Rafa Conde - Make your designs memorable

00:00:00When you are working on something, youhave the vision. Like you know whatyou're trying to do. The goal is tocommunicate this idea as cleanly as youcan to someone else. If I have this ideafor a feature, don't just design thefeature and share mock-ups. Don't justmake a prototype and do a screenrecording of you using the feature. Makean ad, right? Sellthis idea. Welcome to Dive Club. My nameis Red and this is where designers neverstop learning.>> [music]>> Today's episode is with Rafael Conde whoyou might remember as Rafa from theLayout podcast that I used to listen toall the time. Well, today he's workingas a design engineer at Retro, which isone of my favorite consumer [music]apps. So, the focus of this conversationis all about how do you create softwarethat makes people feel something?>> [music]>> We're going to get into how he designedthe new onboarding flow for Retro, howhe uses video to share his ideas, and alot more. But, let's start by going allthe way back to the beginning of Rafa'sjourney. It was my first MacBook and I Igot it at a mall at a store and then Iwent to the like restaurant sectionabove and I set it up on a table.And yeah, you open the laptop and yousee that video

00:01:15with the stars and thewords. There was like a wholeexperience. Still today remember how Ifelt, which is like this is cool. I Ithought computers were cool, but this islike cool cool. Even not just computercool, this is amazing. It's like amovie, sci-fi. Look, it's space. Andthen set the stage for everything else,everything else I would see andexperience like just trying thiscomputer. It had that background, thatcontext. This is amazing. This is cool.This is polished. Everything's shiny.At the time, [laughter]thing was glossy. I think as a designerI'm trying to chase that. Like that'swhat I want to do.I want to make people feel somethinglike that.>> Did you experience that? For me, themoment was kind of different actually,but it was Did Did you ever play thegame Draw Something on iOS? It was likeone of the like really like That changedthe way that I thought about softwareforever. Playing that game. Because I II understood software. I liked apps. Iwas even kind of tinkering with AdobeIllustrator and just kind of makingthings and playing around. But, then Isaw Draw Something and it was so fun andit it just broke my box of what softwarecould function as and where it could fitinto my life. That was the moment for mewhere I'm like, I think I literally wantto do this for the rest of my life. Justbuild stuff like this.>> Everyone has that like the the originstory as a designer or someone in tech,

00:02:30I think. There's always that you canalways trace it back to a moment whereyou're like, "Oh." Even though I did goI did study computer science likecollege, but it was not really cuz Iwanted to be a programmer or anything.Like I I never had written any code ordidn't even know how it worked, but itwas mostly cuz like I liked technology.Just like in computers, video games, Iyou know. And it felt like, "Oh, theworld is all going to be software,right? Like it's all computers." So, Ifelt like I might just do computers liketo understand the world if that makessense. I I'm making I'm making it sounddeeper than it actually was. I'm like,"Yeah, computers, sure. I'll do that.">> [laughter]>> UmBut, it was like yeah, that first yearthat that's when I tried a Mac andthat's where I saw like indie devs, appslike from Panic and full of littledelight and Easter eggs and justhumanity was sprinkled into like I couldsee the people behind it. And before,the only other place where I saw youcould really feel the people making thethinglike the people behind the thing waslike video games.The game Metal Gear Solid, the first onefor PlayStation,where famously Hideo Kojima, he's thedirector behind that series, and he'svery much like he puts himself into it.Like I think the first title card orsomething is like a game by HideoKojima. Like this isAnd even at

00:03:45the time was like that youyou wouldn't see that in video games.Like you you wouldn't get the credits orthe actors behind like right that thatwas not a thing in video games. That's athat's a thing from movies. But no,Hideo Kojima is like no, a game by HideoKojima. I'm going to put myself intothis. This is my taste. This is my yeah,interpretation of how video game shouldbe whatever. And so in that game is fullof those moments like breaking thefourth wall just making you thinkoutside of the box. Like I'll give youtwo examples for people you know, peoplelistening to this. I think that gamemight betoo old now for Let's not date ourselvestoo much here. Okay, [laughter]PlayStation 1. You know what? We didn'teven call it a PlayStation 1 cuz therewas only one so it was a PlayStation.>> PlayStation, yep. Yeah. But that gamelike at one point you have to call thischaracter character called Meryl. Andthe game keeps telling you that you haveto call her. Like oh yeah, call Meryl,call Meryl. But you don't know herfrequency. Like you don't know how tocall her. Like you don't know hernumber. The game will not tell you andyou're stuck.Cuz you know what you have to do but youdon't know how to do it. So at somepoint I'm sure you get so frustrated andso bored and so stuck that you startlooking at the the game box and like theyou see the back of the box.And in the back there's one of thescreenshots of the game and explainingwhat the game is. In one of thescreenshots you see

00:05:00like an image of acall between you the the character andMeryl.And in that screenshot you can see thefrequency.And that's how you would know whichnumber like to call her. This would notfly nowadays. Like wait, you'repurposefully getting gamers stuck andfrustrated? You're purposefully gettingpeople frustrated? Like that's usuallysomethingeven as a as designers we avoid at allcosts, right? We don't want users to getfrustrated. Fine, this is a game not aan app or whatever a tool but but likefrustration ignited creativity for forsome. I'm sure some people dropped it.Like all right, you know what? I'm donewith this game. I can't do it. But thatmoment like so cuz when when when youget it the what you feel when you'relikeI get it.>> [laughter]>> You know, that feeling, man, is somemorable. It's forever. Here I amtelling you the story. And like there'sthis other character, second moment fromthe game, there's this other charactercalled Psycho Mantis, is a boss, reallyhard boss. And the whole thing aboutthis character is like he's he's psychicand he can he can read your mind. So ifyou're trying to shoot it or somethingit will always be one step ahead cuzit's reading your mind. And at somepoint the character says, "Here's amagic trick, place your controller on aflat surface."And you're like, "Your controller? Wait,is it It's already breaking the

00:06:15fourthwall. Like, what do you mean yourcontroller?" Because now he's talking tothe player, not the character. So youput it and then uses the rumble feature,which was new and innovative at at thetime. So by by vibrating the controllerit would move.He was like, "See, magic trick, I'mmaking your controller move." That alsoblew my mind. And then the way youdefeat this boss is you have to unplugthe controller. There were wires backthen. Um people for people listening. Uhyou have to plug in with a wire thecontroller. Anyway.So you have to unplug the controllerfrom controller one port and plug it incontroller two port and then all of asudden he couldn't read your mindanymore.>> No way.>> how you would defeat it. Do youunderstand, Red? Do you understandwhat's going on here?>> [laughter]>> The creativity, the genius, the fun, thefrustration. There's so many feelings,there's so many emotions. This is I knowvideo games, but like these things,these moments, it imprinted on me. Andlike this is what I would loveto make other people people feel usingsoftware that I designed or I made orwhatever it is I make. Like I want toinject some of that humanity, injectsome of yourself in it a little bit, becreative when you can. And just createthose moments of surprise. I know likesurprise and delight, it's a veryoverused termnowadays, but I'm just going to use itagain cuz I I don't know what else tocall

