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Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.
Something that I do, that's been successful is during the discovery process. So, generally, if you're working in house, you're collaborating with engineering product and and and you're the designer. But you're generally, at least at the early stages, more collaborating with the product managers. So they're either you're working on a problem together or maybe they've created a document to kinda they've identified an issue. Something that I do during my discovery work is creating, like, a design document.
Tyler:So almost like the design version of a PRD or product requirements document. And it's like the PM and designer, they're doing their discovery, understanding the problem space, and then you come back together with your own documents. And I find that you're aligned better if you have something to show. We
Nick:are kind of live now. This is what I always wanted to say. We are live. And we're officially live. We are officially live.
Nick:Exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment. I'm Tyler. I'm Nick.
Tyler:Welcome to the Design Table podcast. Hey, Nick. How are you doing?
Nick:Oh, yeah. I'm doing well. Just back from vacation, so I'm fresh and ready to get back to work. How about you?
Tyler:Yep. Same. We it seems that we both took both took, unknowing to each other, the Saint Luke of Vacation. So we're back and you've kind of brought it up before this call. We're back in the trenches this week.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds sounds bad. Right?
Nick:Back in the trenches, but it's it's meant in a good way. You know, I enjoyed the the work. So, yeah, lots of emails to go through, to be honest, but then it's back to the actual design work. Yeah. Exactly.
Nick:Yeah. Curious to hear what's what do you have on your list this week? Like, what's your like, is this a typical week, like, week after a vacation, or is it different? Lots of catching up or something else perhaps?
Tyler:It's a lot of catching oh, I did a lot of the catching up yesterday. So it's about, like, going through the thousand Slack messages that have been going back and forth, the the emails that the back and forth chains there, the comments back and forth just to see what the state of everything is. And then today, I'm officially getting my hands dirty, and I have all the contacts that I need. So this week, I I can push through, but it's kind of weird coming back from vacation because I didn't bring my laptop with me. So I had no typing experience whatsoever on vacation, which was refreshing, actually.
Nick:Nice. Nice. Now maybe it's good to know for people listening that this is a Tuesday that we're recording. So you mentioned yesterday. So yesterday, Monday, you had the catching up day, and then on Tuesday, it's back to work, like the actual work.
Nick:Did you have anything work related on your phone, or do you have, like, two phones? Or how does that work on vacation?
Tyler:Have something so I put snooze on my Slack channel on my Slack my work Slack, so I got no pop ups whatsoever. The emails, I just ignored. So if I saw it it's it's just because we use Outlook at work, so different from my day to day Gmail account that I generally use. So if I ever saw that Outlook blue pop up, I just ignored it, and it doesn't give me that little snippet of what what's included in the email, which is always nice. So it's just like, alright.
Tyler:Hit ignore, and I'll get back to it so I can properly enjoy the vacation so I can actually enjoy that.
Nick:I I me, personally, I find it very challenging to resist, you know, knowing that something's there. So if you have the the blue Outlook blue coming up and you're swiping it to ignore, like, I would later during the day, would be like, like, what's going on? You know, not out of stress, but more out of curiosity. You know? And if it's on my phone, like you say, but it snoozed, you know, it's very challenging for me not to just take a quick peek every now and then.
Nick:You know what? How was that for you?
Tyler:I did well, I I did cheat a bit. I did check, like, just in case something. But I only opened the direct messages. And luckily, I got one compliment and then one by the way, we have a we have this happening on Monday. We'll reach out to you, which was, like, perfect.
Tyler:And and the rest of the crew messages, I ignored. That's there was other people involved, and then they can handle it now.
Nick:Yeah. Maybe that's a nice rule, like compliments only on vacation. Like, if they message you, it has to be a nice thing. Like, hey. Well designed man.
Tyler:And if it trickles into the rest of the work week, do that as well. Yeah.
Nick:That's true. That's true. So and now you're back. You you're all caught up. You know, today is a Tuesday.
Nick:What's, you know, what's your day to day like? Know? Because we see a lot of people on social media sharing work that's mostly mostly very visual. Hey. Look at this design or a mock up or a prototype, but there's more below the surface, of course.
Nick:I'm curious what it is for for you, you know, just being in house, being a designer, a remote designer. Like, what's what are the highlights or perhaps the the lowlights as well?
Tyler:I think contrary to what we see on, like, Twitter or if people use triple anymore. I'm not quite
Nick:sure. I
Tyler:spend maybe maybe 20 to 30% of my time actually doing the design work just because we have things like design systems, and we have kind of those constraints in place. The majority of my time is spent on research, discovery, some meetings here and there, and just figuring out, like, problems. And then also a lot of sketching and wireframing, just kind of mapping out flows, and then talking to actual users because Yeah. That's where, at least for me, that's the important part of it is understanding their problems, not taking their solutions, mind you. Mhmm.
