way. Welcome. Welcome to the hustle. A podcast by fun size about creating great digital products. I'm your host. Anthony Armendariz, partner. Fun size filling in for Rick Messer today. Today we got feet long. Uh, practice underfund size and two very special guests from the Bay Area. Joe Buchanan and Ted Botha has gone, Guys, it's out by southwest it is, and we're drinking bourbon and coffee and coffee at 12:30 p.m. We're actually late myself by Southwest rules. It's conservative. Uh,

so today we're gonna do a crossover episode between the hustle and the balance podcast. Real excited that we're had this opportunity to do this s o There's gonna be a couple of different topics today. We're gonna talk about prototyping and some of your methods about using keynote, to operate quickly and make decisions faster and better, and maybe a little bit about fun size. Yeah, it's kind of a juxtaposition of the balance and the hustle that is all the same, right? Hustled that balance. So before we get started, I want you guys introduce yourselves and tell our listeners a little bit about, uh, who you are, what you're doing and and uh, what you got going on? So I'm Joel.

I'm actually in Orange County. No, not in the Bay area. I've been around a little bit, uh, background. I'm currently going to be starting a za designer on android. We can entreat auto, but Bennett Google 18 months now and have been on analytics doing some of the Iowa is an android work for analytics and then another project I can't talk about, Um, before that when where I met Ted, we worked it Netflix together. I met him itself by Southwest four years ago. Um, so we're here talking about our design and Kino, and that's what kind of where we learned.

I learned that whole process, and Ted kind of walked me through it. And Israel quarter how we were efficient at Netflix, but were there together, I think, two years working on mobile, and before that, I was at a start up doing mobile stuff. That's kind of was my first intro into the tech space before that, it was shooting weddings and designed events for free to try and be designers and working. Kind of like a dead end job. Um, so I've only been doing like three years, I think. Four years. That's awesome.

It was It's really great to meet you in person and, you know, a fee. And Andre told me about the balance. But I think right when we started fun size, so really enjoying the punk ass and glad to have you here. I can't wait to talk to you about some of the android stuff you're going to do because I'm an android. Geeks, Yes. Yeah. Maybe we'll have to do another cross over you should you should, you know, and that the balance podcast is just a side project. It's one of those things that I'm also a dad. I've got two kids and I moved from the Bay area to Orange County because I wanted to raise my kids a cool area. Bond wanted to buy a house that wasn't $1.5 million.

So, um, that was just kind of a side project to kind of talk about. You know, you can you can hustle. You could be a great designer. You could do a lot of cool stuff, um, and also go home at five. Like it's possible. And for us, you know, it's a big part of that on. We can get into that little later. Bossom. Yeah,

and I'm Ted Botha. I actually started my career at Apple. I was you. I'd designer for keynote for five years, so I helped launch key note on the desktop iPad and iPhone. And during that time we actually worked in Kino. Thio mock up a lot of our ideas. It was the is the way that our particular team worked with each other. We had a lot of designers and we were going on pages and numbers and had had a lot to do at the time. After five years at Apple, I went over to Netflix for a couple of years to help lead Mobile and where I met Joel. Andi went to nest before the Google acquisition on Die Just recently Left Nest in October, and I'm working on a startup called Pass Pop, and I'm thinking about the next generation of tools for designers to help them become better communicators and rapid prototype.

I made a mistake to try to get me to go to nest when he went there, and I probably should have because it would have ended up a Google anyways. You you learned?

Um, yeah. So Joel and I talked at South by Southwest has three

years is a 30 year

we've done it 30 years, we've done it and we talk about designing you and keynote and how it just makes us move a little faster gives us more time to generate a lot of different

ideas. It's funny because most people, when when we talk about this a lot, even the title of what we're calling the podcast is about prototyping and a lot people know, you know, as a way to prototype and something I still think we're trying to get people to understand. It's like No, like, this is my entire design tool like I don't have. I don't have Creative Cloud or Adobe products on one of my computers, and it's one of the main design computers because I'm dressed in Kino, right? So exporting one Kino file and giving you an icon font and that's it. I'm super excited. Thio hear this from you guys because I mean just, you know, like it's been over the last two and 1/2 years and growing fund size.

I haven't been doing much design I've been designing teams, I will say, though like like using keynote as a tool, like changed my life. So thank you, Ted, for being a part of that, you know, because I come from a more traditional like interaction design background is just tools like comedy Gravel and to create complex wire frames. And when when I started using keynote for wire frames that just completely changed, like speed and the way we were talking with clients and how fast we could do it and quality of work. And it was all so easy for people to learn that were interaction, designers and, you know, get their feet wet. I start creating cool stuff.

