way Hustle this podcast about digital product design and all of the things in your life that come along with that when you do that kind of thing. I'm your host, Rick Messer. And I'm with Anthony are murderers. It's up. So today we have a really awesome guest. We are talking to Tom Grieve. Er Hey,

Tom. I don't Hey, Rick. Anthony

has gone pretty good. It's been a while since we saw you at Chicago Camps, right? Chicago can. That's

right. Mobile camp Chicago. Um, gosh, it's maybe been close to two years now.

That's right. Really? You're doing a workshop on, um, what was it like, gorilla user testing or something?

Yeah. Yeah. Mobile user testing. That's

right. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool in them. So, uh, Tom and I are both from Lubbock. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, one of these

years will. Well, and it's interesting because we didn't We didn't know each other at the time to even though, you know, we graduated just within two years of each other, I think, or maybe less than that went to different high schools. But I'm sure we know all the same people.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, all the tech that comes out of Lubbock, you know? Right. Awesome. Well, hey, Tom, for those people listening today that aren't familiar with your work, can you just give us a little bit of background and talk to us about who you are? Where you came from? Well, we know you're from love it, but maybe a little back story.

Yeah, sure. So, uh, I am currently the U ex director at Beto V. We are a small consulting company. We do, um, Web application design and front and development for much of different companies on dhe way. Just help other companies build on Web applications. And, um, the reason I'm here today talking to you guys because I just wrote a book called Articulating Design Decisions, which was published by O'Reilly. Um, and it's all about you know how to explain. Designed to other people in particular clients or non designer stakeholders for the purpose of convincing them that your decisions air right, that our that our designer instincts can be trusted.

Yeah, it's really awesome. Book to a highly recommend it. Thank you for giving me early access to the original drafts from someone that's leading a design team. It's probably been one of the best reads I've had in quite a while. That seems like O'Reilly has had a had a really good 2015. A lot of good books coming from O'Reilly. And and I definitely think everyone should read this book. Um, I didn't know Riley just have, like, a conference or something. Yeah, that design conference. Did you Were you

there, Tom? No, I didn't. I didn't go, but, yeah, this was their first design conference. And I mean, you probably if you're familiar with O'Reilly, you know them Probably more is like a programming and, you know, technical kind of publishing company. And traditionally, they always have been, but the last or at least two or three years they've been trying to establish a better presence in design content. And so I've been fortunate enough to work along alongside a bunch of other sort of first time design authors. This was the first time they did their design conference in San Francisco just this past month. So they're really tryingto up their game in the design area.

Yes. Cool. Well, I'm gonna read real quick. Just a summary. I don't know if This is the formal summary from the book, but it was a summary on one of the toxic gave related to articulating design decisions. And then maybe we could hop in and talk about why this is important. Yeah, so every designer has to justify designs to non designers. Yet most lack the ability to explain themselves in a way that is compelling. And Foster's agreement the ability to effectively articulate design decisions is critical to the success of a project because the most articulate person often wins. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I kind of thought it was just Ah, hey, my book speaks for itself. So don't ask me about my work, right?

Just getting well, Yeah, and I think this is, uh, this is a prevalent attitude that, you know, good design should just speak for itself, right? There's plenty of there's. There's plenty of means out there that would say something to the effect of, you know, you know you acts or design should be like a joke. If you have to explain it that it's not very good. But I think you don't I think I would disagree with that because I've seen it in my own career, and I know you guys have to that when someone else who is maybe more well spoken or has a better command of just language and communication in general comes along and is able to convince that CEO or that executive that what you presented is not the right way to go there. They're more likely to kind of win the day in that situation if you're not able to help. These people were kind of understand why we made the decisions that we made. And so I think it's it's of critical importance to our to our projects.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think we had ah, previous guests that talked a little bit about just selling your designs. Is Ryan Ramsey Yeah, we were talking about the episode was called Letting Others have it your way The art of letting others have your way. Um, and what was interesting about that was just, uh, you know, the ability to sort of, like, read the room and let them talk. And so that was sort of some overlap with some of the stuff you're saying. And I've really been identifying with that lately. Have also been you said a couple things in, Ah,

the video that that was sort of your talk about the articulating design. That's sort of like broke down a few of the, uh, the points in your book. But there's a couple of things that you said that I've just been, like, hearing, like around like in, like, the ether of, like, the design design world. So, um, for those, those pretty interesting just sort of like letting other people talk.

