Hey, welcome to hustle our cast about designing products, people to make them everything else. Today we're here with one of my good friends, One of our good friends, Sam Kabila. Um, I've known Sam for many, many, many, many, many years. You were one of the few people that convinced not only night to move to Austin. You have been influential and us getting our business off the ground. You've helped us recruit talent. You've been a friend and adviser. Um,

thus for those they're listening. That don't know, Sam. Sam is the director of instruction at the iron yard, which is a sponsor. The podcast. Sam, why don't you introduce yourself until everyone about who you are and what you're doing?

Sure. Thank you for that awesome intro tearing up a little bit. Um, I am Sam Capella. I'm the director of instruction for the Iron. You're like Anthony mentioned. Um, I work out of our Austin campus, but we're a code school. That is all over the U. S. And in the UK, and we teach front end back end design mobile development and then forgetting when data science is across many of our campuses. So that's what I do. I work with a large team of instructors across, um, all of our campuses and built curriculum plan out new courses, helped launch campuses across the US, All that sort of stuff.

Wow. Why don't you, uh why don't you give us an overview of where you started out and how you got to where you are right now?

Yeah. So I, um, started on the Dutch island of Carousel when I was a little tiny person. And, uh,

I'm interested in this.

And I remember around that time, like being the youngest getting the like, family computer being put in my room because it's like you were the youngest. Like, this is gonna be the shared room for everyone. And you also sleep here. So the computer was right there and having like, an Internet connection and my first Geo Cities page, like I thought, all fourth graders made Geo City pages, and that's kind of my first, like, jump into the web. Like I had my Hotmail email address and my geo cities, like, hit me up. Y'all Jews love geo cities are a p.

Um, you know, then angel fire and some of those other things came along, but it always seemed like something like, Oh, this is what people in elementary school or middle school or high school just work on and that's it. And, um, then really, like, became the family member who made all the birthday cards for Grandma. And everything else is like, That's where the design part came in to my life. And then that was like, Yeah, I'm really good at making cards for Grandma. So I think I should go to called for this and ended up going to the University of Florida for design. Not a lot of Web

like Think that's when we met you?

Yeah, around that time, Yeah, making flash websites and loving the Florida Gators and and doing a lot of advertising stuff. And I got out of school again, wasn't thinking about the Web is much like really advertising focused and worked for an agency that did Ah lot of hospitality design work and designed for the Miami Heat, which was really awesome. And then suddenly you just decided to move to the great state of Texas. And, um, what came to grad school? Went to Texas State, taught a Texas state for for many years during that time and after grad school and with South what you do for the Miami, he used to just help design things for them. Really? Yeah, yeah,

So let's pause here from it. We have another guest. This time we get Jim Jordan on the show is the first time I ever recorded with you have been on the show once before, Jim's a product designer at Fun Sized. Jim was a student of Sam's. So that's how we met Jim. Sam was teaching on a program at San Marcus. Best designers in the area, I think, and for, you know, for some reason, you know, I think the industry is blessed to have you, um, teaching and being involved in the education, space and design because there's not enough good people around doing that. How did you decide that you were gonna devote your career too, to teaching in building designers?

Um, when I was applying for grad school, they said they could give me in state tuition to Pinta, and that's really like how I stumbled into it. It wasn't actually something I was going after. My parents actually make a lot of fun of me. My dad is a engineer, and my mom is a teacher who's now on it like administrator in K through 12. And, um, I remember the day I told him like, That's great, Dad, you're on the computer all day. Mom, that's great. You're in front of the classroom all day.

I don't want to do either of those things. And now, yeah, now I'm doing both at the same time. So they're getting the last laugh. Well, yeah, So that's kind of how I ended up in the teaching world. And having students like Jim made it a really awesome job. And we got to work on some really cool topics together. Responsive design. Specifically

wait. Teaching, teaching gym major

job easier. That's another different memory it made. It made it very interesting and challenging. I think in a good way, because when you have students that really care about what they're learning, and they're also challenging the curriculum, asking the right questions, that's that's really like all you can ask

for. Jim went to your graduation show. Sam had, you know, mentioned like a come down, see some of our students, and I think I remember Anthony and I seeing like one of your projects. Was this, like, napper out? Man, Uh,

that was it was really

good. Like the design is really good. Is like we could tell his like, super well thought out, clicking toes about your anapa ra what that was all about. That was post Sam class, but it was a lot of influence from from, you know, her teaching and all that. But, you know, this app was like, I'm super lazy, I guess that's kind of where it came from. And I used to take a lot of naps around campus, so the main problem was like, Well,

these are some pretty dingy spots I want to find, like the good spots like there is a story of our building where me and Sam spent most of our days. There's a guy living. It's like the very top floor for a while and like nobody knew and what it was pretty sweetness, but

yeah, So what's really interesting about that? So the stairwell kept going past the top floor. It was kind of like one extra half flight to the roof and an art student many years ago, before Jim and I were there, Um, someone was like living there. An art student was had just moved into that last flight because no one went up that

far. It was a student.