00:07:30it. But like, yeah.Little surprise, little like, "Oh wow."Or I didn't think that was possible orhow did I do that? That's cool. That'swhy I do I think what I do. Real quickmessage and then we you jump back intoit. When you're prototyping with AI, ifyou're spending time recreating [music]styles, components, and layouts fromyour actual product, I got news for you.You're probably wasting time anddefinitely not using the right tool,either. That's why I love recommendingDesyn to teams. In one click, you[music] and everyone on your team canprototype directly in your codebasewithout ever opening an IDE. Desynextracts [music]your design language and gives you theperfect sandbox to explore without anyof the technical hurdles. It's a prettybig deal, and you can connect yourcodebase and start prototyping today.Just head to dive.club/desyn. [music]That's d e s s n. It's surreal that Ican just talk to my computer before bed,and then agents [music]explore 20 different concepts on Paper'scanvas that I can review the nextmorning to pick a direction. And usingPaper to scale [music] my explorationswith AI is totally reshaping the waythat I think about my design [music]process. And in the time that it wouldtake me to make two manual iterations, Ican see a design [music] 10, 20different ways on the canvas. And

00:08:46AIalways comes up with something that Ididn't consider. [music] So, I'll justgrab my favorite parts from a handful ofconcepts, start moving things around,making little tweaks, and everything>> [music]>> that the canvas is really good at. Andthen, when I'm ready, I can just tellClaude or Codex to build the selectedframe, and [music] there's nothing lostin translation because Paper's canvasalready uses HTML and CSS. And Paper hastruly taken my design process to thenext [music] level. I cannot recommendit enough. Just head to dive.club/paperto start [music] designing today. Now,onto the episode. I want to tap intothis concept of you chasing that throughyour career. Like, it's obviously playeda big role. Maybe before we go intothat, though, I'm curious if you'veexperienced that with any productsrecently. Maybe something that feels alittle little more like a traditional,you know, digital product just to helppeople wrap their head around what thisactually could look like. And then maybefrom there we can then talk about, okay,like how have you pursued that? But doesanything come to mind where you playedit or used a product for the first timeand you go, "Oh, wow, this this didsomething for me." There's this new appthat's designed for you to track theposition of the sun and like where thelight is coming from. Oh, interesting.Like say that if you want to do

00:10:01like ifyou're doing your like a shoot like amovie or production, whatever, TV, andyou need to know like at what time ofday where is the sun coming. And the wayyou like interact with this UI isthere's a lot of like gyroscope motionstuff and it's a super cool UI that youwouldn't really expect and everything isreally polished. So I'm going to putI'm going to send you the links. Twoexamples that come to mind. One is maybea little bit easier because it is veryvery um consumer, almost more game-like,but have you ever played with the Tolenapp? Maybe a long shot.>> No.Okay, so Tolen, t o l e n, is this AIcompanion, but it's it's cute. Thebranding's amazing. And they turned itinto this game where you're kind ofbuilding this world together. And Idon't know, I saw it enough times whereI was like, I'm just going to downloadthis and play with it. And the initialexperience of this app is unbelievablebecause theythrow you so deep into this world andyou're talking with this Oracle who'slike understanding who you are as aperson and then you meet this new friendandeverything about it is sensational. I dothink there is, you know, playing inthat level of consumer is a little biteasy mode because you can take morerisks. But another example that I thinkis interesting is we've continually hadthis raising

00:11:16of the bar for onboardingexperiences for new browsers. So likeArc browser's onboarding experience wascrazy. Like that was crazy. And thenthey, you know, had to one-up themselveswith the app, but then Comet came outwith Perplexity and like you have thethe space overlay on your Mac when youhave all the sound effects and theplanets and it's like oh oh. Okay, likethat was a cool 20 seconds where theydidn't need to do any of that, but Ifelt it for sure. Interesting that likebrowsers became the space to do that.Like the Right. unboxing experience. Themost commodified tool ever.Yeah. [laughter]Cuz well you need to stand out, right?And then that first impression. I'msurprised that we don't do more of this.I mean I also know and learned the hardway why we don't. But like even when Iwas at Sketch, I did prototyping, playedaround with some ideas, but like youdon't want to hijack their computer. Youdon't want to play sounds that can bevery intrusive. You don't want likethere's a lot of reasons why youshouldn't do it, but there's also somereasons why you should. And like who'smaking that call, right? In the worldwhere I feel like you design foreveryone, right? You have to take intoall kinds of users, which is great.Like I'm not saying we shouldn't. It'sit's it's good. Accessibility-wise andjust like be aware of every type of userthat might be interacting with us.But at the same time if you try togeneralize so much,

00:12:32then it's harder to do those more liketargeted experiences if you will. AtRetro, I worked on like the little Idon't know if you call it unboxing, butwe would play a little video withhaptics and stuff with the first timeyou would launch it. It was very muchlike targeted to a type of audience.It's like a slideshow of pictures likeemotionally charged a little bit withlike a message going through and thenthere's a haptic that you feel it withevery new picture in the slideshow. Andthen like the whole thing is likenowadays the world is full of ads andand slop and AI and reels and whateverand then we lose some of the likespecial moments with friends, family,things that matter. This is the type ofthe message. And it starts like veryfast. So and because of the haptics youcan feel the fast pace of it. And thenas it goes it slows downto kind of communicate that thing likehey, let's slow down in this worldthat's very noisy and very fast. Let'sslow down andget back to like essentials or whatmatters or whatever. I think it was itwas a neat idea. I think it's cool. Iliked it. I think people see this maybelike, "That's neat." Great.But also, you're introducing like a10-second videobefore showing them theyou know, the sign up button.

00:13:47>> [laughter]>> And there's a lot of reasons why peoplejust drop. And they did, by the way.Like just a little insight. Finally,this guy is saying something useful forpeople listening.Um where are the lessons? Hi, I'm Rafa.Um I'm here in this podcast and it's agreat honor.And uh Reed has has had a bunch ofbrilliant, brilliant, smart guests. Andnow it's my turn. It's my turn to likeground a little bit this podcast andhave the audience finally connect andlike relate to, "Oh yeah,he's not that smart. That's nice. I cansee myself in this podcast." Anyway. So,we do this video and we test it. Andum I think we lost like 20% or 30% ofsign-ups for people you know, who wouldsee the video first. And it's like itmakes sense. But like, all right, butsure sign-ups, but what about at the endof the onboarding? Meaning,maybe a lot of people drop, but wouldthose people drop anyways during theonboarding flow or no? And then thenumbers get a little bit softer and it'snot that big of an impact. Um and thenwe didn't really do much in-depthtesting and whatever. We don't know whatkind of users would we get out of thisthing. But suffice to say like, ofcourse, you're going to play a videobefore. At that time was like you had totap and hold to skip. Cuz I didn't wantto people like accidentally tapping andskipping.

