April 25, 2022 • 59 mins
In both my previous experience working with her company as a consultant and this conversation, it becomes very clear very fast that Tanya Netayavichitr is someone who lifts every person she comes in contact with to greater heights. As you'll hear for yourself in the way she describes her experiences, it's never about her — it's about the people she's working with, guiding and advocating for.
Tanya's quick ascent to leadership positions in the worlds of UX and Product Design is testament to her formidable skill, impeachable integrity and steadfast kindness.
Twitter:
@Netayavichitr
LinkedIn:
tnetayavichitr
If you enjoyed this episode, please check out our good friend and sponsor, Stache Studio — a streetwear clothing brand focusing on quality products with a positive message, inspired by the resilience to turn a negative situation into a positive outcome.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joe Natoli (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to making you X work.
I am Joan Natallee.
Our focus here is on folks likeyou doing the tough often
unglamorous work of UX in thereal world.
My guests shared theirstruggles, their successes, and
their journey to, and throughthe trenches of product design
development.
And of course, user experience.
(00:29):
Before we get into it.
I'd like to give a quick shoutout to our sponsors, stash
studio, a streetwear clothingbrand focused on quality
products with a positive messageinspired by the resilience to
turn a negative situation into apositive outcome.
Something obviously very closeto my heart.
For those of you that know me,the stash mantra is that even in
(00:49):
the darkest times, there is alight revealing prosperity.
Find your light.
Let it guide you through thedarkness.
Visit stash.studio to check outtheir incredibly well-designed
products and learn more.
My guest today is Tanya not TiaVici.
She describes herself as amulti-faceted design leader,
offering innovative designsolutions centered around the
(01:11):
enhanced user experience with anemphasis on simplicity,
usability, and beauty.
I had the opportunity to do someconsulting for Tanya's team a
few years back.
And I can tell you that thisdescription is very accurate.
And the only thing missing isthe unwavering care and support
that she gives her team a veryquick glance across her LinkedIn
(01:32):
endorsements reveal a verycommon thread, and that is that
she has built a culture whereeach person can work to their
full potential, which I promiseyou is no small thing.
Here's my conversation withTanya Nadia Vici on making UX.
So Tanya, how are you, how
Tanya Netayavichitr (01:49):
are you doing?
Joe Natoli (01:50):
I am very, very good.
So the last time you and Ispoke, was it a year ago or a
year
Tanya Netayavichitr (01:59):
or two years ago?
I think it might've been twoyears ago.
Went by pretty fast.
Yeah.
Joe Natoli (02:03):
So you, your, your career and your position has
changed a little bit
Tanya Netayavichitr (02:08):
since then?
A little bit, a little bit.
So right now, I think when wehad met, was it two years?
Maybe even three years ago?
Yeah, I think it was three yearsago.
Wow.
So I had just started at Venturaat that time and started a
design team there wasn't anexisting design team.
(02:30):
Right.
And now flash forward threeyears later, we're at about.
I don't want to say 25 designprofessionals within the
corporation.
And I'm the head of customerexperience and design there.
So
Joe Natoli (02:45):
10 that's huge to me, that's, that's massive
growth.
I mean, you know, three yearsmay seem like a long time to
some people, but I think that'smassive growth because correct
me if I'm wrong.
But when you came in, there wasno official sort of, you know,
UX design team there, is that
Tanya Netayavichitr (03:01):
correct?
Yeah.
There was no team at all.
We had two business analysts,one who decided to go the user
researcher route and is now aproduct manager.
And then we had another businessanalyst who went the UX UI
designer slash front enddeveloper route.
(03:23):
And they were in need of some,some leadership and guidance.
And then that's where I came inand yeah, we quickly grew, but
also Ventura.
Within two years after I joined,had doubled in size as well.
Joe Natoli (03:37):
So that, that growth was sort of in line with the
growth of the organization as awhole,
Tanya Netayavichitr (03:41):
definitely.
And also the organization takingon a user centric centric
strategy really opened up a lotof new doors as well.
So
Joe Natoli (03:51):
when you came in, did you have the intention or
expectation that, you know,this, that the UX part of the
business in particular was goingto grow like this?
Tanya Netayavichitr (04:00):
I had an inkling, I didn't know that it
would be that fast and that, youknow, we would go from basically
zero design professionals toalmost 30.
In less than two years, whichwas crazy so that I do, I was
not prepared for.
Joe Natoli (04:20):
So tell me in terms of all that right at the time
that it happened, how do I wantto ask this?
Just, I don't know, tell meabout some of the, some of the
challenges of, of ramping thisup from, you know, nothing to.
Sure.
Tanya Netayavichitr (04:35):
So I definitely don't think that
Antara was prepared for it.
It was much like if you thinkback when folks were started
adopting agile, right.
For me at that time I was at PBSand it was in, I think it was
like 2017 or sorry, 2007 or2008.
(04:58):
And agile was a new concept tofolks.
And you think through doingagile versus being agile, right.
You go going through the motionsof, right, right.
We're going to have daily standups and we're going to move to
combine or something like that.
And people are just goingthrough the motions.
So I think it was very similarto that within the organization
(05:20):
to adopt a user centric mindset.
And you and I both know thatthere are many misconceptions
about UX.
Yeah.
And many, and, you know, we maynot have branded ourselves in
the right way, but P people werethinking, tell us what the
(05:42):
process is and we'll follow it.
And that's not what it is.
Just like agile, right?
So it's, it's the mindset shift.
It's adopting these corephilosophies in the way that you
do things the way that you workand the way that you ship
products now.
So that was something thatleadership was trying to
(06:02):
understand as a whole.
And of course, making thatcultural shift was, was
definitely challenging.
So with my experience where Ihad been before, I'd been in
really large corporations,really small startups in Ventura
was kind of a middle groundthere.
And so some of the challenges.
(06:23):
I faced.
And the team had faced was howto properly integrate that into
a new project or an existingproject.
So it's definitely been quite alearning curve there, but we're,
we're getting there and it, itdidn't happen overnight nor do I
think it ever does happenovernight.
But we're still, we're stillworking to make things work and
(06:47):
better integrated for both.
You asked an agile, what did you
Joe Natoli (06:51):
do to, or what kinds of things did you or the team do
to sort of move people from thisvery prescriptive, you know, way
of thinking, like you said thattell us what to do and we'll do
it.
What did you do to move themfrom that to a more holistic
mindset of like, no, it's ineverything that we do.
It's about everything that wethink about, you know, it's
about how we make the decisionswe make.
(07:12):
Well, we
Tanya Netayavichitr (07:12):
also, we started out with a lot of
training.
You were brought in to talkthrough the generating UX
requirements.
We had one of my mentors, Danbrown come in to talk through
research.
We had Debbie Levitt come in andto do two full days of training.
We which were two differentcohorts to integrate UX.
(07:34):
So there was a lot of talking toprofessionals who had been in
the industry for quite sometime, myself and my team.
Also provided training to thecorporation as well, but that
wasn't enough.
What was, what really wasinstrumental was us winning a UX
focus project that was massivelarge enterprise complex
(08:00):
systems.
And it was hard.
It was, it was really rough toget a team.
Integrating UX is one thing,right.
But for this specific project,it was 104 AP.
And so that's a lot ofcommunication.
It's a lot of strategizing.
It's a lot of evangelizing in acultural change.
So I would say it took a reallygood year, year and a half for
(08:25):
team dynamics to be in a reallygood place for folks to
understand the value ofunderstanding users working
together and getting into agreat cadence, both with agile
and with UX.
So being able to live that andsee results within an actual
project is what helped to shapewhat we were trying to do within
(08:49):
the corporation.
Joe Natoli (08:50):
Was it that kind of thing where as it went along and
people were sort of seeing notjust improvement, of course, you
know, in the, in the project orin what you're working on, but
improvement in the ways in whichthey work with each other maybe,
or, you know, improvements inthem feeling like their work
was.
Useful valuable at a, at a muchdeeper level.
I mean that those kinds ofthings help ease that sense of
(09:11):
like, okay, this is all new.
And it's kind of freaking
Tanya Netayavichitr (09:13):
me out.
Definitely because thosemisconceptions, those early
misconceptions of following auser centric model means big
design upfront, or they want tocontrol the user experience.
Other folks in other roles don'thave a say were quickly broken
into.
(09:34):
And a lot of the philosophieswith UX and agile are very
similar, right?
Like people over processes and,and trying to move to true
cross-functional collaborationis what happened.
And that example was set andalso the participation of our
stakeholders, our clients, andour users in basically every
(09:57):
phase of product developmentshowed that value.
We were having developers go induring the discovery phase and
assessment and things like thatto better understand the users
and vice versa withindevelopment researchers and
designers, weren't dropping offat the end.
Right.
And so within the team, Thatbuilt that core value of trust
(10:21):
and communication, and reallyletting people do what they did
best while opening their eyes tosee that the user experience is
everyone's responsibility.
Joe Natoli (10:32):
Would you say that during the course of that, that
work, that project, thateverybody's, you know, all the
different roles you justmentioned that everybody's depth
and frequency and involvementwas consistent from start to
finish, like you said, asopposed to people dropping off
at different points,
Tanya Netayavichitr (10:47):
I don't know about consistent, but it
wasn't like throwing grenades,you know, it was no longer, no
longer those, those dead jobs,those handoffs.
But there were more supportingduring those times when you
would think that, oh, that roleshouldn't be in that phase.
(11:11):
Instead, like for instance, wehave.
A lot of business analysts whowere research focused and very
interested in the userexperience who were analyzing
business requirements, buthelped out with facilitating
research sessions and takingnotes and joining in, on user
(11:31):
sessions and whatnot.
So they understood that userresearchers and business
analysts are not the same,whereas before they had thought
that.
Right.
And so that's a big thing too.
And they ended up helping outwith UX QA towards the end when
we were already in production.
So yeah, it's, it's definitelybeen eye opening for those who
(11:55):
have wanted to come in with anopen mind.
Joe Natoli (11:58):
And I think it helps, I mean, this kind of
structure and way of workingthat you're describing helps
tremendously.
I have come to believe that abig part of the reason.
UX never gets fully integrated.
Quote unquote, I'm doing airquotes with my hands.
Inside organizations is becausethere never is a true
(12:18):
integration.
It's still relegated to thispart of the process or this part
of the work or whatever it is.
For instance, you just said tome, and I don't just mean you
extras.
I mean, everybody, you mentionedthe developers, right.
Are involved upfront.
They're being exposed to thingslike research.
And if you think about what thedefinition of agile is supposed
to be, it's very difficult forone portion of an organization
(12:40):
to be agile when everyone elseis still sort of conducting
themselves in a very waterfalllike manner.
Tanya Netayavichitr (12:45):
Right.
Joe Natoli (12:46):
Definitely.
And it, it sounds like that'skind of how you sidestepped that
trap.
Tanya Netayavichitr (12:53):
Yeah.
And I mean, let's be real,right.
Nobody is truly as agile as theysay they are.
And so.
What I was alluding to a littlebit in the beginning was that UX
design, maybe isn't branded aswell as agile.
And so everyone wants to beagile, right?
(13:14):
But then UX is a little bit morecomplex with all of our acronyms
of CX and UX and ECB, HD,whatever it may be.
Right.
But eliminating those silos wasa big part of, I hate to say
buy-in, but it's getting thosedifferent roles to understand
(13:35):
the value that we're trying tobring across the entire
experience, both internal andexternal for our, our users.
Joe Natoli (13:42):
I think I know what you're getting at and you say, I
hate to say buy-in what is it ifit's not buying it?
Well, a
Tanya Netayavichitr (13:48):
big part of it I will say within Conterra
right, is the support.
That the team is given to make aquality valuable product.
And so the reason I hate to saybuy in is because it feels like
you're trying to sell somethinginstead of really proving the
(14:11):
value of, of being user centric,that's where I was going.
Right.
And so luckily I have that full,like 150% support, you know,
from leadership.
And we've been lucky there whereI know as in a lot of other
organizations, they might notget that support.
Joe Natoli (14:32):
Well, there's a lot of fear.
Yeah.
There's a lot of fear,especially because, and I sort
of get that right.