Yeah, and they would go to the gym next door and shower. And from my super creepy to like, Oh, that's kind of cool. I think they when they were like, we're caught, they were again. This is all, like, you know, through the grapevine. I think there was, like, some reason that they were like, Well, I think like,

this is my performance art. Or like, you know, doing this for research or homework, like, you know, the art art

students. Very cool. Yeah, and it inspired a nap. Yeah, I wish I had built that after, I guess, But I don't have any people. That was concept, but right. But it was really cool. Just let us let us see how you think a little bit. There's a There's a guy that I met in San Francisco's names. His name's Kurt Burner. He's the design director at now, a pretty well known product company, but he was so determined to learn how to become a product designer,

that he took his car from L. A and drove it to San Francisco and and lived and slept in the parking lot of a gold's gym and would use the shower at Gold's gym. And all that he would do is do his work. And he'd work Monday through Friday and then he would drive back to L. A. Where his wife was, and he got this, like, huge right up in this magazine article about, You know, I guess this is like design education to an extreme right, cause he was like living in a car in order to get the training he needed. No, anyway, Interesting. Perhaps So,

Sam, there's a few things that we want to talk about today, and I think the one that may be more related to some of things that I'm thinking about us. You You started out as a designer and you wouldn't use focused on design education training. Um, you're a Texas state teaching specific things, and you helped build the Iron Yard. Austin and an iron heart is growing, and now you're involved more in the growth of barnyard. Um, we were talking last night about the show about how we people in our positions were growing businesses. How how do we apply the design design? Thinking to doing this? Like, How do you How do you know? Like what decision decisions to make and how to test out what's working or not like.

Are you using design thinking to sort of, you know, to make these decisions for the company? And, you know, were the campuses or the programs like Tell us about, Like, What? Your world? What it feels like to be in your shoes for a week?

Well, I think from a design thinking perspective, I think that's just a lot of how my brain is. And I think just like years and years of kicking off new design projects is how I approach a lot of things. Like if someone brings a problem not not necessary like a problem, that's a negative thing. But just like, hey, here is a challenge right in front of you. My approach, like when I kicked that off, is very much from the designer like Okay, what are the right questions to ask, Like if you're getting a project brief from someone you have to like think of what those initial research questions are like to get more out of your client, right? So, like,

I feel like I start there and really like Okay, based on what I know about this problem or challenge so far, here's like questions I have. Here's what already know. OK, what's my timeline like? Um, like, just that kick off. I think it's just so so similar

that I'm glad you answered that wakes. I was gonna ask if you kind of break down for for people that aren't familiar with the term or I think

they may be, you know what it means,

but don't exactly know what design thinking means, because I and I've definitely been in that camp like I'm like, design thinking that seems like, Yeah, that's that's

how I do. But I have ever late, like, on and off love hate relationship with with the wording, because I think it's one of like many that words in our industry are like they change very quickly or they just evolve into something like out of like I think of gremlins like when they get water on them.

That terminology, like job titles for designers like

this would happen. Yeah. Job title specifically are just like gremlins with water on him. Just thinking about that movie for a second. Um, great Christmas movie with, um and I think like, there's that at least the way I look at design. Like if I am talking to someone about something, I have the Post. It notes out. I have the sketchbook and I think that's just my like approach to food thio life, thio, work stuff. And I think in many ways, you know, there's the the design part of me that likes to focus on something and then take those steps back to like,

Okay, is this working out? Okay, let's dig back in a little bit. Step back. Look at the bigger picture stuff. I find that is probably one of the more common things to in, like the process of building some of these things out where I have a growing team so focusing on some key things we need to work on taking the step back. How does it affect the bigger picture?

Yeah, that stuff's really that's the way I see it, too. I mean, the way Natalie and I see that is that the company is our product and our employees air the user. So we have to be. We have to be adaptive and interactive in the way that we design and build a company just like any other product. Need to be able to pivot on a moment's notice. Need to get input from the employees to figure out howto changed their experience in it. So like, to me, it's like we don't really do this really formally. But I try to think of the same way, like surveys, you know, get data. Use the data to make informed decisions about where the company will go.