Tyler:And then it's, like, it's it's our job to come up with a solution because I don't know if we talked about this before, but users don't generally know what they what they want. It's our job to kind of translate their their pain points or their needs into an actual solution.
Nick:Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. I've and I've I've seen a lot of junior designers do this, including myself, by the way. Not trying to preach from from a high level to, like, you should do this better, but I made this mistake myself.
Nick:I was talking to users, you know, showing them a prototype. Then I would ask them like, hey. But now it's a table. Would you prefer a list here? And then they're like, oh, for sure.
Nick:Whatever. Yeah. Maybe. Then I'm like, oh, okay. Now I figured out it needs to be a list.
Nick:You know? But that's not a type of question to ask. You know? It's more like listening to their frustrations, letting them ramble on, you taking notes, and then figuring out a solution, like, outside of the interview. Right?
Nick:I think that's that's what you're saying, I think.
Tyler:Yeah. Exactly. And I do something interesting for at least if I'm trying to validate sketches, I split the interview in in half, and I let I prepays and let them know. K. By the way, this we're talking about this general topic, and we're gonna build this new feature.
Tyler:We just would love your input. And I just kinda get their background, get their input initially on on the concept. Like, if you were to imagine what this feature would look like or if you were to build something to fix your current problem, what would you imagine that look like? Just so I can get that raw kind of unfilled, unbiased point of view, and then I'll show them, okay. Here's what we're building.
Tyler:And then we get that kind of that two way conversation going.
Nick:I see.
Tyler:I think works great because I'm I'm building something, but I wanna see if what you imagine matches. And then they move I kind of pulled out some insights from that kind of first half of that conversation, which is it's always quite nice.
Nick:Oh, interesting. Yeah. And I like the the fifty fifty approach. Not sure if I've ever done that, but I I'm going to, For sure now, I'm going to test it out. But then just a minute ago, you mentioned, like, 30% is design work, and then later you mentioned, you know, wireframing and sketching and figuring things out.
Nick:Like, was that part of the 20 or 30%, or is that outside of what you would consider, you know, the the the design work, 30%?
Tyler:I think I consider it outside of it because it's less, like, polished. It's more like napkin sketching. Like
Nick:Right. Alright. Yeah.
Tyler:I mean, I use fake jam just because that's part of our process that are happening. Not a fan of fake jam to be quite honest with you. I'm slowly the rant's coming. I'm slowly getting better at using JakeJam to to create some wireframes. I just I'm not a fan or maybe just biased because I prefer their tools.
Tyler:I use Like like, Miro or something? I use Whimsical. It's equivalent. Oh, okay. The great thing about Whimsical is that it has, like, all the components but in, like, sketch form.
Tyler:So it's almost similar to Azure or some of those kind of sketchy ones where you can kinda just pull in the components and quickly build something versus Big Jam. You have to kinda pull in, like, a community library or pull in some other things. I just wanna get in and quickly sketch something out versus, like, struggling along, or maybe I'm just because I'm terrible at using FigJam. Maybe I'm just
Nick:No. I I I think I agree I think I agree with you because FigJam, you know, I use FigJam a lot, but it's mostly for, like, strategic sessions. Yeah. And, you know, having customer journeys and user flows and, like, boxes with text in them and then arrows and sticky notes. I don't really use it for what you're describing, you know, like, really sketching out something.
Nick:So and just thinking about, like, what would I do in FigJam if I would try and sketch out something like what you're just saying. I think just thinking about it right now, I would would be as frustrated as you are. So I don't really think it's the tool for sketching. It's it's it's meant for, I think, more collaboration, like, more like a massive digital whiteboard.
Tyler:Yep. We use it for that as well. I'm curious what you're what you use for your kind of wireframing at all.
Nick:I I I mostly use, you know, pen and paper. Really old school. Fair enough. If it's, you know, if it's if it's for me, like, if it's just me trying to get started, you know, we we talked previously about the the AI help in this phase. But, you know, I have a I don't think it's on camera, but just to my left, you know, I have a whiteboard on the wall.
Nick:I have my my my notes here. If you freeze frame that moment, you can see my my two year old daughter took my pen and started scribbling in the book. So that's not me. That those are those weren't wireframes. Not yet, at least.
Nick:And then from from the sketch sketches on paper, I usually go, you know, somewhat more high fidelity, higher than what I would call wireframes in case I have a project where there's some sort of design system in place. One of the projects I'm thinking about right now is something I've been working for well, since October, I think. So that's more or less, you know, half a year, like six months. We started with a very small Figma file, but I was building more of a design system or a component library, you know, as time went on. You know, let's work on this button.
Nick:Okay. Create component. Let's work on this list. Create component. So the the, well, quote, unquote, wireframing stage at this point for the project is basically just, know, dragging a few components into an auto layout.
