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The Interface Podcast Crew chats with Thomas Watkins, principal and founder of 3 Leaf.
Interface is a podcast where we connect technology and culture through conversation. Interface is brought to you by EMPOWER at PROS. EMPOWER is dedicated to attracting, developing and retaining Black talent at PROS. PROS helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy.
Episode 10 - Thomas Watkins
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[00:00:00] Jennifer Plummer: Welcome to interface a podcast where we connect technology and culture through conversation. Interface is brought to you by Empower at PROS. Empower is dedicated to attracting, developing, and retaining black talent at PROS. PROS helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy.
I'm your host, Jennifer Plummer and Matthew Negrom is with me today is my cohost.
[00:00:33] MattieCakes: That was a good one.
[00:00:37] Jennifer Plummer: Our guest today is Thomas Watkins principal and founder of 3 Leaf. Thank you for joining us today, Thomas.
[00:00:44] Thomas Watkins: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
[00:00:46] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. Yeah. So we go, we go way back.
[00:00:50] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, we go way, way, way, way back.
[00:00:53] Jennifer Plummer: Old PROS, um, employee.
[00:00:57] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. She used to sit around the corner from me, along [00:01:00] with the, I sat with the developers back then we didn't have a UX area.
Yeah. So you were just kind of embedded with the development team and I would answer UX questions.
[00:01:10] Jennifer Plummer: And that was when I realized I was like, wait, they don't trust me to write a sentence about like, when you have like labels. And I was like, they don't trust me with that decision. I gotta ask somebody else
[00:01:21] Thomas Watkins: because you know, you know, you were there before the shift, the big shift.
Yeah. Before everything changed to where you had to have UX design things. Yeah. You were there before that. And so you said that shift.
[00:01:33] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. I'll put a label.
[00:01:34] Thomas Watkins: I don't, before you were trusted to make a label. I do. Or an error message, but, uh, after that, no, it's
[00:01:40] Jennifer Plummer: like, no, Thomas is, Thomas is gonna take that off your hands. Let do that.
[00:01:45] Thomas Watkins: Like, like I think you guys should have a timeline on the wall painted on the wall, like a mural at PROS to talk about like the different eras and stuff like that. And that would be kind of an era. Yeah.
[00:01:56] MattieCakes: I I'd really enjoy that.
[00:01:57] Jennifer Plummer: Well, put the Yammer era on, on there [00:02:00] Matthew you know, Yammer went away and that's coming back and I'm.
Yeah. And I'm like back in my day I did like him we're back and we forth. And so I know Matthew's like, here she goes again, she's talking about yammer again, but it would, it would be part of that timeline. It would be part of that timeline.
[00:02:24] Thomas Watkins: You using between yammer were you using slack and you. Teams. Oh, my goodness teams is bad.
[00:02:31] Jennifer Plummer: We, and we did have a, um, what was, what was the precursor to teams? Microsoft, uh, Skype. Skype. Yeah. So we were kind of using Skype and, and Yammer for, you know, obviously different things, but then teams was supposed to be the one tool for both of those things.
[00:02:50] MattieCakes: Right.
[00:02:51] Jennifer Plummer: But now, then
[00:02:51] MattieCakes: we also have zoom,
[00:02:53] Jennifer Plummer: then we got zoom and yeah. Now the pendulum swinging back to Yammer. So[00:03:00]
What we're here to talk about you. So our first question is always, what do you do? How did you get into doing it as a little boy? Were you drawing little mockups of little user interfaces? You know, how
[00:03:14] Thomas Watkins: I actually did. I, I, I did. So my, my first, uh, my first usability study, my mom tells me this, I went to, um, it was a children's museum.
And you were supposed to draw what you, the, the, one of the assignments for the kids, you had to draw what you saw at the children's museum. And so I, I don't know how old I was, but I drew like the, the underside of the table, like, like, like there was a table where there was a thing for the kids to see and like, I couldn't quite see it.
So I drew like the side of it. And from that the museum note noticed like, oh my goodness, this isn't, this is too tall for the kids, so we need to change this. So that was the first time I, I drew something.
[00:03:59] Jennifer Plummer: And that's when you were like, [00:04:00] I found my calling since
[00:04:02] Thomas Watkins: then. Um, no, so I, I went to, um, undergrad for psychology Hampton, university psychology.
And I actually lucked up because when I was applying to graduate schools, I was interested in cognitive psychology and that's where I kind of wanted my future to be, to be like a researcher in the cognitive psychology space, but I got accepted into the school that taught no, this is the early 2000. So this is 2002.
And so it was George Mason's human factors program. So for those who don't know, the original name for UX was human factors. So I got training in that program early on, but then I went to more school after that and that I didn't have that as a career, uh, goal until when I finally got out of school and I was like, okay, time to get a job.
And I went to PROS. And so that was the beginning of me working in software. But so before that I was working [00:05:00] with like interfaces with, you know, machines and things like that, doing, you know, studies and research on that, that kind of stuff. But the beginning of software was that. So as a design psychologist, that's what I am, that began a long time ago, and I was fortunate enough to get onto UX before UX was like a huge thing.
[00:05:24] Jennifer Plummer: And then after you left pros?
[00:05:25] Thomas Watkins: I did a bunch of consulting. So I worked for staff ag at, you know, some of the big oil companies worked for some of the consulting agent agencies. Then I started working with startups around 2014.
And so, I kind of fell in love with the idea of working with a startup because you have a lot more strategic influence over what the product is. And so after I kind of worked for a few more years in the kind of nine to five world here and there, they went ahead and started, uh, a consulting [00:06:00] agency that provides UX.
And so I've got my, you know, team members of about 10 folks or so, and we work on like a handful of projects that early stage tech. A handful of clients that we help them go to market with good UX.
[00:06:18] Jennifer Plummer: Which is so important. I'm, I'm so very important. Yeah. It's just kind of the, the product I'm working on now is mostly like a, like a backend thing.
Like there's, there was no UI and it was, it's just really hard to explain to some people. And then we finally got a UI and, um, I think our product manager was like, it finally has a face, like , it was like this amorphous thing and it it's got a face that people can relate to. It kind of just makes it more tangible.
So could you maybe take a step back and explain what is, what is UX and kind of, what is the day in the life, or how does, you know, what are the [00:07:00] stages of a project that you would work on?
[00:07:02] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, so UX is essentially, you are designing the interaction between the human and the machine. And so we think about that normally in terms of screens, but it's really anything it's any interface.
So, um, when people, one of the terms that drives me nuts is UI nowadays being synonymous with visual design. Right? And so UI just means user interface. That's just the, that's the point at which the human interacts with the machine. So if you're talking about, you know, Amazon echo, what is the UI? That's a question.
[00:07:41] Jennifer Plummer: Um, I guess the, the button is there. I don't have an Alexa, so that's hard for me.
[00:07:50] Thomas Watkins: It's on a voice command thing. What's what's the user and oh, okay.
[00:07:54] Jennifer Plummer: I guess the, the micro.
[00:07:56] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's it's the microphone and the speakers. So it goes way beyond just [00:08:00] screens. It's just it's how does the human interact with this?
So, but we, we mostly work with screens, right? So with UX, you're concerned with making a product as easy as possible. And once you achieve that, maybe making it enjoyable, like back in the day, the only bar was like, make it usable. So it used to be called usability, but then when the bar got raised, it's like, okay, well we wanna actually make people happy to, or, or delight people.
Yeah. So, um, so essentially what you're doing is it's like, the way I describe it to people is it's like ergonomics, but a be a mental behavioral version of ergonomics. So just like you can have an ergonomic chair that's designed for the human body, right? When you sit in an ergonomic, scissors has the little grip, uh, part of it, ergonomic mouse has, is made for your hand.