Design options. Those options might just be bulleted list. Yeah, posting diagrams. Get those in front of you, get this round of users or the employees,

or think you touched on a really good point of just like its user centric right that building a business is a very user centric thing. You have your your employees, your clients, your bank, your vendors, like all of those different audiences that you have to cater to in many different ways. And in our case, I think you know, we have our growing staff. We have students. We have advisory board members like yourselves that we have to like, keep in mind and also like, make sure that all of those pieces connect together. So it's a lot. Yeah, a lot

centric stuff. Do you? Do you still? Then would you agree that you're still designing?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's two books that you know when we were talking last night a little bit about today. Um, there's two books that I read as a designer that really change the way I looked at a design, and now it's really funny that looking at the like business and work side of it, how I apply designed into the work side. Like the non design things those books are. There's one by the guy who started frog Design and it's called a fine line. Things by Harmon S would linger, and then a second book is Daniel Pinks Dr Like those. Both of those books are really great for design thinking and looking at it in a practical manner. So it's not just like, well, you know, design is this, like super fine arts sort of visual thing. It's like really big picture thinking and reading those books as a designer just changed how I approached design. And now they're kind of like I'm hearing things back in my head about those two books as I'm applying, designed to non design things.

It's funny you should mention books because I brought you a possible third book, Um, one that my mother gave me. So this book is called Design Unbound. It is a it's all about design, literacy and specifically what you just talked about kind of bridging this gap between, you know, sort of the more, like theory based, like, high level thinking about design and then the practical, like, daily, you know, you know, application of design. And how do we kind of have that conversation between the two things?

Yeah. And often, Yeah, I kind of wonder. Bring this to you. Only read it and see what you think about

it. Gonna read it now

check out all those I needed was the second the title

of the second thing. I want to say it was Daniel Pinks drive.

The whole title is

the author, David. I remember the cover and I'm pretty sure it was called Dr In the Eyes like a outlined of a human. Okay, I'm seeing.

But like, yeah is in your mind.

They're both great books And there's a lot of stuff that, um I remember when Daniel Pink he came down to Texas State. He had another book right before Dr came out. Think it was a whole new mind that was required reading for us in grad school in a grate like again, Not designed specific but designed thinking related, Um, he at the talking Texas State said, like, MM phase or the new NBA's like you have to in the workplace. Like apply that, like design. Think, hate, hate saying design, thinking down, saying it over and over. Getting

mad at it. Principle is called design principles.

Yeah, design principles and design process is designed things to how we do everything else in our lives. No, that way,

actually, possibly explore like that. Why you don't like the term design thinking because I think there's something there, like just in the ether of everyone talking about it all the time. It's a buzzword, right? And like, I think, like just the meaning, gets lost. Like Like what? What are you trying to say when you say design thinking like it's a process you think

it's the approach of exactly. He said it perfectly. I can't think of a better way to say it, and I think the reason why it sometimes freaks me out is the context in which it's us like it's not this like, Oh, I'm gonna go to the store and, like, buy some design thinking it's not this, like one thing that is perfectly packaged and the same thing in every scenario is this. It's like you said, It's an approach. It's a

process. Yeah, interest. Pretty flexible, doesn't think it's reactive so everybody can say he throw the term out there and everyone else sort of thinks it means something a little bit down the design thinker right now. Yeah, E. Everyone could do it, too. Like there's a story about the Tabasco sauce bottle. Tabasco was losing money. They were gonna go bankrupt. They need to find a way to make more money so they open it up to their employees. Everyone in the company, too, suggest ideas that could save the company, and one of the employees,

which is, I think, was like a factory worker said, Just make the whole 10% bigger people will use more Tabasco, and then you will sell more. Right? So like they took these, they took maybe three or four of these ideas and use design principles and design approach to solve a sales problem. They use sketch Thio. Yeah, I think they market all have been scared. Well, yeah, maybe fireworks. So, um,

the Iron Yard is an intense program. You know, we've seen some of the work that the students do. It's a very short time frame there, covering a lot of work. They're learning howto work rapidly and collaboratively. Do you do they have required reading? Like how? Like how much would like What do you expect that when they're done with the program that you know, addition to the skills that you teach them? Like, what do you expect them to be thinking about all that like all this stuff? You know,

that's a great question. I think from the very first conversation that we have with them, um, we try to make clear that this is not just like, hey, you're gonna walk into class and, like, do exactly as you're told. My copy, The exact code that we're doing up here, That's it's not that sort of program. This is like a huge investment you're making. We're going to, like, rolls, sleeves up and, like,

get messy with some of this stuff is gonna break. You're gonna hate your computer screen. You're gonna want to throw it out the window like this is gonna be tough stuff. And it's not gonna be like what I think was is my issue with a lot of traditional education, like teaching to a test you're not gonna, like, learn the perfect way and then hope you get it right. You know, when you have a homework assignment, it's actually figure out what doesn't work. So that informs what you do know. Um, so with that in mind, like they have to actually weren't like unlearned all the bad habits of traditional Ed and that way. And I hate to, like put traditional ed in that one bucket.