What's subtle like it's there's things that Kino does that makes it quicker. And it's just small things that a little bit like layers, certain things that give you more control and design programs. And the fact that Keynote doesn't have that and makes things super light and easy in that overtime, like is a lot. That's a lot of time that you save so things. Expecting wire frames, all of those things taking, you know, it's like you like I'm just a guy that like, learned it and like, Ted is the keynote guy. And like, he taught me his ways. And it really is like the I don't use to do apse because I take my notes and Kino on the design file on this page, I update this thing right way would communicate through that.

We would like Ted would leave me. Now it's time to go back in like, Oh, this one need update. And it was his really, really cool workflow.

Yeah, I use it as a communication tool on and I think it could use keynote at at any level you want, so I I'm the same I actually designing Keynote. I write my specs and keynote. I kind of write my overview for what? The product I'm working on and the fact that I can pass that file over to somebody else and they can open up and use it without having Thio. I'm sure you've opened up somebody's Photoshopped files and you're dissecting How did they put all their layers together and try to figure out what? Yeah, where things are keen. It was just a really good way. Thio work in the in keynote as a tool and then present Thio executives, other people on your team, other designers and pass it to other designers you want. So it's just become a very robust tool and everyone has their tool. But you can use that at any capacity you like. I just happened to push the limits of keynote to the extreme. Yeah, yeah.

So while we're on the topic of keynote like, you know, last year you came and you guys, you know, came to present keynote to, you know, designers who hired don't know how to use it. Sure. Um I mean, you really talked about how you guys were using your careers like, let's just talk more about that. I mean, the kind of like Golden Story that I I always given his example and we talked. It was like I was in a meeting with Ted. We had a big P M decision maker in the room, and he's presenting right. Here's the slides animating.

Here's the new product feature. Dad ratted out and question, question, question. What about this? You know, this feels weird. Can we do this? Two guys start, you know, talking with each other, debating 10 exits, the presentation, stops presenting, make some changes, duplicate some slides,

puts it back up and he goes, You guys like, kind of like this and like, yeah, that's the fucking thing right? And it that would have taken another two weeks to get to that resolution. The fact that he didn't have toe open a photo shop, find the layers, save a new file export that put it back in the presentation tool. He literally just the presentation is the actual design file as well. Um, and that that saved us probably a week with a design work and like meeting, scheduling and all of that stuff. That's that's all precious

time. Yeah, I would say as a tool to it's a really great way to kind of organize what your product is. So it could be. Here are the features I have to break those down. I have to break it down by the respect, any kind of technical or design things that you need to do with it. I can draw rapid prototype inside of the inside of keynote at any level, and then I can animate in it. I can export those out too quick. Time and export Adam Teoh Pts. I can export out the whole thing as p and G's. So you're talking about a tool that can do most everything that a lot of separate tools can do Very well. So, you know, a photo shop after effects. They're really amazing at what they do.

But you're not gonna go inside of aftereffects unnecessarily create mock ups. You're gonna go in there specifically for informations. Photoshopping illustrator, Same kind of example. So what I think Kino does, it does 80 90% of everything really well, but it does it all in one tool. And the fact is that we need to wrap it prototype these concepts and ideas, depending on what company you have or what kind of client you have. And then you want to get to that point where okay, this feels good. This feels right on. Now. We need to kind of go in and do those that last bit of pixel perfection and save all my assets out and do this

kind of changes. That's what it's nothing. I love about the tool like you mentioned like it's a low bearer of entry. It doesn't cost a lot of money to buy, writes its native on the Mac. It has familiar you I and it's depending on how you created it. Still feels touchable by another stakeholder like so. A client, for example, doesn't feel overwhelmed by this tool versus on the graph. Right in keynote. I think people still feel like, Oh, I could go in and kind of edit this and I could be a part of this. And

so we had a very large team at Apple in the fact is that we representing to Steve Jobs all the time. So not me, unfortunately, my BP. But,

you know, you just work with Al Gore, just another dude.

So you know, when you're trying to get these ideas across on new software software that doesn't exist, we needed tool that we could kind of go through a lot of different features. A lot of different ideas have a lot of options out there, and the whole team used keynote and actually it was extremely high fidelity. We had visual designers that would create all our icons, all the It was a time where it was skew more fizz, um, was really important. But bringing those assets into keynote and still being able to use them. You can do that as well. I can copy from Illustrator on Icon. Bring it into a keynote as a PdF. That's scaleable. I mean, tile imagery for a background with noise or some kind of texture. So we were building extremely high fidelity mock ups in keynote.