What we're doing is this basically ergonomics, applied to computer interfaces. So you take what we know about, how do people attend to things? How do they remember things? How do they solve [00:09:00] problems? Um, how do they react to things and you engineer that into the product. And so when you have a UX team, they're typically plugging into the product team, the product managers and the product managers, supply the requirements and the UX team iterates to arrive at solutions for, okay, how is this gonna show up for the user? So then you start to see things like personas, you see scenarios, and you say the whole question is who are we design, designing this for? And what does the ideal flow look like? And then once you're able to do that, you're now able to hand this off to the developers and the developers get to focus on what, uh, the engineering aspect of it, instead of figuring out everything, right?
So back in the day, it's, the developers had to figure out absolutely everything. So you get, they would get handed requirements, right? And it's like, okay, we, this product needs to be able to adjust prices on contracts that are [00:10:00] already made. Use a use case that's probably a pro a PROS type, uh, of, um, use case.
And so, instead of having that or with product managers, putting together crude, uh, PowerPoints, right? Where you have a, a screenshot of the screen and they're, you know, they're using crude methodologies and tools to get it done. Um, what you have nowadays is a profession that's dedicated to just figuring out the gap between the requirements and how does this come together for the developers, the developers can focus on, they can focus their brilliance on how to engineer this and how to get this feature into existence.
[00:10:41] Jennifer Plummer: And, and that is where the conversation goes. Cuz I know back when I was trusted to do the labels and the buttons myself, it's just kinda like, well, this is, this is gonna get you there. This, you know, you need to add a row here. This does functionally what someone asking for. Yeah. But yeah, you guys are definitely going [00:11:00] deeper asking kind of, you know, more questions about, well, how did we get here?
You know, what's the thought process of the person here. Where do we need to go? And even taking time to kind of, with that prototyping, go kind of feel put feelers out and all that stuff takes so much time where we're just kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just, just show us the button so we can hook it up. Right.
What's a behavior.
[00:11:24] Thomas Watkins: And so part of the evolution was actually us, as UXers, encroaching on the territory of other professions. So it was encroaching a little bit on the, uh, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a way that folks didn't understand at the time. So a little bit of the pro what the product managers used to do, explaining things to developers, a little bit of what the developers used to do.
Just kind of figuring stuff out, um, how it's gonna come together. A little bit of what the architects even do. I remember, you know, when you first work with architects and they're not used to working with a UX person, they're like, [00:12:00] who is this person who's often not technical, not, you know, terribly technical, certainly not as technical
[00:12:06] Jennifer Plummer: compared to an architect.
[00:12:07] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. Yeah. So, so they're like, how are, why is this person telling us what to do? Like no, especially when I started my career, I, I was, I was, um, significantly less technical than, than folks in my, in my surroundings. So, um, I think there was a little bit in the beginning, but then once people get used to it, they're like, oh, this is actually kind of, cool.
[00:12:28] Jennifer Plummer: That's always my first question. Where's the prototype? Like you you've written a lot. We've talked about a lot of requirements, but I like, I really wanna see the prototype before we really start digging through like, I'm, I, I definitely appreciate, uh, the UX people that I work with because it definitely, it, it, it pushes us ahead. So, so many will they say a picture is worth a thousand words, right?
Once you have that prototype, it's definitely taking concepts that were, that people have been [00:13:00] maybe not easy to write down as requirements, you can see it. You're like, okay, now I get it. Or that's not really how I imagine this. And then, then the conversation really kind of has a better meaning because from where you're starting than just kind of...
[00:13:14] Thomas Watkins: That's right. And, and, and for the listeners who don't know, Jennifer used to actually literally ask me for prototype, she'd come over to my desk. He'd be like, Thomas, do we have the prototype for such and such? I'm like, ah, not yet. When do we need it? So well, Jason says that we've gotta build it. And the next sprint and the sprint starts tomorrow.
Like, oh man, get on this.
[00:13:34] MattieCakes: I typically see UI and UX, like plug together. Are they synonymous?
[00:13:41] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. Do you want me to speak on that? The UI UX thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is don't get me started on it, but
[00:13:48] Jennifer Plummer: no, get started. Get started.
[00:13:49] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This, this is one of my favorite topics. So the UI UX term is a term that I've grown to accept, but I don't like it.
And, and because I don't [00:14:00] like it because I think so number one, as I was talking about before, it's, it's, it's in my opinion, wrong because user interface doesn't mean visual design and, and that's, that's what it means in the context of UI/UX, everything as a, your lawnmower has a user interface. It's the handles at the top, it's the, the pull cord. Right? And, and that has to be designed. You have to make it so that it's things are at the right height and things can be, these are all user interfaces. So, um, but not to be stuck on that, the rise of them being used together, I think was twofold. One was from the hiring side and one was from the practitioner side. On the practitioner side, you have some folks who are, let's just put it this way. They noticed the pay difference between UI and UX and UI sounds like UX. Um, and so it, it, it, [00:15:00] you can kind of mosey your way in if you, you know, kind of . And so, so, so there's that side and, and you can't fault people, you know, people, you know, people we all wanna work and anyone can start from anywhere, right?
So you can, there there's great UX people with any type of background, it, it's not one background, but I think that plays a role with it. And, and I think that on the hiring side there's folks, who, do you ever see one of those job descriptions? Where it has like everything in the kitchen sink inside the job description, they say, we want someone who is awesome at front end development and backend development and, and UX, and is really good at interfacing with customers. Right? And they're just kinda like asking for this laundry list of all these things that they want, rather than like making kind of a realistic targeting for like a job role.
So there's a lot of that. It's like, I want someone who's like is super awesome at making things look really, really beautiful. But then at the same time, like this really awesome information architect [00:16:00] and a really deep knowledge of usability research. Well, those people exist, but that's pretty rare. They call it a unicorn for a reason, but you know, we have the term now.
So what UI means UI refers to visual design? The popular term, I think probably a longer time ago was graphic designer. Then visual designer became more common and then UI designer. So UI designers, they typically have training in the arts. And so the expertise there, it's a whole area of expertise.
Whenever I do a project, I always make sure to have a UI designer or a visual designer on the project, um, because they're really, really critical to making everything come together. Their expertise is in color layout and typography. So you're taking the traditional methods of art and you're providing them you're, uh, assigning them to interfaces.
And then UX is kind of more to the core of problem solving. How is [00:17:00] this feature and functionality going to become a flow? So a lot of times the output of that might be really just wire frames or, you know, low fidelity mockups. And if it's the same person doing the visual design, then, then often it might be a different phase, uh, depending on how people work.
Some people do it all, you know, all together, visual design and information architecture and the same swoop I'm against that. But yeah, so UX is kind of more the, the, the deep, deep consideration and the problem solving and the research, in my opinion, also, it's not really UX if you're not basing it on some kind of research, either research that's been published or it's out there and, or research that you're directly doing in and around the product.
[00:17:46] Jennifer Plummer: That makes sense. That makes sense. So you kind of touched on the different aspects of your project. Like you said, you always wanted visual designer on your project. So maybe can you go more over kind of how you work with a company? Um, when the project [00:18:00] starts, you're working with product managers, I assume, and then how that evolves and to what you, um, when, when do you, when do you say you're done with a project, right?
[00:18:10] Thomas Watkins: Never yeah. Yeah. I honestly think it's never done because you can, you can always come up with more features. And even if you're not, even if you're not coming up with more features, the more the need to continually develop will be forced upon you because the devices you need to stay compatible with devices and things like that.
So even if you have zero ambition, you still need to be able to be compatible. Um, yeah, I think the way, uh, the way I, I like to work with clients is directly with the product managers in a smaller operation. That'll be like a product executive. It might be like the CEO or somebody who's kind of wearing a lot of hats at a larger organization is usually a product manager.
