
self-conscious you know where's the door
where the speakers where's the dj like
all of those types of things are things
that you think about as a person who
throws events
and then as a person who attends things
or like if you and i were gonna go hang
out i would
i would think about okay like well what
is appropriate for like you and i to go
um spend time in is it gonna be like a
park is it going to be
i don't know the children's museum is it
going to be
a zoo or a cafe and if it is a cafe
which cafe
depending on what we're going to be
doing you know there's just like a
million tiny choices of
atmosphere and arrangement inside that
atmosphere
that go into our actual human
interactions when you know it's not in
the middle of a pandemic
so when we spend time online suddenly
all that stuff is stripped away
and we're left with yeah the equivalent
of
a corporate conference conference room
and it's sad
i really feel that i think a lot of
people i know
say that it's just really awkward to
talk to people on zoom even a lot of
people that you really care about like i
found it find it almost like awkward to
talk to my mom on zoom and
i've known my mom my whole life and i i
think
you're on something here where like it
strips away all of the affordances that
a space gives you
like if i if i invite you to um
afternoon tea versus to like
drinks at 11 pm you know both situations
are pretty similar in a lot of ways
but just by inviting you to one versus
the other it's like sending a different
signal of
you know the kind of experience that i'm
looking to have with you
and with zoom you can do a little bit of
that by saying like
bring your red wine or bring your bring
your tea
um but it's not like the whole place
doesn't sort of
bend itself to trying to
create that vibe you get a completely
different vibe
depending on where you're inviting
someone
one like if you're inviting them to a
wine bar at 11 p.m
versus at tea time at like 2 p.m you're
going to get a completely different
experience and
you know even the the waiter is going to
serve you really differently
and the the music in the space is going
to encourage you like
in the wine bar it might be really loud
and so you have to lean in and you get
like physically closer
versus like a quiet t it has like
peaceful piano in the background or
something like that and
you have a very different kind of like
wholesome whimsical experience maybe
and zoom like you you could do that i
think it's not impossible to create it
but zoom does not help you at all right
yeah yep yep and and kind of getting
back to
something that we were talking about
earlier um you know as a dancer thinking
about how i get on stage how you get off
stage i remember at a really early age
the teacher being like
a certain people in the audience can
still see you like out in the wings
so um you know make sure that you keep
dancing until you're like
all the way off all the way through the
wings you know that type of thing
and that also applies with social
interactions right what are the wings
for uh web design like what's sort of
the
the analogy analogy there
oh um i guess like a really easy version
of the wings
um the wings are useful in in
interface design because if you
deliberately have a little bit of
whatever
things in the quote unquote wings
peeking out that's how people that are
going to use the thing know that there's
more stuff there
so that's when you sort of like in a
list view for example
you deliberately um design the line
height for
the majority of people being able to see
some cut off last element so that they
know there's more
for example or if you've got i don't
know if your page is
500 units tall and there's gonna be five
there's gonna be more than five elements
in it then maybe you
want to make sure that each of the
elements is less than 100 elements
units tall so that there's something
peaking at the bottom so that people
know that there's more that that's what
i would think of as kind of the
waiting in the digital wings that makes
sense yeah like a lot of menu bars have
that too of
like being just just out of sight but
you can kind of like turn your head
metaphorically to see it yeah yeah yeah
we've played with other stuff too with
like face detection and parallax and
operating systems none of that stuff has
ever stuck
but you know you could imagine doing
that where you sort of move your head to
the right side of the screen and some
stuff peeks in or you move your head to
the left and you see some stuff peeking
on the right hand side but
you know there's been a bunch of
experiments with things like that over
the years from different places but i
don't know we'll see if it ever happens
there's a lot of cool stuff uh that's
possible with
ui design operating design operating
system design that just like
a lot of it doesn't wind up happening
because it's like splintering of
hardware or there's like lack of
economic incentives to actually do that
cool thing
the mapping too kind of can be really
tricky i think like
from a theoretical level i would expect
vr to be extremely intuitive
but when i put on a vr headset and i
like turn to the right
something is off like it's not turning
like quite
correctly and so it like doesn't quite
miss
there's a mismatch between what i would
see in the quote unquote real world
versus the virtual world
and so that might just be a technical
problem i'm not sure i haven't
looked into it too much but i imagine
there's some of those disconnects where
like
conceptually it's sound but practically
the implementations that
currently exist are make it kind of not
that useful
i am optimistic that vr can actually fix