What you see is what you get kind of thing you're not gonna bring a wire frame. And to Steve Jobs you're gonna bring in. This is exactly what it's gonna look like. This is exactly what's gonna animate. We had a guy on our team that just did after effects animations. So what he would do is actually take his animations and bring them into keynote as quick time movies. So it was. It was a It was, ah place where I could bring in every single idea, you know, I iconography to choose from movies to move, see animations, mock ups, everything. It was one place to do it. And,

you know, Netflix, we we kind of taught designers over there how to use it. And it's not for everybody, but the people who adopted see how fast they are, just smart on, And, uh, so it's just

work really well. So this whole prototyping thing has been something that's come up a lot in our studio in a lot of our colleagues here in town. And there's kind of a different scenario if you're in a product company versus client service. You know, I used to work at Evernote. We worked it. Ever know we had the luxury of sitting next to an engineer, a product manager and using tools like keynote or whatever to communicate an idea. And for us on the client service side, which I'm really glad you're here. It's a little bit different because we're just doing the design and we're integrating with our clients engineers and the part of the puzzle that we haven't figured out how to do really, really well is bridging that gap what it like. How are we completing our design thoughts to the these engineers? And what tools are reading investment right? Because there's so many options right now, there's, you know,

there's tools, some of them you have to learn JavaScript and CSS, and they're throwaways. And then there's Courts Composer with a high learning curve, and then there's tools like, you know, like, can you guys talk a little bit about your thoughts on that from working? It may be in a client perspective. Quite service perspective. It's it. I've had two environments, right? So at Netflix, uh, it was very small,

right? So we were working pretty close with the engineers and we had that luxury, but even a Google. Right now it's so big that it is kind of like working with a client like Theo engineers. There's, like, 300 another room or in another office. And so, um, I think the implementation of stuff with Kino is is where it probably falls flat more often than not like its greatest storytelling. It's great getting by and it's greater communicating. And I think that's where it beats everything else. And that's where you spend most your time. The implementation that last 10 20% is where you have to kind of hack it together, right? And so,

um, it's nice and mobile context because most everything you're implementing is off of a nest Ikea or something that could be drawn programmatically. So that's where respect becomes a big deal. Azzam's your details in your spec and we kind of like It's kind of like Expect point like we love like designing these beautiful specs that are organized and that becomes almost for me. That's the document. This is how it should be built like I don't like, or or like a screen. Capture the animation of giving you like Let's sit down and work on it. But it's hard to get, I guess, for you talking about If it's another engineering house you're working with, you have to document a lot more right, like things like transitions and animations like Like, How does that work with you? You know? Yeah.

I mean, I've so a lot of times would we'll paint the picture with keynote like This is kind of the flow and how things will work. So it's kind of like a high level view on, and a lot of times if I don't have an animation designer, if I don't want to try and jump in tow aftereffects or courts myself, I'll just point to other APS. I'm like a reference this thing out of the screen. Capture on an app like Do It like that. You know what I mean? And for me assuming you have good engineers, it's that works most the time you guys can't control engineers you're working with. So it's it's a different conversation every time. That's gonna be difficult. It is some sometimes challenging, you know, like we're working in the clan of Bayer,

for example. We don't always have the luxury of having them here are flying out there. So sometimes we have to find interesting ways of doing it. So we're doing it in various ways, like you described our local clients. We can just get him over and weaken reference materials and stuff like that. You know, it's since we can't, like, really show listeners what we're talking about. Could you guys maybe just summarized the process like starting from, like organizing the ideas about what the product or features gonna be and how you start low fidelity sort of test, invalidate the concepts or variations and and at what point it gets into high fidelity and then a little bit more on the high fidelity part because I think most people probably don't know that you can what you could actually do at a high fidelity and then also part of the like you know the completion part of it. Like, when does it end and Kino? Or does it, you know, go all the way through keynote right? Talk about assets. And

I would say I actually start off before I draw anything. I mean, I think it's really good to have a good understanding of what the product you're working on. So I will literally put in title slides or section areas of what is the product? What are the things that I'm trying to accomplish for a client? Or if I'm an internal team, what am I trying to do? What is this project I'm working on? I'll put notes as an overview and bullet slides like, Oh, here's what we're doing in this section here doing this section. I can use comments on those slides, so I'm really creating an outline first of what exactly I'm going to do before I go work on any kind

of pixels. It's p r d like to go. And if you go into any of our documents PRD product requirements. Yeah. Yeah, like you. Sorry. Tech. Speak Googlers now, like the documents we have. Like the windows up. When I joined Netflix that he was working on. It was like 250 slides, right? So which would be a compilation of lots of different files and a lot of different Softwares, And so just the nesting and, like,