Because if you haven't seen ityet, Or if you've sort of been
witnessed to these very, a lotof times through nobody's fault
poor integrations of teams and,and ways of working, I you're
sort of reticent, you know, to,to put all your trust in
(14:55):
something like this.
If you're an executive, ifyou're a stakeholder, if you're
a, you know, someone whose neckis on the chopping block one way
or another for results orperformance, I totally get it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (15:04):
Definitely.
Yeah.
And it, it doesn't always work.
Right.
You know, we're, we're lucky onthis one specific project that
I'm speaking about, but thereare many others where embedding
design professionals might notbe the right time.
They might not be ready forthat.
And we have to look at that aswell to see what would work and
(15:26):
what wouldn't work.
Joe Natoli (15:27):
Yeah.
I don't think it's ever the sameway twice.
Tanya Netayavichitr (15:31):
yeah.
Joe Natoli (15:32):
I mean, especially if you work with multiple
clients, multiple externalclients, it's never the exact
same flavor.
Twice.
That's why I think some of thissort of set and forget it
methodology that I, that I seeand read about and hear about
all too often, you know, it, itkind of makes me nervous and is
why I talk so much about it ormaybe against it is that you
(15:52):
can't get married to a recipe.
There's no such thing.
It doesn't, it doesn't alwaysapply the same way, you know,
for every organization, everyproject, every team combination
of personalities, what have you,and it sounds like that's the
approach you're taking.
Tanya Netayavichitr (16:06):
Yeah.
There was a lot of folks whowill think, okay, well, now that
we've found this right recipe,if you will, to work, it'll work
across everything.
And there was definitely no onesize fits all.
And, and understanding that fromthe get-go, I think will help
people succeed a bit morebecause a lot of folks are
looking for that.
Especially with a lot of clientsthat I've spoken to like, well,
(16:29):
if you've done it there, you cando it anywhere.
Right.
And, and that's not the.
So you and I both now,
Joe Natoli (16:35):
yeah.
Let me just press this buttonand
Tanya Netayavichitr (16:38):
we make this playbook for you.
Joe Natoli (16:43):
Yeah.
It's, it's hard.
I think it's, I think it'stremendously hard is
tremendously challenging andthat's a hard sell, right.
Because everybody wants a surething.
Everybody wants thatreassurance.
I mean, let's face it.
All of the stuff that we all doevery day is, is hard.
These are not easy problems tosolve.
So I get it.
I totally get it.
(17:04):
How hard was it for people onthe team?
And when I say that, I mean, youknow, everybody from you extras
to designers, to developers, toyour business analysts, to how
smooth or how rough it was, sortof the slotting in and out of,
of people in places andcollaboration and all that.
Like I I'm in my head, I'mgoing, like, how did you guys
wrangle all this at that
Tanya Netayavichitr (17:25):
size?
We, you definitely experiment.
And not to say that I'm a hugeadvocate for just like always
breaking things.
Right.
I don't think that that's theright way to go, but I think
that you should be able to learnquickly and adjust.
And you know, of course we addall about that.
So we did experiment with theway that the team was
(17:47):
structured.
I think that plays a big part,especially with a team of 140
all together.
Right.
So also.
In the beginning, it was reallyhard to establish a multi-track
approach with research, feeding,into design, feeding into
development.
And I think once we were able toget those dynamics in place,
(18:09):
understand how much actual timewas needed for upfront research,
just to get the right amount ofrequirements and design and
whatnot.
Then we really kind of hit ourgroove and had different teams
responsible for differentthings.
Right?
So we did have some researchteams.
We had some development teams inthat really even got research
(18:32):
ahead, research and design aheadof development for a full pie,
which was amazing.
Joe Natoli (18:38):
Wow.
How much did I said genericterm, but I'm trying to think of
a better one.
And I can't how much thecommunication play into getting
to the point where all this wasstarting to run the way it
needed to.
Tanya Netayavichitr (18:52):
That was key and everything.
And when we had first startedout for this specific project
communication wasn't there.
So it was really bumpy, very,very bumpy.
And I so my role on, on thatproject was to be the design
lead, if you will, to overseeand help out with project
(19:15):
dynamics and issues and whatnot.
I had to have a few sessionswhere all of the roles got
together and what I call amashup where we spend like a
full day together to talkthrough.
Issues things that are goingwell, what we can work on, not
to say like it's a retro oranything like that, but it's to
(19:35):
get everything out on the table,be completely transparent.
And, and candid with one anotheracross all the roles so that
people were able to beempathetic to their coworkers
and understand what theirperspectives might be.
And that was, that happened atsome of our toughest points to
where things just weren't going.
(19:56):
Right.
So it definitely was not allsmooth sailing, not like any
project ever is.
But that helped to surface a lotof the issues that came up and.
I want to say it really madethings work to where people were
honest with each other.
They were honest with themselvesand were able to move past those
(20:16):
hurdles,
Joe Natoli (20:17):
which I think is is a huge, huge part in this.
The reason I asked thatquestion, one of the biggest
challenges I've seen in everyorganization I've ever walked
into is always communication.
It's not so much, you know, thatpeople don't want to talk to
each other.
It's, it's usually a combinationof, of bad old habits or
structures that don't allow forfrequent communication or ideas
(20:42):
about wasted time doing this orthat, or meetings or whatever,
or tools in some cases, right?
When you have distributed teams,it's all sorts of things.
But what you just described asis music to my ears, because of
what I've seen by a largethroughout my career is that
that is usually.
The solution is like, let's getreal about what's happening
here, how often it's happening,how it's affecting all of us,
(21:04):
where we are, what we need todo, where we need to pivot.
And let's not sort of causeourselves on any unnecessary
pain, just get it out there anddeal with
Tanya Netayavichitr (21:13):
it.
Yeah.
There are a lot of, a lot offolks, right.
Who still operate in what wewould consider.
I don't know, maybe 10 years agowhere it's more top down
communication, command andcontrol, right?
Closed doors conversations, anda few folks make decisions.
And then it trickles down intothe team.
(21:34):
And I think breaking those typesof communication barriers.
To be more cross-functional toactually pivot as a team instead
of, as a group is, is really keyand communication is, is number
one.
Yeah,
Joe Natoli (21:52):
I, you maybe, and I'm not going to go into the
full story, but you just made methink of this.
I was actually fired once from aclient because I had to sit down
with two executives and I said,look until you sort of allow
these people to talk to eachother on a more frequent basis.
And until you allow them to behonest, give them some safety,
(22:14):
right.
To voice everything that's goingon and, and empower your
managers to deal with it.
This isn't going to change theoutcomes that you're dealing
with, the physical and financialand emotional pain that you're
all feeling is not going to goaway.
And they got very upset with meand they fired me.
And then two days later, Theycall me back and it was like,
(22:38):
all right, let's try it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (22:41):
Well, that's good.
You gave them a reality check.
Joe Natoli (22:43):
Wow.
Before I walked out, I said,look, if you're happy with
what's going on right now.
Okay.
If you can sleep at night, if,if this isn't following you
around on your shoulders all daylong, 24 hours a day, then Hey,
keep doing what you're doing.
But if I'm you, I don't wantthis.
I don't want the stress.
I don't want the pain.
I don't want the aggravation,like who the hell wants to live
(23:04):
like this.
So all that reminded me of thatstory.
And it's, it's the kind of thingwhere it goes back to what we
were saying about, you know, youasked about how it's it maybe
has a perception problem, abranding problem, a messaging
positioning problem.
Because the parts that aren'treally well-defined or talked
about enough, I think are theparts that you and I are talking
(23:25):
about right now, which is, youknow, how do people.
Communicate with each other.
And how do we make sure thateverybody's involved at a level
that's productive, that'shelpful.
That's collaborative, you know,I think silos are, are easy and
sometimes it happensunintentionally.
Tanya Netayavichitr (23:41):
I think definitely.
I mean, it's easy to blame.
It's easy to be reactive.
So it's going to continue for abit, right.
Until people change theirmindset.
And
Joe Natoli (23:52):
I think I can imagine I'm guessing here.
Right.
But, but it would seem to methat, that an undertaking, as
large as the one you justdescribed with as many moving
parts, as many people, you know,big projects, how much of your
job became helping the humansinvolved?
In addition to just doing thework.
(24:13):
In other words, helping peoplemove past their worry and their
fear and their failures, maybein some way, w places where
they're hitting the wall, placeswhere they're frustrated places
where they're like, I don'tthink I can do this.
And.
Did you have any of that?
That
Tanya Netayavichitr (24:27):
was most of my role.
Yeah, that was most of it.
I mean, there were definitelytimes where I had to go hands-on
with the work.
Right.
But the majority of it iseverything that you just said
because of the size of the team,the client, it being new, there
(24:51):
were, I want to say around 18 to20 design professionals within
that 140.
Right.
And then outside of that,majority of folks had never
worked with design professionalsbefore, so it was a new way of
working.
So a lot of that was dealingwith.
Misconceptions a lot of peopleproblems and working through
(25:17):
that for sure.
Yeah.
Joe Natoli (25:22):
Yeah.
Okay.
It is to a large part.
And the reason I asked you thatquestion and the reason I think
it's great that we're talkingabout this, this instance is
experience.
I think it's very easy foryounger people or people who are
just getting into thisprofession in particular.
I think it's very easy to getseduced by this idea that well,
here's how projects work, right?
(25:43):
We, they go this way and, andeverybody works together and it
all feels a little too neat andtidy for me oftentimes.
And I think what happens isfolks who are new to it and
particular when they get ontheir first project and they see
the sort of inherent difficultyin chaos and all sorts of other
things that occur justnaturally, right.
(26:06):
It's just a natural order oforder of things.
And I think it, it sort ofshocks them and they get
discouraged.
And I guess I'm on a missionjust to show that, look, it kind
of, it never goes this perfectsmooth way.
These bumps are part of thedeal, right?
They're part of how it worksand, and dealing with them is a
huge part to me, at least ofdoing UX work.
Tanya Netayavichitr (26:29):
I completely agree.
And I think throughout thebeginning of that project,
right.
What I kept hearing from a lotof folks who.
Traditionally had not workedwith any design professionals
before.
I feel this is the mostdangerous phrase ever is, you
know?
Well, we've always done it thatway.
Joe Natoli (26:52):
Talk about a grenade,
Tanya Netayavichitr (26:53):
right.
And so if you're going in on aproject that you've never
tackled before, that is new toyou.
Working with people that peoplein roles that you've never
worked with before, and you wantto tackle it, how you have been
for the past, you know, 20 yearsor so, it's probably not gonna
(27:15):
work.
And so we.
You had a lot of folks whojoined that project and it was
their very first role and theyjust, you know, went in both
feet first and they killed it.
They were amazing at it, I thinkbecause they were so open-minded
on how to work with otherpeople, other roles and stepped
in and did whatever they neededto do to, and took initiative.
(27:38):
And so it's very telling whenyou have those, a lot of the, a
lot of projects, not just thisone, but I think multiple
projects, when you have folksthat are very set in their ways
and come with that kind ofmentality of we've always done
it that way.
It's dangerous.
Joe Natoli (27:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And what you're encouraging andby, by you, I mean, you
specifically, what you'reencouraging is the opposite of
that, right?
To say, no, this is a uniquesituation and we're going to
deal with it for what it is.
Not, not what has been done inthe past.
Not what we think is going towork.
Let's deal with.
(28:17):
You know, I, I lose my patientsevery once in a while and post
something on social mediabecause I, I react to what I
see.
And a lot of what I react to isthis idea of, well, that's not
UX.
That's not how that processworks.
That's it.
You're not doing real.
You x-ray.
And unfortunately, this alwayscomes from people who are
entrenched in this industry whoreally, to me, if you've done
(28:41):
something for long enough, youreally should know better.
Right.
It comes across as, asjudgmental comes across as
gatekeeping.
And above anything, everythingelse, I think it just doesn't
help anybody.
Right.
It doesn't help anybody doanything by saying, because what
they're saying is what you justsaid, we've always
Tanya Netayavichitr (28:59):
done it this way.
Right, right.
Doing the same thing that, youknow, bothers us.
Yeah.