that for the record but
it's it just hasn't done that yet in my
opinion mm-hmm
yeah this stuff it can be tricky to get
stuff right um
yeah and and tricky to make it worth it
as far as like how much
work it needs to be put into
implementing and testing and
making accessible and all of the things
that happen when you actually ship a
real product
totally yeah which i should mention that
um
all of the stuff that you know make
space it exists
right now not as like a shipped public
version it's something that you know we
had spent a bunch of time in
playing in like a first-stage prototype
and a second stage prototype but
i think more than anything that initial
thing that we put out in the world last
year was like a provocation
and it seems like it succeeded in doing
that like a lot of i think a lot of
people have drawn inspiration from it
i'm excited about
having provoked new things to have
happened
but i want to be clear in case anybody's
listening is like why am i not using it
right now
that's why because it's not like a
launch thing
where would you like it to be in in five
years how would you like people to use
it
i would love for it to feel sort of
co-owned by the people that need it and
use it most
but we'll see what happens it's it's own
little beast and um
it's been pretty organic so far so we'll
see what happens
i also really like what you said about
um having the space be sort of
persistent
sort of beyond the people themselves
where like
you create this thing that you can come
back to and it's like a place you go to
as opposed to something like a zoom
video chat which is
like you know i have my personal meeting
room or whatever
and you should kind of only go to my
personal meeting room if i'm there
it's not like a place you would want to
go to if i wasn't there
whereas you could have another more of a
public space like a library where you
might want to go
hang out with people or you might go and
read by yourself you might meet
strangers
and there's a little bit more
serendipity that happens
in those situations i think because the
thing that connects you is the space
as opposed to a person who had to like
make a plan and and
you know bring people in i think that's
part of the reason that house party
was so popular to the point where
it stopped being reliable at the
beginning of lockdown
about a year ago yeah so what was
interesting about that
thing is that like once you were sort of
present
people hopped in and out there was like
a lot more spontaneous kind of like
getting together
and not sort of being present and
available or not being present
like other people that you knew being
able to hang out as opposed to this like
very formal like okay i'm going to send
you a link and we're going to hop in now
i think that's like another dimension of
this stuff that doesn't get talked about
as much as like the sort of spontaneous
third place like you were saying like
i'm just i'm here because it's
place versus i'm going to your face
when it's there
i guess there's that term right the
third place which is not home
and it's not work it's this other place
where people spend time
and and we're lacking that right now and
we don't really have that in
in the digital realm so it would be cool
if it was that
and and it'd be even cooler if it was a
place like you know what we'd propose
with makespace that
um you could rearrange the furniture or
like
break off into different little clusters
very organically
or like walk around very organically
instead of
being locked essentially strapped to
your conference room chair
what have you been using for your third
space in the last year like what's been
sort of filling that that gap oh man i
don't feel like i have one
for a little while at the beginning of
the pandemic like we were trying to do
that with house party
where there was like sort of an ambient
presence and people could kind of like
hop in and hop out
ish and that was a spot but
i haven't really felt like i've had that
at all
like nothing close to it when you say we
uh is it like a group of friends
is it your family uh who are colleagues
both friends and family and that was
like yeah that was a year ago it was a
short experiment
yeah i guess since then probably like
using our makespace prototype
i should mention that uh waywaysu is
really spearheading it
right now so as far as like where it
goes in the future i think
we will see where it winds up going but
um but makespace is a place where i've
spent time with other people and we've
you can drag in an animated gif of a
bonfire which we did
and then we all brought in a bunch of
little transparent
marshmallows on sticks and held them
over them
that's so cute gathered little seats
around it and
yeah it was it was it's been it's been
cool to see how people wind up using it
even though it's not open or anything i
should say but yeah
yeah at the beginning of the pandemic it
did feel like
there was a lot of energy where people
realized like oh man i'm it's gonna be
really hard to
be around the people i care about for a
long time so i'm gonna experiment with a
lot of things
um i certainly felt that way but then a
few months in
i just lost steam like it kind of
stopped being exciting so much and more
just being like sad
for me yeah um yeah but at the same time
i think like i had a lot of really good
adventures with friends like we went to
um
minecraft disneyland which was a blast
i actually went with a group of friends
who like a month before the pandemic
started we had actually gone to
disneyland together and so then we went
back to minecraft disneyland and like
went on all the same rides
um that was amazing um
and we also tried a bunch of a bunch of