collapsing structure of Kino, it becomes an automatic outline of everything you need to build. And so there's stuff that's empty. It's like That's what I have to finish. That's what I'm working on. Next. Andi

could even like, hide sections. So let's say I have a section and then I get pulled that we're gonna get a different version so I can actually collapse those slides, hide those slides and get to him at a later time. I can also have This was as options if I want to. So I first kind of think about what is the what is the assignment or what we're trying to accomplish with this particular project or or client work. And then I kind of go out and, you know, I actually tend to use the White Board more than anything. That's my that's my go to, uh, working by myself or working with teams sketching out ideas. It's really important to have that kind of freedom, too, to explore ideas

and, well, you know, wire

frame. I don't wire frame myself. II goes, you know, I go from white board. I have this kind of concept in my head. And then so the main tools that keynote allows you to use as they have, Ah, bunch of draw bull's tools. So, you know, shapes, Grady, INTs, lines, textures, type.

All of that are kind of your base kind of tools. I can get these wire frames to somewhat high fidelity mockups using keynote and then because I can iterated, can duplicate slides, I can come up with a lot of ideas, move icons around Crichton, create our new different layouts that I want to try, explore different ideas. Um, and then I can animate those things. I could have transitions between different slides. I can have things come in and out. Uh, no, that's a button comes in or I want to move a screen up or down. I can do all the animation so it becomes more and more robust, you know,

with them or tools that you kind of use on dhe. Then, like I said, I still working Photoshopped still working illustrator. A lot of people working sketch and sketch to in being able thio. Now, bring some of the my ideas. I use illustrator a lot when I'm what I'm doing this kind of illustrations or or sketch. So I want to create those iconography and bring them into keynote as a tool. Move those around, animate those ideas around. So that's kind of my

flow. Yeah, I think I think the the weird thing is I didn't start and web. I did like WordPress sites and stuff, but it wasn't a Web designer. Right on. Only worked a couple of years at the agency. And so I think some of initial steps that we think about, like, wire framing and low fidelity to a proof of concept. A lot of that, um I think, you know, does it a different way. So rather than showing a flow map of the information architecture like you walk him through it. Yep. So you don't like That's an abstraction of a digital experience and just show me the damn thing.

Right? And so, uh, I have a created one liken information architecture thing. I think it could want it. Google, but not once it at Netflix because, well, one, the experience is pretty basic, right? Like there's a list of movies in a movie Daniel Page in a Player. But because you can present and you could walk through things that documentation side, um, of King of the design process you don't really need. And it's different.

I think, like in the agency world, were recommended for clients, but you don't want it necessary. Always show the visual fidelity. Want to show it? That's the whole thing about, like the client world, where you want to show just the structure to get that signed off. So then you could start designed. I think that's also like an artifact of a day, a day and age when clients weren't as smart as they think they were, hiring an agency toe like produce this stuff. And I think a lot of the roles, you know, we had information architects and strategists and all these things,

and I think a lot of this stuff just generated a lot of bloat, right, because we assumed like the first customer didn't really understand. We were wanting to make sure that the scope wasn't gonna get blown out of proportion, right? But when you're working agile, like in a product company or like us, like we don't have to worry about those things and and that is the best what it just shows something in so something that's moving. You get better feedback instead of like, a lot of subjective little details, and you can kind of you get to a quicker right. Well, people used to be designing to, like, be within scope and meet deadlines. That was all it was,

all based on the bottom line in, like treating this client the right way. We're just trying to build stuff is fast and smart as possible. Like I mean, it's a little bit different. You know, you guys are in the same boat. You obviously have clients, but, um, I don't have to sell you on the idea like we're working on it together, like, let's build this right So some of those I think some of that comes from the older Web design model, and that's so much of what of our industries built of. I don't have that. I don't I don't need to.

I don't need to work low fidelity like because like people think that. You okay? You know, it's okay. As I know, I will mock up this screen and Kino, and you won't be able to tell the difference. Yeah, unless use you like user manual. No, it's like one pixel inside outside stroke. Like you can't have that kino about outside of that. Like, especially with flat design. A lot of the current aesthetics. You could do it right?