Joe Natoli (29:07):
It's just not helpful.
All right.
It's not helpful.
I think there are, there arealways multiple paths to the.
Outcome.
There's always multiple ways,you know, to do the work.
Tanya Netayavichitr (29:18):
Right.
And as designers right there, Iremember there was this one
designer that I had spoke to andI won't name any names.
But he said, you know, I'malways happy with my first
design.
Joe Natoli (29:33):
Wow.
I wanna meet that guy.
Tanya Netayavichitr (29:35):
And so, you know, it's kind of taking on
that same mentality where it,you just know, I mean, and you
and I, having been in theindustry for some time, you
never get your first design andthere's many different ways that
you can go about trying to finda solution.
And I think that that's the samefor.
Team dynamics and project andhow to get to that end
Joe Natoli (30:00):
goal.
Yeah.
That, that to that's a music, aforeign concept.
I don't understand.
I mean, even, even after you've,you're forced to be done, you
know?
Right.
You still look at it everysingle time you're confronted
with it.
After that all you see are 40things you want to change, like
why the hell didn't I thinkabout it and why didn't we?
And, and I think that's okay.
(30:22):
Right.
That's that's part of what keepsyou good.
I think that when you becomethat, self-satisfied, I think
you seized to be useful toyourself first and foremost.
And I think you're, you're,you're not helping anybody else
accomplish anything either.
And I think that's, that's abummer if, for lack of a better
(30:43):
way to put it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (30:44):
Yeah, definitely.
No, no growth there.
Hindering yourself with yourfirst solution.
Joe Natoli (30:52):
So speaking of growth from the time that you
started, right, when you firstgot into design and this could
be as far back, you know, maybefrom college, I mean, you tell
me from the time you sort ofdipped your toe into this area,
to where you are right now.
I guess I'm just going to leaveit open.
What, what, what brought youhere?
What, what interested you in thefirst place and what happened to
(31:15):
sort of spark or inspire orinform the evolution of, of how
your career
Tanya Netayavichitr (31:21):
has gone?
Let's see.
Well, I've definitely alwaysbeen into the arts from the
moment I could grip a crayon.
Right.
I've always been intotraditional art and all that
growing up, I think from thetime of like three years old.
And then.
In high school, when I was inhigh school, they didn't have
(31:44):
any of those programs.
You know, like what they havenow for what I'm assuming would
be graphic design and webdesign.
And then, so when I was incollege, right, it was just art.
When I was in college, they hadlabeled it interactive media.
And even the folks that I hadtalked to within admissions,
(32:05):
weren't sure what that was.
Joe Natoli (32:10):
I remember those days, like that word was big
media.
It's like interactive, new media
Tanya Netayavichitr (32:16):
was another.
Yeah, there, they weren't surewhat it was, what it entailed,
but luckily I go do it, go doit, give us your money.
And take these courses that werenot sure what they really mean.
But I had a really greatfoundation where I just, I
(32:36):
started off with, they had, Iwent to art school and they had
coding as well.
So I had learned PHP, my SQL,you know not to date myself.
Joe Natoli (32:51):
I'm more curious about how, how early or how
young, this kind of stuff wasthat,
Tanya Netayavichitr (32:56):
that it was, what is it when I was
around 1920?
Yeah.
They had anything in everything,which was great, because you
could see what you really wantedto focus on.
Probably the
Joe Natoli (33:10):
benefit of, of, of that.
Right.
Is it all being new in that theit's kind of the kitchen sink,
Tanya Netayavichitr (33:15):
right?
Right.
And then they had of course,like Photoshop, InDesign and
illustrator classes as well.
But me getting to see how mydesigns could go into code was
what interested me.
And so after that, I went to,you know, the AOL and PBS and
Washington post and was reallyable to hone my skills there.
(33:39):
I, I pretty quickly in my careerand went from designer to
senior, to a director at PBS,and then joined the Washington
post to really help out withteam dynamics there as well.
And then luckily I was able tojoin H shapes which was a big
change for me because.
(34:00):
Going from those really bigteams, really big corporations
of like thousands of people toeight shapes at the max.
When I was there, I think we hadabout 16 people and learning
from just full on professionalswithin research and design was
completely eye opening.
(34:22):
And also working completelydistributed, opened up new ways
of working together with, withpeople from all over the place.
So.
That really tuned me intogetting into the nitty gritty
problems.
Whereas at AOL PBS in theWashington post, it was more so
(34:45):
designing in-house right.
And not really talking to aplethora of users and going
through what I would considerbest practices of processes that
are instilled for certainproblems that you're trying to
solve.
Right.
And so when I was at H shapesand then moving to Magnum, I was
(35:06):
able to instill a lot of thosebest practices and building on
things that I wanted to focus onto help me really grow and get
to know people in the industrythat.
Were trying to solve thosereally complex issues within
inner team workings and workingwith clients and real problems
(35:29):
that people have been facing ona day to day that they are
actually addressing.
Joe Natoli (35:34):
So if you had to narrow it down to a couple of
things, you know, like you said,you, you sort of rose up through
the ranks pretty quickly fromwhat I can see and what it
sounds like, right.
In terms of what you were ableto do, what you're able to take
on.
In my experience, there arenormally some personality traits
that go along with that.
What do you think that was foryou?
For
Tanya Netayavichitr (35:52):
me taking all of that experience.
And then when I started outVentura, right, I'll be honest.
The big reason that that drew meto Ventura was meeting with
those two business analysts whowondering, and do, you know,
product manager now and theother, I would say designer
(36:13):
front end developer, Is to beable to help them succeed.
And so I think a big reason thatI do what I do is to better the
lives of my, my team to pushthem, to be able to do the best
that they can do in their joband me helping to pave the way
(36:36):
within the organization tochange that, that mindset that
was was there when I started.
So I think that I've definitelycome a long way.
There's definitely way more workto do.
Always, always, yeah, but Ithink perseverance and being
(36:57):
able to separate yourself fromthe problem to see things a
little bit holistic.
And have that vision has beenwhat's what has kept me going to
see that we're, we're definitelyimproving the lives of folks, of
our users and within thecorporation.
So I don't know if that's fullon personality trait.
(37:19):
But I, I like to be very candid,very transparent in everything I
do.
And I think that the companyreally appreciates that candor.
Joe Natoli (37:29):
Well, that's probably part of it.
I mean, I think as crazy as itmay sound, I mean, that kind of,
you can call it radical candor.
You can call it, you can justcall it honesty, you can call
it.
The other terms are escaping me,but that trade in and of itself,
I think is a very big dealbecause it's in short supply in
a lot of places, particularly inlarge organizations where
there's, there's a lot ofpressure or, or inherent rules
(37:51):
or structure or whether thosethings are actually there or
not, people sort of feel.
Here are these boxes in whichwe're allowed to operate.
Right.
And it has sort of always beenthe case throughout my career
that I've seen, you know, whenone person actually says, well,
wait a minute, I know you guysare all saying this, but I can't
help think, but what if we didthis, or maybe this is causing
(38:15):
this and you see the bodylanguage of eight other people,
all of a sudden, you know, cometo attention, like, cause you
know, they're thinking the samething.
And then at that point, when,when attention breaks, then
there's a productiveconversation.
Right.
Then good things happen.
So to me, that is a personalitytrait.
And if, if you've been the typeof person where, you know, and
(38:37):
this is anybody from your firstjob, if you have the attitude
of, I want to learn as much asthere is to learn and you're
willing to have open honestconversations with people around
you, whether that's askingquestions or giving opinions,
right.
I think it helps tremendously.
I think it's a massive key tomoving forward in your career as
(39:00):
opposed to keeping those thingsto yourself.
Tanya Netayavichitr (39:03):
For sure.
And I think a lot of it is alsowith as much experience as we
may have in whatever role shouldalways strive to keep learning,
you know, be always be thatlifelong learner.
I never think that you're themost knowledgeable person in the
room
Joe Natoli (39:21):
I'm laughing because that was, that was literally the
tweet that I sent out yesterday.
We're all beginners.
We're always beginners.
We're always going to bebeginners.
If you're any good at what youdo, what you just said has to
ring absolutely true.
The minute you decided you'redone learning.
I think you're done
Tanya Netayavichitr (39:38):
retire
Joe Natoli (39:39):
then.
Yeah.
I mean, what's the, what's thepoint?
I love that.
I mean, personally, it's one ofthe reasons I love teaching
right online and in person.
Because you learn anextraordinary amount
Tanya Netayavichitr (39:53):
from students.
Joe Natoli (39:55):
Oh my God.
Because you get, you get to seethe true range of people and how
they think and how they attackproblems and, and they, they
come up with ways to approachsomething that you would have
never thought of in a millionyears.
And it's, there's nothing thatexcites me more.
I don't think
Tanya Netayavichitr (40:15):
I agree.
I mean, I have, so I have fourdaughters and the way that they
tackle something is, is very eyeopening.
So always learning something newand especially in our industry
where it's always changing allthe time.
You know, when, when we firststarted out, it was called web
design.
And then now we've got machinelearning, AI, virtual reality,
(40:39):
augmented reality, and don'tknow where that's going to Dell.
We might be designing for ourwrists and stuff later, you
know, I think it's, it's,there's always room to learn and
grow.
Joe Natoli (40:51):
Yeah.
Without question, you mentionedyour daughters, there's four of
them.
Did they go about doing thingsdifferently or is there any
similarity between them in termsof the
Tanya Netayavichitr (40:58):
way they approach some similarities, but
for the most part they're very,very different.
I mean, my oldest who is aboutto turn 11 she's the very, she
likes to look at everythingfirst from all sides and break
down problems.
Whereas my second one, she justgoes in and tries to break
(41:21):
things.
Right.
Right.
And, and, you know, apologizelater.
And then my third, who is who'ssix she likes to ask questions
to people who have done itbefore.
Right.
(41:41):
So they're, they're verydifferent.
My youngest is only two, soshe'll probably break things as
well.
But my three oldest definitelyeverything that they do, they
approach very differently.
Joe Natoli (41:52):
So you've got a multidisciplinary team they're
Tanya Netayavichitr (41:54):
all cross functional
Joe Natoli (41:59):
and in all seriousness, I mean, that's why
people with different stylesneed to work together and
balance each other out.
You need somebody on that teamwho's sort of willing to just
try and break things.
And then you also need thatperson.
Who's there to say, well, wait aminute, let's think about this
for a second.
We do that.
Tanya Netayavichitr (42:18):
And there are lots of companies.
I know Ventura is one of themwhere we've done personality
tests to see, you know, how youmight approach a problem or, you
know, one of them was.
If you were to plan a party, howwould you go about it?
You have different groups that,you know, order drinks first you
know, and other other groups whowanting to want to pick a venue
(42:40):
for us.
Right.
And so getting all thosedifferent groups together and
working together really is, isthe key because you're going to
have many different perspectivesand different ways of finding
the right solution together.
So what's on
Joe Natoli (42:53):
your plate
Tanya Netayavichitr (42:53):
right now, right
Joe Natoli (42:54):
now.
What's the, what's the what'sthe
Tanya Netayavichitr (42:58):
challenge right now is being able to clone
me would be great.
So I oversee a lot of theprojects within the corporation.
So kind of, not to the extentthat I was on that one project
that we were talking about with140 folks, I'm not super, super
hands-on as I was there, butstrategy of Ventura is to be
(43:24):
user centered in everything thatwe do.
And so a big part of that ismaking sure that that is
integrated into the way that weare developing our projects
products within the corporation.
So that's one aspect of what I'mdoing also of course, managing
the team of about 25 or so folksnow also involved in a lot of
(43:49):
sales.
To win more clients thatunderstand the value of user
centered design and agile aswell.
And then I've been taking onmost recently, I was speaking
engagement at an agileconference.
And then also I helped Debbielove it as a contributor
(44:14):
contributing author on her mostrecent book, Delta CX, then a
lot of fun.
I didn't
Joe Natoli (44:20):
know that.
Oh, nice.
That's very cool.
I've been actually meaning toread her book.
She, and I've been talking viaLinkedIn.
That's very cool.
So with all this stuff, becauseit's a lot, I mean, you've just
described a lot.
