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So this is a first episode of Experience Design Podcast. It’s a new development from myself, v from VA experience. You might have known me from. My YouTube channel, maybe social media accounts postings here and there. Maybe you picked up the book and that’s how I end up here. But ultimately, this is a, I guess step 1.5 or maybe step two in the journey of helping people out, but also sharing some of the thoughts.

Maybe it’s thought provoking thoughts. Maybe it’s a bit more, a more mixed perspective. Ultimately this podcast and why I wanted to start a first. Which is gonna be probably shorter if than usual, is to introduce really what the podcast is gonna be about, but it’s gonna be about helping people out to

go to the next level of, the era of ux of experience, design of everything in between. And I don’t wanna waffle too much a swallow, make it too cheesy. It’s gonna be quite simple. It’s gonna be very, tactical as much as strategic. It’s gonna be very applicable. It’s gonna be giving you the tools ultimately, to succeed in that next.

and what that next step is. And really what the origin is for this podcast is for us as designers, as strategies, as it could be a product manager, maybe you’re an engineer who’s listening to this and dabble in human experiences and designing them, right? Or maybe making something which just produces good user experience is that the times are changing.

Like the automation, the AI tools are just picking up. Speed. And you could maybe heard about it just last year on Twitter about, all the different developments, but just suddenly dropped. Like we, we got to that inflection point where every other task in the creative production, the content production, be it, text, the copy even UI design, like if you remember.

You, I think was or alongside something like that, there was a tool which basically would produce you mockups from sketches for was Microsoft development. But ultimately we reached that point where a lot of those, at least manual or menial tasks or even creative tasks could be supported with the tools of the technology.

So we are reaching that maturity point where there is no point of return ultimately. A really interesting essay on that, if you want to Google and you definitely should, is by Rob Graham, who’s a vc startup founder, general technologist and thinker in the field. I think he’s behind the YC Combinator, you know that.

Powerhouse ultimately, or the keyword for startups. And y like the incubators out there is just has been transformation for a lot of disruptive fields and he’s behind so many different projects or at least in some capacity. He’s, his essay has been previously, like a decade ago. That we reached the era of painters or hackers or, there is, there was this time period where the painters, meaning the designers who brought that art, know-how, the understanding of the user psychology, the understanding of the human experiences is what makes people actually behave certain voice or how you can change the behaviors for the customers to actually opt in to actually click that buy button to actually get motivated.

Use your products and the hackers aspect of that on V end is really that anyone who you know had the chops, the program to code, to hack. For lack of a better term, to actually start thinking that hey this binary approach of whatever abstraction le level you take it, whatever language you, could be applied to automate so many different things.

Airbnb is a good example of that, right? Like where people. Had to go through the typical hospitality businesses and book hotels and in, for a lot of different variables let’s say even the spaces, the pricing where everything was Quite high because of the manual labor and, the investment, the dependencies, the cost to actually run such businesses.

Someone just skimmed up and let’s say chesky back in what they did. But why couldn’t we just en mass allow people who already own a spare bedroom allow that to be rented with simple means of technology? Long story short, now we reached. and were businesses like that. You could take Airbnb, you could take Uber and many other, which basically applied that next step of hacking of that technology.

And produce so much value. So much value for everyone, for VCs, for users, for, yourself probably who used them in some capacity or heard or maybe got to even inspired as a designer to actually produce something. We reached that point where, they either became too big, they either became on a service level quite like a mam of size, and the dependencies of the knock ons just became.

More negative than positive. You could think of, that there is more connotations of negativity now than positive advanced, just because the start of it was we had painters and hackers mindset, which is again, a necessary step to now cuz we could never reach the automation or that maturity where we can even consider that, hey, our craft could be automated, or the manual tasks could be supported.

Without that we couldn’t have gotten so far. And.

And my point being is that, that limited isolated perspective of looking at, a specific problem people had, but not thinking how it’s gonna evolve in five, 10 years, 15 years is something what worked back in the day for those projects, for those disruptive bits. But now doesn’t really it’s almost.

