1 00:00:01,520 --> 00:00:05,520 Hello and welcome to another episode of the AIGA Design 2 00:00:05,520 --> 00:00:08,480 Podcast. My name is Li Shan Huang, Senior 3 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:13,040 Director of Learning and Programs here at AIGA, the 4 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:15,120 professional association for design. 5 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:19,360 On the show this season, we are exploring the theme of design 6 00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:22,520 and performance through different facets of those words. 7 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:25,920 And so we are looking forward to having you explore that with us. 8 00:00:26,320 --> 00:00:28,920 And we are wherever you get your podcast. 9 00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:32,840 But also you can watch the video version on YouTube at a IGA 10 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:34,800 design. If you haven't seen us there, 11 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:38,120 you can check out our guests and see our faces there as well. 12 00:00:40,480 --> 00:00:43,600 Hi everyone, I'm Julia Nathaniel, Design Competitions 13 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:49,520 and Events Manager at AIGA. Hello everyone, I'm Sahar Chow. 14 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:55,360 I am an Associate Director of US Research for Multiplayer AUS 15 00:00:55,360 --> 00:01:00,800 Agency and I am located in the GC metropolitan area. 16 00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:06,200 Thank you very much, Sahar, for being here and accepting our 17 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:08,680 invitation. We're excited to learn more 18 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:12,040 about you and also share with our listeners. 19 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:19,400 Sahar, so I know you hold bachelor degree in Fine Arts 20 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:24,280 with a minor in Korean studies. Very interesting, surprising. 21 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:28,680 And then after that you pursued a masters in UX. 22 00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:32,880 We are curious to learn more about you, if you can walk us 23 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:37,120 through your motivations that led you to this path and your 24 00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:42,520 journey as a professional, as a designer in your career so far. 25 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:48,800 And how have the Korean studies, in a way, inspired your path? 26 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:55,280 Yeah, it is an interesting background, my education 27 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:59,960 background, but I think the the best like kind of way to 28 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:06,680 describe it is my first ever job while I was in underhand was at 29 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:10,039 NASA. I was a intern at NASA. 30 00:02:10,039 --> 00:02:16,000 I was a what we call a NASA contractor and that job though 31 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:21,800 not called US because they don't really use that especially back 32 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:26,160 then. It was a they especially like a 33 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:29,320 service design information architecture role. 34 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:34,560 And I don't know, it was set the stage even when I worked as a 35 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:41,160 rapid designer after under, I tended to were in roles that 36 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:44,400 were very related to service design and information 37 00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:46,360 architecture like throughout my career. 38 00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:51,640 And so my second job kind of at while I was still in undergrad 39 00:02:51,640 --> 00:02:57,320 was also as a media researcher, which is a lot more on the desk 40 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:01,440 research side where I'm like and trying to Google people and 41 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:05,120 understand like who works at what outlet and what's their 42 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:07,520 background. And so that was also like a 43 00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:10,280 really funny thing to look back on and be like, oh, I was 44 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:13,880 literally doing what we called just research as a researcher 45 00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:17,480 now. But yeah, I think what what kind 46 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:21,400 of drew me to the US side was just looking back on my career 47 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:25,280 and looking at like, I love package design. 48 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:29,560 I love illustration. What else do I enjoy about the 49 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,120 work that I do? And, and I found that, you know, 50 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:36,360 I have been doing so much service design and I'm put it at 51 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:39,360 it because my brain is very like process oriented. 52 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:43,640 I'm like, I love to like figure out like a process for, for 53 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:45,160 people and make sure it's usable. 54 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:50,320 And so that was kind of the reason I, I went into my masters 55 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:54,240 in US was to kind of formalize my education around that, that 56 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:58,360 area. And yeah, I, I've like fell in 57 00:03:58,360 --> 00:04:00,760 love with like the research aspect of US. 58 00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:04,120 And so that was kind of like my my journey. 59 00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:07,880 But I think with the Korean studies also, it was really. 60 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:11,160 So I had the chance to study abroad in Seoul, South Korea. 61 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:14,800 I've visited many other times after that. 62 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:17,160 I just love it. And I think that is really 63 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:20,399 helpful to have kind of this global perspective of not just 64 00:04:20,399 --> 00:04:24,400 like was designed in America as like our world is more 65 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:27,000 globalized because of the Internet and everything. 66 00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:30,120 It has been really helpful to have like this answer of life, 67 00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:36,160 what is designed the place in Korea or Asia or wherever else. 68 00:04:36,280 --> 00:04:40,040 It just was like a really helpful experience to like open 69 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:41,600 my mind a little bit in that way. 70 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:45,920 Wow, lovely. Very, very cool. 71 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:47,840 I love it. And you mentioned that you're 72 00:04:47,840 --> 00:04:53,000 very passionate about illustration and how that is 73 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:55,480 connected to the beginning of your practice. 74 00:04:55,720 --> 00:05:00,040 How do you think this is intertwined your fine Fine Arts 75 00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:03,320 training with being a researcher in practice? 76 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:08,200 Yeah, Yeah. I think that that's such a tough 77 00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:13,240 question because I feel first of all like one of my main cross 78 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:16,200 functional partners as a researcher is designers. 79 00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:20,960 And so having a design background isn't that common. 80 00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:24,920 It's not that uncommon either for researchers, but I find that 81 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:29,480 it helps me really understand what their holes, motivations 82 00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:34,200 like, what their needs are. And so being able to partner 83 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:38,560 really closely with my design counterparts has been much more 84 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:41,440 seamless. I would say like one of my last 85 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:46,640 jobs where I was for a cybersecurity company, the very 86 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:49,320 small U.S. team, and I was the only researcher. 87 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:52,600 They had two designers and the director of US. 88 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:57,040 And what was really cool about having a design bathroom was I 89 00:05:57,040 --> 00:06:00,520 would just put in there and be like playing around with like 90 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:05,240 wireframes and like such gym fans out with them based off of 91 00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:07,920 the research that I had, you know, conducted and what the 92 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:11,240 insights were telling us. And that was like a whole thing 93 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:14,720 to be able to like go into an ideation phase with them as a 94 00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:20,160 partner and not have to say like hand off, have fun, but more be 95 00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:22,120 able to be in it and collaborate with them. 96 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:23,960 So that was really, really awesome. 97 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:27,400 We used to do design for chiefs, like place to be. 98 00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:30,280 And I would be able to say like from a visual design 99 00:06:30,280 --> 00:06:34,800 perspective, I, I do have like some ideas for, for what you are 100 00:06:34,840 --> 00:06:37,680 working on. And so that was really cool. 101 00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:42,720 I think another fun thing with illustration, I did a bit of 102 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:47,960 like 6 month research bath persona project while I was at 103 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:54,880 that company and we had to kind of deliver these personas in a 104 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:56,720 way that was usable. Of course, I don't want to be 105 00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:59,880 like, here's a lot of tests to have fun trying to fill it out 106 00:06:59,960 --> 00:07:02,400 with these people. So I've really spent time on the 107 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:04,720 visual design of like how to present them. 108 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:09,360 And I made these like cards and I illustrated instead of using 109 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:13,360 like free photos off of like unslashed, I illustrated 110 00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:16,120 different people that might be that persona. 111 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:20,160 And so it was like fun to bring like the illustration side into 112 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,360 the research side. That's awesome. 