How do you.
Quite
Tanya Netayavichitr (44:37):
frankly, it's hard.
It's definitely tough,especially with the mentoring
that I do as well, because I dotend to stress about the
problems that my team is having.
And the team dynamics withinprojects and stuff.
So what I try to do now, which Ihave not been very good at is,
you know, when I get home or ifI'm working from home, I give
(44:59):
myself a cutoff time to where Ican just do nothing and focus on
family.
And unfortunately I do end upworking off the late night as
well, but it at least gives metime to break free and say, you
know, I just need to focus onmyself, my mental health and my
(45:21):
little ones and my husband, ofcourse.
So that helps to drive me thenext.
It's
Joe Natoli (45:27):
hard.
I mean, it's, it's hard for forme as well.
I mean, my wife and I both areself-employed and we, we both
struggle with that because it'salways there.
It's always there and it'salways on
Tanya Netayavichitr (45:38):
your mind.
Yeah.
And I know you do a lot of youdo a lot of traveling as well.
Right.
So I mean, there are some timeswhen I will have to travel for a
client sales pitch or, you know,something like that.
And that takes a lot, a big tollwith family life as well.
Joe Natoli (45:57):
Last year I was gone every other month, last year.
And at the end of the year, Ithought, you know what?
I don't ever want to do thisagain.
It's, you know, and it's hard.
It's saying no to stuff is, ishard.
You know, when, when there aremessages in my inbox or direct
messages or questions in theonline courses or whatever, and
(46:21):
it's Saturday night, you know,And part of me is like, I just
need a break from this and theother part's going, but those
people they need to,
Tanya Netayavichitr (46:32):
they need your
Joe Natoli (46:33):
help.
And, you know, look, part ofthat is probably, it's nice to
feel needed as well, if I'mhonest, but it's tough.
It's tough to say no.
And it's especially tough if youcare about what you do, but I'd
venture to say that it's abattle worth fighting because
the outcome sort of speaks foritself.
You know, a few things make mefeel better and I suspect you're
(46:53):
the same way.
Few things make me feel betterthan when someone says you have
no idea how much this means tome or how much it helped me or I
was able to accomplish this.
It's to me, it's, it's a lotlike when your kids do the same
thing, you know, it's sort ofthat same feeling you feel.
I feel, I always feel veryhonored to be an emphasis.
(47:16):
The world obviously needs you.
Tanya Netayavichitr (47:19):
Thank you.
Likewise.
Joe Natoli (47:22):
Well, we're at the point where we've got about 10
minutes or so left, so I'm goingto divert this conversation to
what we call some hot seatquestions, which aren't really,
you know, they're not gotchas oranything.
Cause I don't like that kind ofstuff.
So there's, there's a number ofthem that I ask.
But the first one I want tostart with is what do you think
(47:44):
is it's a heavy one, I guess.
What do, what do you think isthe most difficult lesson you've
learned thus far in your careeror in your life
Tanya Netayavichitr (47:53):
difficult lesson?
I think it's, it's probably avery obvious one, but it's hard
to do.
And that is, I think, you know,it ties into what I've been
saying that, you know,communication is key in almost
everything that we do.
(48:14):
But being able to see fromsomeone else's perspective when
there is a disagreement has beenboth really hard to do, but also
very eye opening to help youtackle whatever problem is being
(48:34):
faced in a different way.
And so I've been thinking aboutthat a lot lately, too, because
of some, some issues andconcerns that have come up in
our recent project that I'mtrying to help where if a lot of
folks would be able to look attheir role and other roles from
(48:56):
a different light, it wouldreally just change the dynamics
a bit.
So I think that's a lessonlearned for me that I also try
to have a lot of folks on myteam.
Try to
Joe Natoli (49:08):
do any idea why that's so hard to do.
I
Tanya Netayavichitr (49:11):
mean, we're only human, right?
So we typically human nature isto look out for yourself.
What's going to help either, youknow, elevate you and your
career, make you look good, or,you know, even outside of work,
human nature did to just wantand do what you need and we're
(49:31):
wired that way.
Right.
So I think that's why it's sohard to change that.
I mean, I'm not going to getpolitical or anything, but
within the, the way that theworld is right now.
Yeah.
I think that would be a gamechanger.
The more people did that
Joe Natoli (49:49):
could not agree more.
I could not agree more.
And that's, and that's, I thinkthat's exactly what it is.
I mean, you're watching itunfold with the, with the
reactions to what's happened in,in the primary.
Right?
What happened yesterday, superTuesday you know, all these
things about.
And I don't want to getpolitical either, but I feel
like I have to say this noimmediately.
Everybody's like, well, Warrenshould drop out.
(50:11):
Like why?
Because you think she shoulddrop out.
I mean, to, to, to what end,like, who's the say, like this
person doesn't believe in whatthey're doing.
Other people believe in whatshe's doing.
And I, and I say this with anycandidate, right?
This, this knee jerk reactionto, well, they should do this.
(50:31):
They should do this.
Well, according to your view ofthe world,
Tanya Netayavichitr (50:36):
right?
It's one perspective.
Joe Natoli (50:39):
There's more to it than that.
There's more people involved,you know, there's, there's a lot
more people involved that aregoing to be affected by the
outcome of that.
Yeah.
We pretend that things are very,very simple and very cut and dry
and they simply,
aren't
Tanya Netayavichitr (50:53):
not everything is black and white.
Joe Natoli (50:55):
No, no.
So anyway, I'm with you thisway.
It's going to be a painfulseveral months.
I could tell you that.
All right.
Let's, let's go to somethinglighter.
Tell me about a, either a hiddentalent that you have or a hobby
(51:15):
or something like that.
That maybe not a lot of peopleknow about.
Tanya Netayavichitr (51:19):
Well, I am a black belt in TaeKwonDo.
Are you serious?
That is awesome.
Yeah.
So people always joke like,well, I'm going to have you walk
me through the parking lot.
Joe Natoli (51:36):
How long have you studied?
Tanya Netayavichitr (51:38):
It's been a while.
So it would be nice if I gotback into it for sure.
But I still can hold my own.
It's funny because sometimes Ijoke with my husband kind of
half joking and I'm like, okay,just come at me and attack me
when I don't, when I'm leastexpecting it.
Joe Natoli (51:56):
It was like, like the old tub.
Do you ever watch the old pinkPanther movies that was this
whole thing you want to cater toattack them all the time you
guys do
Tanya Netayavichitr (52:05):
that?
He's always like, oh no, I knowhow this is going to, but I can
still hold my own.
So those skills are still there.
Joe Natoli (52:16):
That is very cool.
Very, very cool.
Here's another fun one.
Cause we got a little more time.
Ah, you were on the proverbialdesert island.
We can assume that you mighthave electricity if you want it.
But you can have one book or onemovie or one album, one piece of
music for the rest of your life.
(52:39):
What's it going to be?
Tanya Netayavichitr (52:40):
Ooh, that's a hard one.
Joe Natoli (52:44):
I know it's
Tanya Netayavichitr (52:47):
better to ask it.
Let's see.
I think it would definitely haveto be an album just because
music is always rulingeverything that I do.
I always have music on.
But which album would that be?
I would probably say smokeyRobinson.
(53:08):
Wow.
Nice.
I mean, I can listen to himforever on repeat all the time.
So that would be my
Joe Natoli (53:17):
go-to any particular one particular album or era of
his career?
Tanya Netayavichitr (53:22):
Let me see the one that has I'm blanking on
the album name, but has thetracks of my tears.
I could just listen to that overand over
Joe Natoli (53:35):
looking it up.
I'm curious which album thatwas.
That was, I think that was themiracles, the miracles.
It looks like it was going to ago-go 1965.
Yeah, I personally I'm in, I'min love with that.
John rhe in that, that era ofmusic.
To begin with, because I'm inlove with all music.
Tanya Netayavichitr (53:56):
Likewise, it's hard.
Joe Natoli (54:00):
Yeah.
There's something about thosesongs and I wasn't born in that
era.
Right.
But I feel connected to thatmusic in a way that I really
can't quite explain.
I don't know what it is.
Tanya Netayavichitr (54:09):
I go through my phases.
Yeah, I think it's the album,the fabulous miracles.
You, you really got a, hold onme is one of my, one of my, like
top tens.
So
Joe Natoli (54:20):
smooth.
I mean, none of that's the onlyword that comes to mind.
It's just like, he will live therest of your life and never be
that cool.
Tanya Netayavichitr (54:32):
That is true.
And he's delivering
Joe Natoli (54:37):
it in this, this incredible falsetto, you know,
which is an art in and ofitself.
There are a lot of people whosing.
Not a lot of people who canactually do it convincingly.
I
Tanya Netayavichitr (54:49):
also try to teach my girls, you know, a lot
of the background music that isused, that's mixed in, in
today's music, eighties andnineties is from that era.
And so they, they're probablythe only group of little girls
that don't listen to today'smusic.
So they're, they're really intoall the different genres as
well.
Joe Natoli (55:09):
That's what, that's a really good to hear.
I mean, I wonder if that'sgenerational, right?
Every parents are always like,ah, it tastes
Tanya Netayavichitr (55:15):
musically.
Yeah.
It really is true.
Joe Natoli (55:19):
Yeah.
I know.
I agree with you.
I think there's very littlemusic in it.
Anyway, that's a conversationfor another six hours.
Last question.
And that is as someone who hasspent, you know, obviously a lot
of time and, and a lot of timenow mentoring other people.
What advice would you give tosomeone who is brand new to UX,
(55:43):
right?
Or design or any aspect of this,this field?
Cause I think it's big and wide.
What advice would you give themfor someone who's not only
starting out, but isintimidated.
Okay.
About like my God, there's somuch here.
How am I ever going to be ableto, to learn it or get to it or,
you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Tanya Netayavichitr (56:02):
Well, I think the first thing would be,
you're never going to learneverything and to not try to
place yourself in a box wheredesign has different focuses.
I think our industry has, hasgone that way to where you're
(56:22):
either UX your UI, your IAA,you're a researcher, whatever it
may be.
Whereas 15 years ago, many of uswere.
I, and I hate to say, I hatethis term.
I'm a one-person shop.
Right.
But to, in the way that theindustry is going right now, I
(56:46):
think a lot of recruiters and,and job postings try to put
people in that one box.
And then there's the oppositewhere they're looking for a
unicorn.
Yeah.
But if you are eager, eager tolearn, not boxing yourself into
a corner or one focus and knowthat things are always gonna
(57:09):
evolve within our industry andthat you're willing to take on
those types of challenges tolearn more, then you'll go far.
And what does that saying?
Jack of all trades master ofnone.
Not trying to encourage that.
Right.
But then, right.
(57:29):
But then you're able to see.
What you're really good at.
And that's where you start toExcel in your career and, and
hone in on how you can evolveand get even better at that and
possibly other things that tieinto it.
Joe Natoli (57:44):
Well, I would venture to say that you are
living proof that that's goodadvice, everything that you've
told me so far.
And, and, you know, seeing againthat trajectory of your career,
I think you've had a lot ofsuccess and that's the truth,
right?
You have to be open to findingout what works best for you,
(58:06):
right?
Where your talents are.
Are best served as only one wayto do that.
Yep.
Tonya, I cannot thank you enoughfor your time today.
I really truly enjoy talking toyou and I wish you nothing but
continued success, although Idon't think anyone needs to wish
you success.
You've already got it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (58:26):
Thank you so much.
I enjoyed our time today.
Joe Natoli (58:28):
All right.
Thank you very much.
Have a great rest of the week.
And I will talk to you againsoon that wraps up this edition
of making UX work.
Thank you very much forlistening.
And I hope that hearing thesestories gives you some useful
perspective, some encouragement,and I certainly hope that you
remember that you are not aloneout there.
Whatever you're dealing with,someone else has been there and
(58:50):
just like you will, they havefound a way to make it work.
Before I go, I want to ask youto please check out our sponsor
stash studio.
Once again, a streetwearclothing brand focused on
quality products with a positivemessage inspired by the
resilience to turn a negativesituation into a positive
outcome.
Visit stash.studio to learnmore.