But the thing that also interests me about this thing, this concept was just the fact that there's weird psychology that goes along with, like, being in a meeting, right? Like you feel like you feel like compelled to make a decision on the spot and you feel like you have to You're bound by the decision that you made. Well, we talked about this in the meeting, and that guy, you know, spoke very clearly, so it was just sort of sort of interesting, like, That's not always the best way to make decisions. But, um,

it is a critical moment, and you have to sort of like, prepare for that for those sorts of outcomes. So I thought that was pretty pretty interesting, Tom. The things you're saying about listening to others think that things in the book are really important for everyone. You know, leaders who maybe, you know, our forget. You know, some of these concepts and especially most definitely young people that a really passionate about what they do but get really, you know, but hurt when they don't they're not able to sell this really great idea or they don't understand why they weren't able to, you know, create the conversation. You know, our guide, the process the way they intended and ultimately sometimes get frustrated that they weren't. They feel like they weren't able to get the winds of the woman,

right? Well, and I think part of the problem here stems really just from the way that we're sort of raised to understand art and design. And, you know, I'm a designer, but I probably spend 50% of my time explaining my work to other people that I do creating it. And that's not something that you're prepared for in in school. Certainly not in art school. Andi, even the kind of forms of critique that you learn in art school are not nearly the same skills that you need in a business environment to help a non artist understand are your work. And so I think we kind of go into the world expecting that we can create beautiful things and people will just understand and accept it and trust us. But that's not that's not really usually how it goes right. And I think until you have, until you can learn to help people see the value that you're creating or the logic behind your decisions, you have a hard time on girls. You'll struggle to kind of be successful. You know, I would

say that, um, the understanding of how to sell your designs like you, kind of if you're trying to make a point, you kind of have tohave a point, right? So spending time thinking about how you're going to defend your design could arguably make you a better designer in the design decisions you're making in the first place. Because if you know that someone's gonna ask you about a type four typeface choice or a color or something, and you really don't have an answer, um, that it might force you to you think about that choice a little bit more just being intentional, not only about, you know, defending the design, but making the choice, like, sort of a little bit more consciously in the first place.

Well, and we do use a lot of intuition when we make design decisions, and that's okay. I think that's part of what makes us good at our jobs is that we can sort of instinctively do these things without thinking about it in the same way that you could have a dancer who is practiced and can just get up on stage and do a beautiful dance. But if you ask that same dancer afterwards, well, you know, why did you move your feet in this way or why did you Why did you do this with your arm? That dancer would have a really difficult time, some explaining each and every move, right? And so we we kind of have to approach our practice with a greater degree of care in terms of understanding why we're doing what we're doing so that we can explain it to other people. And that's sort of the case that I make in the book is that is that the difference between a good designer and a great designer is in their ability to not only solve problems with design and to come up with these these nice looking solutions. But to also explain to someone else why they did what they did and that if she if you can go all that distance and do that as well, then you're a great designer.

Yeah, I think that's I think that's cool, man. Um, maybe, maybe less. Um, focus on dribble followers on more focus on, you know, just like because when you think about a good designer, you know, you think of somebody like I I do like in the first In the first part of my mind, I think of somebody whose whose work is excellent. Um, but if you think about a good designer, they're sort of other layers to it, right?

Like think about somebody who's going to be good at solving problems. Who's gonna be reliable? Who's going to be able to, like, work through problems in a smart way with you? Um, I mean, those air all totally different, um, criteria. Then then just the notion of how well they can sling some pixels together. And I think with products, you know, it's it's more about doing the right thing, you know, solving the right problem for the you know,

the right people. And in the book, Tom, you explain that, in your opinion, that good design solves the problem is easy for the user's. And I think the 3rd 1 it's more aligned with the point of the book. Is that it? It's much it must be supported by everyone. That's right, which is which is interesting. You know, like at an agency you know you're not gonna get. It's gonna be really hard to build a relationship with a client, a positive, collaborative relationship.