113 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:26,560 I'd love to jump back in time a little bit. 114 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:30,560 You mentioned being a contractor at NASA earlier in your career, 115 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:32,960 which is very cool. My partner's actually doing a 116 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:37,480 PhD at an aerospace group at MIT at the moment too. 117 00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:40,400 And I actually had the chance to visit the Jet Propulsion 118 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:44,560 Laboratory in 2019 when we had our AIGA conference there and 119 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:47,440 gave a guest lecture there. But anyway, yeah, I'm curious 120 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:49,440 about you. Like, can you share a little bit 121 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:51,560 more about that experience? You were saying that they didn't 122 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:55,400 really have UX as like a label as a job function then. 123 00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:59,000 So what was the role of design while you were there at NASA, 124 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:01,720 and how did you fit in as a designer, even if they didn't 125 00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:05,880 officially have that UX label? Yeah, it's so interesting 126 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:08,440 because I think a lot of times when they think about NASA, 127 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:12,120 we're like, oh, the loho. It's so I haunted or you know, 128 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:15,680 there is like this like aspect of NASA where we think about 129 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:19,400 like design that like retros is like space vibe. 130 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:21,560 Yeah. All these things that really 131 00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:25,440 were like pioneered by by NASA or influenced by NASA. 132 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:30,240 But it was really interesting. NASA is a federal agency. 133 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:33,679 It's huge. Things are heavy slow. 134 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:39,799 It's weird because there's this kind of juxtaposition of NASA as 135 00:08:39,799 --> 00:08:45,120 like this huge innovator in the science life space, you know, 136 00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:47,760 science and math and like the the way that they're kind of 137 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:49,400 like always innovative on that end. 138 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:54,160 And then on the other side, we have kind of like the business 139 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:57,880 side of NASA and that tends to be a little bit slower in how 140 00:08:57,880 --> 00:09:00,720 they're adopting new, new technology. 141 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:06,560 I remember one of my, this is my second internship with NASA. 142 00:09:07,040 --> 00:09:11,800 I, my whole job was basically an information architect. 143 00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:18,120 I looked at this library for a specific type of satellite and 144 00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:21,760 the library was a literal room with file folder. 145 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:27,600 Like it was like file habits Manila folders from 1968 until 146 00:09:27,760 --> 00:09:31,320 2000 whenever like early 2000 when I had the internship. 147 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:34,600 And it was just like paper. It was just like so much paper. 148 00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:38,480 And they were like Ruhana digitize all of this and they 149 00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:43,560 were like, OK, but it was really cool because there was no 150 00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:45,720 process. It was new for them to save 151 00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:51,240 Ruhana Digitizes and make this available but so here on like a 152 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:53,520 shared drive for everyone. Totally. 153 00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:56,080 So that was like a new thing at the time. 154 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:57,920 And this was like before SharePoint even. 155 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:02,000 So I can imagine. But it was a really cool thing 156 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:06,240 to be like, on the one hand, very manual doing through every 157 00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:07,880 paper. It was like we are building this 158 00:10:07,880 --> 00:10:10,400 process as we have. But then on the other hand, it 159 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,600 was like cool to be able to like innovate a little bit around how 160 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:15,000 we were going to tackle the problem. 161 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:15,840 Yeah. Yeah. 162 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:20,320 Yeah, so it's like this weird, like balance of like there is 163 00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:23,840 like opportunity to innovate. It just might sound like to some 164 00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:25,800 people the most boring thing in the world. 165 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:27,320 And to me I'm like, oh, how are you? 166 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:29,640 Have a lot of it, you know? Yeah, yeah. 167 00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:34,920 What's the folder you know I? Feel like a lot of that is like 168 00:10:34,920 --> 00:10:37,520 the innovation that happens maybe in the background or it's 169 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:42,400 less sexy than like the literal rocket launch or or even like 170 00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:43,560 the logo as you're talking about. 171 00:10:43,560 --> 00:10:45,800 I think this is a a big debate in the design world. 172 00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:48,880 So I'd love your take on this. Sahar, Are you Team Meatball or 173 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,880 Team Worm when it comes to the NASA logos? 174 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:56,360 It am teen worm. I just find it to be so like 175 00:10:56,680 --> 00:11:00,680 classic, clean, lovely. I used to hate the people. 176 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:02,960 I will say head back now. I don't hate anymore. 177 00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:06,960 I say it is very reminiscent of my but the 90s. 178 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:10,720 It feels so 90s like a little bit like the sans serif and 179 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:13,920 like, I mean, sorry, the serif font and then like put all that 180 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:16,080 like detail in the back and you're like, I can't even look 181 00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:18,400 like this. But I think it is really a 182 00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:21,520 hotter now. And like, I think there's a 183 00:11:21,560 --> 00:11:24,640 special place for both by and and team Worm. 184 00:11:24,680 --> 00:11:26,400 Yeah, and team. Worm as well. 185 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:29,640 There's just something very like mid century retrofuturist about 186 00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:32,640 it, but the minimalism I think works, especially if it's going 187 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:37,400 to be on a uniform or on a spacecraft kind of thing. 188 00:11:37,560 --> 00:11:41,160 Yeah, absolutely. Very. 189 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:46,000 Cool. You know, you mentioned that 190 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,440 earlier when you started your career, the naming of the role 191 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:52,680 wasn't even UX research or UX then. 192 00:11:53,120 --> 00:11:56,080 I'm also curious to hear more from you. 193 00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:59,800 How do you think are the key differences when it comes to 194 00:11:59,800 --> 00:12:03,240 research and how this the naming has changed? 195 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:06,640 So we started customer research, consumer, user and now 196 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:09,840 experienced research over the last decades. 197 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:14,280 What are the major, the major shifts that you see in the 198 00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:19,080 agenda setting when it comes to to research and where do you see 199 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:22,080 this going? So what's the evolution of of 200 00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:24,320 this field like? What's the future? 201 00:12:24,680 --> 00:12:26,240 What are the trends that you see? 202 00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:31,280 Yeah, I think that it's so interesting because I still see 203 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:36,480 a lot of differences in in like these job titles depending on 204 00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:39,480 the organization, honestly. So we'll sometimes see like 205 00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:43,280 customer research and that they'll you know, and or will 206 00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:47,040 haul it that even if the research is for employees like 207 00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:50,160 so it's not really a customer in the traditional science, but 208 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:53,320 that's what they haul it. I see like user research, I see 209 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:56,360 UF research, I see design research where you're like 210 00:12:56,440 --> 00:13:01,200 really researching for as like a partner to the design part of 211 00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:04,880 the world. And I feel it all depends. 212 00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:08,680 That part of it at this point feels very like it just depends 213 00:13:08,680 --> 00:13:12,440 on the the different or what their focus is. 214 00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:18,360 Sometimes there might be a question to the like the US 215 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:22,200 maturity of a company, but I honestly feel it sometimes just 216 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:25,200 depends on the orb chart and like where research is sitting. 217 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:29,680 I know that in my past experiences, research has that 218 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:33,680 under the product team it sat on the design, like design was its 219 00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:37,000 own function and it was just there by, you know, their 220 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,240 engineering. I've I've seen it, you know, 221 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:41,080 where researchers under engineering. 