Like an s o my wire framing. I'm wire framing in high fidelity, so I have not I don't wire afraid 10 concepts and then have to do the visual design for those things. I'm done when I'm done. Wire framing. Now you have to actually go visually. Design that. Yeah. And so I think there's the serendipity and this quick adoration and and you know, exactly when you're designing, you're trying to solve problems, right? Like moving stuff around, trying to see how things work. And if you're doing that with, like,

just strokes in, like, black type. And no visual fidelity like that informs a lot of that design. So I think you know, seeing Ted work and see how seeing how he ran for absent Netflix by himself like that process of moving stuff around and immediately getting that feedback like that's the thing we immediately have. You're making decisions quicker because you're working at a higher fidelity. Um, and that's what I like this this statement of pixel pretty damn perfect like that's when we were when he was teaching me the process. Everyone was like I was reading a post about pics of perfection and the designs in the details. I'm like, No, it's pixel pretty damn perfect, because even if your designs perfect, the engineer is not gonna make it perfect, right?

Unless you're Apple. So, like that's that's because they have that culture to do it right or you're fired, right? And so the file is just a communication tool we held. Hold these precious mocks and it's like your mock your mock doesn't matter. Like that's a good title to Well, I mean, it's your mock up like that. That's not the canvas, right? Like the technology is the canvas and so right, you know it's in code. That's where it really is exactly. And I could see this like it's been a while since I've used Kino, but just,

you know, talking about it. I can see how this is really useful. Let's say you work at a at a product company like Google. They have a unified design language, and maybe there's a you by library for the APP. You don't need to go out there and recreate this thing in photo shop and spend like, you know, 40 80 hours like you can. You could take these elements and you can build new flows or new sections without having to, you know, do things I could. I could also see how it could be really useful to do in the beginning stages of a new product, right? Getting in his high fidelity as you can, through validation,

getting interaction, design in your vision for motion captured and then solving the details and smaller areas as you go into implementation. Yeah, any like the workflow process. Anytime I join a new team or work on our new project, something on the side. I spent an hour and designed the entire geo. It's all it takes. Like I went toe, I went to Google. They announced this back, and I, in a day in the morning, designed the entire sticker sheet everything so that I had is a file to get to the team here, use these things. I don't have to do any more.

Visual design like that exists, right? And it's different if you're always redoing new visual identities and stuff. But for us, it's that's what it is. It's not gonna change. So I don't have to think about that anymore, you know? And now I have a file that I will have the file I have. I've had for 18 months and it is the entire project. And I've only redesigned the visual identity twice. And it only I I just did it like two weeks ago. We did a refreshing our branding on this project, and it took me two hours. I updated all 145 slides, visual design stuff,

and that would take me a week, an illustrator or in sketch, right, Like just the complexity of of how you have to, like, make those visual updates. Um,

yeah, I think you're actually no, you have a real big advantage If you work for a company that has a kind of visual speck or design lingering. It's already established because now I can go in and create pretty pretty close to exactly what they have in keynote on DDE. Now I have this kind of base layer, this base library that I can go with and duplicate slides and just continue to work through these mock ups without having to worry about creating something from scratch. So huge advantages. If you're working on client client work that hasn't established a kind of identity or brand identity with their within their APS, I think that's kind of one really good opportunity. If you're working through newer ideas with clients where these things need to be established, then you're working through a lot of different options. And keynote is also a really great way to kind of say, Okay, here's option one. Here's how it could look. Here's a banana made. Here's the looking fear of the layout.

Here. Let's go to Option two. So now you have a tool that's really good at going through a lot of different options. You can also do interactivity through keynote so I can have interactive hyperlinks as well, so I don't have to just tell this story in a linear flow. Aiken jump through nonlinear storytelling to move around a story and give them some idea of how it works. You and I talked about using. So again we're pushing the limits of a presentation tool. This isn't a design tool. It is a presentation tool that designers don't argue, but their people are always at the end like, Oh, can you say about all the assets like, No, it's a presentation tool. It's not.

Sketch sketch is really good at saving one x two x three Excesses out You want to go to use those tools for that particular reason, But this is about communicating a story across to someone else and that I think that's the most important part. So when it comes to client work, sometimes I will. If I wasn't client work, I would I would say about my mock ups. As P and G's go to envision Goto actually, Goto pop up. There's a ton floodgate of right now of different APs out there helping designers prototype these ideas Can you create in those prototype tools? Not necessarily. You probably create somewhere else. Bring those assets in, and now you're sharing these prototypes with clients. So again envision is a perfect example of something you doing Web

work. So back on that on that topic? Sure. You know, having the keynote prototype and having something like an envision prototype. In your experience, Have you guys found that using one or the other actually produces faster results or using together is

why you can't create in vision? Yeah, you're using it as a prototyping tool, but you're creating them somewhere else. Keynote. I'm creating in keynote, and I'm also using it as my prototype tool. I could do the interactive interactivity. The unfortunate thing is, is that if you're working with a client remotely, sometimes it's a little bit challenging to get that key note, which is on your computer in front of them.