If there aren't, it's not supported by everyone. Agree. It's going uphill battle all the way. And when you're working internally, when you're not in not working with an agency, sometimes you have multiple design teams that are running in parallel and things are chaotic and never get shipped unless there's some some ah ha moment where everyone feels like they're they're all they're all on the same page. The client part of it is is probably most top of mind for me, you know, in the work that I do. Aside from everything else, you know, the first thing that I like to do with any client is just get a quick win early in and improve that if we work together and if we can get on the same page about the goals than then this, then we can expect to see some good things come out of it before, you know, I like to do that before we tackle big things,

you know? But it's, you know, the other thing is really you know, and the other part of the book that that I really enjoyed was some of the tactics that you offered to designers to help understand. These stakeholders are, um, given that client service world, every every team's gonna be different. The individuals are gonna be different. That personality is gonna be different. And you offer some tactics. I hadn't really thought about before. Maybe you could explain some of those you know. You know how someone can, uh, empathize with their customer?

Sure. Yeah. And I mean, the book is laid out linearly so that from beginning of the book to the end of the book, I sort of walked through the process of meeting with a client or a stakeholder and then sort of at each stop along the way we talk about, you know, what's required and what are some some best practices or some tactics that you can use come in these situations. But

why don't we do that?

Yeah, So, I mean, one of the first steps is that you just have to you have to be prepared going into the meeting. And that involves things like, you know, removing distractions from the from from the process. You know, what are the things that are going to derail this conversation, right? Don't use a photo of their competitors as a placeholder content in the mock up, right? You know, there, you have to look for these things because you don't want the conversation to get, you know, completely derailed things like anticipating reactions,

looking over your working. Okay. What are they gonna ask me about? You know, just taking the time to kind of think about those things and practicing it, you know, just standing up either with your own team or just looking in the mirror and just saying out loud what you expect to say to them in the room. Those kind Those kinds of things that I present in the book are really, really important to helping you be articulate. Rick, you already mentioned it that when you when you talk about that, when you talk through stuff, you uncover your own thinking that maybe you didn't even realize was there Like, you know, you thought you were thought you were just using instinct. But as you talk about it,

you uncover the I did have a have a reason for that. I am a person. I can I know what I'm doing. Yeah, I actually

that's funny. I think that is actually the very reason we have this podcast is like just ah, it sort of puts Ah, you know, it puts a mirror in front of, um ah, lot of things that we think are the best way to do things and just talking through them, um, in a somewhat public public format actually challenges us to consider. Is it really a good solution? Um, so that's interesting. I would be curious to know, Tom, have you ever actually gone in and looked in the mirror and given given the speech T to yourself or throw these things? Yeah. You do that for

me. I did this. I do this all the time. Now, I don't have a mirror in my office right now, so but I I've definitely done it in the mirror before. I'll do it in the shower, you know, just pacing back and forth. I've been I remember sitting at a at a terminal at the airport once where I was flying to a meeting and just sitting there in the terminal, just like talking out loud and talking through it. I'm sure everyone around me thought I was Lisa, right. But I have You

had that air buds in so that people didn't think you were just talking

to yourself for right? Yeah, exactly.

Sterile ear buds. And I have no one on the call. Yeah, I'm sorry to go back to that. I was just thinking about that. Removing the distraction part is pretty is pretty awesome. I remember last year we had a client, and in the kickoff they said, I hate the color, Teal, but when we were doing concepts, I think we felt like teal was the right color for the brand and for the product, but we chose to remove it from the initial concepts so that we could get a win on the direction. And then we use data to back up. Why? Till was the right color. And so,

you know, we removed it from the initial decisions to sort of guide the product. And then once we had built that trust, we were then able to convince this customer that to was actually a proper choice or a good choice for their their brand. It's really interesting in practising it or even like you said, looking at it, because I think in modern in modern environments you don't always have the ability to present finished design like like our team, like we present work to clients very regularly. So it's We're almost never presenting perfect work. So we almost have to, like, look at it and call out, Oh, you know, in advance. Okay,

this is not a complete Flo. Please don't Let's not be distracted by that. Let's talk about this instead. We'll get to this other part later, or or, you know, like you said in the book, like removing the things that you feel like with that client. We're gonna sidebar. The conversation could be color or placeholder text or something. You know, whatever it is that is not gonna get you the conversation you need. Yeah, that was That was actually another point. That was something that I've been hearing a lie and like the design ether world lately, too. It's just sort of setting the stage a little bit talking about the type of feedback that you're looking for. Would that be considered part of what you mean by like removing the distraction? Still,