00:15:03Cuz I worked a lot on thisvideo and I want people to see it. Ofcourse, everyone wants to see this,right? Why would you want to skip it?It's beautiful. Stop. But yeah, no, so alot of people dropped and like, allright, well, let's make it easyeasier to to skip maybe.Then if you really don't want to watchthis, you don't have to quit the app.You can just tap. And that helped. Andthen like actually we we were playingthe sound regardless of your like themute switch state whatever in the phonecuz I'm like we only have oneopportunity to show this video and thesoundtrack kind of plays a big role inhow it makes you feel and all. So Ireally I didn't want to risk people notlistening cuz I as a user my phone is onsilent like all the time. Constantly,yeah. So if I'm designing for myselflike oh I as a user would be bummed if Ididn't cuz how would you even know therewas sound? And then we like we maybesoftened that up and actually like wewould respect the mute switch. A greatexperience that I think for people whowould appreciate this it would make abig impact but also has a big impact oneverything else. And there's a reasonwhy Apple doesn't do the video anymorewhen you open your Mac cuz like heythere's people who buy these computersfor like massive organizations andcompanies and we have to set up 200 ofthese.And if I have to wait 10 minutes towatch a video every time I open

00:16:18one toset it up like come on, right? So if youtry to design for everyonethen it's harder to make these things.It's harder to like Hideo Kojima andwhen he was doing Metal Gear Solid if ifthe goal was like you have to do themainstream game that everyone is goingto love and everyone's going to beat itand it's going to be the greatest gameever for the masses then he couldn't dothose things. You can't purposefully getplayers stuck and frustrated, right? Youknow what I mean?So I feel like that's why nowadays likebefore you would see more like bigcompanies doing these risks and now thebig companies cannot afford to makethese bigger risks and that's why we seeit in the in smaller in the shopssmaller devs that can make the riskslike my own side projects are full ofthese little things that I don't reallydo in my day job, right? Or do at at anot as much or not as intensely cuz thepressure is off. And then like it's fineif if I lose 10% of my user base. Ithink there's a middle ground too that'skind of interesting like one of thelessons that I internalized from one ofthe co-founders at Maven years ago,where especially as a designer thatskews slightly more technical, like Isee all the edge cases. I see all of thedifferent personas. I see all of theways that an experience could besuboptimal for this specific type ofperson in this specific type of state,and

00:17:33it's really easy tolet those not happy pathslike lower the ceiling of what theexperience can be for the people that wereally care about in the persona thatwe're really optimizing for.And I think I've had to almost unlearnsome of that a little bit, where I'mlike, "No, no, no.I'm okay not ignoring That's a That's astrong word, you know, but downplayingthe impact for this 1% of state or this1% of users, if it means that I cancreate something that's really specialfor the people that I want to make sureare sticky and love the product. Andmaybe that does mean adding a little bitmore friction if I feel confident that Ican create this feeling that is goingto, you know, build affinity withwhatever I'm making or something likethat. There's a lot of lessons that Ijust internalized from my early days asa designer building software. Like,don't make users scroll or whatever.Don't like labels everywhere. And allthese things are great and good lessons,cuz you're making software moreaccessible. At the same time,people are they're more used tocomputers than new users as they were 20years ago. Some of these things I I'vebeen trying to, like you said, likeunlearn. Cuz like, "Oh, no, people havetoswipe horizontally. They don't know how.We have to put pagination." Or whatever.And then you test it if you want,

00:18:48andthen you realize, "Oh, no, no, peopleare people know how to scroll. They'llscroll."Like it's it's it's fine. Apple removedthe home indicator little grabber thing,right? From from in iOS 16. Can youimaginebeing like the designer in me like, "Oh,no, but how would will people know?">> It's such a good example. You're right.And they did that for billions ofpeople. Yeah, but at the scale at thatscale. And I'm sure people at Apple willhave the stats to back this up. I'm surethey've tested it cuz they they're not acompany that takes those big risks. Nobacklash. I haven't heard a singleperson, like real person, like notdesigners on Twitter. I haven't heard asingle person be like,"Oh no.>> [laughter]>> I don't know now I don't know how to togo back, you know?" I wonder if therewas a drop off in the beginning, though.You know, there had to be some moment offrustration, but they were like, "Youknow what? We know this is going to be alearning curve,but people bet on people's ability tofigure it out, and we know that thiswill be a better experience. We knowthat this is going to raise the ceiling,so we're going to do it anyway, even ifthere is like a lull or a period offrustration." I love that example. Ihaven't thought about that in a longtime, cuz that was a big decision. Yeah,and so some of those assumptions that Ijust grew up with, like I have tochallenge myself a little bit, and liketrust the user a little bit more. And asI'm saying this, I'm just like it

00:20:04hurtson the inside cuz it goes againsteverything I've ever like taught or likelearned, andyou know, like no, make it more and moreaccessible all the time. And I still toa certain extent I agree to that, butalso but trust him a little bit. Usersaren't all that dumb, right? And to goback to Hideo Kojima Metal Gear Solid,trust that they'll look in the back ofthe case at some point when thefrustration is real. Mhm. Can we getlike really deep on the retro onboardinghere for a second? Because Yeah.I think your haptic ideais kind of genius, actually. And I thinkthere's a lot of really good design, atleast in my head when I'm like ideating,it's like, "Oh, this is going tolook or feel beautiful." But I thinkwhat is inspiring to me, listening toyou talk, isyou were designing from this core orlike root realization that you wantedpeople to have in that moment, like theactual slowing down. Like there was likea physical response, almost, that youwere trying to create in the design,which I think is so interesting.Like how quickly [laughter] did youarrive there? Like can we just use thatas a way to look at some of yourcreative process and how you're eventhinking about going from, you know, theblank canvas of what do we want to dohere to where you landed? Yeah, I'llprove that there's no genius here atall. Like I started with

00:21:19I'll do aslideshow because one, it's easy to dolike technically. Second, like I knew Iwanted haptics just cuz it not because Iwasn't at that point I was not like cuzI want to make people feel the thing.That was more like cuz it makes it moredynamic and haptics are fun.makes it more interesting than just avideo. So it started from there like Iokay, slideshow cuz it's easy and I cando it and haptics cuz whatever. And thenalso if I were to make a video and playa video file, then it would be so hardto like sync the haptics with a video.Maybe there's a way I don't know how todo that so it's just like I'll I'll dowhat I can what I know how to do.So that's why like I settled onslideshow. And then slideshow as I likelooked at a bunch of slideshows in likead campaigns and stuff from like theyuse this slideshow format cuz I wastrying to like deconstruct it. My firsttake was like way too much motion and Ihad like a little Ken Burns effect andall that stuff. And I realized that it'stoo much. And then I just analyzed likestudied a bunch of other slideshows andad campaigns and I realized like ohactually no, there's no transition,there's no fades between the photos. No,it's justsnap snap snap, very easy. I do a slightKen Burns on the whole thing so not perphoto but the whole animation has a slowlike zoom. I started there and then Idid the haptics. And then I realizedwith the haptics