222 00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:44,080 I've also, I haven't experienced this myself, but I know a lot of 223 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:49,240 people who as researchers have been like, yeah, my research, US 224 00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:52,720 research is under Marshall because it is connected to 225 00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:57,840 Marshall research, even though it's not the same function, but 226 00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:00,640 there's overlap. And so I think, yeah, it really 227 00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:02,880 just depends on like how companies are set up. 228 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:05,360 So some of it is close back to that. 229 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:12,400 I think this the evolution, however, from AUS standpoint, US 230 00:14:12,400 --> 00:14:16,560 started and it was very like that's so doing everything. 231 00:14:16,560 --> 00:14:19,160 They might be a generalist, they might be doing some research and 232 00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:23,520 some design and some strategy and then all these niches kind 233 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,680 of threw out of that over time. I was like, the field matured 234 00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:31,000 right now with kind of the way the research field is moving. 235 00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:36,640 You know, there have been a lot of layoffs in tech in the last 236 00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:39,040 like 2 years and they're still, you know, we're still seeing 237 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:44,760 some happening even now what I, you know, the, the talk on the 238 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:49,720 street. So this is that research is kind 239 00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:53,760 of evolving as like more of a strategic partner. 240 00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:58,040 And so instead of saying like here are my insights, it's now 241 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:01,280 up to you. It's more like let me map my 242 00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:05,480 insights to like business holes and team holes and department 243 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:09,280 holes and really understand like the how far reaching the 244 00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:13,040 insights can be and what the impact of them might be. 245 00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:16,200 And then over time, you didn't actually measure the impact of 246 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:18,680 those sales, but that is kind of what we're seeing. 247 00:15:18,680 --> 00:15:21,640 A lot of the conversation is around right now. 248 00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:26,960 And I feel a bit of her that is like, you know, the layoffs, but 249 00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:29,240 it kind of almost allowed everyone to like take a moment 250 00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:31,560 to be like what? How can they be that like a 251 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:34,480 value to our partners and our stakeholders. 252 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:38,200 So yeah, that's the bit of the bit humble right now. 253 00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:41,360 Awesome. Yeah, thanks. 254 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:45,560 Thanks for your your perspective on the the current trends. 255 00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:48,880 Yeah. You also mentioned in the 256 00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:51,680 beginning of our conversation that you're more of a process 257 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:55,800 oriented person. And I'm, I'm curious to to learn 258 00:15:55,800 --> 00:16:01,840 more how is a standard project or like a routine project that 259 00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:05,080 you have experienced in from a research point of view. 260 00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:08,480 So what's the so from the beginning until the end? 261 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,400 So how you know, how do you engage with the stakeholders 262 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:15,920 involved? How do you build that flow with 263 00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:19,280 your team? Yeah, it's, it's a really hard 264 00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:22,080 question. I think that everyone kind of 265 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:24,000 has their own way of tackling that. 266 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,240 And of course, depending on like what type of project it is like 267 00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:30,560 the, but like many heard of it might change. 268 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:35,720 But for me, I definitely have like my like here's like kind of 269 00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,320 the beats that I want to hit in this project. 270 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:44,920 And the most important to me is holding into any project with 271 00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:48,640 what I wholly have problems hoping exercise or alignment 272 00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,880 half off. And So what I would do is I 273 00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:55,040 bring like all my house social partners if I, if they're 274 00:16:55,040 --> 00:17:01,240 available ideally into one room, usually still online, it might 275 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:03,600 be in Zoom room, but we'll all hit into one space. 276 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:07,839 We'll all hit into one food jam together and I have kind of a a 277 00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:11,800 workshop that I leave that helps me understand all the contests. 278 00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:16,079 I need to know what they also try to do with that is be very 279 00:17:16,079 --> 00:17:18,480 problem 1st and not solution first. 280 00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:22,200 So I don't, you know, they might help my partner might help me, a 281 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:25,160 product manager might say, hey, I think we need to add this 282 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:29,960 feature and that is a solution. So what I'll do is I'll be like, 283 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,240 OK, let's do that and let's understand why do we think that 284 00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:36,280 that feature is needed? We'll find it backwards and 285 00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:38,640 understand what is the problem we're trying to understand 286 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:42,200 better so that we can move forward with, with actually 287 00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:44,280 making a decision about a solution. 288 00:17:44,360 --> 00:17:47,360 And so, yeah, in that alignment medium, you know, we'll, we'll 289 00:17:47,360 --> 00:17:49,640 slope down the problem. We'll write a, you know, I'll 290 00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:52,040 write a refined problem statement based off of it. 291 00:17:52,120 --> 00:17:55,680 But the other thing I like about it is we also will write down 292 00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:58,760 everyone's assumptions, everyone's biases. 293 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,960 What questions do I need more? If the people in that room don't 294 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:05,840 have the answer, I'll write down all the questions I need to hold 295 00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:08,800 Dave more into with other stakeholders. 296 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:12,000 And usually the people that are with me will be able to put me 297 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,480 in the right direction if I don't know who to hit up. 298 00:18:16,480 --> 00:18:19,760 But what I think that really sets like a high foundation for 299 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:23,200 any project because you really like, let's all take a moment. 300 00:18:24,120 --> 00:18:27,800 Let's like rewind, Let's all really understand where we're 301 00:18:27,800 --> 00:18:30,480 starting from so we can move forward really nephotically. 302 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,480 It'll help me figure out what methodologies to use because 303 00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:37,600 it's depending on what the, you know, whatever the problem is 304 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:39,600 that we're trying to understand better will help me write 305 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,960 research questions or holes and then questions. 306 00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:45,680 And then, you know, you kind of like hold this like waterfall, 307 00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:48,480 like OK, now I know that and I haven't feel out what 308 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:51,920 methodology is. The other big thing is I'll 309 00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:56,880 understand like constraints, whether that is time or budget. 310 00:18:56,880 --> 00:19:00,800 Sometimes, sometimes it's like technical constraints when you 311 00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:04,640 go hungry, technical projects, it's like how, what can I, what 312 00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:06,640 is even possible here in this space? 313 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:10,360 So I think that's the big one. But I'm like that will set the 314 00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:13,960 stage. As for the actual like project 315 00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:16,680 moving forward, depending on the methodologies, everything will 316 00:19:16,680 --> 00:19:19,040 be different. But my big thing is I will 317 00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:22,280 always have a touch point with my personal team. 318 00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:26,600 So whether that's like the holy sale, we can all just be like, 319 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:28,880 here's where we're at, here's what I'm learning, here's what 320 00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:32,240 I'm doing. Has anything changed like or, 321 00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:35,400 or, you know, sometimes a positive timeline is going to 322 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:36,640 change. Like you just don't know. 323 00:19:36,640 --> 00:19:40,040 So having that like close touch point is really important. 324 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,640 And then from there, because I have these like check insurance, 325 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:49,000 I'm not like way down for like this aha moment at the end. 326 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,600 I, I'm bringing them along with me so that it feels very 327 00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:54,560 collaborative. I think that's really, really 328 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,640 important. I say this all the time, and I'm 329 00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:01,760 going to say it here, a bit of her being a US researcher is 330 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:06,760 relationship building. It is like understanding you 331 00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:10,240 know the pain points of the you know your house, social team and 332 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,160 and like your stakeholders. Because you're going to be able 333 00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:15,840 to do your best with when you're, you have that full 334 00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:17,440 picture. And so, yeah. 335 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,360 I want to pick up on the point you made earlier about 336 00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:25,960 relationships. You we talked about your 337 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:28,240 experience at NASA earlier on in your career. 