You know, I think you can exploit. I mean, that's That's the thing. That's the $1,000,000 feature, right? So there's ways we've hacked it. Obviously, you're gonna make a Richard prototype prototyping tool for you will and keynote, but we've I've run, you know, five day sessions doing usability, testing huge efforts just on Kino. So if it's a prototype that you wanna like ship someone and they want to play around, then give you feedback, it's gonna fall down, right?

Like you can't It doesn't have touch, doesn't have a lot of these things. Um, but if you're if you're doing you actually doing a lot of research like that's a lot of what I've learned from Netflix intended, like understanding users and showing them products like Keynote can get you a lot of ways and tell the stories, but it's not interactive, so that's those are things that, like there's some there's some delight and touching things and saying that moves that we do a lot to fake that. So we'll walk through stuff and show them the process. I've even like, mirrored a keynote presentation that was an IPAD app on an iPad and like I had all the gesture moves in everything, and we're just talking about them. They're holding the tablet so it feels real, and we're narrating the experience and they're seeing through. And so we validated a lot ideas that way. Um,

you could just you could do some limited interaction so I can build a 10 24 by seven, can do eight presentation in keynote and open it up in keynote on the iPad Press play, and then It allows me to have that interact to interactivity with that presentation. But you know, it's not going to be the real thing. It's gonna be

that you're still like using one of those desktop like Click Touch Better for us. He was just like, You're not gonna stay

where you're just gonna tap through areas. I mean that that's the limitation. But it again, it's a presentation tool that's being kind of pushed possible

so it doesn't allow you to add a cot, spots or anything. It does. It's just it links to like this. This click goes to this page right? But you can't get like a two finger swiped to do something right. Like some of those tools have a lot of nice native gestures built in. So you really exporting like a linked PdF or a nay CC'd email export of that experience. So when you were working on mobile labs that that tends to become difficult, Um, but but we think that there's enough value and we save enough time that we put in effort to hack it together like we had. We had a prototype on Netflix that had video and audio and all those things started on certain trigger points in the animation timeline on, so you could get pretty high fidelity. We didn't put it on the iPad because it was so rich. Like iPad couldn't handle us. We had to run it off of a computer. But it all depends on what your prototype needs to be.

Yeah, I think for us like the main feature that we use an envision is not necessarily a prototyping, but as a p. M tool to capture feedback. Right. And something that he and I have been talking about is like, Okay, well, okay, that works, But we get bombarded with feedback, so we're thinking Okay, What if we just always showed every everything in some kind of prototype, whether it's keen on a screen or some other tool to get stronger, more focused feedback? Because we know that the details are going to be polished,

like in code, like later, right, instead of just opening up in envision, you know, project for everyone to free for all comment fast. It's hard because there's their structure and brand and flow decisions that need to be made. I think I think, you know, does that really well, so showing like a general idea when you're getting down. Like I I admire a lot of the work that Facebook does like rooms, and, uh, their messenger app is really all there. Abs are really polished,

and there is a very innovative and I know that that's because they're working in courts and like building these really beautiful things. I don't know how I would prototype that Kino, right? Those high interactions, what happens when you drag this custom thing that no one's ever seen before? It has that menu animate. You can paint that picture, but if you want someone to touch it and do it at that point, you're not gonna do an envisioned either. You need like to be a native code, but for me, that's that's so far down the line, like when you're a Google Netflix like this is all about money and conversion and testing. And so the main effort is not that last detail. That's like implementation. That's the last 20%.

That's a big slide we show like, Here's the normal process and here's, you know, the overall length. We cut that down because we focus on the actual problem telling that story and fixing that problem, and then we'll implement it when we know what it needs to be. But we have buying these are partners is engineering and PM, And so when you have to prove to the client it's the right decision, that's a little

bit different. Yeah, like for me? I actually don't do a lot of animations and keynote. I can. But I think it depends if you mean, if you have a client that needs to see that type of fidelity to understand what's going on, how it's gonna work, how it's gonna animate, they need me to do that. I I think I've you know, I've been in places where I could just show flows and they understand how it's gonna go, mate, like the Google situation, right?