Yeah, I think that's definitely part of the process. And when you when you think about that kinds of feedback that you want, it allows you to curate the discussion in such a way that you're more likely to get the response that you expect. And I think that's the part that's really interesting, because the way that we present this stuff in the either the order in which we present them or the way we choose to, you know, like you said, not include color. Those things have a big impact on the person's perception in the way that they receive, um, our our work. And so we have to. We have to be thinking carefully about those things. But I mean it involves It involves just just having the right mindset to, um and I always encourage people to, like,

just learn to kind of let go of the control of this process, right? I think sometimes we hold our designs so tightly because they're ours and we made them, and we feel really passionate about them. But there are other people that have a say in our process in another work, And we have to be able to sort of emotionally let go of that

and that, and that involves a client. They own

it exactly. And that involves things like like letting over of our ego to write and, like, sort of being humble in the way that we talk with them about this because they have. They have a perspective on their own business that we don't have, no matter how good we think we are at solving their problems. They know something that we don't and we have to. We have tohave kind of that respect and the empathy for them. If we really expect to solve their problems

and they got bosses that you know, they need to report to you as well. You know, many cases and yeah, that that actually good. What? What Anthony was just saying was actually kind of goes to something else that I think is really important and really interesting about, Ah, yearbook. Tom was the sort of listening aspect of it, sort of listening to hear what is like like not being said, because while they might have, like, some resistance to the color teal right or some some detail, um, they may be It may not be that detail, but it may be some sort of association or something, like with their boss or something, you know? Can you talk a little bit about that? The listening aspect of of your

book? Yeah, Well, there's there's there's two ways that you can listen one arm or like implicit skills. They're some of the things that aren't necessarily seen. Like you already noted, You know, just letting them talk right without interrupting them. I think that's really important. Sometimes we want to interject and say No, that's not what I meant her. No, this is wrong, but we need to let especially non designers. We need to let them re explain themselves maybe more than once, because if there's a better way for them to explain it to us, we want to be able to hear that because we want to be sure that the communication is clear.

But, you know, we have to work really hard toe toe, figure out what problem they're trying to solve. Any time someone comes back to us with feedback that is different from what we expected or if they're asking us to make a change that maybe we disagree with often there's some other underlying reason. Right, either, you know, something has changed. Maybe there's something else going on, You know? Even I don't think we can even assume that people are even paying attention to our designs as much as we think they are right there. Maybe not even attuned to what we're trying to say to them. And so we can't We can't just make assumptions about why they told us to change something. We have to We have to listen very carefully and kind of uncover what their real motivations are. But part of that process of listening is the other side of it,

which is all the all the explicit things you can do to listen. And this involves things like, you know, taking just taking good notes, right, riding down the things that they're saying, asking a lot of really good questions. I'm repeating it back to them so that when they say, Oh, you know, I don't like this button. Your your response needs to be something more in line with. Okay, What I hear you saying is that if we use the button in this way, you think the users are gonna have a difficult time understanding You know, that this menu will pop up or whatever. We have to find a way to help them explain to us why they're objecting to something that we know to be the right choice.

I suffer from that problem sometimes, you know, because, you know, run the business. And sometimes I will interrupt people and I'll try toe, you know, force my idea. And I think, you know, I think reading this book could help me, you know, relearn some concepts that I think our continued to be important and that there was one. There was one thing along this lines that I that I really enjoyed hearing in the book was that your client will respect to you. And, you know, you could you could do a lot more things. The client, the client knows that you actually listened to what they said. Even if even if you disagree, like just given the opportunity to talk and acknowledge that you heard what they had to say and that you're gonna you're gonna come up with a solution for that.