like virtual spaces
that each were awkward in their own
special way
and you know it was actually pretty fun
to be able to
to explore all of these um but yeah
after after some time
it's like you're kind of i i'm staring
at my computer all day long already so
and i actually love my computer a lot
but
at the end of the day i was like you
know what i'd rather just go for a walk
by myself
um because i need to use my body somehow
yeah i wonder how it's all going to go
when people are able to
go out back outside much more often and
be around each other
whether or not actually everybody's
going to be like i really don't want to
be in front of my screen like a second
longer than i need to
i wonder how long that'll last yeah my
prediction is that we're gonna get the
roaring 20s again
everyone's going to go wild with like
costumes and
like crazy parties i think like not
everybody
but uh i think that's going to be it's
going to be wild
yep i believe it i'm feeling that too i
feel like people are already egging it
on
they're like oh like buy your sequin
stuff now because
it's going to happen another theme
that's really jumped out at me from your
work
uh is the idea that when we design
things for people we really have to pay
attention to
how it makes them feel they're not just
like empty vessels where you can like up
upload data into them because that's
just not that's not how it works we we
have
feelings about what we're what we're
learning about who we're talking about
what you ate for lunch it can like
probably affect the way you feel about a
product
um so what are decisions that you've
made that were sort of
what you would probably consider
atypical that other designers might not
have made
because you are taking emotional valence
into account
i don't know what are the other things
that other people might not have come
out with but
i guess one of the ones that stands out
from really early on is just
uh is making hearts fly out of my head
for those first face filters um aka face
effects for photo booth
um when real time face tracking first
was released and we put it into photo
booth
on the mac there was something about
emoting love
and how it sort of emanated from your
face or your head
that i guess there was like an
expressiveness to it and
an effervescence to it that i wanted um
as opposed to just like i don't know
sticking a heart
over eyes or over a head so maybe that's
one example
another one that's kind of more recent
is i you know i've been experimenting
with the visual design for make space
and again like i said we'll see where
that project goes but
i think when a couple of like wayway ao
shang
julius and max um had chatted about
potentially going the direction of
japanese stationery and so
i put together a whole bunch of stuff
and thought about how japanese
stationary feels
and you know we've been experimenting
with what that winds up looking like and
i don't know there's something about the
way japanese stationary
feels that it's so
i don't know i don't know how you feel
about it i i love it it's so
hard if i'm in like a mido store or
something to not
like want everything and so
i have an entire stack of unused
notebooks it's my greatest weakness
oh my goodness i'm right there with you
um so it's like well how do we get that
like how do we make a digital interface
feel
like that like that level of inviting
and
you know warm that's something else i'm
playing with i i would say another thing
is probably just like
the care i put into the artistic
direction and
and frankly like who i hired and
empowered the people
um to have a voice as much as possible i
frankly i wish it was more at khan
academy because
so much of the educational space like
when you look at
enterprise or stuff that gets sold to
district or like things in education
you've got the stuff for early learning
which a lot of it is sort of borderline
patronizing in its visual style
i'm sure they like study it and like it
whatever it works well for their kpis or
whatever but like
but then so does like miffy which is
this beautifully designed
like mid-century traditional
at this point in time classic dutch
character right it's just
tight as graphic design and illustration
just incredibly well executed
and then there's so much sloppy stuff in
the early learning space that just makes
me sad from an aesthetic standpoint like
like i said maybe they test it and it's
fine but and then and then there's all
the super dry stuff that uses like stock
imagery
and it's like so sad looking and people
are supposed to use it in their
classroom
and it just kind of broke my heart in
some kind of way
so just the emphasis on the illustration
the visual design and the creative
direction
from for how we went with things in the
khan academy design team and you know um
the contributions of work of tabitha
young natalie fitzgerald and
uh jacob greif and and warren schulhaus
i think are like
uh and elizabeth lynn of course um when
i think about all these
all of the people on the team that
really contributed a lot to that we all
really wanted that joy and the fun and
colors and
and also like a visual direction that
embodied
a constructivist pedagogy
in that it conveyed visually
the coming together of lots of different
disparate pieces
in the way that like knowledge is
constructed in someone's mind versus
just being like handed down
by like one uniform for example if we've
gone with like one very uniform clean
line drawn style versus like a more
collage aesthetic
you know we would be conveying something
different so that's another spot where i
feel like i put in a bunch of effort to
to make sure that you know we actually