But the teaching to the test model and they have to relearn how to, like, actually approach something from a conceptual standpoint, because if they can do that with Java script or ruby on rails, they can then jump into any other language because they've learned the foundations of how to think about something. And we see that like E think of some of our students that now work at IBM And they took the design class when I taught it here in Austin. But they're in the front end program because they were taking what they learned, and they're able to apply to something else because it's again, like not memorization. It's like conceptual, bigger picture stuff, principles of code and what translates from one language to another.

Yeah, one of the things that I was really impressed without, no, The problem program is probably evolved, but I was really excited to see that they were that, you know, they were going through lectures and research and stuff like that. But that is seemed like the biggest they had, maybe just a short amount of time to execute right full circle, from a concept, an ideation to branding to look and feel, mood boards, mock ups all the way to code and like a very short time, which is very similar to the way a lot of companies now working like very time boxed iterations, and I thought that was really awesome. I thought it was also really awesome that they were solving design problems with designing code. Yeah.

Um, question that I have for you. I mean, we're designed only shop that is now probably looking back at this and saying, OK, well, friend and development is designed. We may be creating some positions like this, and a lot of you know, we for a long time we thought we were just really moving mobile. But every year it seems like we're doing 30. 40% is Web work. It's, but it's very intense. It's very robust. Web based applications.

I'm just kind of curious if you might be able to share drop some of your, you know, responsive website knowledge on us in terms in help us understand, like how we might be able to create better Web based software. If if we could do something differently than just designing all these things out and photo shop sketch.

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that ties in with, like, AA lot of the stuff that I like just mentioned about, like getting to the principles of all of this. It's not like hey learned to code something or you have to kowtow website. You don't actually just start at the computer like, let's take a step back. You don't need to, Cody. It actually plan things out like White Board, have post it notes all over the place. Like that's so much of where you need to start. And one of the things like looking back at the response of Web design class that from when I first started at Texas State and, like we're involved, too.

And then what we're doing at the inn yard with responsive Web design and, like the type we had even Mark caught in last year at the Austin campus. And like talking about us, he knows something about responsible. Yeah, yeah. Um, I didn't think you did. He did. Coin department has written response of Web design book and then responsible responsive patterns and principles is, I think, the second book, um, both great books, and they're on the reading list for our students. Um,

with all of this stuff, like taking that step back and actually looking at what are we turn to solve? How should we go about this? Like, what's the bigger picture? Rather than like, let me just start coating something randomly like That's the key part and with responsive that's so so crucial because it's so hard, like you're gonna double the work if you just like Oh, I'll add accessibility later or I'll add like testing later if you plan your entire process like Okay, we want want to design for three general like break points, right? Doing what? Break points on a cool picture

audience? That's when you let go outside. Have three

break points went when there's drastic changes to the layout or content between not just like device sizes. But it's like, Okay, you know, I think of even Marco talking about the Boston Globe redesign. They did. Mobile ads are done in a completely different way for the quote unquote tablet or medium goldie locks, eyes and above versus when it's on Mobile because they had data that people weren't Clicking on Mobile is much for at least on ads on mobile, because they want to stay in safari or on Twitter wherever else. They're looking at this, so the break points air, like specifically when the content itself is drastically changing, not necessarily like 400 to 600 pixels And with that, because there's all of these different break points you have to code for. You can't just, like, say,

like, Oh, there's an accessibility unit that happens later on after we've built this or we need to, like, test and make sure it works for user's like after we've built this. If you start that planning way way early on, you're actually like decreasing the amount of work you're gonna have to do later because you can then coat it the right way with those things in mind throughout the whole process. And it's not just like, Okay, this is our sketching faces. This is our, like, initial, like you're

like, you're like, bought into the design solution that you have. So if you're gonna be testing it and then you're like realize it's not that great of a solution, you're like Well, man, we've already built this thing this way, like, you know, didn't you have, like, a technical debt and like to go back after, you know, if you would have just, I guess planned a little bit better. I guess that that seems to be the key then, right?