And so the core is a very iterative [00:19:00] process to where it's a, a tight loop between requirements and reviewing potential ideas. It's, you know, it's one of those things where in the beginning you wanna do research. So I like to work with parallel tracks where you have multiple people working out multiple things.
So a visual designer immediately starting on getting the color layout, topography, all set and, and, and, and starting to develop that adapt the company's brand to, you know, a set of guidelines. That's got to be given to the developers and throughout the process, working with the product manager to, to kind of say like, okay, what kind of solutions do we think makes sense?
What seems to come together? Um, but really starting with research and the research is the who and the what, what is the persona and what are the primary tasks that they're gonna be doing? So you end up with a small cast of personas. [00:20:00] You pick one for any given epic or feature to be like the star persona that you absolutely have to solve this problem for.
And you have a set of tasks that this persona's gonna be doing. This all comes from research. So the beginning you talk to SMEs and you say like, okay, what's the problem stays all that kind of stuff. Go and interview folks down with people who are in that, in the population of folks who are represented by that persona, figure out what makes them tick, right?
Ask them questions in, in such a way that you get insights into their motivations, their goals, their real goals. Right? So not, not goals as is printed out on their job description, but what are they, what really makes them tick? Right? So like, so like, if, like, for example, if you look at a UX person's goals on the job description, it'll be like, you know, make beautiful interfaces that people enjoy, but let's say you're designing a tool for UX people, and [00:21:00] you really wanna solve their goals. You, you really wanna make it a product that they love and you might talk to them and find out that their main goal is unblocking the developers. Because you don't want the embarrassment of being at the sprint demo, the review, and you don't have the necessary designs for them to start the sprint.
You don't want the, the team to have to start the sprint and the designs aren't ready yet. That's an actual day to day motivation. And you might not get that if you don't, you don't go out and actually talk to the users and get them to express what really matters to them. Then when you're building a product, you're able to build a product that people love, because you're able to hit on the things that they actually care about.
So this mapping out the user, then there's mapping out what the user does. So every user has different tasks that they need to do throughout the day. And some aren't even totally taken care of by the technology, but the tech technology might play some role over the [00:22:00] course of that task. And what you do is you try to write out scenarios.
Okay. What is the ideal flow? What's ideal for, you know, thinking technology constraints aside, and this is why you also want people who are outside of the direct technology team, cuz they gets rid of part of the bias of wanting to max maximize the efficiency. If you just have a totally person, different person doing it and they're not thinking about that until they're talking to the developers in iterating through, uh, with the developers. About what's technically possible. Then those things come to life, and then, then the developers say like, ah, well that's gonna be a little bit tricky and we have to build a new microservice for that cause we don't have that today, but you are able to at least get to the concept and talk about what you want. Where you probably wouldn't end up with that. Even within UX, you still have to separate, uh, different,
[00:22:51] Jennifer Plummer: is product management involved in this process as well, or is
[00:22:54] Thomas Watkins: very much okay. Okay. Very much so they're not doing it, but they [00:23:00] are, they are a constant checkpoint.
They're the feedback loop to let you know that this from the product manager, what you need to know is you need to know, is this addressing the market need? We, we rely on the product manager to be a market expert. They, they are supposed to be knowledgeable enough about what the product ought to be in order for it to be successful in the marketplace.
So on the UX side, you might have some strategic opinions and say like, ah, does the product really need to do what you, you might challenge that a little bit, just like a developer might challenge UX designs. But at, at the end of the day, we rely on the product owner being the best know knower of that and iterate through to the solutions with.
[00:23:46] MattieCakes: So when I'm designing things, sometimes I'll like design something I'll be like, oh, this is great. And then I'll show it to someone they'll be like, this makes absolutely no sense. So it sounds like you will have a lot more people on the team that will like go through those [00:24:00] scenarios. So how does that explain for like companies like Spotify, for example, when like they, or like here's a new update and it just completely changes the interface and everyone's just super mad about that.
How do you get to that point?
[00:24:12] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. That that's, that's kind of multifold. So when you have a, a large company, like, you know, Spotify or Amazon and they're able to do AB testing, so they're hopefully doing some testing that is at a previous phase that they're working out some of the kinks. But then it eventually, yeah, they're gonna roll it out and it's gonna be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of users, maybe even millions.
And so there's a lot of risk with that. So the stakes are pretty high for them to kind of get it right. A lot of times the ones that care about UX. I don't wanna say they'll they definitely don't always get it right. That's that's for sure. But a lot of effort goes into it for them. So like take and, and then, and then there's the other aspect from a market perspective, some of these [00:25:00] companies like Apple it's a part of their brand is that they kind of force people into, into a way of using things.
So it's, it's kind of almost authoritarian almost my way of the highway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My way of the highways it's like, you know, so that's why everyone gets mad at the Apple releases where they're like, guess what we got rid of this, um, this, this, this plugin or this way. Yeah. So, uh,
[00:25:25] Jennifer Plummer: I always use those as examples to bring down cuz product management and UX, I'm like, oh, we could do this and we could do this.
We just I'm like, no, when that, when iTunes first came out, you could play and you could pause. And that, that was it. And we were happy. We're gonna start outside.
[00:25:42] Thomas Watkins: That's right. That's right.
[00:25:44] Jennifer Plummer: For someone that was interested in becoming a UX designer, a visual designer, someone that researches, you know, what, what would your recommendation be?
[00:25:56] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. So for folks who are interested in [00:26:00] anything, I recommend falling in love with the trade and the craft, because I sincerely think that life will be a lot better for anyone who enjoys what they do. And, you know, if you find some aspect of it that you really, really like, because UX is such a big area and design is such a big area, there's like, sub-specializations. Find something I would say, get good at something.
I, I kind of tend to recommend go deep before you go wide. So you wanna make sure that you can join a team and add value. Right. And, and so, however you choose to get that training, there's different ways to do that. There's a lot of boot camps nowadays. Some are better than others. You could go to graduate school for design.
They, the graduate schools often tend to be less immediately relevant because they don't have their finger on the pulse of [00:27:00] just year by year, what's changing and how are things developing? But the upside to like a graduate school program is that you get kind of a deeper study of a lot of different areas that sometimes help you transfer well from one area to another.
The benefit of the boot camps is just much more accessible. They're like kind of expensive, but not like impossibly expensive,
[00:27:23] Jennifer Plummer: more or less the expensive than grad school.
[00:27:26] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, definitely less expensive than grad school. Right. Definitely less expensive than that. And then there's, I guess you could study on your own, but, um, I think probably the best thing is to get on a project and kind of the same thing with software development, right? It's, it's start doing the work as soon as possible, whether that's an internship and you'll start learning about what you like, what you don't like. And, um, I think dedicate yourself to, to studying the area and trying to get good at it, to follow up on
[00:27:56] MattieCakes: that. Uh, you mentioned research, how are you saying up to date [00:28:00] on research and trends and UX
[00:28:01] Thomas Watkins: conferences uh, a lot. There's, there's a lot of good sites nowadays, you know, Nielsen Norman group in NG is pretty good about publishing a lot of kind of synopsis summaries of commonly asked UX questions. So that's kind of out there a lot, but if you really want the good stuff, get to a good conference, I would say like, um, UXPA is one of my favorites, but there's a, there's a bunch of them out there.
And, um, I particularly like the conferences that are a good mix between academic and applied industry stuff. Cuz you get the relevance from the industry and you get some of the rigor from the academics. Um, right. So, and you have people teams there who do full blown research projects that are super interesting.
You don't, you don't hear the stuff anywhere else. Like for example, what was the year where, where wearables or watches, [00:29:00] smart watches started becoming really popular? Was that around 2015 or so, or?