cared about that and cared about how
students would feel and people would
feel arriving
arriving at the site and using our stuff
and like i said i wish we'd been able to
take it even further and do even more in
my time there but
um i hope that that software and
education is able to push a little bit
more on the visual realm
i think a lot of the times it's just not
i don't know why it just doesn't wind up
being so
valued or maybe it's like budget or
maybe it's incentives
i have some guesses of i mean some of
the reasons that might
happen which i think one is there's
a strong mindset that i grew up with of
like
you know you should care more about
utility than how it looks like
the way it looks is is you know not
important or it's it's sort of silly
and just like what you were saying about
how uh
things that you know when you want to
make something that is going to be
deleted you want it to feel heavy
it's it's not just about the looks it's
not about being pretty though
that's certainly nice like makes it feel
more inviting it's about like
does the the way it looks and does the
way it feels make
actually match what it does and what
it's supposed to be doing
for you because if it does then you're
gonna understand it better just like how
when i wear um you know a fancy dress
i'm probably not going to start painting
probably whereas i might if i'm going to
go paint maybe i'll wear an apron
or you know a crappy t-shirt that i got
for free somewhere
because i don't want it to get dirty and
like the fact that i'm wearing a crappy
t-shirt tells me it tells you like if
you spill a drink on me right now it's
gonna be fine i'm like not gonna get
upset
whereas you know if i'm wearing my
wedding dress or something maybe i'll be
a little
less happy with you and i i feel like i
feel like
a an app or a tool or any product that
you're using
can tell those stories too of like how
it how it should be used
and i think in the case of the khan
academy design stuff
a lot of it for me was i wanted the
learning and the fun to be associated
and i wanted it to feel welcoming to
students
and students rough thought rather than
feeling like an interrogation
where they were either going to be right
or wrong and that they were empty
vessels
and that we were all going to follow the
banking model of education that fairy
coined you know where they were
going to just have a bunch of knowledge
poured into their head like how do we
break that down
visually to convey like no you are part
of this we're in this together
like your thinking matters etc it's like
how do we do that
and i think that that really at the core
of it a lot of the times
um especially in education interfaces
wind up speaking their pedagogy
and if they if all they care about is
the fact that some internet thing or
some expert holds the knowledge and a
student as
seen as an empty vessel that has no
thought that's of value
then usually the interface and the
functionality conveys that and that
isn't my philosophy of education for
what it's worth so
[Laughter]
you were saying before how um japanese
stationery is super welcoming and just
like you
you just want to touch it and i feel
like a lot of apple design does that for
me too where
you just like see the iphone and you
want one because you want to hold it in
your hand
you want to like feel how it feels and
the software feels that way too
what do japanese stationery makers
and apple designers do that's sort of a
shared practice either
intentionally or unintentionally i think
something that i feel
is in common with both japanese
stationery and apple
stuff is that people care and they put
that care
in and that the care that's put in
by a designer is also
able to be carried through in the
execution of the thing because it's
being valued by
whoever it is that's in charge it's
considered
part of the value proposition of what
you're getting right like
part of the reason that you like that
thing part of the reason that you're a
customer of that thing part of what
makes it succeed
is the design and so it's not something
that isn't part of the core value
proposition unlike
say for example many years ago banking
software
was something that was not the core
proposition was like okay well you can
just
the core proposition was the bank it's
like a place to put your money
and like a side effect of it was like
okay cool like maybe you want to see
some stuff about it
it wasn't considered like a competitive
edge in what was being sold
and i think as a result of that the
people who actually designed and
actually cared and knew how to put
all of that care and craft into the
details
could have the time and the autonomy to
do that without somebody who doesn't
have any taste
telling them like oh that doesn't matter
like we don't have time for that we just
need to like do
xyz right now you know i think a lot of
a lot of
craft type of work isn't highly valued
by businesses who don't have that at
their core and that isn't part of their
main value proposition
i feel like also once you if you're in
in an environment that encourages it and
if you yourself are paying attention i
have a lot of faith that people
figure out ways to to get better at the
thing yeah um
maybe maybe not immediately but like
just
attention is such a magical thing like
if you pay enough attention to a problem
it'll tend to get better and when i say
pay attention i don't just mean like
worry about it
i mean like really seek out solutions to
the problem
yeah and you can just like keep
chiseling away and and ultimately
it will it will usually get better it's
one of the most amazing things that i've
seen in organizations where like