Nick:So that's very quickly to something to do. So I don't need really need a separate tool for it at this stage for this type of project, of course.
Tyler:Yeah. I think the benefit of well, when I why I use whimsical logic or even using a pen and paper is just doing work outside of Figma so you're not tempted to go high five right away. So you're you're forced to kind of work through the problem, sketch some ideas, work work on the edge cases. And then once you've kinda defined it, it's easy to kinda plug and play into, like, if you have access to, to your point, design system, it's a quick way to kinda slap it together.
Nick:Well, I yeah. I think that's a good point. You know, I I think maybe I was having too much of a tunnel vision on wireframes are there just to save time, you know, because it's quicker to just draw a black black outline rectangle instead of a a HiFi, you know, design card component. But now it's also about, you know, focusing on a problem rather than then trying to make it too perfect. And in the beginning of this episode, I mentioned, like, I I have trouble resisting the urge of just checking my messages anyway.
Nick:So I'm probably someone that has trouble resisting the urge of making something pixel perfect right away too. So perhaps I should try out the whimsical. It's what you call it, right, whimsical. Something I should should try for my next wireframing projects. So I I think it would would be beneficial for me.
Tyler:I think so. And and Hot Tech, they have a ChatGPT integration where you're able to type in a prompt. Let's say you wanna kinda quickly map out a standard flow. You can kinda quickly prompt ChatGPT, and it'll create a whimsical board for you. So you can kinda you don't have to start from scratch, and then you can map out your your kind of flow or journey map if you like.
Tyler:Nice.
Nick:Nice. So that works, like, if you say, like, standard flows, like, hey. I'm working on my onboarding flow or create a calendar, that kind of stuff. Okay. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. That's nice. And that's well, that's notes that's what something I'm noticing as well, like, with wireframing and especially, you know, the way I'm currently doing it using components. You only need a handful of things to be able to create many different flows. Like, mostly, it's, you know, text fields and buttons and perhaps a card or a list.
Nick:Like, and you can mix and match those together to create all kinds of different different stay stages within an app. You know, on a website, not so much because it's more visual, but within your your average software as a service product, I think those were the four or five things you need to get about 70% of the things in a wireframe.
Tyler:I'm curious. Do you ever present wireframes to your to your clients or your collaborators?
Nick:Well, fairly high fidelity wireframes, I would say. The only thing that's mostly missing would be color, not just to prevent the question of, hey. Why is this thing green, and why is that one purple? And secondly, there's no not always. There's not always real copy in in the wireframe because there's a lot of you know, it has to be realistic.
Nick:I think we we had to talk about this in one of the the previous episodes. I'm not sure, but sometimes, like, let's say you have a target audience of, like, medical specialists. Like, I'm I'm not a medical specialist, so I'm not going to try and write, like, copy or generate copy that's part of the wireframe because then my target audience while reviewing or being presented to, they were like, this isn't realistic. This is not something that would happen in real life. You know?
Nick:And that's not the focus I want to have on my well, not focus I want to have while working on the on the prototype together or on the wireframe. So I think then it's better to just leave it out entirely, you know, have a very clear placeholder text just so the the discussion within the meeting doesn't go into that direction. So it's you know, just to summarize, it's basically high fidelity without color and without text.
Tyler:I think, additionally, a hot tip is don't use the word wireframes when you're presenting to clients. I Yeah. For years, I've been using an ad to kind of by the way, this this is a wireframe. What a wireframe is, so it's to to additional point, removing using dummy text or not using actual text, calling it maybe a sketch so, like, people understand what a sketch is so they know it's not finished. It's not polished.
Tyler:Just removing those barriers so that it's clear that this is, like, a conversation. This is let or versus this is a high fidelity. This is what it's gonna look like. This is more this is the intermediate stage. This is where we're crafting at the idea.
Tyler:Oh, I love your input so we can actually create the real thing.
Nick:Right. Yeah. Why I I I think that's true. It's it's one of the things I reply to on your LinkedIn daily posting journal, I think, because I remember this, seeing this somewhere last week. And I agree.
Nick:Wireframes have a bad image. Like, oh, it's just lines on paper and nothing more. I've also seen a designer have for every mock up he made, there was this this design by himself, you know, like sticky note in the corner where it says something like draft or in progress or something similar just to be, like, extremely obvious. Like, this is not the final thing, you know, just to prevent, like, the annoying questions where he always had to answer. Like, I know.
Nick:No. We'll get to it in the next stage, but this is just a mock up slash sketch slash in progress thing. It was also a fun thing to see. Like, he had his own, like, sticky note in progress component just ready in the corner of every page.
Tyler:Yeah. I think we it's cute that we have everyone has their own little tips and tricks and nuances that Jeff loves. I think that's his that's his signature. Yeah. I think the theme of it is just, like, removing the barriers.