[00:29:06] MattieCakes: Yeah, I think so.
[00:29:08] Thomas Watkins: somewhere,
[00:29:09] MattieCakes: all the high schoolers had it when I was teaching.
[00:29:12] Thomas Watkins: Okay. . Yeah, so, and, and like, so that year there were a bunch of, there were a few really good UX research teams that did some awesome research on where, and nobody knew about it like no one knew, like, how do you build a good app for Apple watch? Like no one knew. And they, I remember going to this one talk where they had like these six points of how to have good usability. And they, uh, with an Apple watch and they, they write what it came out, had done a whole bunch of research on it, and it was just really good.
It was like, wow, this is, this is hot off the press research. I remember going to talks where someone's giving, years ago, a talk just about hamburger menus, and that's it the whole talk for an hour about hamburger menus and their research about hamburger menus and when and where they [00:30:00] tended to cause confusion versus when they seem to be like, okay and allowable. So I would recommend for a lot of young professionals, try to immerse yourself into that kind of stuff. And then over time you start gaining a lot of expertise because you're just exposed to a lot of, not opinions, but what did studies show? And then you have to stay up on it because things change.
Right? So people, some new technology might come out five years ago when nobody's used to it. And it's weird to everybody, but then a few years later, everyone gets used to it and then it becomes so normal that you can now consider it fairly easy when, you know, whenever it came up, , it's a lot of little things like that.
[00:30:40] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. I never would've considered that. So
[00:30:43] Thomas Watkins: yeah. Cuz user expectations change. It's a, it's a constantly shifting, um, set of expectations.
[00:30:51] MattieCakes: I've heard that like, if you, if the red X to exit is on the right side and you decide to put it on the left side, everyone's expectations [00:31:00] is a, it's a red X on the right side.
But if you change the color or change the position, it just throws everything off.
[00:31:05] Thomas Watkins: That's right. That's yeah, that, that's a good point. Some in some cases violating the expectations is like serious. It, it has big cons where people don't know what's going on. I try usually recommend as a rule of thumb only kind of change things and innovate when you have to, a lot of times, you know, it's, it's, this is not, you know, it's not supposed to be your opportunity to be creative with, you know, express yourself with the software.
You're supposed to stick with the basic stuff, because there's, there's so many opportunities to innovate because there's so many problems to solve. So you're gonna have to like bend some rules, occasionally break some rules, but kind of, yeah, it it's in, so there's the kind of macro what do users expect in general, just as humans who use technology? And then there's the micro, what does this job role or population of users [00:32:00] specifically ex expect because of this, you know, job role.
And that's when you do the specific usability research. So this keeping your finger on the pulse of like the research findings in general in UX, and then there's the specific problem that you always have a need for actual UX researchers.
[00:32:16] MattieCakes: And this is covering design psychology. What you're saying, right?
[00:32:19] Thomas Watkins: That's correct. That's correct. It, um, is design psychology, I would say.
[00:32:24] Jennifer Plummer: And in that research, do you have to consider diversity or inclusion as far depending on what you're designing?
[00:32:34] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. So some, some problems that you're, that you're trying to solve with your interface are more susceptible to considerations there than others.
Right? So I don't come across it a ton in a lot of my work, honestly. I think it's, you know, well, well, one super obvious place is [00:33:00] A11Y right? Accessibility. So that is kind of, I think that falls under the umbrella of, of the really, really general umbrella. Yeah. Yeah. That you don't want to be ableist with your designs, you want to make sure, because a, a wise person once told me we are all just temporarily able. And so you have to,
[00:33:25] Jennifer Plummer: that is so true.
[00:33:26] Thomas Watkins: yeah. Right. It's true. It's kinda a scary, but it's kinda an uncomfortable thought,
[00:33:30] Jennifer Plummer: especially the older I get and the worse my eye
[00:33:34] Thomas Watkins: yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. You're like, wait a second. That was never a problem before like,
[00:33:39] Jennifer Plummer: the time is ticking till I'm just blind and deaf until you're just putting in a wheelchair
[00:33:44] Thomas Watkins: your way around it's it's yes.
Staying on top of kind of like, you know, in even A11Y is deep too, because you could be temporarily disabled. So like, um, I think Microsoft has this really good, um, [00:34:00] infographic or something. I saw it somewhere, but when it comes to like seeing impairment, it could either be that you have a disability that's always with you, or it could be temporary or, or it could be like completely situational, like, the light shined in your eyes because mm-hmm, , you know, the sun shined in your eyes. You're trying to yeah.
[00:34:18] Jennifer Plummer: I'm on the beach completely situat. Yeah.
[00:34:19] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. And then, and then it ranges all the way from that to the individual has a disability. So yeah. Yet, you know, part of, so user experience is not possible without those kinda considerations.
The good news is, is that this stuff is very, the technology has caught up a lot with a lot of the concerns. So, um, I, uh, went to see a panel one time with a group of people who research dis uh, disabled individuals. And then also in the same panel panel, disabled individuals, uh, with a, with different kinds of disabilities talking about their experiences.
And one of the things that they noted was that modern [00:35:00] smartphones are actually terrific with regard to accessibility. So that's, that's good news that, that a lot of that has, uh, has caught up a lot of the concerns that technology has caught up with a lot of the concerns.
[00:35:12] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. Yeah. So what, as far as, um, providing environments for inclusivity from a work environment, or for representation in, in the workforce, is there any opinions you have on what companies can do to increase black talent and companies or, um, things that you're familiar with?
[00:35:36] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. So, so on the topic of what makes the environment more inclusive, that's an important topic, although I don't have super strong opinions about that side of it, but in terms of the recruiting and finding talent, I do have an opinion about that. I think there's an acronym, HBCUs. There are historically black colleges and I, I think that [00:36:00] recruiters maybe are not aware enough that that's the case.
And I, I think that I would recommend companies doing is print up a sheet, create a table of historically black col HBC, historically black college, HBU historically black university. So the, the combined one, H B C U for the listeners who may not have heard that. And yeah, I think contact the computer science departments at some of these places that already have those target populations and, um, go to their career fairs and see what you can find.
[00:36:31] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. I I'm sure they would. Those students would appreciate the attention as well.
[00:36:36] Thomas Watkins: Mm-hmm mm-hmm yeah. And, and, and then on the flip side, for, for communities who are trying to kind of have more of a presence in different industries, I think one of the big challenges is a general lack of awareness. Period. In what professions even exist.
And, um, just across the board, any segment [00:37:00] of, of the population, there are professions that are more known than others, right? And so people tend to get into the professions that they know about. So they might say like, well, my parents were lawyers or they're a public servants or they're X, Y, and Z. So that's what I'm gonna do.
This is what my cousin does. And this is what, so you do stuff. So it's kind of like one of those things where you kind of, you need the pro the positive feedback loop of more folks, get into it, and then more folks then know about it. Right? And then I think it's also important for professionals to like who are there to kind of reach out and, you know, maybe join um, the, I, I don't know if you ever heard of Afro tech.
[00:37:40] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah, I heard about it. I, I haven't been, had a chance to join.
[00:37:43] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. I hadn't, I, I kept missing it year by year, but this year, uh, they had like a, um, city by city. They had a happy hour on one of the days.
And so, ah, yeah, took, took a trip out to Austin, those one in Austin. That was the closest one to us. And so, yeah, it was, it was really neat. You see a lot of [00:38:00] professionals, black professionals trying to get, uh, into technology and, and huge variety of different backgrounds. Some people were, I would say a lot of people were not previously from a technical background, but they were maybe in a job role that overlapped with it.
And they're like, Hey, maybe I want to get more into this. And, but then there were a few people who were like bonafide software developers mm-hmm who, you know, were talented. And I'm like, and I was thinking when I was meeting some of these folks, I'm like, man, how would. Some companies find this individual , I'm not sure how they would find them.