A bit of a negative connotations thing. If let’s say you pitch a startup and you say, I want to be an Uber of X, or Airbnb of that, or something else A typical VC now might just tell that, Hey, we need to think about sustainability, we need to think about long-term returns because people are different customer behaviors and expectations, attitudes have changed as well.

They’re much more sustainability focused and I guess positive impact on global level, not just disrupting something through technology, which could be rich and different. Areas, but also to be quite regional positive. So let’s say just because it works in, let’s say United States where a lot of progress has been done in technology and everything from the policies, from human rights if you would apply the same in something which is more developing.

Regions, it might just not work or the workers are gonna be even more exploited. So we reached that, I guess infliction point or that point of, no returns where this or that type of solutions are. No, no longer good enough. You, if you would just come up with an idea right now or tomorrow that, hey, this is the issue people experience of, I don’t know, taxi booking or something like restaurant booking, which is a typical one for junior designers or, product people or startup founders.

Whatever you think that we just need to. Come up with this thing which nobody else thought about, but in reality, everybody thought about it’s just not the right thing to do anymore. Because there is just so much disruption, which has been in that isolated thinking. Anyhow, long story short, what I’m saying is we got to a point where we need to think much more holistically.

It doesn’t even matter on what level of abstraction looking at it now, what it benefits from solutions or experiences which are designed in that isolated view or which are designed with a view that, okay, it works today. It’s gonna produce some returns in the next half a decade. But after that, it doesn’t matter.

It’s all about exit strategy and whoever is gonna take on that business, which works, is gonna need to figure out those uncomfortable points or those policies. And that to me is something which we are not yet ready to do because we’re coming from that painters and hackers mentality. We that it takes a lot of energy, a lot of power to think way beyond those means, or apply even the future’s thinking.

We are still thinking about design thinking approach where, okay, we have an issue right now. We’re gonna somehow understand the users, maybe apply some ethnography, maybe embed ourselves the vens processes or like the lives of the actual people. We’re gonna come up with ideas, we’re gonna come up with some sort of solutions.

But we are not really thinking beyond that. We’re not thinking, about the futures of what’s probable, what’s desirable, like what’s preferable ultimately at advance. To me, what’s I think is. Missing. So with this podcast, what I was thinking to do really is to dive into those topics. To dive into, the technicalities of it.

For example, I know that a lot of people might have come here because we saw experience or maybe designed in the title as a label, and we thought that, okay, this is something I can apply in my career development. And you’re absolutely right. The only thing what I think. This podcast is not gonna be about, it’s gonna be like UI design or product design, on an nitty gritty level, on a technical level, because those issues are easy and those issues, you as a designer or researcher, whoever you are, ultimately, whoever you are as a participant of experience, design efforts trying to better use our lives, you need.

figure out that with your tools of Figma, it’s between ultimately you and Figma. You and Miro, you are other. Any other tool or you as a you and a stakeholder. This podcast VO is gonna be less about those, tools you can download or subscribe to. It’s more about the thinking, it’s more about the strategies.

It’s more about the tactics you need to take as a human being, as a professional, so that the solutions you come up with today are actually gonna be relevant tomorrow. But E, even long term, of like beyond those errors, or if we go into different cycles, gonna unlock value and have positive knock on.

It’s not gonna be detrimental. It’s not just about designing something for tomorrow, but when not thinking of, what the impact is gonna be. And I’m already repeating about that. But this podcast also is gonna be unabridged. If I make a mistake, I’m unlikely to cut it. I’m just gonna try to correct myself as I go.

Pardon? Again, things. Which are out of my control or relatively so like the accent, maybe there’s gonna be a blurb, maybe there’s gonna be a bit of a profane language where I get too heated up or too excited or, too angry. But ultimately the podcast is also not just gonna be me waffling around these topics.