Because, I mean, that's Duchess one way you tie it to software and back to the whole design, approach and design thinking thing because the software stuff has users right right out the gate. It's gonna ship if you're not. If it is someone that has a disability, it's not accessible to them. They're gonna rate it really low or there, or they're gonna There's gonna be not a lot of good reviews or there's not gonna be a lot of conversion rates and signing up for an assassin product. Or like Rick said, you can develop a lot of technical debt and then again, just steamrolling costs, costs, costs, costs, costs,

cost money. Over time, I feel like there's this Ah, definite trend with ease, product companies coming out in sort of separating all of their products even down in the future level. Eso thinking about responsive in that context is kind of an interesting counterpoint to what I see happening. Like with Four Square or Facebook. They're just like taking out all these little features and making them their own products. And it's kind of like they're ignoring these in between faces and just like making these isolated experiences. So I'm wondering if yet with Responsive. Is this something that you know might might be a possible solution for this, like fragmented landscape?

That's a good question. I'm not sure. I don't know if that was a question or a statement.

I just know there's like, these trends coming out and people talking about responsive Web is like my brain is like, Oh, these air like clients. I It's like they had, like, a photographer's in like this. But when you come down toe like these really powerful tools like how does that? How does it play a part in this? Yeah, I know. Yeah, I think the same ways of thinking apply to the current native landscape, you know, because now you have, you know, two very different iPhone size is possibly 1/3 coming back in.

Then you have three different tablet sizes for for this is just I a less right, and then you have. And then you have the same thing with Andrew. When you ship an android product, it's going. It's going to not be, I guess responsive is not a word, but adaptive is maybe a better word from a you know, from a four inch to five and six and seven inch nine inch, 11 inch, all the way up to like air playing or or chromecast words on a big screen. So, like, even if its native things that you have to think about all those decisions, I think one of the things that makes it hard for us is that we actually have to visually design all of those because we don't currently have the luxury of being able to solve part of it and is in visual design and then work within code to sort of find tune it. That's probably the most frustrating thing about pain Point. I can bring it back to the being lazy thing that would save me so much time if I could just, you know, not to worry about designing a sketch document for every single pixel

rate. Yeah, I think like that. That conversation is one that's like involved and continually happening on their responsive Web design side. Like, should we do the photo shop sketch thing to be designed in the browser and like, I hate to put myself in one category or another, but when I think of like giving someone the how something's gonna work while they get to see how it's gonna look. Um, Justin, Wire framing. I do that all in the browser, cause I could say, like, actually stretch this out and like, see what that looks like. This is like a living,

breathing thing. It's not just like pixel perfect, but that works too. Yeah, that's another one. I know. I said it. And then I was like, no, e pixel. Perfect design thinking.

No. Uh, so you had a mean. This might be a smooth transition on my twitter. Perfect. You just thinker. We want unicorn. Yeah, beginning about.

Yeah, that one definitely makes me cringe that at least you know, the other two. I could sit on the fence a little

bit. And then the company I used to work. We put a job posting for a unicorn. Somebody responded. And and now now, product companies are being called in accordance. Now it's now it's going all the way up to like, Oh, this is ubers and unicorns. Don't even understand

that Cooper has unicorn

A new update. Sana has a unicorn if you check off. Yeah, that's

like a love

that already pretty happy with that. So one last thing because it seemed like something you were pretty passionate about talking about the scenario of the challenge, a lot that some designers have. I think all of us probably suffer from this. Have a not designing for the ideal case or designing for yourself when you should be designing for reality. Yeah, talk about that,

Yeah, I think this is something that's been floating her around my head a lot, and I think it's coming up in a lot of different conversations and conferences. And I don't know if we've, like, landed on one particular thing because there's way too many things to think about, and I sort of look at it. I can't remember who had had this conversation with. I think it was, um James from from lynda dot com about this of just diversity is I mean, it's a topic that we're discussing a lot in this industry, but from a like a design perspective, I don't know for being diverse enough when we're starting to build something we're looking at are like perfect Mac screens and our perfect Mac tablets. And like our apple, um, you know, iPhones and washes and stuff and It's like I'm gonna design like what I have first,

right? There's an accessibility issue of We may not have all of these devices sitting here, but we, I feel like currently were testing way late in the process, and it kind of goes back to what I was bringing up earlier. We need to start thinking of those weird scenarios sooner, and they're not weird scenarios. They're actually really scenarios. Not everyone's on a Mac. Not everyone has Google fiber. Not everyone is speaking English. Not everyone has 2020 vision. Um, not everyone, like I think of think. Stephanie Hayes talk a few years ago at Breaking Development Conference was like Here's like 30 different adjectives of how we access the Internet was like joystick,

touch, push, click like speak like we can speak to Syria, Um, or I forget the name of the other one. Google. Yeah, what's that one's link? Uh, now we can blink. We can actually like where haptic stuff and, like, change the volume of something or like scroll down the page like all of these different things that now change how we do stuff so we just can't look at things in this like, perfect. Like I'm looking at it on my MacBook pro and like that's the perfect case scenario. It doesn't work that way.