Right. Like I, I don't.
[00:38:32] Jennifer Plummer: And that's why we always ask the question. How did you get from where you started to here? Because everyone's story is unique and it's just
[00:38:39] Thomas Watkins: , totally unique.
[00:38:40] Jennifer Plummer: It's it's good to hear those kind of stories to know. I don't need a cookie cutter, you know, mm-hmm honor student high school.
I go to a four year college. I get a master's and then I'm happy. And I'm in a job for the rest of my life. It's it's meanders a little more than that sometimes.
[00:38:59] Thomas Watkins: [00:39:00] Correct? Correct. Yeah, I think so. That's a tricky one to solve and, you know, especially cuz they, the, the individuals I'm I'm talking about, didn't go to H B C U.
So they wouldn't even be even, even the solution that I presented that wouldn't get this person hired at, you know, a company who's trying to follow that framework. So that, that is a tricky one. I think that a lot of it is professionals who are already there kind of being involved and kind of I think even as far as, you know, go to middle schools, high schools, career days and things like that and say like, Hey, this is what I do for a living.
There's, there's actually, you know, a job type where this is a thing, cuz because a lot of people, they just don't know, it's a thing that right. It doesn't cross their mind.
[00:39:47] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. And, and this day and age, it boggles my mind too. I think we were, we were talking about this earlier in a previous episode that I don't think this is standard curriculum in any school and with this, you know, [00:40:00] who isn't touching for someone who's not touching some sort of application every single day.
They're, you know, they're, I don't wanna say weirdo, but you know, they're someone who lives on the fringe. They're not mm-hmm um, you know, a, a your, your typical citizen. And so that the fact that children, aren't kind of taught about how we know we, we know about mechanics, you know, who repair our cars or build cars and these sorts of things.
We know how doctors and lawyers, but we, we, we, the fact that we don't know how an application gets built is kind of weird to me in this day and age, cuz there's just so much of it going on.
[00:40:42] Thomas Watkins: If people take it for granted, right? It is just the application is there. It's there. You can have fun with it, download it. And yeah, it's, that's, that's a tricky one too. You see some of these programs where you try to get children into like software program and there's like little, [00:41:00] I've played a bunch of 'em. I'm not convinced that they get teach children about actual coding. They all claim to, but
[00:41:06] Jennifer Plummer: I did a cute one about machine learning where you were like, this is a fish, this is not a fish. This is a fish. Okay. And they were the cutest little fish and I was like,
[00:41:13] Thomas Watkins: oh, I have to look that up.
[00:41:15] MattieCakes: Have you, have you seen grasshopper? That's a good app for learning coding?
[00:41:19] Thomas Watkins: I didn't, I don't think I
[00:41:20] MattieCakes: it's kind of like Duolingo in that in the way that it works.
[00:41:24] Jennifer Plummer: Oh really?
[00:41:24] MattieCakes: Yeah. I think stuff like that is like the key to education, but that's a whole spiel that I could go down. Cause it's like, you can learn so much.
[00:41:35] Thomas Watkins: I'll have to look that up. Is, is that for adults, kids that's for anybody
[00:41:40] MattieCakes: it's it's definitely just like learn basic Java. So,
[00:41:45] Thomas Watkins: One ultra basic one. Have you ever played that light bot game where you're this little robot and you're hopping on these squares and you have to turn on lights and it is basically a similar concept.
You have to give it commands that you're not controlling it directly. Cause that's, that's kind of [00:42:00] the basis of software engineering, right. That you have to mm-hmm, give commands to the machine to get it, to do what you want. You have to like figure out how to talk to it, to get what you want.
[00:42:09] Jennifer Plummer: No, I haven't seen that.
There's there's a lot of good stuff out there. So the, the people you talked to who didn't have like a software background, what had drawn them to Afro tech?
[00:42:23] Thomas Watkins: Um, or, you know, did you talk about that outta, outta the people that I had talked to, they learned through their career, that technology was a good place to be.
And so a lot of people were trying to kind of make a career jump and there was a big range in how prepared people were to make that jump. Right. Mm-hmm so if you are a person who maybe came, let's say out of HR or something like that, like a very, very regular job mm-hmm you could do it. Anyone can do it, but it's gonna be, it's gonna be a little bit of a climb to get there, you know?
[00:43:00] So on down to people who actually went to school and majored in computer science, and they're, they're like way closer and even already employed and already, uh, working places.
[00:43:10] Jennifer Plummer: But, but maybe that is part of the bias too, because what did I, you know, what did I learn? I have a computer science minor. I, I did happen to learn Java. I think we were on the fringe that year. I, I graduated undergrad in 98, so I was probably taking intro to see us in 95, I guess. I don't remember, but, you know, I think I did get a good foundation on like, You know, objects or, or mm-hmm, optic oriented programming or, you know, algorithms, but those are things that are kind of implicitly learned on the job as well.
I feel like, right. I have a four year degree. I'm very thankful I have, and I think I've gotten places with it, but I don't think it was absolutely necessary for the career that I've had today.
[00:43:56] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. So I do have a strong opinion on that. so I'm [00:44:00] a huge fan of education. And so mm-hmm, , I, I, I think that sometimes we underestimate the role that our education played and our ability to solve problems. Right? So you could think about back on some undergrad. I mean, so, so let me, a lot of what's undergrad is not terribly relevant, so that's definitely true. Yeah. And there's definitely a lot of examples where you could like, definitely tell that people don't necessarily need to go to college for every job or, or, you know, a bootcamp could could fill in some of those gaps, but mm-hmm, when you think about some of the conversations that you have when you're solving architecture problems, technology problems, a lot of this stuff is like knowledge of phenomenon, knowledge of logical structures. And if, and if you listen to yourself on the conversation, there's a surprising amount, probably of educated thinking that's going into it.
[00:44:56] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, yeah. Let me preface that. I'm not saying I [00:45:00] shouldn't have learned the things that I learned. I'm saying someone can learn those things outside of school. Like if someone said, okay, yes, they can't afford to go to a four year school. Okay. Well, you need to study this and you needed to study this and, and have a practical application of these concepts.
[00:45:16] Thomas Watkins: Yes. So, so that, that is, that is, that's a really good point. There is some, then the reason I go down that line is there is something we have to watch out for there's this rise of this trend. Um, I think Google has it. I might be mistaken, but, but some of the big companies they're creating this kind of like special training program of like, oh, and they're, it's, they're talking about, oh, don't go to college and waste money on college.
And they, I think they pay you. I I'll have to look it up and see the details, but I think they actually either pay students or they make it super attractive to just skip college, to learn through their program. And then to you get a job working for them when you finish the program. Mm-hmm, the, the problem with that [00:46:00] is if you're not educated, you are, you, you don't have the wings, if you will, to fly to certain Heights because you're, you're not gonna be um, and then, so if you are a employer who kind of is just mainly concerned with people doing the work and nothing else, and you're, you might have a bias too much in favor of just the pragmatism of, okay teach them how to do this job, and then they'll be able to do it.
[00:46:29] Jennifer Plummer: Right, right. They can bust out some user interfaces, you know, we we've gotta get these done. And, and we're, and we're teaching you the skills just to do that, but not to understand the overall architecture of what we're building or the concepts that, that the libraries that you're using are actually built upon.
[00:46:45] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, that's right.
[00:46:46] Jennifer Plummer: You should, you should have the full knowledge of that stuff. Yeah. I, I haven't seen those programs, so I would need to research a little more. I can see why someone would pick that option. What I would totally, what, what would be nice [00:47:00] is, and, and, you know, my master's program was paid by two employers that I had coming outta college.