Tyler:Like, if you're having those conversations with your collaborators or your or your clients per se, just removing those kind of little sticking points that kind of add a bit of friction. So not calling sketches, making sure that it's clear that it's whatever a wireframe is. Additionally, what I do also is, like, I don't even present myself as a product designer because that I feel like not everyone knows what that is. So I just say I'm an extension of the customer success team. That kind of Oh.
Tyler:It goes over
Nick:I understand.
Tyler:A bit better. So it's like just removing, like, there's no way you're going wrong. I'm here to listen to you. And I think if you frame it as I'm from the customer success team, they kind of understand it a bit better. Mhmm.
Nick:Yeah. Especially if they are the customer you're talking to, then then they're like, oh, yeah. You want me to have success. They're Exactly. Much more on board.
Nick:Yeah. I think, you know, product designer by the way, as a little bit of a side note, it's easier to explain than the UX designer. Then you first have to explain UX stands for, you know, what is a UX user experience anyway? You know? But, you know, someone designing a product, you know, the product you're showing your customer, you know, that's a little bit easier, I would say, but perhaps not as easy as customer success.
Tyler:Yeah. I think just like the simplest form, like, everyone understands it. And, generally, they're they're speaking with customer support or customer success regularly anyway since they're garnering if they issued, so they don't have to learn an extra job title. It's just like, okay. I'm just speaking to my normal
Nick:Oh, that's that's smart. Yeah. That's smart. Like, that's clever strategic thinking you would expect from a a designer just to know, like, hey. They already talked to x.
Nick:You know? Let's present myself as part of x. I think that's that's a smart one. But it also shows me you're working I I already know this, but you're working at quite a, you know, midsize or a midsize plus company. The fact just by the fact that you have a customer success team.
Nick:Like, most of my clients don't have a team like that. They're not big enough yet.
Tyler:On that part, I'm curious what your like, circling back to, like, what what our week looks like. What does your kind of typical week look like? Like, and how many like, for example, how many clients are you working with on, like, the on a daily or weekly basis? What does your mornings looks like? How does the rest of your day kind of pulled out?
Tyler:I'm curious, like, from that freelance perspective, how do you move in shape?
Nick:You know, you know, what what I'm thinking maybe the most obvious difference, I mean but but please correct me if I'm wrong, is that I have a bit of, you know, bookkeeping to do and perhaps a bit more networking, I guess. Not sure how much networking you do. You know? But when I have a feeling like, hey. This current project might come to an end, like, I need to have some leads or some maybes in place, like, before that happens.
Nick:So, you know, for example, this week, I'm talking to, I know, a handful of recruiters, you know, another designer similar to us, you just like a senior level designer, You know, that kind of stuff. So bookkeeping means invoices and taxes, that kind of stuff. Like, over here in The Netherlands, you have to do taxes each each quarter, and then once a year, like a big one. So that's probably, you know, a few hours per week, you know, networking and the bookkeeping together. Let's say between two and four depending on the week.
Nick:And in terms of work, I try to keep meetings to a minimum, to be honest. Like, it's not forbidden. I mean, you have, know, for example, the the productized design service, like the the one making it popular, like DesignJoy and and a few similar ones. They I I not sure if it's still the case, but last time I checked, they were like, hey. No meetings.
Nick:And then that's a unique selling point for them. I'm more hybrid. Like, I I come from a corporate background where my the low point was I think I had my nine to five. I had 11 meetings in one day. Like, there's no joke.
Nick:Like, 11 meetings. So I'm trying to keep it to a minimum now so I have more time for, you know, the other stuff like the, quote, unquote, actual work. You know, an actual work, I would say, is similar to how you described it. You know, design work, sketching, discovery, user talk. One thing I don't think you mentioned, but I'm I I guess you you actually do as well is collaborating with developers.
Nick:Like, because I'm I'm fairly close to to the developers. You know, I do a bit of coding as well. So with every design I make, if a customer wants to, I can deliver in code, you know, not in a working way, but but more like the static pages. So imagine a mock up, you press export in Figma, you know, but then it's, you know, it's code. So there's some more re collaboration required there just to make sure, like, hey.
Nick:What what coding languages are we using? Like, where does it have to be pushed? Like, should it be in a in a GitHub repository, or should I just, you know, hand it over in some different way? So that's something I think I should highlight as well. Like, there's a bit of coding and developer collaboration going on in my week as well.
Tyler:Okay. I'm curious on, like, how does that collaboration like, how regularly are you speaking to the developers? Is it really just, like, hand off or you're kind of collaborating at the beginning? How do those conversations come about?