(59:12):
Also wants you to know that youcan find links to our guests,
social media, profiles,websites, and other things that
they have accomplished byvisiting.
Give good ux.com/podcast whereyou will also find links to more
UX resources on the web andsocial media, along with ways to
contact me.
If you're interested in sharingyour own story here until next
(59:33):
time, this is Jonah, totallyreminding you that it is people
like you that make you X work.
Hello, and welcome to making you X work.
I am Joan Natallee.
Our focus here is on folks likeyou doing the tough often
unglamorous work of UX in thereal world.
My guests shared theirstruggles, their successes, and
their journey to, and throughthe trenches of product design
development.
And of course, user experience.
(00:29):
Before we get into it.
I'd like to give a quick shoutout to our sponsors, stash
studio, a streetwear clothingbrand focused on quality
products with a positive messageinspired by the resilience to
turn a negative situation into apositive outcome.
Something obviously very closeto my heart.
For those of you that know me,the stash mantra is that even in
(00:49):
the darkest times, there is alight revealing prosperity.
Find your light.
Let it guide you through thedarkness.
Visit stash.studio to check outtheir incredibly well-designed
products and learn more.
My guest today is Tanya not TiaVici.
She describes herself as amulti-faceted design leader,
offering innovative designsolutions centered around the
(01:11):
enhanced user experience with anemphasis on simplicity,
usability, and beauty.
I had the opportunity to do someconsulting for Tanya's team a
few years back.
And I can tell you that thisdescription is very accurate.
And the only thing missing isthe unwavering care and support
that she gives her team a veryquick glance across her LinkedIn
(01:32):
endorsements reveal a verycommon thread, and that is that
she has built a culture whereeach person can work to their
full potential, which I promiseyou is no small thing.
Here's my conversation withTanya Nadia Vici on making UX.
So Tanya, how are you, how
Tanya Netayavichitr (01:49):
are you doing?
Joe Natoli (01:50):
I am very, very good.
So the last time you and Ispoke, was it a year ago or a
year
Tanya Netayavichitr (01:59):
or two years ago?
I think it might've been twoyears ago.
Went by pretty fast.
Yeah.
Joe Natoli (02:03):
So you, your, your career and your position has
changed a little bit
Tanya Netayavichitr (02:08):
since then?
A little bit, a little bit.
So right now, I think when wehad met, was it two years?
Maybe even three years ago?
Yeah, I think it was three yearsago.
Wow.
So I had just started at Venturaat that time and started a
design team there wasn't anexisting design team.
(02:30):
Right.
And now flash forward threeyears later, we're at about.
I don't want to say 25 designprofessionals within the
corporation.
And I'm the head of customerexperience and design there.
So
Joe Natoli (02:45):
10 that's huge to me, that's, that's massive
growth.
I mean, you know, three yearsmay seem like a long time to
some people, but I think that'smassive growth because correct
me if I'm wrong.
But when you came in, there wasno official sort of, you know,
UX design team there, is that
Tanya Netayavichitr (03:01):
correct?
Yeah.
There was no team at all.
We had two business analysts,one who decided to go the user
researcher route and is now aproduct manager.
And then we had another businessanalyst who went the UX UI
designer slash front enddeveloper route.
(03:23):
And they were in need of some,some leadership and guidance.
And then that's where I came inand yeah, we quickly grew, but
also Ventura.
Within two years after I joined,had doubled in size as well.
Joe Natoli (03:37):
So that, that growth was sort of in line with the
growth of the organization as awhole,
Tanya Netayavichitr (03:41):
definitely.
And also the organization takingon a user centric centric
strategy really opened up a lotof new doors as well.
So
Joe Natoli (03:51):
when you came in, did you have the intention or
expectation that, you know,this, that the UX part of the
business in particular was goingto grow like this?
Tanya Netayavichitr (04:00):
I had an inkling, I didn't know that it
would be that fast and that, youknow, we would go from basically
zero design professionals toalmost 30.
In less than two years, whichwas crazy so that I do, I was
not prepared for.
Joe Natoli (04:20):
So tell me in terms of all that right at the time
that it happened, how do I wantto ask this?
Just, I don't know, tell meabout some of the, some of the
challenges of, of ramping thisup from, you know, nothing to.
Sure.
Tanya Netayavichitr (04:35):
So I definitely don't think that
Antara was prepared for it.
It was much like if you thinkback when folks were started
adopting agile, right.
For me at that time I was at PBSand it was in, I think it was
like 2017 or sorry, 2007 or2008.
(04:58):
And agile was a new concept tofolks.
And you think through doingagile versus being agile, right.
You go going through the motionsof, right, right.
We're going to have daily standups and we're going to move to
combine or something like that.
And people are just goingthrough the motions.
So I think it was very similarto that within the organization
(05:20):
to adopt a user centric mindset.
And you and I both know thatthere are many misconceptions
about UX.
Yeah.
And many, and, you know, we maynot have branded ourselves in
the right way, but P people werethinking, tell us what the
(05:42):
process is and we'll follow it.
And that's not what it is.
Just like agile, right?
So it's, it's the mindset shift.
It's adopting these corephilosophies in the way that you
do things the way that you workand the way that you ship
products now.
So that was something thatleadership was trying to
(06:02):
understand as a whole.
And of course, making thatcultural shift was, was
definitely challenging.
So with my experience where Ihad been before, I'd been in
really large corporations,really small startups in Ventura
was kind of a middle groundthere.
And so some of the challenges.
(06:23):
I faced.
And the team had faced was howto properly integrate that into
a new project or an existingproject.
So it's definitely been quite alearning curve there, but we're,
we're getting there and it, itdidn't happen overnight nor do I
think it ever does happenovernight.
But we're still, we're stillworking to make things work and
(06:47):
better integrated for both.
You asked an agile, what did you
Joe Natoli (06:51):
do to, or what kinds of things did you or the team do
to sort of move people from thisvery prescriptive, you know, way
of thinking, like you said thattell us what to do and we'll do
it.
What did you do to move themfrom that to a more holistic
mindset of like, no, it's ineverything that we do.
It's about everything that wethink about, you know, it's
about how we make the decisionswe make.
(07:12):
Well, we
Tanya Netayavichitr (07:12):
also, we started out with a lot of
training.
You were brought in to talkthrough the generating UX
requirements.
We had one of my mentors, Danbrown come in to talk through
research.
We had Debbie Levitt come in andto do two full days of training.
We which were two differentcohorts to integrate UX.
(07:34):
So there was a lot of talking toprofessionals who had been in
the industry for quite sometime, myself and my team.
Also provided training to thecorporation as well, but that
wasn't enough.
What was, what really wasinstrumental was us winning a UX
focus project that was massivelarge enterprise complex
(08:00):
systems.
And it was hard.
It was, it was really rough toget a team.
Integrating UX is one thing,right.
But for this specific project,it was 104 AP.
And so that's a lot ofcommunication.
It's a lot of strategizing.
It's a lot of evangelizing in acultural change.
So I would say it took a reallygood year, year and a half for
(08:25):
team dynamics to be in a reallygood place for folks to
understand the value ofunderstanding users working
together and getting into agreat cadence, both with agile
and with UX.
So being able to live that andsee results within an actual
project is what helped to shapewhat we were trying to do within
(08:49):
the corporation.
Joe Natoli (08:50):
Was it that kind of thing where as it went along and
people were sort of seeing notjust improvement, of course, you
know, in the, in the project orin what you're working on, but
improvement in the ways in whichthey work with each other maybe,
or, you know, improvements inthem feeling like their work
was.
Useful valuable at a, at a muchdeeper level.
I mean that those kinds ofthings help ease that sense of
(09:11):
like, okay, this is all new.
And it's kind of freaking
Tanya Netayavichitr (09:13):
me out.
Definitely because thosemisconceptions, those early
misconceptions of following auser centric model means big
design upfront, or they want tocontrol the user experience.
Other folks in other roles don'thave a say were quickly broken
into.
(09:34):
And a lot of the philosophieswith UX and agile are very
similar, right?
Like people over processes and,and trying to move to true
cross-functional collaborationis what happened.
And that example was set andalso the participation of our
stakeholders, our clients, andour users in basically every
(09:57):
phase of product developmentshowed that value.
We were having developers go induring the discovery phase and
assessment and things like thatto better understand the users
and vice versa withindevelopment researchers and
designers, weren't dropping offat the end.
Right.
And so within the team, Thatbuilt that core value of trust
(10:21):
and communication, and reallyletting people do what they did
best while opening their eyes tosee that the user experience is
everyone's responsibility.
Joe Natoli (10:32):
Would you say that during the course of that, that
work, that project, thateverybody's, you know, all the
different roles you justmentioned that everybody's depth
and frequency and involvementwas consistent from start to
finish, like you said, asopposed to people dropping off
at different points,
Tanya Netayavichitr (10:47):
I don't know about consistent, but it
wasn't like throwing grenades,you know, it was no longer, no
longer those, those dead jobs,those handoffs.
But there were more supportingduring those times when you
would think that, oh, that roleshouldn't be in that phase.
(11:11):
Instead, like for instance, wehave.
A lot of business analysts whowere research focused and very
interested in the userexperience who were analyzing
business requirements, buthelped out with facilitating
research sessions and takingnotes and joining in, on user
(11:31):
sessions and whatnot.
So they understood that userresearchers and business
analysts are not the same,whereas before they had thought
that.
Right.
And so that's a big thing too.
And they ended up helping outwith UX QA towards the end when
we were already in production.
So yeah, it's, it's definitelybeen eye opening for those who
(11:55):
have wanted to come in with anopen mind.
Joe Natoli (11:58):
And I think it helps, I mean, this kind of
structure and way of workingthat you're describing helps
tremendously.
I have come to believe that abig part of the reason.
UX never gets fully integrated.
Quote unquote, I'm doing airquotes with my hands.
Inside organizations is becausethere never is a true
(12:18):
integration.
It's still relegated to thispart of the process or this part
of the work or whatever it is.
For instance, you just said tome, and I don't just mean you
extras.
I mean, everybody, you mentionedthe developers, right.
Are involved upfront.
They're being exposed to thingslike research.
And if you think about what thedefinition of agile is supposed
to be, it's very difficult forone portion of an organization
(12:40):
to be agile when everyone elseis still sort of conducting
themselves in a very waterfalllike manner.
Tanya Netayavichitr (12:45):
Right.
Joe Natoli (12:46):
Definitely.
And it, it sounds like that'skind of how you sidestepped that
trap.
Tanya Netayavichitr (12:53):
Yeah.
And I mean, let's be real,right.
Nobody is truly as agile as theysay they are.
And so.
What I was alluding to a littlebit in the beginning was that UX
design, maybe isn't branded aswell as agile.
And so everyone wants to beagile, right?
(13:14):
But then UX is a little bit morecomplex with all of our acronyms
of CX and UX and ECB, HD,whatever it may be.
Right.
But eliminating those silos wasa big part of, I hate to say
buy-in, but it's getting thosedifferent roles to understand
(13:35):
the value that we're trying tobring across the entire
experience, both internal andexternal for our, our users.
Joe Natoli (13:42):
I think I know what you're getting at and you say, I
hate to say buy-in what is it ifit's not buying it?
Well, a
Tanya Netayavichitr (13:48):
big part of it I will say within Conterra
right, is the support.
That the team is given to make aquality valuable product.
And so the reason I hate to saybuy in is because it feels like
you're trying to sell somethinginstead of really proving the
(14:11):
value of, of being user centric,that's where I was going.
Right.
And so luckily I have that full,like 150% support, you know,
from leadership.
And we've been lucky there whereI know as in a lot of other
organizations, they might notget that support.
Joe Natoli (14:32):
Well, there's a lot of fear.
Yeah.
There's a lot of fear,especially because, and I sort
of get that right.
Because if you haven't seen ityet, Or if you've sort of been
witnessed to these very, a lotof times through nobody's fault
poor integrations of teams and,and ways of working, I you're
sort of reticent, you know, to,to put all your trust in
(14:55):
something like this.
If you're an executive, ifyou're a stakeholder, if you're
a, you know, someone whose neckis on the chopping block one way
or another for results orperformance, I totally get it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (15:04):
Definitely.