338 00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:31,320 Since then, you've worked in a variety of fields from the game 339 00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:34,880 industry to cybersecurity. So as a designer, we often have 340 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:38,960 to work in a lot of work with people from very different 341 00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:40,840 industries and disciplines, right, that are different from 342 00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:43,520 our own. So how do you engage in these 343 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,160 highly technical subjects like cybersecurity or even the game 344 00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:49,280 industry where you're collaborating with subject 345 00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:52,600 matter experts who maybe don't know design or quite different 346 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:55,240 from designers? Like how do you become enough of 347 00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:57,880 an expert in the process to engage while also working with 348 00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:00,280 experts in their respective fields? 349 00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:05,240 Yeah, it is like a really funny thing because I personally am 350 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:07,840 like, oh, like really complex industries. 351 00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:09,640 I like, I love it like more of that. 352 00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:13,600 And I think this because as a researcher and and like, you 353 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,720 know, service designer and like the background, I'm always just 354 00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:20,680 like I want to do around and understand this like area that I 355 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,240 might not know that well. But I think the best thing is 356 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:27,320 like when I started in cyber society, I have never worked in 357 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:30,680 cyber society before. I have worked at NASA, which had 358 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:33,760 very stringent security policies. 359 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:36,320 So I was aware of it from a high user perspective. 360 00:21:36,360 --> 00:21:40,400 I'm like, I don't know how it works maybe, but I do know like 361 00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:42,800 what I have to be very mindful of, right? 362 00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,560 And I remember my manager at the time was like, I highly love 363 00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:49,920 that you don't have a cyber society background because you 364 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:52,000 have less bias. Like you're just humming in 365 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,200 fresh. You're looking at the space like 366 00:21:54,200 --> 00:22:00,840 with new fresh eyes. And so I went into that really 367 00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,400 like looking to learn, but also knowing that I'm not going to be 368 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:07,400 the expert in the room. And even now, like I worked 369 00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:11,600 there almost 2 years, I, I still have all this like safety 370 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:13,560 knowledge in my brain, but I'm not asked for. 371 00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,280 I know that like other people know any of it. 372 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:23,000 But what was really helpful was when you're preparing to talk to 373 00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:28,880 a highly technical person like a society admin or a chief 374 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:32,440 information security officer, you just want to know that 375 00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:36,040 you're going to hoe into it. Like I'm doing a user interview 376 00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:39,520 with this type of light user. You just know that you're going 377 00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:42,960 to probably say words that you don't understand, and that's OK. 378 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,920 And it's also OK to say, hey, could you describe that to me? 379 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:50,840 Or imagine I'm like a third lawyer and you're explaining 380 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,000 that back to me like a little bit more simply. 381 00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,440 It's OK to do that. It's also OK to be like, I don't 382 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,200 have time to do any of that. So just depending on what, what 383 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,560 the situation holds for. I think the other thing was I'm 384 00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:06,480 back to what, you know, the relationship building aspect 385 00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:10,080 that we, we were talking about. Like I relied on my, my team, 386 00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:14,560 my, my, the company, everyone across the company to be my kind 387 00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:17,240 of like technical partners in trying to understand. 388 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:19,720 First of all, our product was super technical itself. 389 00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:22,360 So learning that was a, a whole family. 390 00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:27,240 It's a village to help me understand it really well, but 391 00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:31,640 also just understanding a lot of the Jorhain, a lot of like the 392 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,080 the different like cyber superior tasks that might be out 393 00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:36,840 there. Like just understanding that the 394 00:23:37,120 --> 00:23:42,720 landscape of the field was really, really, really helps by 395 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:44,920 having really hard relationships and building those 396 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,640 relationships. I think one whole example was I 397 00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,680 did this information architecture project while I was 398 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,760 there. There were features in the 399 00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:56,360 product that were like Tahoes, you could Tahoe on and off like, 400 00:23:56,360 --> 00:23:58,960 do I want to have this sat down turned on? 401 00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,120 And I was like, I don't know what this is. 402 00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:05,600 And so part of my initial like desk research was like, let me 403 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:07,480 meet up with a bunch of stakeholders and figure out what 404 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:09,960 each part of this product is. Like what do they mean? 405 00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,960 Because a lot of the product had been built and and the like 406 00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,240 labels and the US writing have been done by the engineers over 407 00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,480 the years and they understand the real technical and maybe 408 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,760 like and not everyone is going to understand it the same way. 409 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:28,040 And so it was very helpful to like hurry around and kind of 410 00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:32,080 sleuth and and figure it out. But but it all hang down to the 411 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,240 relationships when like people being happy and willing to help. 412 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,240 The husband had that collaborative back and forth 413 00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,200 already. That's great. 414 00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,560 I love that you brought that. They valued the fact that you 415 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:50,240 didn't know much about cybersecurity to bring this new 416 00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,040 perspective to the table and probably ask questions that they 417 00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:54,960 did not think about. Yeah. 418 00:24:55,000 --> 00:25:00,200 I think it has a lot to do with bringing a diverse team to the 419 00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,120 table. And I think based on what you 420 00:25:03,120 --> 00:25:06,440 mentioned earlier that you're very interested on bringing this 421 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:11,080 global understanding multicultural approach to your 422 00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,840 practice starting from your Korean studies interest. 423 00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,880 I'm curious to learn more from you what what exactly what types 424 00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:23,320 of methods that you create with your team when you're choosing 425 00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:27,360 what path to follow in the research process that you 426 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:30,480 understand it's inclusive and generating sites that are 427 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:36,200 applicable for a wider audience. So take into account this 428 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:41,960 multicultural context. Yeah. 429 00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:48,080 I think that this thing with kind of embracing like diversity 430 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,480 and inclusivity as the US professional, whether design or 431 00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:58,320 research, it's, it's one of the funnestones of like how we want 432 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:03,120 to especially in research. I think as we through users for 433 00:26:03,120 --> 00:26:06,200 our studies, we want to make sure that we're avoiding like 434 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,680 any inherent bias. So an example is like for that 435 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,400 cyber security company, I don't want to only talk to chief 436 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,480 information security officers that are men because like, I 437 00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:22,280 know that there are women out there who do this, you know, do 438 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:24,560 this role, even if they're not the majority. 439 00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:28,840 And so that was a big part of, you know, I did this big 440 00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:33,080 personal project with them. And it was it was also like 441 00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:36,400 making sure there was, you know, diversity from all vectors. 