So I got my undergrad and then I started working. Um, and then I started my master's. And so that was reimbursed by the company as I, I work for. And I think that's a great program. And I think, I think that would apply for undergrad too. If someone was just like, I, you know, I'm not at that level. I need to start working.
I need to start earning income. But while I'm doing that, instead of working, you know, you know, in retail or, or fast food, you know, you, you have a practical job where you, maybe you are just doing something very basic, but in a technical role, but while you're there, they're supplementing your, your higher education so that you can, you know, take it to the next level.
[00:47:44] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. So if they're offering that, that's awesome. Right? Like, like, so if it, if it's more like what you just described, that is awesome because it's it's yes, it's totally different from having like a rando job, like at target or something like that. Mm-hmm like, um, if you, if you're actually building your career and building skills that are [00:48:00] gonna be relevant to the kinds of career moves that you wanna make in the future, then that's definitely very positive.
[00:48:06] Jennifer Plummer: And you're, you're familiar. You mentioned boot camps earlier, um, from, from the perspective of UX. So we have this Google program that you're talking about. We've got, you know, four year degree and boot camps are somewhere in the middle. I'm assuming what, so what's your opinion on that?
[00:48:25] Thomas Watkins: Um, man, that's so tricky.
I, I think that partly depends on what you wanna be good at. So if you let's say you're a visual designer segueing into, into the UI UX world. Or if you are in artist, like a lot of people come from like print design, and then they get into designing interfaces. I think if you're educated, cause they, you need an education.
If the best visual designers are educated in visual design, right? They, they, they know things that are like surprisingly relevant when [00:49:00] you're making, uh, decisions, design decisions like, like art history sounds like it's really irrelevant. Right? Mm-hmm but if you're. Choosing a typography for that needs to resonate with a certain audience.
If you have knowledge of, well, the reason why this particular typeface looks technical is because this is the typeface that was used in Germany during the time when there was a lot of engineers doing civil engineering and all the civil engineering books were, were written with this typography. And then, so society began to associate that with engineering and then it, right, like, like, like that, that kind of rich knowledge, that's not easy to just like Google and answer for. That really comes to play.
So, but long story short, I think some job skills are more helped by deep education. So research, for example, I want my researchers to be pretty educated. Because the question of how do you [00:50:00] research something? If you have years of saying, Hmm, here's a research question and I need to design a study that can answer the research question.
Yeah. That's not something that you're gonna,
[00:50:13] Jennifer Plummer: I don't know how to do that.
Yeah. That's it's, it's took me years in toiling in graduate school, basements, uh, designing experiments that are loaded on computers. And I take the data off the computer on a floppy disc and, and, uh, and load it into the statistical program.
And I, through doing that kind of stuff. I gained a deep familiarity, for example, just to use myself example, for data, the nature of data, the nature of variables and stuff like that. So then later when I started doing data visualization and dash dashboards, it was really easy to, for me to pick it up because I had spent so many, much time obsessing over the nature and structure of data and what it means. What's a nominal variable and ordinal variable and interval variable. Right, right. All that kinda stuff. [00:51:00] And so researcher, I think there's an, a special need to have a deep background. One, one of the interesting things, when we talk about UX is that, there's a number of different, let's say Scholastic traditions that feed into UX.
So a lot of the research methods come from anthropology, especially the field research, right? So researchers for generations figuring out how do you go among a group of people and study them? That that comes from anthropology. The, the kind of lab methods that comes out of cognitive psychology, experimental psychology. And then so like a lot of times folks in the social sciences, they get trained on. Then you've got the art tradition, right? So folks who know about all these principles about visual design, color layout, and topography, then that segues into it. And then people who have a computer science background, they have much, a much better knowledge often of the actual medium that you're working with.
So they just are, they tend to be [00:52:00] very realistic. They tend to understand things that folks from the other traditions don't necessarily come from. So then UX is this like blend of all of this stuff going on. And I, I think that really to answer your question is when you find out what you want to do, if it's researcher, I would say, don't go back to graduate school, probably if you're, if you're already working, I, I, if you're in undergrad, then apply to graduate school.
Sure. If you wanna be a research and you really want that expertise, but that's gonna be hard for people who are already working. Information architecture, that's a tricky one, people, good information architects, the, the UX problem solving. They come from a huge variety of areas. And so that's hard to pin down, but I think you're gonna have an advantage if you are educated on certain topics then. For visual designers, I think boot camps often is decent enough for, for getting a visual designer into, into the UX role mm-hmm
[00:52:59] Thomas Watkins: And then from [00:53:00] after that, they can kind of figure out, but since it's such a, a, it's a hodgepodge, it's an archipelago of all of the different, these different, uh, Scholastic traditions. I think a person has to decide what they wanna be good at and then try to find a way to train themselves.
[00:53:15] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. And it's gonna be contextual to where you are. It sounds like, and right. The landscape always changes cuz 10 years ago, I don't think we were talking about things this way at all. Right. You said right in, in the early 2000's you said it was human factors. It wasn't even usability. So yeah. Who knows what, what, what the future holds, but, uh, that's, that's good.
General advice. I would say Matthew, any other questions?
[00:53:44] MattieCakes: Uh, I have no questions. I just a comment on the, the education aspect. I think that's more of just like what we know personally. That's how I think about it is like we know the education system, we've gone through it. We sit down, we take notes. We're told what [00:54:00] to, what to learn, not really necessarily how to learn or how to go and find what to learn.
And which I think is what you're talking about. Because if I were to take an art history class, I feel like I'm just gonna get dates and names and containers. I'm not gonna get that insight. And I think that the way we we're gonna move forward and the. That are coming behind us, like behind me, even, it's just like, oh, they've grown up knowing that they can just watch a YouTube video or figure out what they wanna learn.
Like, I changed my, um, window wipers and I was struggling with, and I was like, I don't know how to do this. Watch the three minute video on YouTube. I know how to change window wipers. Now
[00:54:39] Jennifer Plummer: it's like the matrix. You just downloaded it to your,
[00:54:41] Thomas Watkins: yeah. You uploaded right into your .
[00:54:46] Jennifer Plummer: That's a good point. Just the way we, we receive, we receive information and, and that reminds me, so Tom, you're talking about. Because I'm, I'm more of a, like a stem nerd. Like I always [00:55:00] like math and, and, you know, once I discovered nerd programming. Yeah. I'm, I'm proud. I'm proud of, um, but my daughter is the total opposite. She's like, you know, I'm not a technical person. Math is not my favorite subject, but Tom, you just kind of went through a bunch of stuff that I was like, that is not my jam. Like you were talking about those different arts things, which right. And I think the assumption is, oh, I'm not technical, I don't have a future and a technical career, but those are all very necessary things that we need to produce applications that people delight in using to use your words.
[00:55:43] Thomas Watkins: Well, that that's that's right.
I mean, I mean, as technology evolves. Surprising people get hired for the craziest thing. So for example, with, uh, we talked about voice design, there's improv actors getting hired by technology companies now because they understand that the [00:56:00] way people communicate with a voice, it's a personality. You feel like they're talking to a person. and so how is this person going to present themselves to the user? How, how are they? They actually have a little bit of a personality. Like some of 'em are a little bit like smart alecky right? And, and they, they kind of, they're more playful. Whereas some you don't want to be as playful. Maybe if you're helping people with like bank transactions, you want to come across as a little bit more button up and a little bit more serious and not play versus some things that you're supposed to be.
So being able to come up with snippy comments and stuff, you could be an improv. I'm not saying that there's this big population of improv actors that could get hired in technology. There's probably has very small account of that, but that's, that's something that surprisingly needed. Um, I remember attending a talk a long time ago from the executive who built the Android OS, uh, who directed it. And he was talking about in the beginning, they [00:57:00] had to hire. So for all of the, um, all of the animations that had just built into the OS, they had to hire people from the movie making industry who knew how to animate things. There was no one in technology at the time that they were putting, designing this who knew how to do that.