Nick:Well, it's you know, it started you know, just imagine this. Like, I've I'm a designer first, but at some point, you know, I get got all these questions like, oh, that's nice, but can you build it too? And then I said no most cases. And then that would mean I would lose the the the lead. So I was like, hey.
Nick:Let's learn how to code. This was just just before AI became a thing. So I I I think that's an advantage now because I have a good solid understanding and then put AI on top, which means I can learn new coding languages rather quickly. So what I'm doing now is let's say I'm a designer at level level eight, for example, and then developer, I am I started level zero and level one, two, three. Let like, the initial levels, it starts with me just having my own files in my local repository, and then I would just share it with a developer.
Nick:There was no gap. Also, there was a big gap, so I have to be be specific. Like, I didn't know what they were doing. At some point, I would just go to the products, you know, reload, and then it would be there. And then they did all these things I didn't really see.
Nick:But now that I'm leveling up a little bit more, like, beyond the first one, two, or three levels, I'm now, for the first time, part of, like, the main GitHub repository. Like, I have the local version of the application. Well, I have a local version of the application on my computer, and I, you know, I can literally break anything here, you know, at home, like any any of the you know, it wouldn't make it to production, of course, but that's the level I'm in currently. It happened, you know, this week. So now my collaboration with developers, this is a very long buildup to your answer.
Nick:I apologize for that. But is it is also me learning by asking, okay. Everything I did here is hard coded, but I see we use variables over here as well. I think we can be I well, I can be smarter here. Like, what would you do if I wanted to make this, you know, a look more like b?
Nick:Because I think that's more, you know, future proof. And then they explain it to me, you know, that kind of collaboration. So this is an example of me learning, but it's also just me understanding, you know, the code base better because they've been working on it for years, and this is my fur you know, I've been with this client for months, but it's my first week in the actual code base. So I have a lot of catching up to do, and that's the main goal, me catching up probably a bit of code review as well.
Tyler:K. So it sounds like you're you're you're on the path becoming the highly toned design engineer. Yeah. You're gonna be a
Nick:I think so. A hybrid. I think so. No. The fun thing is that, like, really, like, late nineties when I was, like, six or seven.
Nick:Like, my father gave me, like, one of his old computers. We still had, like, a Macromedia and Adobe in early days. So I started with animation in Flash, that required a little bit of a light coding and with frameworks. And with Script three. ActionScripts.
Nick:Yeah. That's that's one I you know? And then I went to my, like, university education. They had communication, art, design, and development all in the first year. And then you pick one of those four and, you know, specialize in that one.
Nick:And for me, it was really a a fifty fifty debate. Like, should I do design or development? Because both of them, I, you know, had okay grades in and enjoyed quite a bit, and it I went to do the design direction in the end. But I from school, I had bit of a bit of foundation in in code as well, and I I think I have the the right mind for it. Like, I I'm quite good with numbers.
Nick:Becoming a design engineer, perhaps, I think the foundation is there already from really early ninety like, late nineties, like, really early days, and then a bit from from school as well. And I enjoy doing it as well. So I think that's the most important thing. I enjoy that kind of work. So I'm I'm going really broad now in terms of design plus development and a bit of strategy.
Tyler:Yeah. I think we're we're similar in that. I started hybrid as well, like, coding as well. But as the the industry changed, more specifically, I think you have more flexibility if you're freelancing and you have you can get a bit more ownership. But UX or, like, the web designer title kind of transitions from, like, web designer to UI or UX, and now it's product designer.
Tyler:So we don't do any coding at all. So that's something I miss as well. It just makes you I I can still do a bit of HTML and CSS. Yeah. I I'm kind of losing it day by day as a more automation tool come to play.
Tyler:So I'm a bit jealous.
Nick:Do do you have any plans or desire perhaps to bring parts of it back maybe on top or next to your current work?
Tyler:I think I think doing side projects kinda fills that that need. So, like, I have, like, my day job and that kind of which is really fun and great. But then there's some some muscles I wanna kinda flex that are kind of outside. So, like, working on side projects, I think, beneficial for me is, number one, I get full ownership of whatever that side project is. That means I can say I'm the one who says yes.
Tyler:Not all the time. That sounds really dangerous or not dangerous. But I get to work and do do have full ownership and have full creative control, which is great. So I get to kind of get off get that off my shoulders. Yeah.
Tyler:So that's great to kind of have a bit of both. Right.
Nick:Yeah. That's that that makes a lot of sense. That's how it started for me as well, by the way. You know, I started my you know, from full time employment, I started writing, you know, about design and about my experience as a designer, and that that went into mentorship and coaching and community and writing even more and being more of a design content creator first before I I figure out, like, hey. Wait a minute.