442 00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,080 It's not just like, you know, you know, male, non binary, but 443 00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:45,480 it was also by looking at, you know, different races of people 444 00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,320 who work on these roles and not trying to pigeonhole myself into 445 00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,360 just one area. I fail. 446 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,720 And so as a researcher, we're always trying to make sure that 447 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,240 we have a very high representative sample and that 448 00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,480 we're not just default seems like the easy to find, you know, 449 00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,520 needs. And so it does come down to when 450 00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,160 whenever we get food for users, for any study, we'll always 451 00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,000 write a Screener. And it really comes down to like 452 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,320 making that very inclusive. And so you might be like, oh, 453 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:17,840 it's just a Screener. It's easy. 454 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,000 And it it's like, yeah, it is. But you want to make sure that 455 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:25,760 it isn't accidentally leaving out certain groups of people. 456 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,320 And so there's that aspect of it that is really important. 457 00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:34,160 I think there's also, you know, we have, I've worked on projects 458 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:39,160 that have a horrible audience and knowing that if people 459 00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,880 aren't just American, then I shouldn't only do the research 460 00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,160 with Americans because then you're really pigeonholing. 461 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:50,360 But those insights are very, very skewed to one part of the 462 00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:52,120 user base. So you just want to make sure 463 00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:55,480 that whatever research you're doing has like that 464 00:27:55,480 --> 00:28:01,240 representation in the actual, you know, processes and stuff. 465 00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:01,560 Yeah. I. 466 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,360 Want to pick up on this global point that you made about 467 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:10,000 diversity, which is very much like under attack right now. 468 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,840 But the reality for business, regardless of your politics, is 469 00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,080 that especially for service based tech companies, right? 470 00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,680 For UX research, we have to consider users from diverse 471 00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:22,960 cultures, geographic backgrounds, but also just like, 472 00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,840 you know, who's live in different bodies, right? 473 00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,520 So how do you ensure that those methods are actually inclusive? 474 00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,400 You said a little bit about it already in terms of including 475 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:38,280 different kinds of research subjects and collaborators, but 476 00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,560 yeah, how do we encompass that into our research methods and 477 00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,560 also in the insights part of it and gathering insights And yeah, 478 00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,160 could you maybe give examples in the context of a project? 479 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:50,880 Yeah. I think that one of the the 480 00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:55,080 difference is like, you know, I've been our US research team 481 00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,240 of one as in like I was the only researcher. 482 00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,400 I had a lot of companies. When you have other researchers, 483 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,800 it becomes so much more helpful because you're able to like 484 00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,760 bounce stuff off of each other and be like and my and my other 485 00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,320 path here. And then the diversity of your 486 00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,760 team helps with that, right, where people are all hunting in 487 00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:13,400 with their own diverse perspectives. 488 00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,320 You know, my team now is quite diverse and a little bit larger. 489 00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,240 And so they have like that, that nice synergy of being able to 490 00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:23,200 like do that with each other. But you know, even in, you know, 491 00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,080 at like a couple of my last companies where I was the only 492 00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,840 researcher, but I work with designers, they're also still 493 00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,360 there as their partners. And they are also there to be a 494 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,720 kind of diverse like thought partners in the world. 495 00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:39,040 And so I think that the best thing is understanding best 496 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:40,960 practices is really important here. 497 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,080 You don't have to hold alone. You don't have to like to hurry 498 00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,480 out from scratch. Like there are going to be hood 499 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:50,480 practices for how to and you can kind of do around online and 500 00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,240 like with different, you know, thought leaders in the space, 501 00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:55,960 but you know there will be other practices around like that 502 00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:59,160 inclusivity and like making sure that there is diverse 503 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,600 representation. I think also when you present 504 00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,840 the insights like you mentioned at the end of kind of your 505 00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,080 question, I for example, that persona project where I 506 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:13,920 illustrated the different. So I have 3 personas at the end 507 00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,720 of the sixth month research that project, I, you know, 508 00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:23,000 interviewed 30 people and we hopped down to like, these are 509 00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,360 the, the segments, these are the free personas. 510 00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:30,440 And what we kind of saw was like, it was like a really cool 511 00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:32,640 thing like that. They weren't like the people 512 00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:36,000 I've talked to within each of those personas was very diverse 513 00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:40,360 from all different vectors. And so when I did the 514 00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:46,040 illustrations, I really made sure to say like, you know, like 515 00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,360 different groups were represented for each. 516 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:54,000 I did 3 drawings for each persona as like her visit. 517 00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,200 Because I think when you do a persona and personas are always 518 00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:58,840 a little bit of a hot topic like that. 519 00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:04,160 But when you do personas, often you'll see one visual 520 00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,480 representation of what that persona is, right? 521 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,720 It'll be like one person, a giant or an image of her photo. 522 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,720 And it's kind of like to help people empathize as like this is 523 00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,720 who it is. My manager who was the director 524 00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,640 of the US, we actually talked a lot about like, let's not do 525 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,760 that and let's try to represent each persona as three different 526 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,520 versions of who they might be because a persona is not one 527 00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,040 person. It's like have a group that is 528 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,680 helping define and understand a group of people, right? 529 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:39,080 Totally. Yeah, yeah. 530 00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,000 Yeah. And so I really made sure to say 531 00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:47,360 there's a lot of representation that this one persona that saves 532 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,720 a life might actually be represented by very different 533 00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,600 people in other aspects of their life. 534 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,480 They might not be very similar, but in the way that they about 535 00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,080 their work they are the same, if that makes sense. 536 00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,680 Totally, yeah. And I think just personas in 537 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,920 general, you know, I feel like there's a, there's a lot of 538 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,000 caveats to them in terms of just taking them with a grain of 539 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:10,480 salt. And again, like the 540 00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,200 representation, it's like it's not a real person, but there's 541 00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:15,320 still something helpful about them. 542 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:16,880 I think they're controversial too, right? 543 00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,440 Like some people, like, are like, let's not do personas 544 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,440 anymore. But even if you use real people, 545 00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,920 there's still, there's always going to be some sort of 546 00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,360 selection bias of like, who are these real people that you 547 00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:30,320 selected to feature, right. Whereas A persona might be a way 548 00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,600 to make some generalizations, which we always have to do when 549 00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:35,920 we're designing at scale. Yeah. 550 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:40,680 Absolutely. So Sahar, I know you've been 551 00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:46,560 very involved and supportive in the UX community through events 552 00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:52,520 and mentorship. And yeah, I'm curious to to hear 553 00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:57,160 more from you in terms of advice that you can share with with our 554 00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,720 listeners. Interested in starting a career 555 00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:07,200 in UX or UX research or making a transition from another career 556 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,600 to this space. What are your recommendations 557 00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,600 and what what are the transferable skills you think 558 00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,040 folks might bring from other fields? 