But people who know how to do this so much nuance to, to animations, right? Like, like the way, like, like the slope of like does, if something, is it a linear move or does it like accelerate?
[00:57:29] Jennifer Plummer: And there's a conference people somewhere discussing it, like, ah, that angles little off or
[00:57:35] Thomas Watkins: that's right. Or that has too much of a bounce to it
[00:57:38] Jennifer Plummer: or drop shadow.
[00:57:41] Thomas Watkins: That's right's so many nuances that when you're trying to live up to that high bar, not, not, if you're doing, like, let's say you're working for a very unambitious enterprise company, that's just puts out like a time sheet software that, that, you know, and, and no one's super ambitious [00:58:00] about it. It's presence in the marketplace.
Well, then you can get away with a lot more, but the more ambitious you become of like, I really want this to be a awesome product. The more you have to start thinking about those skill sets and those roles.
[00:58:12] Jennifer Plummer: Which answers the questions, why, why are time sheet products always the worst, right?
[00:58:18] Thomas Watkins: They're they're always, they're always the worst.
Really one bad one is the one that, the ones where you do expense reporting every place I've worked there, always horrible, cuz it's no incentive to pick it up. Even for the company. They're like, well, I don't wanna make it super easy for everyone. That would be difficult. So then free software that's like dead and it's not updated.
One of the things, a comment on stem though. So I think that, um, I have a opinion on stem. That's a little bit different from most. I think that it's not the primary focus for the future. So, so, um, mm-hmm so there, I think was an age, I don't know, maybe the seventies and eighties and [00:59:00] stuff like that, where the rise of all this technology and people using it.
So you have to be super good at math, super good at all these things. Um, the more artificial intelligence will be, uh, taking jobs and machine learning, you're gonna need people to have a very good understanding of the kind of softer aspects of it that are harder to replicate with artificial intelligence.
That's not to say that STEM's not tremendously important because the topic areas, the familiarity with the science concepts, the math concepts, super, the engineering concepts really, really, really important. But it's, I think in the future, it'll be less about being like a math whiz for example, and it already is the case. Right? Um, versus being like, like if you think about someone who worked maybe at NASA in the 1960s, they're probably an absolute math, whiz can probably calculate numbers in their head. Right. Mm-hmm . But then as, as that, those, those other more basic functions get automated. Right? Mm-hmm cause the automation, most of it is kind of [01:00:00] happens from the ground up.
People need to be very familiar for jobs in the future of how those softer skills and that softer intelligence integrates with the, what machines are good at.
[01:00:13] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. That's a good point. I never thought about it that way.
[01:00:17] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. So I think that sometimes stem is like, Over emphasize it in a certain way. It's not enough to just be like, okay, just get into science and math and you're good.
[01:00:27] Jennifer Plummer: Right. That part. Yeah. That's probably what it was, right. Like, okay. You wanna have you wanna, you wanna pick a career path and you wanna pick one where your odds are that you're gonna have, you know, a successful definition of successes, maybe you're financially independent and can, you know, give that, you know, push that onto your, your, your children or your family and grow that.
Um, so I think, yeah, that's probably the origin of stem, but yeah, there's a million different, other ways that can go. And that aren't [01:01:00] stem related is what I'm hearing you say is like, yes, you know, the arts are gonna be necessary and they're gonna have a key. And, and it kind of goes to what we said already was, what do I do?
I am so clueless in high school. Right? I like, you know, I liked art and I liked math and I didn't know what to do with either one of those things, because, because stem, because, you know, I just think of art as like, well, am I gonna be a painter? You know, that's honestly all I thought, but to tell people, oh, well, if you're interested in the arts, here's a, you know, here's a, a career path that you could be successful and fulfilling way to spend your life.
That you're doing me meaningful things and helping people, you know, use applications and making it easier for them to, to, to work with, with this technology.
[01:01:45] Thomas Watkins: That's right. And so like, um, things like being a good communicator, that's immensely important. Like, can you communicate your ideas through speech, through writing in ways that are, you know, but, but we don't.
Yeah. Like you said, we don't know what the jobs of the [01:02:00] future are gonna be. Like, there was one I was thinking about the other day, which is more and more like bots writing news articles or writing blog articles and stuff like that. I wonder if one job of the future might be a person who's a good writer who trains bots. This might even be a job. Now. I might not be aware of it, but you train the robots to write good articles by checking them or teaching them. I, I, I don't know, like, but, but I think that is like a job of least the near future, generally speaking of like training robots, because they want to have more humanistic insights and things, actually, you already have it.
It's machine learning, right. Machine learning where you're kind of at, you know, it's, uh, the company is saying like, okay, we're gonna take this population of users. We're gonna try to replicate what they do. So let's, let's see you an insurance adjuster who can go to you can look at a vehicle or you can look at a property and you're really good [01:03:00] at summing up.
How much is this going to cost? Well, you can use machine learning to take those jobs. You could, you could plug in on one side. Here's the answer of how much it cost. Here are the inputs of what the person said, and then we can, we can replicate that. So there, there will be jobs of the future, but it's, I think that people need to think about, especially if they're in the early part of their career, fortifying their skillset to be robust against new AI developments.
[01:03:30] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. That makes sense. So we're, we're missing a host and she likes to cover the culture, but I can't think of a culture question for Siara.
[01:03:39] Thomas Watkins: I saw on the last question, this isn't, I don't think this qualifies as really, because I, I saw the question, it said like tech. Or culture. It was like a, so
[01:03:47] Jennifer Plummer: you wanna do your heat check?
Now we can, we can get into heat, check Matthew cue the sound bite. That that means we're going into, into heat check.
[01:03:55] MattieCakes: I, I thought we were doing heat check heat, check heat. It's [01:04:00] growing on me.
[01:04:06] Jennifer Plummer: So yeah, we, yeah. What do you have something to share with?
[01:04:10] Thomas Watkins: Is that what the heat check is? Is it,
[01:04:12] Jennifer Plummer: yeah. It's, it's basically anything technology or culture related that you wanted to share.
[01:04:17] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This, this, this is something that's been on my mind and it's not important now, but it might maybe be important that this in future you hear, um, futurists like, uh, Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, talk about this a little bit, and it's this idea of uploading your mind into a computer and this and this really, I
[01:04:35] MattieCakes: like that black mirror episode.
[01:04:37] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, it's, it's very black mirror. I haven't, I haven't watched black mirror, but I, I know that it's the kind of thing that would appear in black mirror. Right?
[01:04:43] Jennifer Plummer: It's what if a computer did this? Or what if a robot was this? All the episodes
[01:04:47] Thomas Watkins: scenarios, I guess it's kinda like Twilight zone or, um, or, uh, outer limits. I guess like, like where you, these scenarios. I love that. Um, yeah. And, and so I just don't believe it's possible to upload your mind [01:05:00] into a computer and, and maybe, maybe like, you know, I'm, I'm not, I'm not one of these, I, I think, and I think it's like deeply ridiculous.
So, so, so follow me on this. Right?
[01:05:09] Jennifer Plummer: So what if we're in a computer simulation right now? What if this is
[01:05:13] Thomas Watkins: OK. That's, you know what that's possible? And then if that's the case, I'd stand corrected, but I mean, so, so at best, cause the way the conversation goes, it's like, oh, in the future we'll live forever, you know, because you can upload yourself into a, a computer.