the company doesn't seem to care at all
about x
but then there's a really strong like
cultural push to
to carry out x and then suddenly just
it's like a lens that has been like
refocused
and after if if the cultural change was
really intentional
and consistently pushed after the course
of
a few weeks or months or depending on
what it was it feels like an entire ship
can actually turn and really refocus on
that
now it's it's hard to do right but like
once
you do it then suddenly things start
getting done that were like not getting
done before
and um it's kind of kind of incredible
it's true i think it's like i think it's
very tied into learning and just the
entire process of learning right i think
it's like
if you really put attention on something
attention and intention like you know uh
it's kind of amazing where you can get
after putting all those hours into
something that maybe you
didn't even see that way before another
place that i've
noticed personally just having my
attention focused on it has
has made me a lot better is around
language
one of the things i've been excited to
talk about is our shared
experience of learning spanish um with
you lived in colombia last year with
your partner
and i spent a lot of time in argentina
where my boyfriend is from
and i'm probably projecting here a
little bit but
i know for for me personally the
experience of being like
only okay at spanish and then spending a
month in
a spanish-speaking household has had a
lot of really interesting
emotional effects on the way that i
learn and it's made me really realize
how important emotion is in a way that i
i didn't before
and like one of the ways is just that
i'm so much more motivated
to learn spanish than i ever was before
because
i want to be able to talk to my
boyfriend's mom
i want to be able to have a conversation
and whereas when i was studying it in
school
i i always enjoyed language but there
there wasn't that like
deep emotional connection that i had and
so i just learned a lot slower
but it also means that failures or maybe
failure isn't the right word but
moments of not being able to communicate
are also that much
more emotional and challenging because
you want it so badly and it's not
it's not really working so can you talk
a little bit about your experience of
living in colombia
and what that has taught you about
education and learning
yeah sure one thing i think i learned
living in colombia
is just how physical the language you
know we spend so much time typing words
on a page
and thinking that that that we're
expressing ourselves
but i feel like after spending that time
in colombia i feel like
the actual words and what you get from a
written word
as far as what you would get from
talking to a person is is really
kind of a small percentage because it's
so
physical uh in colombian spanish
the inflection the breath the eyebrows
micro movements there's so much stuff
happening
that over time i'm realizing goes so
so so so much deeper than the actual
words again coming back to the dance
like the different ways that people are
even set up
around each other like circular layouts
versus
um you know grid layouts of people in
the room
who's taking up air time how people are
moving around each other on all of those
things in general
i enjoy more sort of participatory crowd
noises
which i know are just much more the norm
in some cultures than others
and same thing with like shows right
like the culture of a classical music
show
tends to be very like it needs to
everybody needs to be super super quiet
well as like so many other shows where
you
yell like yell back and there's colin
response and there's all that stuff
like in thinking especially about like
black american culture there's just so
much more
responsiveness generally during the
shows and how does that show up
in digital media is another thing that i
always think about like
how do we how do we get to yell back
like had or like yeah the movie theater
experience is another one the tennis
match like
what does it look like when you can
actually like hear much more
responsiveness all the time
and i think that's one of the things
that's like with digital video
conferencing there's so much assumption
built into like one person speaking at a
time and nobody else reacting which is
so weird to me
like there's so many of the like video
conference software where it's like
whoever's speaking
uh i think it was google me that did
this they'd like make their face big and
then if someone else spoke they'd make
their face big and that's just like
built on the assumption that nobody else
is going to make any noises or like say
anything
and that assumption is probably really
good for certain
things and like you know personally i'm
actually glad that
people don't react in classical
classical performances like i like being
able to
listen because like classical music has
such a wide range from like
really really quiet all the way to the
loudest grandest thing and
if you had people reacting during the
quiet parts you couldn't hear it
right um but at the same time yeah if
you're listening if you're like at a
rock concert and people aren't screaming
their heads off like
it's probably not a good concert right
so yeah so like
i think the the range is something
that's exciting to me being able to pick
your toolbox based off of the kind of
vibe and situation and
relationship that you want to have with
the audience and with
the medium and that sort of thing and i
guess one of the things that happens now
is that so much of the stuff that we
create is like really catered to like
super corporate conversations and so
that's what you get