Yeah.
And it, it doesn't always work.
Right.
You know, we're, we're lucky onthis one specific project that
I'm speaking about, but thereare many others where embedding
design professionals might notbe the right time.
They might not be ready forthat.
And we have to look at that aswell to see what would work and
(15:26):
what wouldn't work.
Joe Natoli (15:27):
Yeah.
I don't think it's ever the sameway twice.
Tanya Netayavichitr (15:31):
yeah.
Joe Natoli (15:32):
I mean, especially if you work with multiple
clients, multiple externalclients, it's never the exact
same flavor.
Twice.
That's why I think some of thissort of set and forget it
methodology that I, that I seeand read about and hear about
all too often, you know, it, itkind of makes me nervous and is
why I talk so much about it ormaybe against it is that you
(15:52):
can't get married to a recipe.
There's no such thing.
It doesn't, it doesn't alwaysapply the same way, you know,
for every organization, everyproject, every team combination
of personalities, what have you,and it sounds like that's the
approach you're taking.
Tanya Netayavichitr (16:06):
Yeah.
There was a lot of folks whowill think, okay, well, now that
we've found this right recipe,if you will, to work, it'll work
across everything.
And there was definitely no onesize fits all.
And, and understanding that fromthe get-go, I think will help
people succeed a bit morebecause a lot of folks are
looking for that.
Especially with a lot of clientsthat I've spoken to like, well,
(16:29):
if you've done it there, you cando it anywhere.
Right.
And, and that's not the.
So you and I both now,
Joe Natoli (16:35):
yeah.
Let me just press this buttonand
Tanya Netayavichitr (16:38):
we make this playbook for you.
Joe Natoli (16:43):
Yeah.
It's, it's hard.
I think it's, I think it'stremendously hard is
tremendously challenging andthat's a hard sell, right.
Because everybody wants a surething.
Everybody wants thatreassurance.
I mean, let's face it.
All of the stuff that we all doevery day is, is hard.
These are not easy problems tosolve.
So I get it.
I totally get it.
(17:04):
How hard was it for people onthe team?
And when I say that, I mean, youknow, everybody from you extras
to designers, to developers, toyour business analysts, to how
smooth or how rough it was, sortof the slotting in and out of,
of people in places andcollaboration and all that.
Like I I'm in my head, I'mgoing, like, how did you guys
wrangle all this at that
Tanya Netayavichitr (17:25):
size?
We, you definitely experiment.
And not to say that I'm a hugeadvocate for just like always
breaking things.
Right.
I don't think that that's theright way to go, but I think
that you should be able to learnquickly and adjust.
And you know, of course we addall about that.
So we did experiment with theway that the team was
(17:47):
structured.
I think that plays a big part,especially with a team of 140
all together.
Right.
So also.
In the beginning, it was reallyhard to establish a multi-track
approach with research, feeding,into design, feeding into
development.
And I think once we were able toget those dynamics in place,
(18:09):
understand how much actual timewas needed for upfront research,
just to get the right amount ofrequirements and design and
whatnot.
Then we really kind of hit ourgroove and had different teams
responsible for differentthings.
Right?
So we did have some researchteams.
We had some development teams inthat really even got research
(18:32):
ahead, research and design aheadof development for a full pie,
which was amazing.
Joe Natoli (18:38):
Wow.
How much did I said genericterm, but I'm trying to think of
a better one.
And I can't how much thecommunication play into getting
to the point where all this wasstarting to run the way it
needed to.
Tanya Netayavichitr (18:52):
That was key and everything.
And when we had first startedout for this specific project
communication wasn't there.
So it was really bumpy, very,very bumpy.
And I so my role on, on thatproject was to be the design
lead, if you will, to overseeand help out with project
(19:15):
dynamics and issues and whatnot.
I had to have a few sessionswhere all of the roles got
together and what I call amashup where we spend like a
full day together to talkthrough.
Issues things that are goingwell, what we can work on, not
to say like it's a retro oranything like that, but it's to
(19:35):
get everything out on the table,be completely transparent.
And, and candid with one anotheracross all the roles so that
people were able to beempathetic to their coworkers
and understand what theirperspectives might be.
And that was, that happened atsome of our toughest points to
where things just weren't going.
(19:56):
Right.
So it definitely was not allsmooth sailing, not like any
project ever is.
But that helped to surface a lotof the issues that came up and.
I want to say it really madethings work to where people were
honest with each other.
They were honest with themselvesand were able to move past those
(20:16):
hurdles,
Joe Natoli (20:17):
which I think is is a huge, huge part in this.
The reason I asked thatquestion, one of the biggest
challenges I've seen in everyorganization I've ever walked
into is always communication.
It's not so much, you know, thatpeople don't want to talk to
each other.
It's, it's usually a combinationof, of bad old habits or
structures that don't allow forfrequent communication or ideas
(20:42):
about wasted time doing this orthat, or meetings or whatever,
or tools in some cases, right?
When you have distributed teams,it's all sorts of things.
But what you just described asis music to my ears, because of
what I've seen by a largethroughout my career is that
that is usually.
The solution is like, let's getreal about what's happening
here, how often it's happening,how it's affecting all of us,
(21:04):
where we are, what we need todo, where we need to pivot.
And let's not sort of causeourselves on any unnecessary
pain, just get it out there anddeal with
Tanya Netayavichitr (21:13):
it.
Yeah.
There are a lot of, a lot offolks, right.
Who still operate in what wewould consider.
I don't know, maybe 10 years agowhere it's more top down
communication, command andcontrol, right?
Closed doors conversations, anda few folks make decisions.
And then it trickles down intothe team.
(21:34):
And I think breaking those typesof communication barriers.
To be more cross-functional toactually pivot as a team instead
of, as a group is, is really keyand communication is, is number
one.
Yeah,
Joe Natoli (21:52):
I, you maybe, and I'm not going to go into the
full story, but you just made methink of this.
I was actually fired once from aclient because I had to sit down
with two executives and I said,look until you sort of allow
these people to talk to eachother on a more frequent basis.
And until you allow them to behonest, give them some safety,
(22:14):
right.
To voice everything that's goingon and, and empower your
managers to deal with it.
This isn't going to change theoutcomes that you're dealing
with, the physical and financialand emotional pain that you're
all feeling is not going to goaway.
And they got very upset with meand they fired me.
And then two days later, Theycall me back and it was like,
(22:38):
all right, let's try it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (22:41):
Well, that's good.
You gave them a reality check.
Joe Natoli (22:43):
Wow.
Before I walked out, I said,look, if you're happy with
what's going on right now.
Okay.
If you can sleep at night, if,if this isn't following you
around on your shoulders all daylong, 24 hours a day, then Hey,
keep doing what you're doing.
But if I'm you, I don't wantthis.
I don't want the stress.
I don't want the pain.
I don't want the aggravation,like who the hell wants to live
(23:04):
like this.
So all that reminded me of thatstory.
And it's, it's the kind of thingwhere it goes back to what we
were saying about, you know, youasked about how it's it maybe
has a perception problem, abranding problem, a messaging
positioning problem.
Because the parts that aren'treally well-defined or talked
about enough, I think are theparts that you and I are talking
(23:25):
about right now, which is, youknow, how do people.
Communicate with each other.
And how do we make sure thateverybody's involved at a level
that's productive, that'shelpful.
That's collaborative, you know,I think silos are, are easy and
sometimes it happensunintentionally.
Tanya Netayavichitr (23:41):
I think definitely.
I mean, it's easy to blame.
It's easy to be reactive.
So it's going to continue for abit, right.
Until people change theirmindset.
And
Joe Natoli (23:52):
I think I can imagine I'm guessing here.
Right.
But, but it would seem to methat, that an undertaking, as
large as the one you justdescribed with as many moving
parts, as many people, you know,big projects, how much of your
job became helping the humansinvolved?
In addition to just doing thework.
(24:13):
In other words, helping peoplemove past their worry and their
fear and their failures, maybein some way, w places where
they're hitting the wall, placeswhere they're frustrated places
where they're like, I don'tthink I can do this.
And.
Did you have any of that?
That
Tanya Netayavichitr (24:27):
was most of my role.
Yeah, that was most of it.
I mean, there were definitelytimes where I had to go hands-on
with the work.
Right.
But the majority of it iseverything that you just said
because of the size of the team,the client, it being new, there
(24:51):
were, I want to say around 18 to20 design professionals within
that 140.
Right.
And then outside of that,majority of folks had never
worked with design professionalsbefore, so it was a new way of
working.
So a lot of that was dealingwith.
Misconceptions a lot of peopleproblems and working through
(25:17):
that for sure.
Yeah.
Joe Natoli (25:22):
Yeah.
Okay.
It is to a large part.
And the reason I asked you thatquestion and the reason I think
it's great that we're talkingabout this, this instance is
experience.
I think it's very easy foryounger people or people who are
just getting into thisprofession in particular.
I think it's very easy to getseduced by this idea that well,
here's how projects work, right?
(25:43):
We, they go this way and, andeverybody works together and it
all feels a little too neat andtidy for me oftentimes.
And I think what happens isfolks who are new to it and
particular when they get ontheir first project and they see
the sort of inherent difficultyin chaos and all sorts of other
things that occur justnaturally, right.
(26:06):
It's just a natural order oforder of things.
And I think it, it sort ofshocks them and they get
discouraged.
And I guess I'm on a missionjust to show that, look, it kind
of, it never goes this perfectsmooth way.
These bumps are part of thedeal, right?
They're part of how it worksand, and dealing with them is a
huge part to me, at least ofdoing UX work.
Tanya Netayavichitr (26:29):
I completely agree.
And I think throughout thebeginning of that project,
right.
What I kept hearing from a lotof folks who.
Traditionally had not workedwith any design professionals
before.
I feel this is the mostdangerous phrase ever is, you
know?
Well, we've always done it thatway.
Joe Natoli (26:52):
Talk about a grenade,
Tanya Netayavichitr (26:53):
right.
And so if you're going in on aproject that you've never
tackled before, that is new toyou.
Working with people that peoplein roles that you've never
worked with before, and you wantto tackle it, how you have been
for the past, you know, 20 yearsor so, it's probably not gonna
(27:15):
work.
And so we.
You had a lot of folks whojoined that project and it was
their very first role and theyjust, you know, went in both
feet first and they killed it.
They were amazing at it, I thinkbecause they were so open-minded
on how to work with otherpeople, other roles and stepped
in and did whatever they neededto do to, and took initiative.
(27:38):
And so it's very telling whenyou have those, a lot of the, a
lot of projects, not just thisone, but I think multiple
projects, when you have folksthat are very set in their ways
and come with that kind ofmentality of we've always done
it that way.
It's dangerous.
Joe Natoli (27:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And what you're encouraging andby, by you, I mean, you
specifically, what you'reencouraging is the opposite of
that, right?
To say, no, this is a uniquesituation and we're going to
deal with it for what it is.
Not, not what has been done inthe past.
Not what we think is going towork.
Let's deal with.
(28:17):
You know, I, I lose my patientsevery once in a while and post
something on social mediabecause I, I react to what I
see.
And a lot of what I react to isthis idea of, well, that's not
UX.
That's not how that processworks.
That's it.
You're not doing real.
You x-ray.
And unfortunately, this alwayscomes from people who are
entrenched in this industry whoreally, to me, if you've done
(28:41):
something for long enough, youreally should know better.
Right.
It comes across as, asjudgmental comes across as
gatekeeping.
And above anything, everythingelse, I think it just doesn't
help anybody.
Right.
It doesn't help anybody doanything by saying, because what
they're saying is what you justsaid, we've always
Tanya Netayavichitr (28:59):
done it this way.
Right, right.
Doing the same thing that, youknow, bothers us.
Yeah.
Joe Natoli (29:07):
It's just not helpful.
All right.
It's not helpful.
I think there are, there arealways multiple paths to the.
Outcome.
There's always multiple ways,you know, to do the work.
Tanya Netayavichitr (29:18):
Right.
And as designers right there, Iremember there was this one
designer that I had spoke to andI won't name any names.
But he said, you know, I'malways happy with my first
design.