There's gonna be a very different for you from Netflix toe nest, right? Like how you show stuff like Netflix that was gritty. So we just like this is what we're doing. We'll figure out the that go that direction. Whereas nest has more of that apple like I want to see how it is like you're working with Tony Fidel IQ. Show me the thing I don't want to see. Ah, rough idea of this thing,

right? Yeah. And tools like Facebook's using what is origami? That they're pushing the limits high barrier to entry to understand how to use those things. So again, I think there are really amazing tools out there. But what's the tool? You know how much time you're gonna spend to learn this one particular tool? I think courts composed our origami stuff. They've done a really wonderful job. But again, keynotes the kind of thing that I can not only pass around two designers, but it's also to get out to developers. You know, there are no layers. They're writers writers. Actually,

eso copy is a huge. It was a huge thing at Ness. It's a very important part. I think writing is actually equally as important as the pixels. It's very you have to understand what the product is. What is the voice of the product? So to be able to give a keynote file over to a writer so they can go in and make those edits to those mock ups, they're not gonna go into photo shop. They're not gonna go on Illustrator in fact, they mostly working like Microsoft Word are Google kind of docks to get that that type of cross. But now they can just go in, make these quick edits, get it over to the client, and it allows your really empowering not just designers. You're empowering you developers. You're powering your PM's your marketing people and your writers all with one tool that they all can use. Everyone understands kind of presentation tools, so very easy to get in. Double

click into Jen's just the screens for, like, the APP Store. Um, I never knew this, but it's it's obvious if you think about it. But like all of those have to be internationalized for every region, right? And so we would finish everything. Everything's great. We're launching app Oh, and not produce all of these assets and make sure they're spelt right in a language you don't read, write. And so Way had a process of doing that photo shop, and we had a production designer. It would take a week to produce all the different one x two x every language, every screen,

and there's a content restrictions, so you have to switch that box are behind the transparent play button. Right? So these weren't, like, just screen shots. We had to generate these files and and we switched that process like, No, we're gonna use Kino. Here's the source file. Now, you I writer This speaks his language is just do them all and we'll export at once. Yeah,

And then the second you find

and replace you get expelling

you do batch changes, you can duplicate slide. So now if we're going to see different options of what that marketing lingo needs to be again very. We have figured out ways how to use keynote in so many multiple applications. When you're working through this process, it's become

super super power. I'm kind of scared because, like, I don't know, I'm going. So I'm going to Android Auto and, like, this is my high. This is why I talk about like me and Ted are real passion about this stuff. But like with material designed and things, Andrew's doing like, they're no joke, like they're the real deal. Like they're hard core, that everything is get based, like so assets and everything are being, you know,

going to repositories. And the engineers are pulling in some like man, I don't use terrible very much, and and I'm working on car you why and where we're really We're really concerned about, like, touch feedback, an animation in cognitive load and like, um, like what? Everyone they call it. But like the amount of time it takes to achieve a task, right? And so there's a lot of fidelity there. And so I'm going in kind of as a product guy, like between us and you. And so I think I'll be able to use you know,

a lot for that when it starts getting more detailed, like If we don't do right, people die, right? This isn't like that. I'm living it up. I don't like it's like, No, I'm getting in a car accident because you designed it wrong on DSO so that some of those details that like I'm the guy I'm going to work with my manager. He's from Apple, and he knows he's aware of Ted and I, and there's another guy that works in Kino. So he's really excited about us trying to implement that more time, talking with material designed team to try and like, advocate this Google larger. I do internally a lot,

but But, you know, when you're working on real serious stuff, this isn't just like selling a thing. Um, those details matter. So I'm kind of apprehensive and, like, I don't have to learn some new tools like, it's not all going to be here, right? And I want I want to move. I work a south by There's somebody rad people that I meet. All these guys are like, I think I'm doing okay like I'm doing my job. Well,

um, I'm going to meet these other guys like, Oh, gosh, like you're in court. Composer prototyping your mobile. You. I like I suck, right? Like, I need to know I need a learn a lot. And so I think that's where I wanna I don't wanna open sketch more or after effects. I want to start, um, figuring out how to work in native code. So whether you're working on,

there's a lot of them out there now, but working in native code and using using keynote for my majority, my stuff and going from there into whatever native IOS or android environment have been saying, like, you know that here's the thing. Um But we'll see. That's really hard. And I

every every coach. Yeah, I knew guys at Netflix that used fireworks that was just there. It's whatever tool of choice

you really sketches fireworks like There's some guys that, like Rat Adobe and their Netflix and like people didn't know the power that fireworks had everything that sketch does well, like all the styles and all the exporting. That's what that's what fireworks did. Just no one used it right, which is it's

kind of funny. My story has always been choose the tool that works best for you. I'm fluid in keynote. I like giving these talks. I like to kind of open up these ideas and these processes to two people to show them. Here is the power that you have when you're using keynote. So if people don't use that, people want you sketch or they want these fireworks were going after effects are calming. Goat go for That's great. Me. I'm about saving time. This is how I do it. This works really well for Joel, and I have people that see it and do it in practice. It are 1000% behind it, and that's why we talk at these workshops. That's why I mean,

I've talked to the Spotify team in Sweden and gave them this workshop as well so they could learn that process. And if you want to use it, if you want to adopt it, it's like any other tools. The more you learn, the more you use it, the faster you are, the more you understand it. And so

it's hard, though it's hard to switch workflow look, and we get a big ask. But for us way do it and and that Netflix and Google invest. Everyone uses their own tool, right? Not everyone's on one on one platform, Um, but me and Ted, like we're going to get espresso done in that fancy chairs because we're done like, Sorry, guys like you enjoy your layers, right? Like we're going to go grab a coffee. And I I think that I go home and five people are hustling. I'm getting e mails like guys, I'm done like Sorry.