right like zoom is really solid and
stable
because a lot of companies spend
millions of dollars to pay for it
whereas i think these other these other
more experimental ones are really fun
but like i wouldn't invite my
grandparents to that because they're not
comfortable
with with trying super new like zoom is
already a stretch for them
and to do like a really experimental
space like like make space for example
um they would be scared like they
wouldn't feel comfortable so i think
that's part of it is that the the um
sort of work
conference style which is so refined and
is quite good for a very particular
purpose um that's what we end up getting
stuck with
because it's the thing that quote
unquote actually works right now
totally totally although it's
interesting how like a facetime call
feels very different from a zoom one
anyway
true yeah actually what do you think it
is about it that feels so different
um i actually think
that it's a lot of little things that
add up
so part of it's the chrome the chrome
holds a vibe
i think we can't as much as chrome in
software tries to get out of the way
it still it causes a vibe so i think
that's one of it
one of the things a lot of the times
when you're on the zoom call you're like
in a browser
there's there's still a bunch of buttons
there's still some stuff across the top
etc so there's that
i think i i think facetime tries to be a
lot more neutral
so a lot of times when you're in the
call you're really only just looking at
the other person's face there's like not
a whole lot of other stuff on the screen
so i think that's one of the things and
and that's i mean i i think that's just
talking about the one-on-one
conversations that's
probably the main part but then of
course there's all those algorithmic
choices about like who you show
are you in a great show are you in a
great view or are you in the like
focus on person and you are a smaller
person
and what am i lighting up and am i
ducking the audio or not ducking the
audio i think all those things make a
difference too
they all add up you know like they it's
just like each of them feels like a
small decision but i think that all of
them wind up adding up to the experience
but the one that jumps out to me is the
chrome i think
yeah yeah and that's i think where the
attention of the designer really makes a
difference like if if the attention of
the designer is focused on building
something for
a corporate client then just all the
little decisions they're going to make
are maybe not even intentional they just
kind of intuitively
pull towards a particular direction that
sends some signal
versus versus the other one of the
things for facetime for me too is that
you usually connect um via your phone
number
so you can only facetime people who you
like have their apple id or their phone
number
and for me uh giving someone my phone
number is like a pretty intimate thing
to do i don't give my phone number to
that many people
and so like facetime feels like the
place where i
only talk to people that i know pretty
well or i trust or
a friend of a friend at least so it's
kind of like tied back to that entrance
piece where it's like how do how do you
come into this medium and the answer for
this one is like
a very a specific number
yeah like why are you even here how did
you hear about this
spot totally and so this is actually a
really good segue into the last
thing that i wanted to to dive into with
you which is that
i think i'm a really big believer that
the moment by moment decisions that you
make
in your life are really what determine
how you spend your time at a macro level
um so if you you can have like a really
grand theory
but if the small choices you make day to
day don't actually align with those
theories
you're not going to actually get those
results
so you know let's say zoom really wanted
to commit to
making zoom feel fun and uh whimsical
but they keep making the same choices
that they've been making i just don't
think they're gonna really
make that much progress um or like
concretely they've added
the backgrounds which and and the
filters which are a great first step and
i
enjoy using them but roughly everything
else
in the app actively contradicts those
things in my opinion
and so it doesn't really they kind of
feel weird to like paste on a background
and zoom it feels a little inappropriate
for for the space it's like if you
showed up to
a work conference wearing a halloween
costume it just feels weird
so so i'm curious like what like does
my minute methods and practices that
have guided your work
when you're either working individually
or when you're working in a team
um to to make sure that the things that
you're building actually align with
with what you have in your head so you
know how like in game design um
there are sort of small medium long and
potentially longer loops
of uh of of things that you're keeping
track of right so like i don't know
let's just use a simple example like
pokemon go
you know you're catching a little
pokemon everywhere you're going but then
like every once in a while
like you like get enough for
some level up right so that's like the
medium loop there's like a small thing
there's the medium thing and then
there's like the bigger thing
it's like i totally agree with you that
like the little tiny choices add up and
then but also the medium-sized ones and
the long ones and so i try
to create structures so that the long
ones
are explicit and they're spoken about
and we're checking against them
right that's like the ideal way
especially if you've got like a team
because otherwise people don't
necessarily prioritize things the same
way