Joe Natoli (29:33):
Wow.
I wanna meet that guy.
Tanya Netayavichitr (29:35):
And so, you know, it's kind of taking on
that same mentality where it,you just know, I mean, and you
and I, having been in theindustry for some time, you
never get your first design andthere's many different ways that
you can go about trying to finda solution.
And I think that that's the samefor.
Team dynamics and project andhow to get to that end
Joe Natoli (30:00):
goal.
Yeah.
That, that to that's a music, aforeign concept.
I don't understand.
I mean, even, even after you've,you're forced to be done, you
know?
Right.
You still look at it everysingle time you're confronted
with it.
After that all you see are 40things you want to change, like
why the hell didn't I thinkabout it and why didn't we?
And, and I think that's okay.
(30:22):
Right.
That's that's part of what keepsyou good.
I think that when you becomethat, self-satisfied, I think
you seized to be useful toyourself first and foremost.
And I think you're, you're,you're not helping anybody else
accomplish anything either.
And I think that's, that's abummer if, for lack of a better
(30:43):
way to put it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (30:44):
Yeah, definitely.
No, no growth there.
Hindering yourself with yourfirst solution.
Joe Natoli (30:52):
So speaking of growth from the time that you
started, right, when you firstgot into design and this could
be as far back, you know, maybefrom college, I mean, you tell
me from the time you sort ofdipped your toe into this area,
to where you are right now.
I guess I'm just going to leaveit open.
What, what, what brought youhere?
What, what interested you in thefirst place and what happened to
(31:15):
sort of spark or inspire orinform the evolution of, of how
your career
Tanya Netayavichitr (31:21):
has gone?
Let's see.
Well, I've definitely alwaysbeen into the arts from the
moment I could grip a crayon.
Right.
I've always been intotraditional art and all that
growing up, I think from thetime of like three years old.
And then.
In high school, when I was inhigh school, they didn't have
(31:44):
any of those programs.
You know, like what they havenow for what I'm assuming would
be graphic design and webdesign.
And then, so when I was incollege, right, it was just art.
When I was in college, they hadlabeled it interactive media.
And even the folks that I hadtalked to within admissions,
(32:05):
weren't sure what that was.
Joe Natoli (32:10):
I remember those days, like that word was big
media.
It's like interactive, new media
Tanya Netayavichitr (32:16):
was another.
Yeah, there, they weren't surewhat it was, what it entailed,
but luckily I go do it, go doit, give us your money.
And take these courses that werenot sure what they really mean.
But I had a really greatfoundation where I just, I
(32:36):
started off with, they had, Iwent to art school and they had
coding as well.
So I had learned PHP, my SQL,you know not to date myself.
Joe Natoli (32:51):
I'm more curious about how, how early or how
young, this kind of stuff wasthat,
Tanya Netayavichitr (32:56):
that it was, what is it when I was
around 1920?
Yeah.
They had anything in everything,which was great, because you
could see what you really wantedto focus on.
Probably the
Joe Natoli (33:10):
benefit of, of, of that.
Right.
Is it all being new in that theit's kind of the kitchen sink,
Tanya Netayavichitr (33:15):
right?
Right.
And then they had of course,like Photoshop, InDesign and
illustrator classes as well.
But me getting to see how mydesigns could go into code was
what interested me.
And so after that, I went to,you know, the AOL and PBS and
Washington post and was reallyable to hone my skills there.
(33:39):
I, I pretty quickly in my careerand went from designer to
senior, to a director at PBS,and then joined the Washington
post to really help out withteam dynamics there as well.
And then luckily I was able tojoin H shapes which was a big
change for me because.
(34:00):
Going from those really bigteams, really big corporations
of like thousands of people toeight shapes at the max.
When I was there, I think we hadabout 16 people and learning
from just full on professionalswithin research and design was
completely eye opening.
(34:22):
And also working completelydistributed, opened up new ways
of working together with, withpeople from all over the place.
So.
That really tuned me intogetting into the nitty gritty
problems.
Whereas at AOL PBS in theWashington post, it was more so
(34:45):
designing in-house right.
And not really talking to aplethora of users and going
through what I would considerbest practices of processes that
are instilled for certainproblems that you're trying to
solve.
Right.
And so when I was at H shapesand then moving to Magnum, I was
(35:06):
able to instill a lot of thosebest practices and building on
things that I wanted to focus onto help me really grow and get
to know people in the industrythat.
Were trying to solve thosereally complex issues within
inner team workings and workingwith clients and real problems
(35:29):
that people have been facing ona day to day that they are
actually addressing.
Joe Natoli (35:34):
So if you had to narrow it down to a couple of
things, you know, like you said,you, you sort of rose up through
the ranks pretty quickly fromwhat I can see and what it
sounds like, right.
In terms of what you were ableto do, what you're able to take
on.
In my experience, there arenormally some personality traits
that go along with that.
What do you think that was foryou?
For
Tanya Netayavichitr (35:52):
me taking all of that experience.
And then when I started outVentura, right, I'll be honest.
The big reason that that drew meto Ventura was meeting with
those two business analysts whowondering, and do, you know,
product manager now and theother, I would say designer
(36:13):
front end developer, Is to beable to help them succeed.
And so I think a big reason thatI do what I do is to better the
lives of my, my team to pushthem, to be able to do the best
that they can do in their joband me helping to pave the way
(36:36):
within the organization tochange that, that mindset that
was was there when I started.
So I think that I've definitelycome a long way.
There's definitely way more workto do.
Always, always, yeah, but Ithink perseverance and being
(36:57):
able to separate yourself fromthe problem to see things a
little bit holistic.
And have that vision has beenwhat's what has kept me going to
see that we're, we're definitelyimproving the lives of folks, of
our users and within thecorporation.
So I don't know if that's fullon personality trait.
(37:19):
But I, I like to be very candid,very transparent in everything I
do.
And I think that the companyreally appreciates that candor.
Joe Natoli (37:29):
Well, that's probably part of it.
I mean, I think as crazy as itmay sound, I mean, that kind of,
you can call it radical candor.
You can call it, you can justcall it honesty, you can call
it.
The other terms are escaping me,but that trade in and of itself,
I think is a very big dealbecause it's in short supply in
a lot of places, particularly inlarge organizations where
there's, there's a lot ofpressure or, or inherent rules
(37:51):
or structure or whether thosethings are actually there or
not, people sort of feel.
Here are these boxes in whichwe're allowed to operate.
Right.
And it has sort of always beenthe case throughout my career
that I've seen, you know, whenone person actually says, well,
wait a minute, I know you guysare all saying this, but I can't
help think, but what if we didthis, or maybe this is causing
(38:15):
this and you see the bodylanguage of eight other people,
all of a sudden, you know, cometo attention, like, cause you
know, they're thinking the samething.
And then at that point, when,when attention breaks, then
there's a productiveconversation.
Right.
Then good things happen.
So to me, that is a personalitytrait.
And if, if you've been the typeof person where, you know, and
(38:37):
this is anybody from your firstjob, if you have the attitude
of, I want to learn as much asthere is to learn and you're
willing to have open honestconversations with people around
you, whether that's askingquestions or giving opinions,
right.
I think it helps tremendously.
I think it's a massive key tomoving forward in your career as
(39:00):
opposed to keeping those thingsto yourself.
Tanya Netayavichitr (39:03):
For sure.
And I think a lot of it is alsowith as much experience as we
may have in whatever role shouldalways strive to keep learning,
you know, be always be thatlifelong learner.
I never think that you're themost knowledgeable person in the
room
Joe Natoli (39:21):
I'm laughing because that was, that was literally the
tweet that I sent out yesterday.
We're all beginners.
We're always beginners.
We're always going to bebeginners.
If you're any good at what youdo, what you just said has to
ring absolutely true.
The minute you decided you'redone learning.
I think you're done
Tanya Netayavichitr (39:38):
retire
Joe Natoli (39:39):
then.
Yeah.
I mean, what's the, what's thepoint?
I love that.
I mean, personally, it's one ofthe reasons I love teaching
right online and in person.
Because you learn anextraordinary amount
Tanya Netayavichitr (39:53):
from students.
Joe Natoli (39:55):
Oh my God.
Because you get, you get to seethe true range of people and how
they think and how they attackproblems and, and they, they
come up with ways to approachsomething that you would have
never thought of in a millionyears.
And it's, there's nothing thatexcites me more.
I don't think
Tanya Netayavichitr (40:15):
I agree.
I mean, I have, so I have fourdaughters and the way that they
tackle something is, is very eyeopening.
So always learning something newand especially in our industry
where it's always changing allthe time.
You know, when, when we firststarted out, it was called web
design.
And then now we've got machinelearning, AI, virtual reality,
(40:39):
augmented reality, and don'tknow where that's going to Dell.
We might be designing for ourwrists and stuff later, you
know, I think it's, it's,there's always room to learn and
grow.
Joe Natoli (40:51):
Yeah.
Without question, you mentionedyour daughters, there's four of
them.
Did they go about doing thingsdifferently or is there any
similarity between them in termsof the
Tanya Netayavichitr (40:58):
way they approach some similarities, but
for the most part they're very,very different.
I mean, my oldest who is aboutto turn 11 she's the very, she
likes to look at everythingfirst from all sides and break
down problems.
Whereas my second one, she justgoes in and tries to break
(41:21):
things.
Right.
Right.
And, and, you know, apologizelater.
And then my third, who is who'ssix she likes to ask questions
to people who have done itbefore.
Right.
(41:41):
So they're, they're verydifferent.
My youngest is only two, soshe'll probably break things as
well.
But my three oldest definitelyeverything that they do, they
approach very differently.
Joe Natoli (41:52):
So you've got a multidisciplinary team they're
Tanya Netayavichitr (41:54):
all cross functional
Joe Natoli (41:59):
and in all seriousness, I mean, that's why
people with different stylesneed to work together and
balance each other out.
You need somebody on that teamwho's sort of willing to just
try and break things.
And then you also need thatperson.
Who's there to say, well, wait aminute, let's think about this
for a second.
We do that.
Tanya Netayavichitr (42:18):
And there are lots of companies.
I know Ventura is one of themwhere we've done personality
tests to see, you know, how youmight approach a problem or, you
know, one of them was.
If you were to plan a party, howwould you go about it?
You have different groups that,you know, order drinks first you
know, and other other groups whowanting to want to pick a venue
(42:40):
for us.
Right.
And so getting all thosedifferent groups together and
working together really is, isthe key because you're going to
have many different perspectivesand different ways of finding
the right solution together.
So what's on
Joe Natoli (42:53):
your plate
Tanya Netayavichitr (42:53):
right now, right
Joe Natoli (42:54):
now.
What's the, what's the what'sthe
Tanya Netayavichitr (42:58):
challenge right now is being able to clone
me would be great.
So I oversee a lot of theprojects within the corporation.
So kind of, not to the extentthat I was on that one project
that we were talking about with140 folks, I'm not super, super
hands-on as I was there, butstrategy of Ventura is to be
(43:24):
user centered in everything thatwe do.
And so a big part of that ismaking sure that that is
integrated into the way that weare developing our projects
products within the corporation.
So that's one aspect of what I'mdoing also of course, managing
the team of about 25 or so folksnow also involved in a lot of
(43:49):
sales.
To win more clients thatunderstand the value of user
centered design and agile aswell.
And then I've been taking onmost recently, I was speaking
engagement at an agileconference.
And then also I helped Debbielove it as a contributor
(44:14):
contributing author on her mostrecent book, Delta CX, then a
lot of fun.
I didn't
Joe Natoli (44:20):
know that.
Oh, nice.
That's very cool.
I've been actually meaning toread her book.
She, and I've been talking viaLinkedIn.
That's very cool.
So with all this stuff, becauseit's a lot, I mean, you've just
described a lot.
How do you.
Quite
Tanya Netayavichitr (44:37):
frankly, it's hard.
It's definitely tough,especially with the mentoring
that I do as well, because I dotend to stress about the
problems that my team is having.
And the team dynamics withinprojects and stuff.
So what I try to do now, which Ihave not been very good at is,
you know, when I get home or ifI'm working from home, I give
(44:59):
myself a cutoff time to where Ican just do nothing and focus on
family.