Nick:I can do my day job, but then in the evenings and in the weekend as well because that's probably going to be a quicker turnover in terms of a bit of of revenue rather than trying to build some sort of content website. So the first thing I really did is, like, Fridays and and evenings. I had a bit of time left over, like, for a local development agency, like, four or five people, people just in the same town as where I lived. They needed a bit of design help because their designer quit, and they were looking for a new one. But to bridge the time in between, like, they could ask me, you know, a few questions every now and then.
Nick:So, you know, that's how it started for me. Like, day job, you know, four, five days a week, and then two or four hours a week on top of it, you know, freelancing. And that's been growing slowly to become more. So maybe it's a bit of a warning for you as well. Like, once you go on to the side hustle route Yeah.
Nick:Be careful for it not to or you can expect for it to be so much fun that it will become very big, and then you will have, like, okay. What direction should I go into? Should it be in house? Should it be freelance? You know?
Nick:Balancing both, I think, is very challenging.
Tyler:Yeah. I had some experience. I was this is when I was in my twenties, and I first started like, I did my nine to five, and I had, like, my side stuff. But I don't know if you're the same way, but I have, like, peak hours at night where I'm totally focused and I'm very efficient. And but unfortunately so I had mine at nine to five, and then but I was only efficient between ten and 3AM, which was which I I tried to start something at the, like, eight or nine.
Tyler:That just nothing was clicking. And then as soon as it hit ten or eleven, I'm ready to go. Yeah. Ended up eating into my talk about work life balance. It started eating into my sleeping time.
Tyler:So I started to sleep Oh, yeah. Twenty three hours per day, which was wasn't sustainable. So maybe I'll take tips from you if I ever want to to balance your You
Nick:know, for me, it's to just to get the I'm I'm the same way, by the way, but then more it's more for me early mornings rather than late nights. Like, my natural sleeping time is, like, 10:30, but then I wake up at six, like, by myself without any alarms. Anything different than those hours, and I'm very grumpy and prone to getting a cold and that kind of old man stuff even though I'm in my early thirties. But, anyway so then, you know, I went from full time to part time at my day job just to bring back a little bit of the the bands. That's what I did at some point.
Tyler:That's a good mix, I just think. I like if you're doing half and half versus doing a % plus another 50%.
Nick:Yes. Yeah. So I would have you know, your typical day job over here is, like, forty hours a week, and it's okay for me to do, like, three months of, like, four hours on top, like, forty four hours. But then at after three months, I was like, oh, this has been this has been going on for a while. It's quite stable, these four hours.
Nick:Let's turn the forty hour day job into thirty six hours. And then you have thirty six plus four side hustling is, you know, still a full time week on 40. You know, I'm not one to take risks. It sounds perhaps a bit silly for someone, you know, doing a lot of freelancing and side hustling and all that kind of stuff. But for me, it has to be, like, baby steps.
Nick:I need to see first for a long while, like, okay. This is sustainable. This is going to work. Let's let's take away four hours now. You know?
Nick:That's I'm not one to make the big leap and just say, buy day job. You know?
Tyler:Yeah. I think that's smart. Yeah.
Nick:Especially with the with the family to take care of. You know? I'm a parent now. I have responsibilities. So sometimes I look back at my early twenties, and I'm like, while living at home, perhaps that should have been the moment to take a leap because, yeah, well, you have no no one to take care of.
Nick:But then, you know, now I'm rambling a little bit, but I'm in the end, I'm glad I didn't because I learned so much on the day job. Because when you're freelancing, people expect you to be there from day one. There's no real training period. But when you go to a new job in house, it's fair I think again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's more of a start up period for you. They expect you to, you know, take a few weeks or perhaps a month or two just to get used to the to the environment and the people and the way of working.
Tyler:Exactly.
Nick:Yeah. That's that's that's less the case. Yes. That's less the case so with freelancing, and they're just like, well, I'm paying you by the hour. I want to see improvements and return on results right now.
Nick:Exactly. Yeah.
Tyler:Yeah. There's a bit more grace when you're starting in a company since I just went through it recently. So it's like, yes, some training, learning about the culture, going through the documentation. I'm a bit itchy when it comes to that, so I wanted to dive in as quickly as possible because that's that's just how I learn. So I learn by just doing rather than watching other people do their thing.
Tyler:So I'd rather get in, make my mistakes, ask a lot of questions, and then I'll I'll I'll figure it out there versus it's sitting total on my thumbs reading documentation all day.
Nick:Well, I I fully agree. I think make the more mistakes you make, the better, you know, of course, within reasonable amounts. But mistakes are the the moments you learn the most. I'd rather have a a designer on my team be a bit too forward, you know, fall on their face, learn, and become better rather than, you know, playing the whole game with like, training wheels on. So, yeah, let's make mistakes.
Tyler:Yeah. I'm with you there. Because you're there's more you're you're letting their creativity fly because if you're constraining them and not letting them make mistakes, they can. There's potential there, I think, in in kind of that's how we learn. I that's how we learned how to walk.