559 00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,760 Yeah, it's a really hard question because there are a lot 560 00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:26,400 of transferable sales. So I think the first thing I'll 561 00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:31,800 say is, you know, I mentioned earlier, you know US and just 562 00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,680 test are going through a little bit of a rough patch, but that 563 00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,640 doesn't mean like you can't pivot and you can't transition 564 00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,880 into a career in like USI think you just have to be kind of 565 00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:44,600 thoughtful about how you feel about it. 566 00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:49,840 So my big fail is, you know what your current role is or your 567 00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:53,560 history or your experience that you've had in your career. 568 00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:58,480 What's that through the US lens? So what I mean by that is like, 569 00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,320 as you're learning, whether it's self-taught or if you're in a 570 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,240 program, if you're learning about US understand now kind of 571 00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:09,159 like what the role is, what are the keywords that you kind of 572 00:34:09,159 --> 00:34:11,639 need to understand? What are the the methodologies 573 00:34:11,639 --> 00:34:13,840 that you should be familiar with all that. 574 00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,639 And then I always tell people to like look back like the slides, 575 00:34:16,639 --> 00:34:19,400 almost like do a workshop with yourself on big Jam if it's 576 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:24,679 helpful and say, you know, if this is like the methodology or 577 00:34:24,679 --> 00:34:28,560 the thought process or the still needed in this field. 578 00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,159 Do any of my jobs have areas where I was doing that and it 579 00:34:33,159 --> 00:34:36,639 just wasn't called that? I think a really good example is 580 00:34:36,639 --> 00:34:39,600 like healthcare, you know, because I'm like people that 581 00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:41,440 were in healthcare, whatever their role. 582 00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,040 I've, I've mentored people who were artificial therapists or, 583 00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:50,520 you know, people who were like, you know, nurses and they wanted 584 00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:52,719 to like transition into US research. 585 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:59,400 They have this ability, the House of their role, to ask 586 00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:04,040 questions to the heart of someones pinpoints, right? 587 00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,480 You're building rapport with your patients and you're trying 588 00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,480 to understand where they're coming from, and you're having 589 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,200 empathy for them so that you can treat them better. 590 00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:15,040 Are they written how a US researcher might write them? 591 00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:17,800 Probably not. But I think that it's such a 592 00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,960 hard foundation of like having those skills already and then 593 00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,440 you just build off of them. I think another field that 594 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:29,440 really does move well into US is like education, because Iran, 595 00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,120 you're, you're helping people learn. 596 00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:36,480 And a lot of what you do in the US is figure out how to help 597 00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,720 people use, learn how to use films more easily. 598 00:35:40,720 --> 00:35:42,600 So it's like, how do I make this usable? 599 00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:45,480 How do I make this learnable for someone? 600 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,800 That is even a method that sometimes people even try to 601 00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,880 measure is like the learnability of a product. 602 00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:54,520 Is it? And I put this in front of 603 00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:58,880 someone, how much hand holding do they need before they can 604 00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,360 actually use it by themselves without me having to be there 605 00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,240 with them or without customer support. 606 00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:08,080 And so I think that handling education had really light 607 00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,880 transferable. So it really is so many fields. 608 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:15,840 I'll even say one of my jobs when I was in college was I 609 00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:19,640 worked for the Herons hair brand Aveda. 610 00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:25,160 And Aveda had this really specific way of how you talk to 611 00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,680 the the customers. They held them the last that 612 00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:30,800 were hum in, but the customers were hum in. 613 00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,240 And you know, they're why I need new shampoo. 614 00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,880 And you don't just ask them yes or no questions. 615 00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,200 They've always said ask open-ended questions like tell 616 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:41,720 me about your hair. Tell me what problems you our 617 00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:44,560 face down with your hair hair currently. 618 00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,560 Tell me about your current routine with your hair, whatever 619 00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:50,720 it is. And that is all but US research 620 00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,200 kind of way of looking out writing questions for a user 621 00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:58,960 interview is like open-ended. Don't ask yes or no questions. 622 00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:03,560 So I know what people, because you don't know, but yes or no is 623 00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,480 gonna be such a small, narrow view of what the actual bit 624 00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,680 picture is. Allow them to kind of paint the 625 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:12,840 picture for you. And that was just like her 626 00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,120 retail job. But I always tell all that story 627 00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:17,400 because I'm like, it was kind of cool. 628 00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,880 I was like giving you that research without I was learning 629 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,360 the the best practices without even being a researcher yet. 630 00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:29,680 And now what you brought about the transferable skills for, 631 00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,920 for, for for folks who are working with education. 632 00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:38,600 That's the point that I had not thought about when it comes to 633 00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:44,320 designing new products and how learnable that product can be. 634 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,480 And bringing this skill to the table is very. 635 00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:54,160 Yeah, it's very relevant, yeah. Yeah, I think that connects well 636 00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,960 with the theme of the podcast and also of our conference this 637 00:37:57,960 --> 00:37:59,560 season. And for folks listening, 638 00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,960 watching to this, the AIGA Design Conference of 2025 is 639 00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,240 October 9th through 11th in Los Angeles, CA. 640 00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,280 We'll post a link to this, but we'd love to see you there. 641 00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,760 But for Sahar, the theme is design and performance. 642 00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,360 And you've already alluded to a little bit of this in terms of 643 00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,400 building relationships, but also your experience working at Aveda 644 00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:23,000 and asking these open-ended questions with the guests, with 645 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,040 the customers here. And so just ask all of our 646 00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,200 guests this season to riff on this theme of design and 647 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,280 performance, right, Because as researchers, you are preparing a 648 00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,160 script, but you're also an improviser because something 649 00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:39,000 interesting could happen during the interview, during the site 650 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,760 visit, however you're conducting that research. 651 00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:44,640 I'd love to have you. Yeah, reflect on that and refund 652 00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:49,480 the theme of how you see performing your role as a 653 00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,560 researcher. Yeah, I love the same. 654 00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:55,400 And I think there's a few different ways it really shows 655 00:38:55,400 --> 00:39:00,440 up as a researcher. One of them is like you said, 656 00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,520 like when you're in a user interview, you're in a usability 657 00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,360 test that is moderated, you're in there with the user. 658 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,240 Sometimes it's, it's not gonna hold the way you think and 659 00:39:11,240 --> 00:39:13,120 that's a hot thing. I think those are like the 660 00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:15,880 really like interesting knowledge of information come 661 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,280 from. So when best practices write 662 00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,080 those open-ended questions, we always have to just hush and 663 00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,360 hide and we prepare. But I always, and this is the 664 00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:28,520 thing that I, I teach my team too, is I always have follow up 665 00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:32,240 questions underneath every question where I'm like, here's 666 00:39:32,240 --> 00:39:35,080 a big theme that I know like they're really open-ended. 