Yeah, it's kind of cocky. Let's work something smarter. Yeah, and that's I mean, that's a lot of like what I talk about on the podcast when I've talked about on different talks is like, You have to be intentional and you have to optimize this. Not because, like some people want to do it to shift the thing and be the guy and get acquired. I do because I want to go home, you know? And that's that's why impassioned about this tools. Because I don't I don't want to stay late right on. But I think that this tool tells me to do that. And I think I'm a better dad because of it. And that,

Matt, that really matters to me. Um, So, like, I passionately don't like Photoshopped unless I'm editing a photo. And so yeah, it's my story s. So if someone was interested in what they're talking about my kids missing, if you guys are giving workshops and someone was interested in learning about how to do one of their company, how where would they go? Toe?

I love keynote

way, actually. Joking? Yeah, Yeah, I love you know dot com. We just added, Ah, inquiry part at the bottom. And because I wanted to do this more because I think it's a huge opportunity

for him. Yeah, I've just been I've been super busy working at cos I didn't have that luxury of going out talking. And now that I'm kind of doing my start up thinking about these next set of tools for designers, I I have this opportunity now to really talk to other agencies or designers. I've gone up to the Academy of Art up in San Francisco and talk to the students there. Here's how you can use it to mock things up or, you know, rapid prototype, even using for your portfolio portfolio. I love telling this story. I think it's a great tool. I think everyone should at least learn about it and know that of its existence and what and how powerful it is. So you feel free to get in contact with.

We're talking to some start ups. It's it's a it's a big ask, right like it's it's a commitment to a team like come down and do what we think it's valuable, and so we've been. We've talked a lot. People. Should we do this? We not like it's kind of jumping in both feet, but I think I think you're you're in a good place to do that. We're interested in talking to people about it cause we do it all the time. I do it three or four times a year Internal a Google and doing it Maur uh and I know you've done it at every company you've worked at, but we want we want to kind of share the secret sauce of people are interested in trying figure. But there's a form they couldn't email in television or one of us will get back. That's awesome. Cool. You got to getting it tomorrow. Yeah, Yeah, I'm really super excited to see that. So hope we can come up with the time and

come on down.

Yeah, you You can you can hit us up on Twitter. We talked about a lot, and Ted won't respond and all. Usually, Oh, yeah, the anti social. I'm out of bourbon. Well, we might have to hit our mark anyway, so maybe we can close it down and get another round. Yeah. Uh, So, uh, for listeners, how can our listeners find you on Twitter?

I'm at Botha. B o D A.

Yeah, I'm not a simple it's It's not my last name. No valves with the underscore causes the Dutch deejay that has my handle. For some reason, Um, he's not. He's not using it, and I got some people to go Anyways. It's ah at underscore b k l Mary Nancy M. In um,

it's also on I love kino dot com.

You can find Yeah, it's probably easier. Just a link. Click the link and the thing, but we have what we have a common love for no vowels, fun size. Get your effort and it's in vogue Works E I find that out at apostrophe. Um, within a, uh, I actually never I never knew what it was. I never read it. I was like and when you said it was like Oh, that's so ingenious. Great handle. But I was like, I don't know what this means.

Our, me, They can't read it, but it's good now that I know it, I love it, and I'm Antoine and well paced links to some of the things that we talked about in some of your presentations. And I love Thanks, guys. We'll see you later. Today's episode is sponsored by bench dot Co. Let's face it, bookkeeping is never fun, but it's something you can't escape benches. The online bookkeeping service that does your bookkeeping for you. When you sign up the bench, you're paired with your own dedicated human bookkeeper,

and you collaborate with the bookkeeper using the bench app. It's everything you need to cross bookkeeping off your list forever. If bookkeeping is taking too much of your time and you just want it done, check out www dot bench dot c Oh, that's been shot. They've got you covered. Hustle is brought to you by Fun Sized, a digital product design agency in Austin, Texas, and creates delightful, innovative products for mobile Web and beyond. Visit us on Twitter at fun size or visit our website of fun sized Neco.