Tyler:Right? We fell a couple of times. We're out how to waddle our way through
Nick:our feet. That's true. That's true. Yeah. And now we're we're we're really talking like design managers or design leads with with a team.
Nick:Like, do you have any like, you you're part of a team, but do you have a design team or any, like, junior people or interns part of your team where you have, like, more of a coaching role on the job? Or
Tyler:Well, I'm part of a team. I think we're on, like, six in total. I think we're gonna grow to, like, eight or so with varying levels. So I'm a big fan of coaching and mentoring, but I think it can work both ways. So I can learn from a junior as well.
Tyler:That's something on our team who's like a wizard at Figma who's, like, so much better than I am. So there's tons there's there's there's there's tons to learn both ways. And, like, everyone everyone on my team is amazing. So there's mentorship opportunities everywhere regardless of Nice. Their level.
Nick:Yeah. Well, that's that's good to hear. It's good to hear. I think that, you know, if oh, is maybe a question first. Like, is is there any official guidance in terms of, you know, being allowed to spend, you know, x amount of time on on coaching and learning, or is it just something that just happens naturally where you're like, hey.
Nick:You did this thing here. How about next time? This and this because of these reasons?
Tyler:Oh, we talked about kind of just, like, one on one with your with your with your teammates.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Let's say you you mentioned, like, the the Figma wizard, like, junior designer who's better at Figma than you. You know? And and you want to learn something.
Nick:Like I said, something that happened naturally. Because I've also seen companies where there's they're like, well, you're allowed to spend 10% of your time each week on, you know, self improvement and learning and that kind of stuff.
Tyler:Yeah. I think there's a mix of both, generally, what I've seen. So I think, like, out and asking for a mentorship just happened. It happens naturally. And there's generally, like, a a yearly budget on, like, education.
Tyler:That is an allowance. You can kind of either purchase a course or if you wanna join a boot camp. They allow that because having if you're investing in your employees to get better, the ROI there is super clear. Yeah. So I think a mixed bag of a mixed bag of is is what I've seen.
Tyler:At most companies, there's usually an allowance for education. I think mentorship, depending on the structure, it happens organically.
Nick:Well, I I I think well, my best best thing to happen is for it to happen organic organically. I think you're touching on something interesting as well. Like, if you look at a nontypical week in house versus freelancing slash agency, it's, you know, going to trainings and seminars, but also vacation. Not not per se in it happening because it happens for the both of us. But if there's a budget from your employer, you can do it while I assume you can do it during your nine to five.
Nick:Like, it's not something you have to do in the evenings or the weekends. But for me, it's something I have to pay for myself. And then if that takes two or three days, that's two or three days where I make, you know, $0. Sure. So that's something I have to be careful of.
Nick:You know, on one end, I don't want to not do it because then you will get behind versus, you know, Figma wizards, cursor wizards, and Yeah. Whimsical experts like yourself. But then on the other end, if if you do it too much
Tyler:you know, then you your
Nick:your revenue drops as well. So that's a balancing act that requires a bit of thinking. So I have every week or every Sunday evening, I try to make, you know, a rough list of things I want to do during the upcoming week, and that includes, you know, making a list of, oh, I should really talk to these people, or I should do this event or this thing on my own products. So I have a a small portion of the week that's, you know, scheduling and planning and trying to be strategic for myself.
Tyler:Yeah. I think what I like to do yep. I mean, I work in house, so I have that allowance to kind of do things during. But whether it's a YouTube video or I'm a it's kind of like an audiobook, to do it while I'm marketing. But I'm a bit of I'm that person that likes a bit of caught chaos when I'm working, so I like loud noises.
Tyler:If I'm reading something, I can still listen to a podcast at the same time. So I'm a bit I'm I'm a bit of a chaotic person. That's just the way I'm eye roll, I guess. Yeah. But doing things in parallel always helps.
Tyler:Yeah. Especially if it's if it's related to the work you're doing right now.
Nick:Do you have a planning during the week where you're like, okay. This part of the day, let's say, you know, Wednesday morning, Friday afternoon, I'm going to do this thing and this thing only or anything like no meeting blocks where you can do deep work, anything like that?
Tyler:Yeah. If I know I I wanna kinda finish something, I'll put, like, a little I call it the cone of silence block on my on my calendar so that I'm not distracted by by meeting here or someone kind of messaging me. But I generally do it while I'm working. So, like, if I'm working and I know I don't have a meeting, I'll kind of put something on in parallel, and I'll kinda listen to it.
Nick:Right. Alright. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Why?