667 00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:39,320 And then if they don't talk about this aspect, I'm going to 668 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:43,160 nudge them on that, you know, And so it's just like having 669 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:47,520 these little follow-ups to help hide films, but also allow the 670 00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,160 user to take you, you know, where they want to take you in 671 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,480 their answer. Because if that's what they care 672 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:57,480 about, that's important. You know that that is definitely 673 00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:02,520 there's like that aspect of like it's like a structured. 674 00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,680 I'm sure sometimes the questions will come in a different order 675 00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:08,640 than you thought. Like they want to answer 2 676 00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,200 questions in one. So just being really like on 677 00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,680 your feet and ready to like move and be fluid and move with it. 678 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,400 I think it's really helpful. I also love that you said the 679 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,440 word improv because I really feel like like I haven't taken 680 00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:24,560 an improv class. I'm like, should I? 681 00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:30,040 Because I feel like it would be such a like relevant title to 682 00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,760 like patches in that way because you just just have to be able to 683 00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:37,840 like, like pivot and move with the flow and the height of him 684 00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,000 as a researcher. And that is also true when 685 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:46,680 you're presenting information. I found presenting anything as 686 00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,160 anyone, not just a researcher is a performance. 687 00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,240 You are a performer now. I always try to right now 688 00:40:53,240 --> 00:40:58,960 actually on my team, he started the same every studio I saw. 689 00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:05,160 Tell me why someone has to sign up and present something for 10 690 00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:07,720 minutes and kind of provide feedback. 691 00:41:07,720 --> 00:41:12,000 We ask questions because there isn't always opportunity for 692 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,720 everyone, especially like intermediate, like mid level and 693 00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:19,800 lower to present their insights to our clients because they're 694 00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,080 not, you know, usually that's going to be like the senior 695 00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,120 person on the team. So I want them to have that 696 00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,480 practice still. And so I'm like present 697 00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,360 anything. It doesn't have to be current 698 00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,720 worth definitely whatever, but do you want to say about this as 699 00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:37,240 a story and not just I did this, I learned this, this is my 700 00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:39,400 recognition, but that Noah hears, but that's so boring. 701 00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:42,200 Yeah. But even as a researcher, my 702 00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,280 eyes will blaze over if I'm in a presentation that's just like 703 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,200 chronologically, blah, blah, blah, blah. 704 00:41:47,720 --> 00:41:49,720 And I've done it. I've done it too as an 705 00:41:49,720 --> 00:41:51,240 intermediate like I was, I don't know. 706 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,760 This is how I I want them to know the words I did. 707 00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,600 No one hears about. They don't know what those words 708 00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:59,560 are like. You know, when I say like I did 709 00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:02,280 this methodology, I don't know what that is. 710 00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,400 So just know your audience, like be able to speak to your 711 00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,200 audience. If you're talking to product 712 00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,440 team, what do they hear about? If you're talking to like the 713 00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:16,000 whole company, you're going to want to be more generalized. 714 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,680 You want to speak to multiple different people within, you 715 00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:22,640 know, the same presentation. So it's just about like, like 716 00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:27,880 figuring out that flow. I will say it also, I feel like 717 00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,480 people who play Dungeons and Dragons would be really. 718 00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,600 Yeah. That is improv ultimately, 719 00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:35,360 right? But you're in the moment, you're 720 00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,880 playing a character, you're figuring out how to respond in 721 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,800 real time to different things that pop up. 722 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,760 And I do love G&G so I any chance I can like talk about it 723 00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:48,760 in anything I like? But yeah, it's funny you 724 00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,360 mentioned both of those things because I've been doing improv 725 00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:54,760 for the last almost two years now, actually just started 726 00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,920 teaching it or being a teaching assistant for it here in 727 00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,440 Providence. But recently I went to a show 728 00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,080 where it was Dungeons and Dragons improv. 729 00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:08,200 So they had comedians like do a live show of DND, like a single, 730 00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,600 like one shot, you know, rather than a campaign. 731 00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,840 And it very much is like improv adjacent. 732 00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:16,760 Yeah, You know, certainly doing this show is like this too, 733 00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:18,880 right? Like Julie and I have questions 734 00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,200 prepared, but we're also just riffing with you, connecting 735 00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,200 with you in the moment for follow up and stuff like that. 736 00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:28,160 So I recommend it to any designer, any researcher, 737 00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,640 because it's even if you never perform for the public in an 738 00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:33,880 improv show or if you don't think you're funny, there's 739 00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,400 still skills there that just help you be in the moment and 740 00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:41,360 improvise in your own job or even prepare you for public 741 00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,720 speaking. Because if I think for most 742 00:43:43,720 --> 00:43:48,000 people like memorizing your speech and trying to give it or 743 00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,680 reading off cue cards, like they, they all have their own 744 00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,520 kind of issues of being like kind of robotic or like, you 745 00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:56,680 know, sometimes the audience just responds to different 746 00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:58,240 things. And you, you have to know your 747 00:43:58,240 --> 00:44:01,160 stuff well enough to be able to riff in the moment, right? 748 00:44:01,240 --> 00:44:03,440 Especially with a live audience. So. 749 00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:05,560 True. I also tell people when I I used 750 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,960 to mentor a lot more when I had my bandwidth for that, which was 751 00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,480 really awesome. But whenever I mentioned people 752 00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,520 that were trying to like pivot into, you know, US research and 753 00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,120 they had like questions about like interviewing, I'm like, 754 00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:19,720 it's improv. Like, yeah, yeah, job interview 755 00:44:19,720 --> 00:44:21,280 is improv. You don't know what questions 756 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:22,840 they're going to ask necessarily. 757 00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,040 You can prepare as much as you can, but you have to be ready to 758 00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:30,800 like a bit and a little bit. And so I think improv is just 759 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:35,160 like such a good thing to home. Yeah, I love that. 760 00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:37,400 So cool that you are teaching it now. 761 00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:38,800 So like they're, they're awesome. 762 00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:46,960 Very cool. Yeah, Sahara, I know that in 763 00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:53,800 2023 you and Taryn Lambert Co founded Confetti Q&A. 764 00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:59,000 And I'm curious to learn more about what are the initiatives 765 00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:03,440 that you've been engaged with this organization and what 766 00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:11,080 motivated you to create? Yeah, I so Karen was my manager 767 00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,920 in my last role and they were both laid off at the same time, 768 00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,520 as many people have just been in the last two years. 