And I think I think we just need to, like, bring that into the design process sooner. Rather then, like it being this later, like again going back to those stages like everything's broken to these perfect stages. And now we've left the prototype in, like, initial calm phase, and now we're distant. Then we'll test

it. Do you think that there's another side of that, too, Like looking out from the other side, where there's possibly too many considerations before actually, like getting in and doing, trying to get somewhere on the product

like, Yeah, I think, I think, absolutely. And I think it'll be very easy for us to, like work ourselves into a tizzy like there's so many things to consider. So here's a blank screen. Well, that is what I put together cause that's all like we can do. But I think some of the key things to focus on that maybe we, you know, I think we think about devices. I think we hopefully most people are thinking about Paige Speed and load speed. And, like if something's over 100 megabytes in the APP store, it Lee that that's an issue,

right? You don't need really hire his photos, like, if you're, uh, you know, doing something photo related from the APP store. Um, I think some of the things that maybe we don't think about, um, our language. I think that other yeah, other languages. I don't know if we're necessarily considering that as much. Um, I also don't know if we're considering, like, economic status or cultural ways like that. We go about saying what we do like we have a lot of and maybe some of this is from a content perspective, but I think those were some of the things that we can be more empathetic about.

Anthony makes a strong point all the time. When there's a new product that comes out that's meant Thio get the biggest, the biggest audience possible. But they you know, it's just an iPhone app, and they just totally look beyond the android user base because because the founder uses because that zits usually I think the reason. But I mean, you know, you said, like the financial side of things like Sure, people that have money have Androids too. But, I mean, I'm also saying that like not everyone can afford like an iPhone. Yeah, and what not? I mean,

I think in terms of the way we build products like it is, it is kind of frustrating when it does seem like that audiences sort of ignored just because of the I guess that would be an accessibility issue, depending on the product. I mean, my Panis only only relates to certain products that require different tribes of people to be ableto communicate. So let's say, let's say for your building Twitter and it only worked on IOS and all those Andrews air excluded. Then it's a broken service because not everyone can communicate. Or or more specifically, you're trying to communicate like SMS with your family that was inaccessible to everyone in your family, had different device preferences. It wouldn't work. Um, so, yeah, I'm pretty passionate about that.

But even a step higher to the point about getting research and early, I think there's also at times when you start with the wrong thing, so like, let's let's look it from the other perspective, like Maybe the client is an android guy and they're like, Yeah, we're gonna build Android. But they didn't do the research to figure out well most of the actual target audience is actually gonna be I'll s or the other way around. And instead of like, spending 1/2 a $1,000,000 or whatever, assuming you could probably very quickly do something to test that right interest level or or maybe, you know, maybe maybe it shouldn't be a nap it all Maybe it should be a Web app. Maybe, you know, like,

um and I think a lot of people want to get speed, but there, But they don't put enough really research until after till it's act like a Polish stage where it's harder to change in like Rick said worry. There's already debt debt that's been accumulated, stuff to know. Like, what is the balance between that? Because while it is important to know, like your edge cases and things like you get hung up on those two like it can really prevent you from, like, move forward like trying to solve for this one corner case where what if this users like this and doesn't have this band with a bubble is like, really preventing you from getting getting over the hump like you can get caught up on those things to you. So I thought it was important throwing like a counterweight to that, too. Because sometimes, yeah, you can't just go out blind like swinging a sword tryingto like Defeat the Dragon. You know what? I don't know.

What actor. I think that those are assumptions. We know design design assumptions will coined that term today. Yeah, decide assumptions were not actually thinking about. We just assumed things. I think that can be a dangerous things. I think we can make smarter, not assumptions. But maybe we can prioritize what some of those edge case priorities are by doing some early testing. Just talking to people, doing the research and figuring out, you know, things outside of the design. I like actually not doing design thinking, doing like user thinking. What cash? We're just coining

all the terms. That's actually pretty funny. One of the biggest design assumptions. I do not like doing our user stories. Yeah, I feel like I especially for who I am. Like, I'm just making assumptions about a lot of different people very quickly, without a lot of forethought. And then that's gonna, you know, carry on every decision we make past that point. And it's like Bill on a bed of lies, almost like all these people you don't know about. But you're just making assumptions like Mommy's 38 is gonna love this APC. It's on Iowa's. It's like I have no idea it's a slippery slope because in the lab,