Nick:I I think it's very interesting to hear. Like, I I think maybe as a bit of advice, like, for anyone listening, you know, regardless of the type of design role, I think it's always smart to, you know, talk to other designers about their way of working because, you know, we we we talk, you know, all the time, and then we we've known each other for a while. But just having an official talk about each other's workweek moment like this, I'm already learning so much. Like, I should do, like, the whimsical thing. I should check it out.
Tyler:And
Nick:now with the, you know, the the silence block and the, you know, the learning on the job, all the things, I'm like, oh, interesting. Like, I'm going to try all these things out. So if you can get that kind of takeaway from, you know, any designer you talk to, I would recommend anyone to talk to, like, one or two designers a week or a month perhaps if you're busy because I'm learning something, and I'm sure others will too.
Tyler:Exactly. And, also, you can join some like, just some free mentorship out there, like ADP list, which is a nice that I tried a couple times. Just, like, speak to someone at your level or maybe a manager or someone or just to learn. Take out forty five minutes or an hour, whatever kind of block that they have available just to get fresh perspective.
Nick:I think so too. Yeah. I'm speaking to someone later this Friday, And he's a freelancer too, and we're just going to talk design and have a nice chat. And I'm sure there will be, like, one or two nice takeaways as well, but perhaps that's inspiration for another episode. I don't know.
Nick:It's not Friday yet. We'll see.
Tyler:Let's see how your week shapes up.
Nick:Yeah. Exactly. So any any closing thoughts, any any best practices, golden nuggets, or or any any tips you want to share about, you know, a day in the week of a designer? If
Tyler:we're talking about maybe something that I do that's been successful is during the discovery process. So, generally, if you're working in house, you're collaborating with engineering products and and and you're the designer, but you're generally, at least at the early stages, more collaborating with the the product managers. So they're either you're working on a problem together or maybe they've created a document that kinda they've identified an issue. Something that I do during my discovery work is creating, like, a design document. So almost like the design version of, like, a PRD or a product requirements document.
Tyler:And it's like the PM and designer, they're doing their discovery, understanding the problem space, and then you come back together with your own documents. And I find that you're aligned better if you have something to show. Number one, if you write what you've understood down, you're it's kind of clearer to you. And it's like, when you write it down, it's real, and you've kind of understood it. But I found that that I've incorporated that part of my process for the last couple couple years.
Tyler:Like, your your alignment is quicker, and there's less debate. And you both come to the table with the same level of understanding. So it's less of, like, someone has all the context and you have a lot of questions. You're both coming and challenging what or challenging or collaborating what the best solution is to kind of solve that problem.
Nick:Right. Right. Yeah. I think that's wonderful advice. You're taking a bit of notes and stakeholder management, so to say.
Nick:Yeah. So there's a point there's a
Tyler:point at 70% that I'm not in in Figma. I'm documenting things in Confluence just like getting my ideas down on paper or the digital paper.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. To have a bit of a fallback in case there's a discussion like, no. But we wrote down this thing last week. Oh, yeah.
Nick:That's true. That kind of stuff. It's a safety net also. It is. It is.
Nick:I I think then that's also maybe a nice segue into our our next topic, you know, because writing down stuff and talking about it later, it's a bit about presenting work and its input for presenting work. Because I think, you know, you came up with a topic for for in two weeks for the next episode about presenting work. Right? That's if I remember correctly.
Tyler:Yeah. That's gonna be a good one. I think it's important part, like, to go back to that 70% part. It's, like, presenting your work to your stakeholders or your collaborators. Yep.
Tyler:And the best way to kind of communicate it, like, sir circling back again to that at the table conversation, speaking the language of the community. So it's I don't know talking about design. It's about talking about the business problem you're you're solving. That way, I don't wanna get into that conversation, but maybe tease that for our our next episode. But I think it's an important part of of being a designer is to properly articulate, like, the value of the work you've done and how to properly collaborate.
Nick:And this applies both, like, on the job, but also, I would say, while job hunting. Definitely. Because you have to present yourself and previous jobs and case studies and perhaps whiteboard challenges and that kind of thing. So I think, you know, how to present yourself can be like a universal designers topic that would apply to many different situations, many different designers in different places.
Tyler:Yes. I mean, it's gonna be a very useful it's gonna be a very valuable talk that we're gonna have Yeah. For sure. Two weeks.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to it already.
Tyler:Well, it sounds like we've concluded this episode for this week. It was a it was a great chat, I think.
Nick:I think so as well. As I said, learning a lot of things from you. And Likewise. Yeah. Well, thank you.
Nick:Well, I'm going to try out the whimsical, and I'll let you know perhaps even during an during an episode if I have any thoughts or mind blowing moments like, wow, this is so great. Let's use it all the time. We'll yeah. We'll see how it goes. Alright.
Nick:I'll have to find a suitable moment for it first. Like, when I see like, this is a wireframing moment. Let's try it out. But more on that later.
Tyler:Alright. My legs are.