769 00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:23,000 So at the end of 2023 we were laid off and we just loved 770 00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,800 working together so much. We were like, I still want to 771 00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,800 talk to you every day. So once may have a reason to do 772 00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,560 that. And so we were like, well, you 773 00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,680 know it. There are things that are feels 774 00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,280 closed through as a community, as a collective. 775 00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:43,200 Why don't we just try hosting like panel webinar style combos 776 00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,640 around these films? And his listeners used to still 777 00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,600 hang out a lot. But then also it's something 778 00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:52,080 that like if it's a topic that's coming up a lot for the field, 779 00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,640 why not like people are probably all talking about it. 780 00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,240 They would love to like be more involved in this kind of like 781 00:45:57,720 --> 00:46:02,160 community activity. And so they had our first panel, 782 00:46:02,240 --> 00:46:05,400 it was in January 2024, and it was about layoffs. 783 00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,360 And it was like about navigating and trying to feel empowered 784 00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:10,360 while, you know, when you hope for something like that, it's 785 00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:13,720 really just hard now. It feels not great. 786 00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:18,480 And so we had a couple of our folks who had been laid off on 787 00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:21,680 the panel with us and they just prepared some questions. 788 00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:24,080 And you're kind of similar to what what we were just saying. 789 00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,680 Like we talked, we let the humble move like the flow. 790 00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:32,560 We had audience members asking us questions that we would then 791 00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:37,600 like answer in real time. And it was just like very, we 792 00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,720 didn't want it to be really formal and like we just wanted 793 00:46:40,720 --> 00:46:43,480 to feel like like helpful to people. 794 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:47,680 And afterwards we didn't impromptu little like like, I 795 00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:51,280 don't know, after party, it was all online, but they, they like 796 00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:54,000 opened up a whole meet and there was like whoever wants to hum, 797 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,080 hum. And then they had like these 798 00:46:56,080 --> 00:47:00,280 more like deep kind of humbles between people who are hauling 799 00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,320 through the same bill. And it was just really lovely. 800 00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:07,920 It felt like, I don't know, right now was just the the 801 00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,440 madness of the world and how everything's really just holding 802 00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,960 1,000,000 miles an hour. It feels really helpful to have 803 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:18,240 these outlets of honey and giggy and where you're from with other 804 00:47:18,240 --> 00:47:23,040 people who are not all like, oh, rainbows and roses and 805 00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:24,760 butterfly. It's like, no, sometimes things 806 00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:28,000 suck and it helps to just be like, it's tough together. 807 00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:30,600 And maybe they don't have an answer for it, but at least we 808 00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,320 have each other. And so we've done a couple 809 00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:35,600 others. We did two other talks last 810 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,000 year. One of them was about like the 811 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:41,080 state of hiring and TAFE and US specifically. 812 00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:44,600 And then we did a the third one that was about like the future 813 00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:47,640 of worth. And what do we say like worth is 814 00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,240 like in the future. We have our next panel coming 815 00:47:51,240 --> 00:47:55,880 out and it's all about uncertainty will be fun. 816 00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,160 Yeah, yeah. Well, do share that with us. 817 00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,040 Yeah, well, we're not sure when this is going to be published, 818 00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:03,920 but we we'll figure it out. Yeah, there'll. 819 00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,280 Be a video. There'll be a video so you can 820 00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,960 always share it, but it'll be, I think it's really helpful 821 00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:12,680 because I, I know I am feeling uncertain all the time. 822 00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:14,920 Yeah. I mean, like, I mean, there's a 823 00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:18,600 lot of particular uncertainties, but even in sort of maybe more 824 00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,080 certain times, there's always an uncertainty, right, in terms of 825 00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,600 trying to have a career and, and do all of that, especially in 826 00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,320 this industry. So we're unfortunately starting 827 00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,760 to wrap up our time together. But I've really enjoyed this 828 00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,320 conversation, this hangout. So Sahar, we love to wrap up 829 00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:37,160 asking all of our guests about inspiration. 830 00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:39,760 Do you have something that you would like to recommend to our 831 00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,160 listeners, our viewers? So it could be a book, a show, a 832 00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:46,200 movie, any piece of media to recommend to our community here. 833 00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:48,720 And then you can also end with a call to action for where folks 834 00:48:48,720 --> 00:48:51,480 can follow up and connect with your work as well. 835 00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:57,560 Awesome, yeah I made a hold straight back to my DND The 836 00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:02,600 loyal hall out the house. If you haven't watched Fantasy 837 00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:08,200 High it is a live play on dropout.tv. 838 00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:12,960 They have this like kind of series called Dimension 20 and 839 00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:15,120 they do all kinds of different DND shows. 840 00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,360 Fantasy High is one of my favorite shows. 841 00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,920 I'm rewatching it for the 4th time right now from the start. 842 00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:24,400 But it's a tabletop role-playing. 843 00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:28,600 They played DND. It's kind of this fun coming of 844 00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:33,520 age, John Hughes High School, but with, you know, elves and 845 00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:36,480 Orffs and hobblins and, you know, Yeah. 846 00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:38,880 And it's really fun. It's funny. 847 00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:41,760 I think there's a lot of cool. First of all, I've learned how 848 00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,960 to play DND from this. So they've never played DND. 849 00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,080 It's a great place to start because all the players, almost 850 00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:50,800 all of them have never played until this campaign. 851 00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,320 They are all comedians and people who with improv 852 00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:56,120 backgrounds. Yeah, I think that it's a 853 00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:59,520 perfect layer wrap up because we talked about improv earlier and 854 00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,840 and GND and I think it's a really cool, fun show. 855 00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:07,240 How you recommend it? First season fully free on 856 00:50:07,240 --> 00:50:08,520 YouTube. Amazing. 857 00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:11,440 Yeah, amazing. Thank you for that. 858 00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:15,040 And then what about your work and how folks can connect with 859 00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:17,120 you? Yeah, I mean I'm always 860 00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,920 available to connect on LinkedIn and I'll, you know, share the 861 00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,720 link with everyone. Just search for my name. 862 00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,480 You'll find I'm the only one, the only the hotel. 863 00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,720 So it will be easier to find me and then my website, I have a 864 00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:34,760 blog where sometimes I'll, I'll post stuff on LinkedIn and I'm 865 00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:36,880 like, you know what, I'm going to do this some more. 866 00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:43,000 So I'll post on my blog. It's www.sahara.com/blog and you 867 00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,760 can find all my, all my thoughts over there. 868 00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,960 Hopefully a newsletter having seen, I haven't set that up yet, 869 00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:54,600 but it's on my mind. And then Confetti Q&A is also on 870 00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:58,200 LinkedIn and we do all of our panels live on LinkedIn. 871 00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:00,640 So if you saw it was there, you'll always know what's going 872 00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:02,280 on with us. Awesome. 873 00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,320 Yeah, Cool. Well, thanks again for hanging 874 00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:10,040 out with us and chatting, Sahar. So on behalf of the AIG Design 875 00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:12,520 Podcast, thanks again. And thank you to our viewers or 876 00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,000 listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you in another 877 00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:17,920 episode or at our design conference this fall in Los 878 00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,600 Angeles. Thank you so much, it was so fun 879 00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:22,400 hanging out with those of you same. 880 00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,080 Here, Thank you so much. Bye everyone.