to um to come up with those outcomes for
my personal life
i think it's like can be a lot less like
explicit and
maybe that's good or not but i i think a
lot of the times like the things that i
gravitate towards
wind up being sort of like implicitly
understood by me and so and just
just by that by a side effect of of that
being something that's deeply important
to me i'll gravitate towards it right so
it's kind of like if you hold a thought
in your mind that you're like okay like
i want things to feel this certain way
and then you're faced with a decision
and you're like does this feel a certain
way is it going to add to this thing or
not
um then it's easier to make that
decision because you know what you're
trying to
head towards in the long term and then
making sure that you're checking against
it in the small medium and long term i
think
really helps kind of like designing a
little game for yourself out of how you
live your life so
to be super super super nerdy about it
for a second like
one thing i try and do is like every
year
i have a couple of overarching things
that i know are going to be important to
me that
year and i break those down in a
spreadsheet because i'm
dork and
and think about like what are actual
concrete things that i'm
working on that go towards that thing
and then i like literally
write down what things would happen as
evidence of those things
and then create a structure for myself
so that week over week i'm looking to
see
how i'm doing on that thing and that way
if something is at least like failing
silently i know about it
it's not so silent because you know once
a quarter
i'm going through and looking how i did
for the entire last quarter
on my like weekly way of looking at
things and seeing whether or not you
know there's like gigantic pockets of
what i want to be working towards that
like aren't happening
i've made this structure not because i'm
i'm like a weird combination of person
and that i'm like naturally on the one
hand like extremely chaotic i think that
like
the lateral connecting and thinking um
is happening a lot and i
i can be extremely generative and have
more ideas that i could possibly execute
on
like in one lifetime all of those things
are no problem but on the flip side like
i need structure
otherwise i'll just go off in a
gazillion directions so these structures
that i'm creating are like an attempt
to find something that i can relax into
and allow me to feel reassured that i'm
like checking in on things and the
things are overall on a day-to-day basis
like you said going towards the things
that i want they're hard for me to
maintain it's almost like a challenge
for myself
but it's also reassuring because then i
i feel less
ungrounded i guess i feel just like i
have something to come back to like
this past me created this thing that's
going to help current me
uh check in and make sure that that all
of my actions are adding up to the
things i want them to add add up
that resonates really hard with me where
a lot of my friends tell me that i'm the
most organized person they know and i'm
like
that's only because i'm also extremely
chaotic and so
if i if i didn't do that i would get
truly nothing done it's always hard to
tell what's going on in other people's
minds you know
it's only it's just your subjective
experience but to me it feels chaotic as
heck what what are some of the things
that
concretely that have gone into that
spreadsheet one of the ones that's maybe
really fun
to mention is um if i have
a creative urge to immediately follow up
on it even if
even if it's like at a stupid time in a
stupid place that doesn't make any sense
just do it just go with
it because i think that also as a person
who is like a little bit chaotic and
generative
you and especially as somebody who's
like been you know employed for a long
time in various jobs like i had
developed strong muscle of suppressing
that suppressing those creative urges
when i was like i just want to do this
random thing right now and then this
other voice would be like you can't do
that right now you need to focus on this
thing that needs to get done by tomorrow
right so last year i was like what if
i just do it
and so like week over week i was like
did i do it did i just go with some
random creative urge
i guess one of the ones that's more
recent that maybe could be exciting for
you to hear because we haven't talked
about this yet has to do with like
writing i have so many goals about
writing this year i think that one of
the things that's been a challenge for
me has always been
i just work on stuff and i'm just doing
that and i'm never
documenting it or publicizing it or like
publishing
my thinking behind it and so i feel like
um
there's a lot of the thinking that i put
into things that i haven't taken the
time to like write down
uh in a way that is much more digestible
and articulate for other people to
internalize
with that with that first one you said
by the way the um
the the goal of like letting yourself do
whatever creative thing you you feel
like doing in the moment and making sure
that was like a lot more um meta than i
was expecting from the list but
i really like it yeah i called it flex
creative muscle when i want to
and um and it was just it was funny to
see some of the things i did
like it was not not expected
last year for example at some point in
time i was like
sometimes i hear something and i love it
and there's an emoji that has hearts
over the eyes and i really want an emoji
that has a heart
and an ear so i just drew one and like
put it out there that was it
that that was that was that was the
project for the week
so i want to leave with one one last