00:22:34that I was actuallyfeeling the pacing of the slideshow ofthe video. And then like I was doing,you know, we have a daily call witheveryone on the team and I was showingthem and we had builds and people wereplaying it and trying them.I'm pretty sure it was one of myco-workers. I don't know if it was Shawnor Cheryl but someone was like werealized that we were feeling the pacingand then we're like going over the storycuz at that point I only had the scriptand I think one of them suggested likehey, it would be nice if we start fasterand then we go slower. And then it alljust fell into place a little bit. So,it was not I didn't have the whole ideaand whole vision right at the start. Itwas like, "I'll start doing the things Iknow how to do." And slowly, like, "Oh,yeah, that would be cool and doable. Oh,yeah, that would be nice." Andeverything was kind of like everything'slike a little accident of the process.Once we figured out the thing of likestarting fast, ending slow, slowingdown, then a lot of design decisionsaround it had that as like the goal.Then, everything became easier. So, forexample, when it was time for me to dothe soundtrack, which is a very shortlittle thing, but I started with likestreet noise. So, at the top of thevideo, you hear the the the it's like alittle piano thing, which is like initself a calming sound, piece of music,

00:23:49but then I added a bunch of street noiseand like>> Mhm. I think it was like at a restaurantor something. It just went on like, Idon't know,copyright like just free sounds I coulduse. Like, yeah, I people talking andstuff. And then, I would like slow thatdown a little bit. And then, halfwaythrough the video, you don't hear anyany of that. Which pairs really nicelywith the slowing down as well visuallywith the slideshow. The physical aspectof it with the haptics and now the soundlike the sound is also kind of slowingdown, focusing on the music and likeremoving noise. So, once you got thatmotif, that like metaphor, everythingelse was just working around that and itfell into place. And the whole thing isquite short. It's like, I think I don'tthink even like 7 seconds or something.I forget. No genius. It's like, "I'lljust start with what I know how to do."Talk to people. Get other ideas. Andthen, everything kind of falls intoplace. I like that it started with thehaptics, too. Like, you didn't startfrom a problem-solving or uh, you know,"How do I make this flow efficient?"It's like, "Man, wouldn't it be cool ifthis thing buzzed and vibrated in myhand? How could I use that?" And then,you got to that place. And and also,like, so often I mean, that's myexperience, too. It's like, maybe I'llspend days in search of the motif. Andthen, you find the motif and theneverything just unravels from there.There's so much momentum in everydirection. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Can wego a little bit deeper into

00:25:04Retro for asecond? I feel like it were winding, butI love this product. Actually, I I'mcurious. Thank you. Me, too. Maybe alittle bit.Why'd you join? Give us a bit of contextfor it, but I'm really interested in,you know, your role specifically becauseI know you kind of have this hybrid setof skills, so I'm interested to see whatthat looks like in a, you know, daily,weekly practice. I was looking aroundfor a new job, a new thing to do. I wasfortunate enough that like I was talkingto some companies and products that Ijust use and adore, and they're great,but usually all of them were like bigcompany. I've never done the big companything. And I was convinced that likethis is my time to do the big companything a little bit.Based on the people I was I was talkingto, and based on also just like thestate of the industry. It's not a goodtime to look for a job. It's tough outthere. So, I was not getting picky oranything. I was also considering veryrealistically just doing my own stuffand going indie, which isalso very It's It's a big risk, and it'svery scary. And I feel like I have beenconsidering this for years and years.And I feel like with every new jobsearch, I'm like, "Could it be now?" Andso, I was weighing these two. Either Igo big company or go the other oppositeand like, "Let me doindie stuff."

00:26:20And then, the people atRetro approached me. And I have been auser of I've been using that app sincethey started like in TestFlight way backI think 3 years ago-ish. Retro is like awhat Instagram used to be. It's a It's aprivate social network for friends andfamily. There's no ads, there's noinfluencers, there's there's nothing.It's like a really small, closed socialnetwork for friends and family to sharejust your day-to-day. Again, whatInstagram used to be, but now you openInstagram and you're likefall down the hole of Reels and ads, andyou know, you blink and an hour haspassed. Like, what did what whathappened? And also, where are myfriends? I haven't seen the same pictureof friends. Anyway, so that's what Retrois. And I've I've been just such a bigfan for so long. When they reached out,I was so stoked to also learn more aboutthe company cuz I knew nothing. I don'tthink I knew anyone working there, youknow, behind the company, behind theproduct. So, then I got to know them andit's a very small team. Think six orseven. Idon't know. Complete opposite end of thespectrum from the big company that youwere considering.>> it was like what it's one of the fewlike feel-good apps that I that I usegenuinely on day to day. It was alsolike a similar reason why I joinedSketch. Like, an app that I justabsolutely adore and I use.

00:27:35So, it waslike the same the same motivation. Like,this is an app that I like. It's a goodproduct to exist in the world. Makes theworld a little bit better, I think. Andthen I also discovered that the teamitself, they don't just do Retro.They're trying to build a littleportfolio of apps. They're like an appstudio, if you will. And Retro is a goodapp. But they recently also shipped theybuilt this appcalled Splat. Team they were trying tolike play around with generative AI andlike just learn a bit and and so Splatisis an app for iPad and iPhone as well,but you you select a picture or liketake a picture of your kids and stuffand it with generative AI creates like acoloring book coloring thing for kids.And you can just like have the kidscolor in the app itself or how I use it,I just print it.So, I just take a picture of my kids orlike they pick a funny photo and wecreate a little like cartoon version ofit that they can color. And again, oneof those apps that are like feels good.It's a nice It's a nice thing. Andbecause it's designed a little bit forkids, no dark patterns, no weird, youknow, upsells and ads and stuff. Feelsvery simple. Like, very genuine withoutthe pressure and burden of like designfor scale and for business and for allthat.So, anyway, so here comes Retro and and

00:28:51this team and they're like right in themiddle. They're not a big company, butthey're also not going indie, but it'sdoing the type of apps and the type ofwork that I think I would generally likewant to do on my free time if I had theresources and time.So, it felt really nice. And then afterI got to meet everyone, like everyone'sjust a great team. So, it was ano-brainer for me to to join. And I'vebeen there forI joined in February, so 3 months. We'reWe're six or seven people. We don'treally have titles, but I think I'm aI'm a design engineer. That's myofficial That's That's what's in thecontract. It's the hot buzz word rightnow, anyway.>> Yeah.They're like, all right, this guy knowshow to code. And it was funny cuz itchanged even from the time I was talkingto people, like getting to know the teamand it was interviewing. And by the timeI actually joined and started working,it already changed in the sense thatlike we have this other productdesigner, Shawn, who at the time when Iwould talk to to them, they were like,"Yeah, I mean, we do primarily like IFigma and stuff, but I've been more andmore like with AI, like working onbuilding prototypes and stuff." Andthat's where he was at At least that'sThat's the impression I got at the firsttime I spoke to him, like, "Oh, okay,he's a more of a traditional productdesigner who does mostly like Figmastuff." But now with these AI tools,he's doing more and more prototypes incode. Cool. And then also spoke toCheryl, who was like she's been doing alot of the marketing stuff