That's right. And I think I think that's that's part of this process is regardless of what they think of our designs and regardless of what we think of their feedback just just allowing them to giving them the confidence that we actually heard what they said. You know that we understand where they're coming from. That alone opens their ears thio hearing what our response is going to be. And if we don't take the time to listen to them and give them that confidence, then they're not going to trust us. They're not gonna listen to whatever we have to say right after that. And I talk in the book about leading leading with a yes, and that is to start your response, no matter what they say. Starting response with the word Yes, right. I think it's pretty common for us to respond to feedback by immediately jumping into an explanation for why we did what we did. But that can come across as just sounding like an excuse. Right. Well, you know,

I I think we should change this interaction. Oh, Well, the reason we did it that way is because we looked at the research and you're sort of discounting what they said, right? You're you're discrediting it and writing it off. Instead, you need to respond just literally with the word. Yes, Yes. I see your point about that interaction. You know, one of the way here was our thinking for why we did that. And just starting with that word alone. Just the word guess is really almost magical. And it opens people up to recognizing that Oh, hey, we're all on the same team. We're listening to each other where we're respecting each other's feedback.

That's a good point. How do you How do you do what you're saying to do Because you're giving a lot of practical, um suggestions for, like, listening and in some tactics to do that. But like there's something you have to do before you can do any of these things, which is sort of swallow your pride. Like, How do you disconnect from from that?

Yeah, well, that's that's just getting in that right frame of mind, right? Recognizing those things, sort of before it all begins, its just a mental switch. It's just it's just, you know, sort of putting on the right attitude before you even go into the room. I think I think too often we see these meetings as an opportunity to receive feedback instead of as an opportunity to participate or facilitate a discussion of our design. Because when you see it is when you when you see it as receiving feedback, you're more likely to be defensive right, because now this feedback is coming at you. But if you see your role is merely ah, facilitator, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna facilitate this conversation so that we can go to the best place.

Well, now you're kind of removed yourself from that process. Now the feedback isn't directed at you. Instead, it's it's directed at the at the project at the room it's a part of a conversation instead of sort of a one way attack for lack of a better word.

That's great. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but even even so, you still have their They're sort of like in, uh, some sort of conclusion You have to come to to say like this. This is not about just me. Like you have to.

Um I think I think

the way that that has happened for me in the past has been like, when you're you get your way. And, um, it may be against some someone else's better judgment. And so then you're sort of responsible for it, and then you turn out being wrong. Um, that's been a way that I've been humbled in the past and taken on more of Ah, like, Okay, let's build this together like maybe maybe I'm not the one with all the answers.

Yeah, it's absolutely important that you learn to recognize when you're wrong, and, uh, it's actually it could be hard, right? Thio sort of set your ego aside and to be able to recognize that, But, um, in the same way that at the beginning of the book and Anthony you made reference to this. That kind of the three things you need is that you know your design needs to solve a problem and be easy for user's, but then also have everyone's support. The way that we know were wrong is when we don't have one of those three things, right. If you have this beautiful design that makes it super easy for user's, but you don't have everyone's support, well,

then you're doing something wrong, right? Likewise. If you're not solving the problem, the problem still exists, and I you know it. It seems almost laughable, but I've worked with designers who who are put their designs out in the world, right. We released something in a production, and the problem isn't fixed. And instead of instead of looking at it as an opportunity to approach the prominent way, we recognize we were wrong about it. The response is, well, the interface is way better now.

If the users don't get it, then they they're just not familiar with modern mobile applications. Right? We have this arrogance that that there's someone else to blame weed, weed. We made it look better. Don't Don't you see how beautiful it is compared to the old one, right? But if the problem is still there than then were wrong and we've gotta we've gotta allow ourselves to be wrong if we want to be able to fix it.

The cool thing about the third point supported by everyone, is that when you're right or wrong, you did it together. And because if you if you are right in the solving the problem for the users of the right product solution, then you get to celebrate. But if you're wrong, the responsibility isn't on fully on the design agency, right? To some extent, the design, if the agency or freelancer doesn't have to feel as much risk to that. It was my idea that I have to prove it, and I'm gonna be responsible if it fails. If it was everyone's idea, if it truly was everyone's idea that it was an exploration and and and an opportunity to fix it with a team that works, that works well together,

well, and it's it's important to to clarify that that that phrase supported by everyone doesn't mean that everyone agrees on the only solution because you're never gonna get agreement from everybody. It does mean, though, that that even in the face of disagreement, we're going to support each other in these decisions that we're going, we're going to agree to move forward. We're going to agree to choose the one that we think is most likely or we're At the very least, we're going to trust someone to make this decision because sometimes it's just about trust. It's, you know, and I've been and I've been in plenty of client relationships where the client will maybe even say, You know, I don't really think that this is the right choice, but I trust you, and I've hired you for this very reason. And so I'm going to support you in this decision. That's what support is about. It's not about agreement.