in the last podcast episode, we talked about articulating design. And one of the one of the key points there is that the most articulate person wins, right? So from someone that knows how to articulate their design thinking in their design solutions, all they need to do is prove to the rest of the people that that that that get behind their idea. And it's really easy as a designer to prefer your own ideas, right? So like, it's really easy to say, like I like this minimal thing. I don't like this other thing, so I'm gonna always push that, even if you have personas because you will always I don't know what it is. I think maybe it's just humanity. I don't know it's hard for us to move away and designed something for be truly empathetic and designed something that someone else is gonna love and separate the fact that it's useful for them.

But maybe we don't like, thank you. You make a design decision because you are in your own brain, like thinking through things like Okay, this wouldn't work for this person wants to do for this, Then you live about, and then you kind of gone to this rather hoping like, Okay, this is air tight. Throw it into a meeting and it blows up, you know? And then you feel like, Well, wait, I'm losing all of like that, you know,

making sure it was airtight by these thes other ways, you know, so you don't want to move off of that decision? I'm not saying this right. I'm just saying, like, that's what happens. And that's why you get bought into a design decision. Um, it's really hard to be objective. But that's Jim and Rick. Can I ask you guys a question? Because you guys were involved more than I am in creating more subjective things for our clients. How how often is it that We're creating a design solution based on something that's popular versus something that we actually research the user. And we know that, you know,

we know more about what? What kind of interaction they like, What kind of design they like versus what we like and what we see on, you know, in the in the design community, I think, uh, Frank, they're actually talked about this a lot. There's, like a 50 50 personality split between, like what I want t put in and what actually needs to happen from the client side or from these people aside. So working with a client mean Ricker working on together, um, way spent, like the first,

like, three weeks learning about them. And then we make these decisions and a lot of it is based off of like, well, these air what were prescribing business, our experience and what you've told us? Um, it's pretty hard balanced to kind of find the perfect point where everything matches up, because at the end of day, you're wanting proud of what you're doing. But you also want to make sure it works. Yeah, I think a lot of times you can't forget that you're a designer, like the reason you are in this industry is because your designer and you tend to, you know, grab it.

Like when somebody anyone you know, in this room today is probably like if somebody brings you a quick design problem, like we're already like, immediately when we see it like we're thinking of, it could be this. Keep it. This could be this, you

know, So, like, that's, like,

the reason we do what we d'oh. And so we're good at that. Maybe. But you have to be willing Thio examine that in a pure objectivity which definitely, you know, separates. Okay, designer from, like, somebody that can build something really cool because, yeah, I mean, there's just listen. Thio podcast had marked Kimmie on on it the other day, and I was really inspiring because, you know, you always hear about like,

don't just be like in your own head, like appeal to research blah, blah, blah, you know, And like the sort of deflating in a way to, like designers like inspiration, wines, it's like, No, I Yeah, I'm an artist, you know, sort of. But I like money and make a living. So like

that. I think

it's important to innocent. I've been thinking about what, lately? It's just that I think is important, too recognized, like I'm a designer, I'm going to have solutions. I'm just gonna go ahead and get those out the light. Now don't marry those solutions like to me, The best way to do, like design thinking or whatever you want to call it is to like you're going to have knee jerk reactions like Just get those out. Like Examiner probably won't float like then, then understand why and then continue to operate that

way. Yeah, you know, I think you brought up like 10 awesome things within what you just said. One thing just because that one's the latest thing that you said the need jerk reactions. I think there's a level of trust we need to have and what were were doing, like there are some knee jerk reactions that are actually designed research that has happened from a natural progression of our design careers. There's things that you've tried on earlier projects that you know will not work. That's a part of the research I think Erika Hall are. There's another There's two really good design research books, ones. Erika Hauls, a List, a book Apart book and another one. Yep, just enough research. And then there's one.

It's mental models, Um, and it's by Rosen Field Media, I think, is their name. Um, I think the author's name is Indy Young on ethnographic research is those things that have happened just us living our lives and things that we know that if we see a red circle, a yellow circle and in green circle, we know that that vector graphic could represent a traffic light, right? We don't need it to say like, Hey, this is a traffic light. So these sort of like things that happened to us is users or just humans. And then there's things as a designer. So some knee jerk reactions air actually a form of research. Yeah, it's

it's good. I just I think that a we should not discount that, and B, we should not take it for, like, concrete, you know, throw it out there and then figure out what's wrong with it and continue Iterating. You'd have to be careful not to marry that solution before I think all these points are great and The one I would add to that as it relates to training new young designers is that I think you just have to know when or what the problem is, right? Like, Is this an opportunity where you know we're going, you're going to market quick, so I'm gonna make good decisions, and we're gonna get it out and then test it. Where is this? Something that affects millions of paying customers right now.