00:30:06and alsodoing some of the product design.But first time I spoke with her, she wasnot doing really anything with code. Atleast that's the impression I got. Andright now, everyone's doing everything.>> [laughter]>> Cuz I thought, "Oh, I'm going to be theguy that's designer who knows the how tocode." And now it's like, "No, everyoneknows how to code." Kind of. We're allusing AI tools. We're all you buildingprototypes in code. Sometimes I build aprototype directly in the main app, likethe code base. Sometimes I create alittle separate like you know, projects,Xcode projects for prototypes. But likeShawn, who was like, "Yeah, I'm startingto do some prototypeswith AI." Now like the the most recentfeature the the recap stickers, he builtmost of it. Like the actual code thatthat went into like production code. Andnow Cheryl is also doing a bunch ofprototypes and building like opening PRsand stuff with some cool productfeatures. It It's It's It's fascinatingto see.Also tricky to navigate cuz like we seethe risks. Sometimes we try toincorporate a whole prototype intoproduction like actuallyYeah. It's quite buggy and hard tonavigate and it's a bit messy. So we'relearning and like two steps forward, onestep back sometimes. Even myself likewhat I do when I have an idea and I haveto think, am I going

00:31:21to do a Figma thingor am I going to do like a separateprototype in code or am I going to gotry and build thisin a separate branch directly in theapp? It's more like what's going to befaster? That's usually my go-to.Especially in early exploration phaseslike where the goal is to communicatesomething. So sometimes the Figma thingis faster. But also not a lot of times.I think the the fastest I'm at least themost efficient that I'm at is like in aseparate isolated code project, youknow, new Xcode project. That's my sweetspot. But sometimes I'm like, "Actually,I need like real data or I need otherfeatures of the app to work with this."And sometimes it is just faster to likecreate a new branch of the main app andjust pull from there. Whatever I decideto go, whatever the flow the process, itends for me it ends with usually avideo. It's like a medium productionlittle video that I share on Slack. CuzI feel like when you are working onsomething, you have the vision like youknow what you're trying to do. I hopeso. But you have the idea. The goal isto communicate this idea as cleanly asyou can to someone else. Cuz you thinkit's awesome. So if you just do aperfect transfer of idea without losinganything, the other person is going tothink it's awesome as well. That's theideal

00:32:37thing. And for me, I realize thatthe video is my most effective way oftransferring an idea from one person toanother. It's the the the format thatthere'sthe least loss of information around it.Cuz like if I just do a static mock-up,here's a picture. There's a lot missingthat might not make the transfer, right?You know what I mean?If it's like a little video, there'smotion, there's like a little prototype.All right, now we're you'recommunicating more, communicating outthe flow, communicatinganimation if there's some, right? You'redoing more. If you do a whole prototypeand you send them a building like tryit. Okay, you're doing more,communicating more. But for me, thevideo is like I can show you things, Ican talk over it and just verbally tellyou all the things that you should focuson and what's important. I cancommunicate excitement in the new pairthat with like a very lightupbeat soundtrack or cool whateverwhatever it is.>> You You add soundtracks to it? Oh, dude,yeah. I do like a little mini Okay, weget it.Okay, go go deeper here. What makes agood video? Talk about what is includedin here cuz I've never added asoundtrack, but now I'm very interested.>> Oh, these are like the guidelines that Ihave to follow when I'm making one ofthese. It has to be like under 10minutes. That's a rule cuz people arenot going to sit down and like watch a30-minute video on Slack. Under 10,ideally

00:33:53five. That's like the the bestlittle nugget I'll I'll sit through afive-minute video. If it's aeight-minute video, I'm likemaybe I'll I'll watch it later when Ihave more time, you know? It's not as>> I'll turn it up to 1.5 on it if it'seight minutes.>> [laughter]>> So you do that, it's a short video. Youdo the soundtrack just becauseespecially if there's a lot of talking,if it's just talking, it's more boring.Like there's no If you add a littlesoundtrack upbeat thing, it keeps itinteresting. And also if you're like saythat you're talking about one point andthen you move to another point, you do alittle soundtrack change. And now theperson just feels like, "Okay, now it'sa new thing." Like now it's a differentthing. It feels different. And then youadd some humor, you make some jokes, youmake it funny to watch. And if it'sfunny, people will want to watch it cuzit's entertaining. Ultimately, it'sthat. Make it entertaining. They'repaying attention. Like they want toconsume this. They want to see this.It's It's funny. It's cool. Makesomething that it's interesting, funny,and hopefully communicates the idea verywell. Like if I have this idea for afeature, don't just design the featureand share mock-ups. Don't just make aprototype and do a screen recording ofyou using the feature. Make an ad,right? Like ooh, that's good.>> Sellthis idea. If you're making like a newfeature that it's like, "Oh, this wouldbe so cool."Show someone

00:35:08using it. Make it lookcool. If it's something that like, "Oh,I think this would be very emotional andlike people really appreciate it." Youmake this app for parents andgrandparents. Oh, make it emotional.Like I went back to like drop the the upPixar's up on the soundtrack, you know?Na na na na na na na na na na na na nana na na na na na na na na na na Oh,man. You're going to make me tear up.>> [laughter]>> Yeah. That that little piano pianocomposition thing. Like that itself,it's going to create invoke emotion inyou. Yeah. And maybe it's a cheap shot,but like Hey. you know.>> Whatever works.>> Sell it. And so you might think like,"That's great, but I don't know how todo video and that sounds like a lot ofwork." It might, but for me it's not andit's not cuz like, "Oh, cuz I'm so goodat it." It's cuz like you do it a bunchof times and then it's it becomes easierand like you just fake it and hack it.Like it doesn't need to be perfect, butlike just make it scrappy. Make it whichcan make it even more funny, you know?Anyway, I'm just saying that's somethingI I still don't see a lot. I think it'svery underutilized, but as designers,we're always trying to sell ideas andcommunicate ideas. And if you haven'tbeen using videos as a way to sellthose, try it. One thing that Dive Clubhas made abundantly clear to me over thelast year is that the practice of designis changing. And the old process ofgetting feedback just doesn't quite cut[music] it in today's world.