How do you go about resolving conflict if if there is a lot of you know resistance from there, if it's not, just how do you sort of engage with with somebody who's, you know, pretty much thinking about going the opposite direction that you're wanting to go? Um, And how do you How do you recommend kind of getting on the same page?

Yeah. I mean, if you end up in a situation where your client or your stakeholder is suggesting something that's completely different from what you and your team, um, are proposing or no to be best. I guess I'd like to suggest that maybe there's a misunderstanding and there could be other things going on that we just don't know about. You know, I've been in situations where a manager walk in and be like Not this is all terrible. We have to start over, do something completely different and making all kinds of suggestions that seem crazy compared to the goals that we originally had for the project. But the reality waas he just came from a meeting where the budgets were cut and our project is on the chopping block. And if we don't turn it around and get something released by next month, then we're dead in the water, right? We're not always privy to these kinds of conversations, and so if someone is coming in and wanting toe upset the apple cart like that, there's there's almost always something else going on Now.

We may not be able to figure out what that ISS, but we can at least have enough skill to ask the right questions to figure out. Okay, Well, are we solving a different problem now? Is there a different business requirement that we forgot? Is this just your preference? You know, because sometimes people go and they show it, they show it to their spouse and their spouse goes, Oh, I don't know how to use this and they bring it back the next day and say, No, we gotta change the way right. We have way Have to be attuned to those things so that we can figure out how to respond, because it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to change it because their spouse doesn't know how to use it. But we have to work hard to kind of uncover where that's coming

from. Yeah, that's true. Just get to the root of the problem. It's good point. Do you want toe? Maybe talk us through some of the other points? Well, actually, you know, I had a couple of other things are less about some of the so the things you called out, like some of the tactics about appealing Thio noble or motive and maybe some other topics that are debatable, like some, you know, like showing comparisons, for example, is something that a lot of designers and agencies have different perspectives on.

You know, some shops like showing options and then, you know, looking at what didn't work and what didn't work. And some have a more of, like, designed one approach and then iterated on that. There's a couple of things there that I thought were interesting. If you want. I want it to be charming

on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, there's a handful of tactics that I propose that we can use to kind of form the best possible response. One of them that you know what it is is show a comparison. Another one is to propose on alternative, which is something that we're typically pretty good at. Another one is to give them a choice. So they think they have to make a sacrifice. The thing they're asking for is gonna cause us to have to change something else. Another one is to ask other people to weigh in, right. So we got other other people, maybe, and maybe even in other domains,

with a different perspective that are gonna come in and kind of help us make our case. And then the last one is just simply just to pope postpone the decision, right. Don't feel compelled to make a choice right there on the spot, especially if you feel like it's gonna adversely affect the project. But when it comes to like the comparison and proposing an alternative, you're right. That I mean, I do get feedback sometimes from people that would say Oh, but you know, the if if I if I If I bring in two options to show the client and they like the one that I'm not recommending Well, now I'm stuck, right? I'm stuck with this thing. That's not, you know,

any good. And I think I would say that we can't We can't be afraid to show our clients and stakeholders alternate designs that they might suggest we do instead of our recommendation, because we can't protect them from that If we don't show them the alternatives. If we don't. If we don't do our due diligence and presenting the case for the one design that we think they should go with, then there's still they're gonna google it and and they're gonna come up with some whatever. They've seized the first result. And that's now that's gonna be our new design, right? We have to arm them. We have to arm them with the language and logic. The understanding that this that we have about why this is the right choice. So we're effectively bringing them into our vocabulary, right? Well, we're letting them be our advocates to so that when they walk away from the meeting,

they convey themselves maybe can't even very clearly articulate. Oh, well, we chose option A for these three reasons and option B, even though I kind of liked it better. Doesn't work as well for these other three reasons, right? We have to give them that information. Otherwise, they're gonna go back to their office. They're going to show their colleague, and they're calling is going to say, Well, why don't we do B and he's gonna go Well, yeah, I kind of thought the same thing. I'll call him, you know, and and that's the kind of thing that we that we need to be able to avoid.