question before we wrap things up
which is when you have these creative
ideas that you sort of let yourself fall
into
or when you're faced with a bigger
design problem
what does an afternoon of prototyping
actually look like like
you have a blank page or a blank
whatever in front of you like what
what do you do one of the things that
i've noticed that i do
over time is i build up a lot of
little it's almost like the equivalent
of having like a
a little tool box that you might carry
around if you are somebody who works on
physical things
i feel like i have a digital version of
that that i try and build up over time
and i have a lot of aids to try and
context switch especially now because
i'm working on a bunch of different
projects like i'm not working on
you know just one thing all of the time
and so
you know sitting down involves opening
up whatever the aid is
that i've created for myself whether
that's like notes on a piece of paper
or a bunch of drawings or some
conversation i've had with someone
wherever that is
i need to load that in first to like
recreate the context of what i was
trying to do
and then usually you know i don't
tend to actually start with something
blank if i do
it's only after i've gathered a bunch of
things that i like that are related to
it
you know so for example i guess it isn't
necessarily like prototyping
in the motion sense or an interaction
sense but in a visual sense
if i'm working on doing a visual
language that looks like japanese
stationery
i'll collect a whole bunch of shots of
what i like of japanese stationery and
start from that and then similarly
you know if it is a prototyping thing um
that's interactive
if it's digitally interactive or if it's
like a in real life
thing i'll still be thinking about a
whole bunch of
other sources that will feed into that
to remix
and then you know i think everything
from there goes into it depends a lot on
the medium
with prototyping i'm thinking a lot
about like what am i trying to learn
here
if what i'm trying to do is land on an
interaction that feels really great then
i'm going to just like
tunnel in and focus just on that one
interaction if what i'm trying to
prototype is like a flow
then i'm going to try and do the minimum
amount of
fidelity necessary to see whether or not
a flow is going to make sense
and by minimum amount of fidelity i
don't mean like
just make it look like i mean like
what is the closest
approximation that i can create using
the least amount of
effort time tools etc to learn whether
or not this is actually going to be
a good idea or learn whatever it is that
i need to learn about whether or not
something's going to work or not
you know i think that there's always
been this debate of like you know how
much to involve
everybody that's going to be using the
thing how much you're just drawing from
your own inspiration
your gut and your intuition um how much
you're iterating and testing along the
way with people
and you know it's interesting having
worked in different organizations with
very wildly different schools of thought
at apple we did not do user testing
the way that you know it's like almost
the opposite of google and doing the a b
testing with
i don't know how many shades of blue it
was and i kind of
wish that that debate wasn't so much
like an either or
you know i think that on the one hand
i've seen people not work enough
from intuition like not be not develop
or be hard enough on their own designs
from an intuitive standpoint not have
any sort of vision or opinion at all
which i think is not great and on the
other hand i've seen people
lean too much into that and not do any
kind of testing and not talk to anybody
and just kind of be too
too much in the ivory tower and then
just like fall flat
so i think it has to be a little bit of
both and there isn't like any sort of
magic formula and it's almost like kind
of a waste of time to debate like either
or
like so many things are very debating
either or which
you know almost nothing works that way
so
yeah yeah um so it's a little bit of a
bunch of stuff i
i think um and then the other thing is
that oftentimes
in my past a lot of the prototyping
involved you know like a build up of the
little pieces that were gonna go into it
um over time and then sort of like you
know you'd have
a lot of drawings maybe to begin with
and then you'd slowly start bringing
those into some other format and then
and this is just specific to digital
prototyping
and then you know have like a little
test
prototype on one side that just checked
for that like one little
key piece of code using something
simpler
then building it into something a little
bit more complex i'd say
almost always at the end of the day when
i look at something that i've done
i have trouble believing that i did it
because the whole time
it was a series of smaller steps to get
there and if i look back for example
like code that i've written it's hard to
believe that i wrote all that code and i
can't remember having written it or i
look at things that i've drawn and i
can't remember having drawn all that
because i really try and break it down
into those you know the smaller steps
along the way otherwise it's too
overwhelming
i really want to keep asking you
questions um but this has been a really
fun
conversation melee and i'm really glad
that we we took the time to do this so
thank you so much
and i really hope to see you in person
sometime too soon yeah
likewise thank you so much for having me
on it's been it's been super fun and
like
looking forward to it next time we have
a chance to chat
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