00:36:24That's whyI'm excited to announce that Inflight isofficially in open beta. It's thefeedback tool that I've always wantedand it's built for a world that moves atthe speed of AI. So, I can share myprototypes, give context in videowalkthroughs, and InFlight makes it easyto get the exact feedback that I need tomove forward, whether it's voting ondirections or maybe even getting thegreen light to ship a new idea. [music]And all of this is available in a singlelink that I can drop into Slack or maybeeven [music] share with power users totest out a new prototype. I use InFlightevery day and it's totally transformedthe way that I share work. So, I'mexcited for [music] you to try theproduct and if you ever want to jamabout it, just email me atrid@inflight.co. [music]I love that and it ties back tosomething that was like honestly one ofthe first probably 30 episodes I didthat I still think about where GabeValdivia talked about how the bestdesigners are almost like little TikTokcreators inside of their orgs. And yougot to entertain people in order to getyou like, you know, buy-in for yourideas. And it's like one of thoseskills that doesn't feel like it fitsinside of the boundary lines of what adesigner should be responsible for orhow we should think about our our craftand our practice. But if you lean intoit, it's like really, really valuable.And yet, I don't know, I don't hear alot

00:37:39of people I I think it is, like yousaid, it's radically underutilized. Andwe talk a lot about, well, you know,frame the problem, you know, give goodcontext. Like, yes, totally. But how canyou make things entertaining, you know,music, humor? I think that'sfascinating. For somebody who isinspired, who's like, all right, I'mgoing to try this, they have no ideawhat like tools do you even use? Like,how does how does somebody think aboutthe very first video? For screenrecordings and stuff, for doing like aquick screen recording, I'll useScreenFlow, mostly. Even going one stepback, if it's something just verysimple, very quick, and I'm not doingsoundtracks or anything,I'm just recording the screen to showlike a prototype or whatever. I'll uselike CleanShot. I'll just, you know,just record the screen. But then,CleanShot has thisfeature for you to like add your cameraas a like picture in picture littlecircle of your your camera. Which helpsif you see your face. It helps insteadof just like avoice in the background.But, that's not very funny orentertaining. So, what I do is I don'tuse those. I just use I open HandMirror. It's a great app. You shouldeveryone should download it. I feel likeit's one of the best apps.>> I think Hand Mirror might be one of thegreatest apps ever made. Yeah.Absolutely. Absolutely a legend. Umanyway, I use Hand>> [laughter]>> Maybe people don't I mean, I'm I'mjoking. I mean, I don'tI'm not We'll get you at the next

00:38:54question. Just keep going. You're doinggreat.>> Anyway, [laughter] so what I do is Iopen Hand Mirror and you have a littlewindow and I just like I drag the windowin the frame that I'm recording, right?I drag it in. I resize it. Even just theway you start the video. If you start avideo saying like"Hey everyone, so I want to show youthis prototype that I made." That's oneway you can go about it. You can do itthat way. But, you can also do likestart recording the screen and thendraglike a video Hand Mirror window withyourself in it. Drag it in frame andsay, "Ooh,hey. I want to show you the prototype ofthe you know, it's kind of silly. Youhave to be comfortable with being a bitsilly being a bit It's okay. Peoplewon't make fun of you." Do somethinglike that which is a bit more scrappy,but it kind of makes it it makes it abit a different more entertaining again.But, yeah. So, I use some of the likeCleanShot ScreenFlow for some basic likeediting after the fact after I record ascreen.But, then I use Keynote a lot to justuse my phone to record I do B-roll. LikeI've I've noticed like So, if you go onmy Twitter and you see the the video ofthat retro intro that I we just talkedabout. I realized that if you show likeascreen recording of the video, it hassome emotional weight.But, if you record someone holding thephone and seeing the same content, ithits different.Mhm. It's more real. So, a lot

00:40:09of times,most of the times actually, instead ofyou recording say the simulator on thescreen,I'll load it on my device. I hold mydevice and I record me using the thingat like a slight angle. This makes it abit more real. It's one thing to showwhat a character is looking at. It'sanother just to show the character'sface reacting to what they're seeing.And it carries a different weight. Thoselittle tips like I would do a lot ofb-roll. I do a lot of like me using theapp. Speaking of like making an ad, butif I'm trying to say like, "Okay, soimagine you come home from work and yousit at your desk and you open this app."I'll record myself coming in and sittingat my desk and opening the app.>> No way. Just so you can see that asyou're That's cool. As I'm saying it,you see it also. Again, makes it a bitmore entertaining. So yeah, use yourphone, record some video, record videosof your phone. Yeah, and then do littleedits. I use Final Cutcuz I'm a boomer. I'm not a boomer, butI'm Sometimes I feel like one. Um Youkeep trying to date yourself.>> [laughter]>> I'm not that old, but I do feel veryold, so right? So every time I say I'mnot that old, I have to I feel very old.We started talking about leopard. That'show we opened this podcast. Yes, youstarted>> [laughter]>> What is it? Snow leopard? I'm like,"No." No, I'm older than that. Oh man.Let's talk about Han Mirror and thebucket of personal

00:41:24projects becausewe've talked a lot about your personalexpression and software and creatingthings that make people feel somethingand how much of a motivating factorthat's been in your career. And I thinkyou've had a lot of opportunities toreally lean into that because you'reyou're designing for kind of yourself insome ways. So, are there examples frompersonal products that we could kind ofgo deep into to really look at likegiven this desire to create softwarethat makes people feel something and andandadds that like surprise and delight thatis a reflection of even who you are asthe creator. What does that look like inpractice? Are there places or thingsthat you've made where you're like,"Yeah, this is where I really reachedfor that feeling?" It's one thing thatI'm still trying to figure out. I don'tknow what the answer is. If I somehowknew that no one is going to see mywork, if it would look different or not,I don't know the answer.>> Interesting. Yeah.>> know that likeall the little apps that I make on theside, all of my side projects, I startwith the assumption that no one's goingto use this. They're usually very niche.And 100% started as me scratching my ownitch. Like II want an app that does this. So, Istart building it. And right from thestart, I start building it already withlike, yeah, but I'll make an app out ofit. LikeI'll I'll distribute it. I'll put it inthe

00:42:39store. Like it it's going to be aproduct, but it always starts with Ineed it. I want this app to exist.Sometimes they already exist, but likebut differently. So, like, yeah, I know,maybe there's already apps that open thecamera, but like I feel like I can makeit even simpler. I want to do it I wantit to work in a certain way. The journeylike building the thing is fun. Andmaking it funnier [snorts] and more moreentertaining as the process of buildingit it's kind of like my like my mycurrency, my fuel. Like if I don't wantit, I don't want to build something, Idon't have the motivation and energy.Either I won't do it or I'll do a badjob at it. So, I need to find ways thatwould make me motivated, excited to docertain things.And like Hand Mirror is by far my mostpopular side project. It's the the onlyone that really like broke out of thelittle like nerd circle>> [laughter]>> that I'm in. It started as like justduring COVID, I was I wanted to check mycamera before joining video calls.And nowadays Zoom and Google Meet andall of that like I think they they havethis feature where you before joining ina call you can see your camera feed. Butat the time that was that didn't exist.Uh was it because of Hand Mirror? Whoknows? No one knows.No.Um but so I wanted to check my cameraand I was opening Photo Booth.So, I use