And unfortunately I do end upworking off the late night as
well, but it at least gives metime to break free and say, you
know, I just need to focus onmyself, my mental health and my
(45:21):
little ones and my husband, ofcourse.
So that helps to drive me thenext.
It's
Joe Natoli (45:27):
hard.
I mean, it's, it's hard for forme as well.
I mean, my wife and I both areself-employed and we, we both
struggle with that because it'salways there.
It's always there and it'salways on
Tanya Netayavichitr (45:38):
your mind.
Yeah.
And I know you do a lot of youdo a lot of traveling as well.
Right.
So I mean, there are some timeswhen I will have to travel for a
client sales pitch or, you know,something like that.
And that takes a lot, a big tollwith family life as well.
Joe Natoli (45:57):
Last year I was gone every other month, last year.
And at the end of the year, Ithought, you know what?
I don't ever want to do thisagain.
It's, you know, and it's hard.
It's saying no to stuff is, ishard.
You know, when, when there aremessages in my inbox or direct
messages or questions in theonline courses or whatever, and
(46:21):
it's Saturday night, you know,And part of me is like, I just
need a break from this and theother part's going, but those
people they need to,
Tanya Netayavichitr (46:32):
they need your
Joe Natoli (46:33):
help.
And, you know, look, part ofthat is probably, it's nice to
feel needed as well, if I'mhonest, but it's tough.
It's tough to say no.
And it's especially tough if youcare about what you do, but I'd
venture to say that it's abattle worth fighting because
the outcome sort of speaks foritself.
You know, a few things make mefeel better and I suspect you're
(46:53):
the same way.
Few things make me feel betterthan when someone says you have
no idea how much this means tome or how much it helped me or I
was able to accomplish this.
It's to me, it's, it's a lotlike when your kids do the same
thing, you know, it's sort ofthat same feeling you feel.
I feel, I always feel veryhonored to be an emphasis.
(47:16):
The world obviously needs you.
Tanya Netayavichitr (47:19):
Thank you.
Likewise.
Joe Natoli (47:22):
Well, we're at the point where we've got about 10
minutes or so left, so I'm goingto divert this conversation to
what we call some hot seatquestions, which aren't really,
you know, they're not gotchas oranything.
Cause I don't like that kind ofstuff.
So there's, there's a number ofthem that I ask.
But the first one I want tostart with is what do you think
(47:44):
is it's a heavy one, I guess.
What do, what do you think isthe most difficult lesson you've
learned thus far in your careeror in your life
Tanya Netayavichitr (47:53):
difficult lesson?
I think it's, it's probably avery obvious one, but it's hard
to do.
And that is, I think, you know,it ties into what I've been
saying that, you know,communication is key in almost
everything that we do.
(48:14):
But being able to see fromsomeone else's perspective when
there is a disagreement has beenboth really hard to do, but also
very eye opening to help youtackle whatever problem is being
(48:34):
faced in a different way.
And so I've been thinking aboutthat a lot lately, too, because
of some, some issues andconcerns that have come up in
our recent project that I'mtrying to help where if a lot of
folks would be able to look attheir role and other roles from
(48:56):
a different light, it wouldreally just change the dynamics
a bit.
So I think that's a lessonlearned for me that I also try
to have a lot of folks on myteam.
Try to
Joe Natoli (49:08):
do any idea why that's so hard to do.
I
Tanya Netayavichitr (49:11):
mean, we're only human, right?
So we typically human nature isto look out for yourself.
What's going to help either, youknow, elevate you and your
career, make you look good, or,you know, even outside of work,
human nature did to just wantand do what you need and we're
(49:31):
wired that way.
Right.
So I think that's why it's sohard to change that.
I mean, I'm not going to getpolitical or anything, but
within the, the way that theworld is right now.
Yeah.
I think that would be a gamechanger.
The more people did that
Joe Natoli (49:49):
could not agree more.
I could not agree more.
And that's, and that's, I thinkthat's exactly what it is.
I mean, you're watching itunfold with the, with the
reactions to what's happened in,in the primary.
Right?
What happened yesterday, superTuesday you know, all these
things about.
And I don't want to getpolitical either, but I feel
like I have to say this noimmediately.
Everybody's like, well, Warrenshould drop out.
(50:11):
Like why?
Because you think she shoulddrop out.
I mean, to, to, to what end,like, who's the say, like this
person doesn't believe in whatthey're doing.
Other people believe in whatshe's doing.
And I, and I say this with anycandidate, right?
This, this knee jerk reactionto, well, they should do this.
(50:31):
They should do this.
Well, according to your view ofthe world,
Tanya Netayavichitr (50:36):
right?
It's one perspective.
Joe Natoli (50:39):
There's more to it than that.
There's more people involved,you know, there's, there's a lot
more people involved that aregoing to be affected by the
outcome of that.
Yeah.
We pretend that things are very,very simple and very cut and dry
and they simply,
aren't
Tanya Netayavichitr (50:53):
not everything is black and white.
Joe Natoli (50:55):
No, no.
So anyway, I'm with you thisway.
It's going to be a painfulseveral months.
I could tell you that.
All right.
Let's, let's go to somethinglighter.
Tell me about a, either a hiddentalent that you have or a hobby
(51:15):
or something like that.
That maybe not a lot of peopleknow about.
Tanya Netayavichitr (51:19):
Well, I am a black belt in TaeKwonDo.
Are you serious?
That is awesome.
Yeah.
So people always joke like,well, I'm going to have you walk
me through the parking lot.
Joe Natoli (51:36):
How long have you studied?
Tanya Netayavichitr (51:38):
It's been a while.
So it would be nice if I gotback into it for sure.
But I still can hold my own.
It's funny because sometimes Ijoke with my husband kind of
half joking and I'm like, okay,just come at me and attack me
when I don't, when I'm leastexpecting it.
Joe Natoli (51:56):
It was like, like the old tub.
Do you ever watch the old pinkPanther movies that was this
whole thing you want to cater toattack them all the time you
guys do
Tanya Netayavichitr (52:05):
that?
He's always like, oh no, I knowhow this is going to, but I can
still hold my own.
So those skills are still there.
Joe Natoli (52:16):
That is very cool.
Very, very cool.
Here's another fun one.
Cause we got a little more time.
Ah, you were on the proverbialdesert island.
We can assume that you mighthave electricity if you want it.
But you can have one book or onemovie or one album, one piece of
music for the rest of your life.
(52:39):
What's it going to be?
Tanya Netayavichitr (52:40):
Ooh, that's a hard one.
Joe Natoli (52:44):
I know it's
Tanya Netayavichitr (52:47):
better to ask it.
Let's see.
I think it would definitely haveto be an album just because
music is always rulingeverything that I do.
I always have music on.
But which album would that be?
I would probably say smokeyRobinson.
(53:08):
Wow.
Nice.
I mean, I can listen to himforever on repeat all the time.
So that would be my
Joe Natoli (53:17):
go-to any particular one particular album or era of
his career?
Tanya Netayavichitr (53:22):
Let me see the one that has I'm blanking on
the album name, but has thetracks of my tears.
I could just listen to that overand over
Joe Natoli (53:35):
looking it up.
I'm curious which album thatwas.
That was, I think that was themiracles, the miracles.
It looks like it was going to ago-go 1965.
Yeah, I personally I'm in, I'min love with that.
John rhe in that, that era ofmusic.
To begin with, because I'm inlove with all music.
Tanya Netayavichitr (53:56):
Likewise, it's hard.
Joe Natoli (54:00):
Yeah.
There's something about thosesongs and I wasn't born in that
era.
Right.
But I feel connected to thatmusic in a way that I really
can't quite explain.
I don't know what it is.
Tanya Netayavichitr (54:09):
I go through my phases.
Yeah, I think it's the album,the fabulous miracles.
You, you really got a, hold onme is one of my, one of my, like
top tens.
So
Joe Natoli (54:20):
smooth.
I mean, none of that's the onlyword that comes to mind.
It's just like, he will live therest of your life and never be
that cool.
Tanya Netayavichitr (54:32):
That is true.
And he's delivering
Joe Natoli (54:37):
it in this, this incredible falsetto, you know,
which is an art in and ofitself.
There are a lot of people whosing.
Not a lot of people who canactually do it convincingly.
I
Tanya Netayavichitr (54:49):
also try to teach my girls, you know, a lot
of the background music that isused, that's mixed in, in
today's music, eighties andnineties is from that era.
And so they, they're probablythe only group of little girls
that don't listen to today'smusic.
So they're, they're really intoall the different genres as
well.
Joe Natoli (55:09):
That's what, that's a really good to hear.
I mean, I wonder if that'sgenerational, right?
Every parents are always like,ah, it tastes
Tanya Netayavichitr (55:15):
musically.
Yeah.
It really is true.
Joe Natoli (55:19):
Yeah.
I know.
I agree with you.
I think there's very littlemusic in it.
Anyway, that's a conversationfor another six hours.
Last question.
And that is as someone who hasspent, you know, obviously a lot
of time and, and a lot of timenow mentoring other people.
What advice would you give tosomeone who is brand new to UX,
(55:43):
right?
Or design or any aspect of this,this field?
Cause I think it's big and wide.
What advice would you give themfor someone who's not only
starting out, but isintimidated.
Okay.
About like my God, there's somuch here.
How am I ever going to be ableto, to learn it or get to it or,
you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Tanya Netayavichitr (56:02):
Well, I think the first thing would be,
you're never going to learneverything and to not try to
place yourself in a box wheredesign has different focuses.
I think our industry has, hasgone that way to where you're
(56:22):
either UX your UI, your IAA,you're a researcher, whatever it
may be.
Whereas 15 years ago, many of uswere.
I, and I hate to say, I hatethis term.
I'm a one-person shop.
Right.
But to, in the way that theindustry is going right now, I
(56:46):
think a lot of recruiters and,and job postings try to put
people in that one box.
And then there's the oppositewhere they're looking for a
unicorn.
Yeah.
But if you are eager, eager tolearn, not boxing yourself into
a corner or one focus and knowthat things are always gonna
(57:09):
evolve within our industry andthat you're willing to take on
those types of challenges tolearn more, then you'll go far.
And what does that saying?
Jack of all trades master ofnone.
Not trying to encourage that.
Right.
But then, right.
(57:29):
But then you're able to see.
What you're really good at.
And that's where you start toExcel in your career and, and
hone in on how you can evolveand get even better at that and
possibly other things that tieinto it.
Joe Natoli (57:44):
Well, I would venture to say that you are
living proof that that's goodadvice, everything that you've
told me so far.
And, and, you know, seeing againthat trajectory of your career,
I think you've had a lot ofsuccess and that's the truth,
right?
You have to be open to findingout what works best for you,
(58:06):
right?
Where your talents are.
Are best served as only one wayto do that.
Yep.
Tonya, I cannot thank you enoughfor your time today.
I really truly enjoy talking toyou and I wish you nothing but
continued success, although Idon't think anyone needs to wish
you success.
You've already got it.
Tanya Netayavichitr (58:26):
Thank you so much.
I enjoyed our time today.
Joe Natoli (58:28):
All right.
Thank you very much.
Have a great rest of the week.
And I will talk to you againsoon that wraps up this edition
of making UX work.
Thank you very much forlistening.
And I hope that hearing thesestories gives you some useful
perspective, some encouragement,and I certainly hope that you
remember that you are not aloneout there.
Whatever you're dealing with,someone else has been there and
(58:50):
just like you will, they havefound a way to make it work.
Before I go, I want to ask youto please check out our sponsor
stash studio.
Once again, a streetwearclothing brand focused on
quality products with a positivemessage inspired by the
resilience to turn a negativesituation into a positive
outcome.
Visit stash.studio to learnmore.
(59:12):
Also wants you to know that youcan find links to our guests,
social media, profiles,websites, and other things that
they have accomplished byvisiting.
Give good ux.com/podcast whereyou will also find links to more
UX resources on the web andsocial media, along with ways to
contact me.
If you're interested in sharingyour own story here until next
(59:33):
time, this is Jonah, totallyreminding you that it is people
like you that make you X work.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.