That tactic has always worked well for me personally. And even though it sometimes requires more work, I would rather show someone like a high contrast in a low contrast version and explain which one I think is better than to show one option and then delay the schedule, then coming back and saying, Well, you only showed me a a white version. Like what about high contrast? And instead of saying, Well, oh, I could try that. You can say why we did try that and it didn't work. And you're right, Like I think, especially in client Well, not just client service world, But I think in general,

when people had the choice, they're gonna buy into it more. You know, they that could that could go all start all the way. A sales call, right? Like in a type of engagement that they choose our you know, our or the cost of the time, or the or the design or the you know, what have you. I mean, I feel like, you know, it's important toe, let people make a decision.

Well, and this is an important point, Anthony, because I think we we want to be sure that people are falling. Maybe I should I should restate that we don't want people to fall in love with our designs. We want them to fall in love with our logic and our reason, because a design is gonna be subjective. And tomorrow there may be something else that might be more attractive to them, for whatever reason. But if they understand the logic and the thinking behind it, if it makes sense to them, then they're going to support us in that. And that's the part that we want them to buy into way, way more than the actual design itself.

I think that's really powerful. I'm glad you said that. I think it's really important to remember that. Tom, I got one more question for you. If you don't mind, ask your new answering this, um is, ah, a hot dog, a sandwich. It's a hot dog, A sandwich. No surprise. There's a bit of a debate.

No, no, hot dog is definitely not a sandwich. I mean, we'll see a hot dog and a sandwich are They're kind of in the same, uh, same horizontal plane on the food taxonomy. They're just They're different families were geniuses of of handheld food.

Yeah, handheld, for sure. But if you went into a sandwich shop and asked for a sandwich and they give you a hot dog. You'd be pretty surprised, right?

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. A hot dog has to have a frankfurter in it. Right. And I would not expect that on this.

No, no. Well, I think I think I tend to agree with that. That outlook on the hot dog sandwich? Uh, question that seemed to be all we've talked about the last couple days. It was fresh about Naga sandwiches, A hamburger sandwich. Anyway, just not wait out since you, we thought we'd have to win yesterday way. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I know. Hamburger is also not a sandwich again. They're just different classifications.

Food. Well, I appreciate what you said. The last thing he said about, um, sort of getting the client to buy in on your, you know, thinking and logic. I think that goes to like, a really important concept. Which is why do want a users use something or buy something, And it's usually about the why of the thing not, you know, not the in product on what they see on the shelf. But what What is the reasoning behind it? I think that's just a better you know, approach.

I think that's really, really interesting. I'm glad you kind of put it that way. That's cool. Awesome. Tom. So, um, are you doing any speaking engagements? Um, in the near future,

Um, yeah, I wanna I'll be. I'll be in Seattle in mid February. I don't know when you guys air releasing this podcast, but I'll be in Seattle in mid February. I am gonna be in Boston in the middle of March on, and that's all I have in the calendar right now. But if you're in, if you're in the Boston area and you won't meet a, you know, come stop by your company and talk to your team. I love to do that.

Well, not not gonna be in the not gonna be in that area, but maybe you could come talk to our team in Austin sometime.

I would love that.

Yeah. Awesome. If work ever brings you down here, but, uh, yeah, sure would be really cool. Um, yeah. I think Nick think is gonna be at your event and in Seattle. Yeah, I'm just it with

them. Yeah, I'm doing a workshop with Nick and his team at Facebook, so Yeah, that's gonna be a great

time. Yeah, that's super cool. Well, Tom, thanks for thanks for taking time out of your schedule to do this with us. A very awesome conversation. Tom's book is called Articulating Design Decisions. It's on O'Reilly books. I highly recommend you buy it. Ah, What's

your twitter handle, Tom? It's just Tom Grieve. Er t o m g r e v e r

Cool. Follow Tom on Twitter, give a hard time asking about hot dogs and hamburgers and definitely pick up this book.

I am prepared to articulate my handheld food decisions. So problem with

that. Very nice. Like it. Okay, cool. Well, thanks very much, guys. Um, we will be back next week. Um, thanks very much for listening and hope you'll have a good thing again. Yeah. Thank you. Things. Episode is brought to you by the Iron Yard. Theo Iron Yard in Austin is now offering a 12 week intensive program in user interface design.

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