00:43:54Raycast or Spotlight at thetime and I'll do p h oeventually Photo Booth would appear. Iwould hit enter.Spotlight and those type of apps learnfrom your behavior. So, if you do p hand then you hit and you select PhotoBooth,it'll promote that to the top spot. So,every time you do PH, Photo Booth isthere.But, I don't want Photo Booth to be thetop spot. I want Photos. Like, that's Ifyou do PH, my brain's like, "ExpectPhotos."So, I was annoyed at that fact thatPhoto Booth has been used so often.>> [laughter]>> And like, "I don't want to do this."So, I'm like, "I want to build a thingthat you click a button in the menu barand you see your camera." That was it.And I built that before AI, y'all. I didthis by hand.>> [laughter]>> Uh anyway, it was a very It's thesimplest app possible. This is like aThis is like a little demo project,really. It was so simple, in fact, thatwhen I submitted to the App Store, itgot rejected cuz it said, "It's toosimple of an app. You need to add morestuff." No way. Yeah, okay. I was like,"Okay, I don't know what else to add it.Like, this is the app. I don't" So, itwas not in the App Store when I launchedit. I just put it on the website. Andthen, because COVID and because I don'tknow, The Verge picked it up and wroteabout it. And then, it blew up. Andafter

00:45:10the fact, I was like, "All right,I really want to put it in the App Storecuz I didn't even build like a way ofupdating the app. So, then I added somemore stuff. I added an about page and asettings page and I kind of like came upwith forced myself to have settings. So,I had like little icons, differenticons, or whatever.And then, apparently that was enough forApple to like allow it in the App Store.This is like the simplest app possibleand there's not much for you to playaround with. But, I'm like, "Okay, I Ihave an about page.What should I do in the about page?Well, it should be the icon and the nameand the version name and then like Yeah,but let's let me add some like credits."So, you'll like "Created by" and"Special thanks to" and all that stuff.And then, the app icon was like a littlemirror with likethe Photo Booth curtain. That was That'swhy we had the red curtain. And Ithought, "Wouldn't it be nice if here Ican move the curtain and then you couldsee yourself in the app icon cuz it's amirror."So, I'd do like the camera view fromthere. And so, you do And then you doit. And then you're like, "Yeah, that'sfunny." I mean, it's a little thing, butyou're like, "Yeah, that's cool."And then like, "Hey, wouldn't it befunny if like I designed myself into acorner where like if you unlocked HandMirror Plus, which everyone should do."Actually, one of the best things for mycareeris when you I unlocked Hand Mirror Plus.That was Yeah, everyone should do it, Ithink.>> I'm proud to say that I did it. I didit. I did

00:46:25it.>> Of course, and that's why you're one ofthe greats.>> What's um This third reason. Anyway, soI I my I designed myself into a cornerwhere I put that as a toggle. So, likeif you subscribe, it turns on thetoggle. And then I thought, "Oh, wait,butyou can't unsubscribe."So,I was lazy also. I'm very lazy, so Idon't want to design something else. So,I I was like, "Hey, maybe the toggle ifyou try to turn it off, it shakes andsays, 'No, sorry, you can't do that.'"So, that's what I did. I was like, "Ifyou try it, it just shakes and says,'Sorry, no take-backsies. Like you youhave it.'"So, a lot of these little things like,"Hey,wouldn't it be funny? Just do it." Doit. In a side project in that type oflike no pressure, who cares, do it. Whenit was time for me to come up with aname for the unlockable Hand Mirror orwhatever,I was like, "Hand Mirror Plus, HandMirror Plus" cuz everyone's doing theplus or Hand Mirror Pro, right? Butshould it be plus or like the plus signor the word plus? And I was just I don'tknow. And then I I I wanted to test inthe UI, so like I built the thing whereif you clicked on it, it would switchthe the string, the label. So, I just Icould look at it and and I'm like,"Well, that's kind of funny." And thenAnd then I added more like Hand MirrorUltra, Hand Mirror Plus Plus, HandMirror What I I just started

00:47:40adding moreand more. And then if you clicked on it,it would switch the labels. Like, "Oh,that actually that could that would befunny if people could switch the name."And then I I gotWhat else in the app do I show the nameHand Mirror Plus? So, then I Everywherein the app if you click on the label, itchanges the name. And then I Hand Mirror3000, hand mirror 3000, whatever I cancome up with. That's good.>> Um I was watching 30 Rock, so like handmirror rural juror. I don't know if youknow that.>> [laughter]>> Like whatever. If I think it was likejust a tiny bit like a little bit funny,add it. So these things like it justmakes the process of building it a biteasier. It's a bit more entertaining.Even if it's just cuz then you can liketake a screenshot and tweet about it.That's funny. So totally do it. If youthink like wouldn't it be funny, do it.Just Just do it. Why not?>> Yeah. It's one of the things that makesme so excited about the era that we'rein right now is you see way moredesigner side projects because youdidn't have to earn the ability with theyears of coding under your belt and evenif you have no idea how any of it works,you can still kind of make something. Soyou have this surface area where you cando the kind of personal expressionbecause I remember gosh, I don'tremember what I would have been using.Maybe it was hand mirror. I can'tremember when I found your stuff. Butthen I was like who is this guy? Andthen I clicked through to your website

00:48:55and it's you likeleaning over the uh the hero section andlike waving and trying to like shoo meon. I'm like, you know what? This isfunny. Humor is a big part of a userexperience, you know? Like it's We don'tthink about it. It's like humor isn't UXdesign. It's like no, no, actually thisis like a core tenant of a lot of yourside projects and it's what makes themgood in many ways. To go all the wayback, look at us professionals,podcasters, and the tying up everything.To go back to the beginning, doingsomething that makes people feelsomething. If you do something that isfunny and makes people laugh, I mean notnecessarily out loud, but if you'relike, huh?That is a feeling. Like findingsomething funny makes you feel like it'sfunny and that's one one way of makingpeople feel it, feel your work, feelsomething. And if you make people feelsomething, it's way more memorable. Youwill remember the things that made youfeel a certain way.Not necessarily the things that like, ohman, it was such a fast workflow thatapp 10 years ago, remember?">> [laughter]>> No, you don't.And I'm not saying that those thingsaren't important, they are veryimportant, but like the emotion, thatwill stay. The thing on my website,again, I designed myself into a corneragain, cuz now I people liked it and nowI don't

00:50:11I don't have a better idea. Youcan't change it.>> I I had the green screen cuz a friend ofmine sent me a green screen to uhMarissa, I want to give her a shout-outcuz she we worked together at Netlifyand one day she sent me a green screenand changed my life. Anyway, so then Idid that and and like, "Well, since I'mhere and I say hi, what else am I goingto do? How do I leave, right? Or do Iloop this video?" That's That's It'snever nice to see a looping video. Sothen I did like, "Okay, maybe it'll befunny." Again, breaking the fourth walland things like where I'm I get bored orlike it get awkward it gets awkward. Soon my website, I jump out and say hi andthen I get really awkward cuz like, "Whyare you still looking at me?"Like, "Please scroll." And if you didscroll, which is what you should bedoing, then you don't see me getawkward, so it's not awkward. So it'sokay. But if you stay there and you lookat me,don't do it, don't be creepy. But like,yeah, I get awkward and I and I then Itry to tell you like, "Sc- Go away." Andthen I leave and then if you just wait,I eventually come back and like, "Whyare you still here?" And then ISo I I really push that to the max asfar as I could go, but again, it's justcuz it was easy. It's way easier for meto make a video than it is to likecreate a super cool animationinteractive hero sectioncuz