And I need to sort of be thinking about the design problem, not my preferential design. And then the other point we made on the show is well, and sometimes maybe you do need to do a little bit more research before you. You start building things and maybe also, um, knowing when you can bring your own flavor into the mix and when you need to be the piggy piggy back on someone else's. Yeah, that's true. Just knowing when, like just having the experience to know, like, okay, we could we could probably go down like some custom avenue right here and and knowing when to be like this is not appropriate to be doing this right now. It's like a mature I don't know, that's kind of cool.

Yeah, I don't I don't know how you how you guys, how you guys are doing it. It's it's it's a tough challenge. It's gotta be toe build a program you guys doing at the Iron Yard and produced the good things you love what you guys are doing the ironing, and by the way, it's highly in favor of this. I was so glad to have had the iron, your sponsor stuff we've done in the past and uh, it's

it's cool in y'all's involvement with, like stuff that we've done. And you know, having us for meet ups and things like that has been really exciting. And I think just what's so important to us as a company and his goal is like really bridging that gap between like the people that are trying to get educated in this and the people that are doing the hiring like people like you were like setting the industry standard. So it's just like be able to see both sides and kind of helped bring them together is like really important and it's super

fun. Cool. Tell us real quick before, as we wrap up about the about the mobile new mobile program.

So the mobile program has been around for a while. Um, it just isn't in Austin. Yeah, it's in a few of our other cities. And, um, actually, I think our second or third oldest class out of out of our six, um, a lot of IOS stuff. It's been really cool toe to see that involve of it over the years is a lot of the mobile stuff has changed, like, with swift and and all that. And like, the apple watch, I watch whatever the watch is called it never,

actually. First time apple watch. Okay. Good. Um, like, just seeing that class involved as that industry has evolved has been, like one of the most fascinating

thing. I've got a quick question. Where's the android class? Oh, just

a Russian. We have, um we're, like, working on that.

I'm guessing you're Anthony. So the mobile. So the mobile classes? More of like an engineering program? Yes. Are you guys gonna have you ever thought about getting like a mobile design program?

So fun. Fact. One of my students from last spring in Austin collaborated with a student that we had in another state who was doing a final project for Iowa's, and she designed all the assets for for that student they've never met. To this day, they did everything over slack remotely. They just had, like, one initial kick off with that instructor and me. And then, like a God

way, we live in the future Postal Service. Yeah,

it was like a Postal Service sort of thing. I have, like, the game that he built on my phone. It's in the APP store and like it's her design work. And they like, I love that that happened. We do that a lot better, Kim says. Try to really like network in between them because I think that's also giving them an extra like they can both say they've worked remotely before, right, like, and that's crazy to me that they've never met to this day. And they have this thing that they've worked on together. That's such a cool thing that I never had in my education.

No, no school. Well, we'll talk more about that today before you leave Sam, why don't you tell our listeners how they can, um, learn more about you or find you

sure I am probably easiest to find on the Twitter verse. So just s a M k p sam cap. Um, that is fairly the best way to find me on all the things. A good read Since I was talking a lot of about a lot of books, those were definitely on my list. Um, and then

sam capella dot com I think too funny. You guys want to reach out to Sam. She has a talent that you may not be aware of. That is, she has no idea what she's extremely good at. Coming up with nicknames for you in case you need. Yeah, like some

best Nick. I inherited that from my dad. Yeah, I have, like,

a 100 different names for me. Reach out If if you need any twitter hand, she's

really Twitter handles company names, Band name

and Jim. Thanks for joining us today. Tell people how they can find you. They can come. The fun size will be here on Twitter. Jim J. Jordan. Lot of Jay's. It's pretty much all the jays Oh, and J J J. I am dot com really embracing the J thing. It's working for me all right? Yeah. Hit gemma jim dot com. Thanks. This'll 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. Theon yard will teach you the tools and skills you need to become a professional interface designer and then help you find a job.

If you're interested in launching a new career in tech and design, visit their website. The iron yard dot com scholarships are available for the summer semester, where user interface design at the Iron Yard. Life's too short for the wrong career. Hustle is brought to you by fun sized Digital Product Design Agency in Austin, Texas, that creates delightful, innovative products for mobile Web and visit us on Twitter at fun size or visit our website of fun sized taco.