Or reflecting on, new developments in the actual industry. I’m also gonna have guests and if you are listening to this, you can already listen to the, the guests podcast. And there’s obviously gonna be different topics Suho are gonna explore. There are gonna be, again, very varied.

We are gonna be very mixed perspective, very personal growth, but also professional growth oriented, but also, equip you with the tools. Again, not with nitty gritty, the technical tools like Figma knowledge or like how do you design the design systems. It’s more gonna be on a strategic level.

So I feel like this podcast is probably gonna add most value to. Maybe mid senior lead level, maybe more executive level designers, researchers strategist, you name it, maybe you’re a product manager. Again, you’re definitely gonna benefit from this because it’s good to understand exactly how do you design the experiences today so that we actually work tomorrow.

But also being cognizant again of those ripple effects of the systems involved, of service level challenges, which we need to think about and also reflect. Two on the tactical level. So even if I mention design, It’s something I don’t want to talk about. We’re definitely gonna talk about that. It just might be that we’re gonna need to zoom out and think of the level of abstraction, which is a bit maybe higher level or maybe even lower.

Who knows? Again, I’m also very much willing to, do it live to answer your question, so as we are allowed to feel like this podcast is gonna ship up as well, just like any other product was. So you as a listener, as I guess the user. This podcast, I’m trying to design you the most optimal experience, so I’m gonna be definitely reliant on the feedback I received from you of the notes, even maybe suggestions, or even if you want to have a guest appearance and have a chat.

We can also do that on variety of subjects. Again, it’s gonna be everything to do with human experience design with the ingredient. Which are gonna be necessary, being cognizant of the emerging technologies and automation and how that’s gonna take, that’s probably gonna be overarching theme, which I’m just gonna address again and again because it’s gonna be very relevant for, future years to come.

Our work is gonna change massively, and you can already feel it, I’m sure every ever. Headline, every other video on, very recent chat, G p T and Dali and all other tools, which are now become almost like passe because we’re getting so many different tools coming in or so many different technologies being published.

You realize that. This is just gonna escalate. There’s obviously Morris Law, which is picking up the momentum and everything in between. But anyhow, this podcast is definitely gonna dive into those things. There’s gonna be very much features focused that’s definitely aligned. We’re obviously gonna reflect on the history, but just because of a Morris.

However you take it, however you apply it, if you believe it or not, it doesn’t really matter. But ultimately it, it stands pretty well, especially with these new developments. It’s gonna be about the human centricity. Of course. We are also gonna be building up the collective intelligence. That’s one of the important parts of this podcast, because again, it’s about sharing.

And so because you are participant of this, Intelligence building. I would also, if you like any of the podcasts, if you even like wisp session today, feel free to share it. It’s actually massively benefits me and what they do. Again, giving back to a community and trying to share these These experiences with you.

Also one last thing, you know on that, painters and hackers and it potentially coming to the end with all the automation tools. I just wanted to highlight that. You should definitely look at that se but also think about the necessities. And this is pure, purely awesome example of that. To get to this point where we now need to think about what’s gonna happen next or what do we do if ourselves, if our skills, how we approach with problems.

We had to go through this journey, even if it maybe was a isolated thinking and both solutions who are made we worked. And they were necessary ingredient to what we have today. And this is probably, one of those blind spots, which we can predict a lot of things, but we don’t really know how the knock on effects are gonna affect the features.

So again, this is gonna be one of those underlying themes. And of course, everything in between, which I already highlighted. Without further ado, I’m gonna end it here. Make sure to check out my next episode. And do let me know your thoughts. Do let me know your suggestions, recommendations, requests. And just to end up we’re also, we’re not gonna end up on Via Experience YouTube channel.

It’s still gonna persist if you are worried, if, I’m gonna stop publishing there. There’s definitely gonna be more of that, more content coming up, different type of content. Everything is gonna be evolving as we go as. I’m sure you can appreciate, but without for ado, thanks so much for everyone who’s listening, who’s tuning in.

And until next time.