00:51:26I'm lazy and I don't know how to dothat stuff. So I'm like, "Well, I'll dothe video cuz that's easy." Can we talkto somebody who is inspired by thisconversation? They want to tap into thisnew strain of what their work can be,you know? They don't feel this thisconnection to output right now and maybethe reason is because they're workingsomewhere that feels a lot more likeNetlify than Retro. And they're kind ofhunting for like what do I even do withthis, you know? Do you have any thoughtsfor that person? To go back is that thatfeeling like wouldn't it be funny? Like99% of the times like yeah, it would butno, come on. There's a lot of reasonswhy we shouldn't do whatever.But always chase those little ideas.Like don't wouldn't it be funny? Likeokay.Maybe show me. Likedo a little mock. Do a little prototype.Like what are you thinking? Would it befunny? Is that it If that's a questionyou ask yourself like answer it. Give ita try. Do you think it's funny? If youthink it's funny, that's good enough forme by the way. I always like design formyself in that sense. Like I'm nottrying to do All right, now here try tobe funny here and tell a joke. Like youknow what I mean? Like if someone evento comedians like hey, make me laugh.You Yeah. They I I bet they struggle.They can't I don't know. That's not howit works.You can't be like hey, be meaningful.Hey, be

00:52:41funny. You I I can't do that. Soit's more like don't force it. Don't tryto do something meaningful here. Justput yourself in a state where you areopen to those moments. Instead oflooking at a screen Oh, this is an emptystate. Hey, empty states are great forthese type of connections cuz emptystates are like well, it's empty. It'sfine. There's nothing to show. So we'realready like do illustrations. You knowthat washow I think the industry started. Butlike instead of instead of trying toforce something just make yourselfvulnerable and open to these moments. Soas you're designingbe like hey, wouldn't it be funny orwouldn't this be somethinguh and then chase them.But don't force them.Maybe like I think this is fine to saybut like maybe you're not the type ofperson that is going todo funny work. I don't know.Yeah, and that's where I was thinking.I'm like Idon't know if I naturally go to thatplace but I II'm trying to find the little But justbe human.>> [laughter]>> Yeah, just be human. Be Be available andopen to these little interactions likelittle emotions. We talked about thevideo in retro. It's not funny. If youfeel a certain way about certain ideas,other people will probably feelsimilarly. So, if you have an idea thatwould be like, "Oh, actually this wouldbe really meaningful.

00:53:57Oh, actually thiswould be really like different. Oh,actually this would be very creative.Oh, actually this would be really cool.Like cool isalso super powerful. Yeah, cool isawesome.>> Cool is great. Like wouldn't this becool? Yeah, try it. The human word.That's the word that I'm latching ontoright now. Because I'm not funny. I'mnot going to win people's hearts withhumor in my design. That's not where Ispike at all. But I want to tap intothis in little ways and I think the thehuman where my brain went when you saidhuman is like really intentionallyimagining one other person using this.Like like what What would make themhappy? What would make me happy? Whatwould catch me off guard? You said thesurprise and delight. Obviouslyincredibly overused, but there's areason we keep coming back to it, youknow? There's something there.>> A little example that I don't know, it'skind of silly. It's not meaningful, butI liked it and it made me feel good is Iwas designing thisthis state where only one person, likethe owner of this project in InFlight,could make a change. And so it was like,"Are you this person? If yes, sign in."And when you hover over the sign inbutton it the text changes and a littlelike emoji hand like kind of waves andit just says"Oh, hi Rafa."You know? And it was like it's

00:55:12such likea small little detail, but I was likeyeahI like that, you know? And I'm trying tofind little things like that where itdoes nothing. But honestly now with howeasy it is to build a lot of this stuff,like it took me 30 seconds. It took me30 seconds. I was like, "Why not?" Itried it and I was like, "Yeah, I likethat. I'm leaving that in there.">> Okay, yeah. So, that that actually gaveme an idea.Just like when designers are startingout and I I honestly I don't know if F&Iadvice is is still relevant in this AIworld, whatever. But like when youdesign is starting out, I would alwayssay like hey, you don't have your ownstyle yet. You don't really know youdon't know anything. You're justfiguring this out or whatever. One greatway to start is pick something that youthink is great, it's nice, you like, andlike throw it in Sketch or Figma andrecreate it.And just just going through that motionof like laying out elements in thescreen in a page, you are slowlylearning about padding and basically outand like oh yeah, all these things arealigned here. Right? Just by the act ofrecreating things you likehelps you learn those things. It's kindof like you know how if you forceyourself to smile,you will feel happier.Like you'll feel happy. If you're reallysad right now, you're really in a badplace, force yourself

00:56:27to laugh andsmile. Even though it's fake, it's ityou're forcing yourself to do it. Theact of doing it actually makes you feelbetter.It makes you feel slightly happier. So,it's a little bit like that. Like youare not designing the screen, you'rejust like tracing over it. You'rerecreating it, but the act of doing itmakes you learn some things. Like youknow, there's some stuff that stays. AndI feel like in this case, instead ofmaybe it would be more useful instead oftelling you like oh, if you have anidea, do it. It's more like put yourselfin a state where when you see theselittle interactions from other products,from other people, make a note of it. Ohyeah, I was using Red's thing and I thenI hovered and I did a little wave emoji.That was nice. That was cute. Whateveremotion it is. Make a note. Maybe youmake it like save it somewhere. Maybethere you have a folder somewhere whereyou save these screenshots. Or maybe youhave aApple notes, just write it down. Ohyeah, I did the thing with the websitethat was cool. Like I remember I wasreading a blog post. This is years ago.I'm really old, but like I forget when.I remember that I read a blog post andit was a really nice piece. And at theend, it had their signature. Like theauthor. Like like a like a vectorsignature.And I remember thinking, that's so cool.That's cool. You don't see it. Why?Cuz nowhere else in the page is likesome kind of handwriting or anything.But like the

00:57:42signature, that's cool. Andso guess what? I did it for one of myfirst side project was a Apple Watchapp. Like a game Apple Watch game calledBreak the Safe. And then I I wrote likea like a case study of it.And it was like a long piece of writing,whatever. I don't usually do it. Andthen in the end, guess what? The littlesignature thing, I converted a vectorand I threw it in there. Cuz all right,a little detail, that's nice. Be on thelookout. Like when you're browsingthrough Twitter or whatever, you'regoing to see we're going to we getexposed to many things, so much goodwork. But some of the work will be like,oh, this is cool.Like just make a note, save it. And thenjust by doing that, next time you'redoing something similar, next time I waswriting a blog post, I'm like, oh, youknow what? I remember that someone did asignature and that was like classy. Thatfelt so cool. I'll do it. Rafa, I thinkwe could talk for hours. I genuinelyenjoyed everything about thisconversation and in a world whereI don't know, so much of the discourseis about uhrobots and scale and efficiency and andall of the new technology, this was avery human conversation that Iappreciated and everything about yourperspective islife-giving and enjoyable. So thank youfor taking the time today. Thank you.This is a this is a blast.Love talking to you.Thanks for having me.