Well, no, that's not you at best it's a clone of you mentally living on a hard drive somewhere. Um, and what, what does even living mean at that point? Is it, are you alive when they turn the computer on? But, but, but, but, but more to the point, is that, what exactly are you copying? Are you copying. You're not copying the brain exactly. You're you're you're what, what the heck is it? It's at best? I think it's a brain scan that whatever was on your head or plugged into your head or whatever was [01:06:00] able to capture, and it's just gonna be a bunch of data. And then you save the data on a hard drive and you're telling me that I'm still alive and in the machine. I think, I think it's so ridiculous. But, um, and, and there's actually, I don't know. What do you have thoughts on that?
[01:06:13] Jennifer Plummer: Well, this is the data question, right? Cause so data from star Trek, the, the person data. Okay. Yeah. So, so I'm assuming they they're, they're, they're talking about downloading your, your memories, right?
But I think, right. It's more than just your memories or your, the things that you said, or the transcript, like lowkey had the transcript, everything he said in his whole life that you you're more than that. This is a very philosophical discussion.
[01:06:40] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. It, it is. It's kinda, it's kinda philosophical, but, but, but it's the way you would test it is like, let's say we uploaded your brain into an Android.
We test it by, does that person do and say the things that you would do, right. Mm-hmm so would they answer the questions the same way and all that kind of stuff? I just, I just don't see. And there's, and it's more than just the data in your head. It's, [01:07:00] there's a lot that goes into a person there's there's, uh, emotions, there's hormone, like all over your body.
There's all kinds of things. If you're hungry and you're hangry that's those are, yeah.
[01:07:09] Jennifer Plummer: Your that's the data component is how does your emotions reflect your personality? How do you capture that? How do you
[01:07:14] Thomas Watkins: capture that? And your memories change too? You, we don't have memories in the same way that computers do.
It's like a interpretation on events that happen. Your memories are not accurate. Mm-hmm and, and they change over time and they, they just serve the function of helping an organism's memory, Just serves the function of helping using data from the past to help the person survive. It's not like memory that a computer, you need it to stay at
[01:07:39] Jennifer Plummer: it's verbatim.
Right. Unless, yeah. Yeah. So
[01:07:42] Thomas Watkins: I really don't see it. And that, and that, that, that one kind of annoys me, but there's this really good horror video game it's called Soma. And it's based upon this concept. Um, if you get a chance to, if, if you like. Dystopian it's, it's it's this deep. I won't give away the game, but it's, it's this [01:08:00] dystopian future.
And it revolves around this idea that humans aren't around anymore in the way that we're around today. Most of them are on machines and they're not even aware, but, but it's basically, it's a horror game where you're trying to figure something outta you're trying to accomplish something in the game. And the game forces you to develop your own philosophy of what is sentience what is like, what does it mean to be alive?
What you're, you're forced to make these really difficult ethical decisions Uhhuh throughout the game. And it forces you to say like, wait, wait a second. Is this okay? Is this ? Oh, let's go anyway.
[01:08:36] Jennifer Plummer: That's a, that's a very good concept.
[01:08:40] Thomas Watkins: That's my understand this branch, I would say Soma S O M a mm-hmm it's like the deepest game ever.
Like I've, I've never seen something as,
[01:08:49] Jennifer Plummer: and it's kind of like, man, I don't wanna think about all this stuff. This is heavy. Yeah.
[01:08:54] Thomas Watkins: On a Wednesday. Yes. I would definitely say if you have [01:09:00] something important coming up where you need to be like, kind of pulled together, don't play the game around, then play it over a break because you might find yourself laying on the couch, looking up at the ceiling saying, why do I, why don't
[01:09:15] Jennifer Plummer: yeah, those are the best. Like, why is the universe? Why? Right.
[01:09:21] Thomas Watkins: Why, why are we doing this?
[01:09:23] MattieCakes: I'm a big fan of watching really bad movies. Like those, like those movies that you have people over and you don't actually watch it. You just make fun of it. Mm-hmm Kiana Reeves made. Or he was in a movie called replicas and it's basically the same.
Oh, I haven't seen that yet. Oh yeah. There's a reason you haven't seen it's it's it's
it's bad. It's really bad. It's great.
[01:09:44] Thomas Watkins: The concept is good, but the, but the movie is bad.
[01:09:47] MattieCakes: Yes. You know, within like 10 minutes. So it's bad
[01:09:50] Jennifer Plummer: I'll have to find it. That was a, that was a really good, uh, heat check. Mine's boring. [01:10:00] Uh, so I'll go next and I'll let Matthew, Matthew close, close us out. So mine was, um, I think I was listening to a podcast and of course now I can't remember why don't I write things down. Um, someone wrote a book about Amazon and like leadership skills.
They learn from Amazon. So I was like, let me go look this book up. And then I discovered people have written books about how to interview at Amazon and I'm like, wow, Amazon has gone places. Cuz then I also watched. Coded bias yesterday, where they were like, Amazon had this AI for recruiting and things went horribly wrong.
So it's like have 80 degrees, but I'm not gonna focus on coded bias. Cause I think that's the whole thing. Um, but we could talk about later, but just the fact that there is a book that's like how, how to get a job at Amazon. And, but, and when I think about, you know, and when you think about [01:11:00] how to prepare and we, we, we had a long conversation today.
You know, steps to get to a certain career. Once you've decided what to do. And you know, if you wanna be a doctor, you're gonna take the MCAT. If you're gonna be a lawyer, you're gonna take LSAT. If you're gonna grad school, you take the GRE and there's tons of books and programs and stuff that help you study for those things and, and take it out.
So maybe this is the beginning of the technology career. I don't know if these books are really specific to Amazon, if they, they could be generalized to, you know, the industry. But I do know that when I interview people, I Google top interview questions to ask people and there's stuff on Google, you know, being that person we talked about going on YouTube to learn things, but that gives me the idea of the type things that I want.
And it is, it is kind of refreshing for me to see that maybe, maybe it's going to evolve to kind of. Bigger things to help support people. [01:12:00] And for people that are like, I don't know if I could do this. There's tons. People have literally written a book on how, if you want work, Amazon, there's a book. Read it.
I don't know if it's good or not. I have not read it to get there. And maybe, maybe we need to build some more content like that in general, to be like how to get a software engineering career for dummies.
[01:12:20] Thomas Watkins: That's, that's such a relevant topic. Actually. I I'm just now learning about this concept. I forget what the acronym is, but it's basically S E for resumes.
And, and so, and so, uh, I train a lot of young professionals, right? And so one person I know who's currently like looking for a job, uh, had to go through this whole thing of like trying to optimize her resume so that it can get noticed. Like, like, especially if you're hire, trying to get hired at a big, uh, huge organization that, you know, they get stacks of giant, like thousands of resumes.
Like they need some way of sifting through it. There's surfaces [01:13:00] now where you pay as, as the person looking for a job, you pay to help them optimize your resume and use the right keywords to make sure that it arrives to the top of the I'm like, man, that's crazy. That's very different from what we had.
[01:13:15] Jennifer Plummer: But they, I mean, to get into med school, I mean, I don't wanna say it's like a cult, but there's just, so it's so particular about the way you dress the way, you know, there's there's head shots involved.
There's you know, and it's just, it's like, there's a lot of process that some of it's just process cuz it cuz oh, well the people before us had to go through all these hurdles and this doesn't make sense, but we're gonna keep doing it cuz that's the history.
[01:13:43] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. Whole industry's built around it. Like Princeton review is built around.
[01:13:48] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah. Yeah. So having, if it's a reasonable price, I mean you get a realtor to help you sell your house. If it's, if it's a reasonable price to help you get a job, maybe it's an option. I don't know.
[01:13:59] Thomas Watkins: But then [01:14:00] everyone starts doing it and then you have to do it. Yeah. That's bad. Cause you'll be the only one not doing it.
[01:14:05] Jennifer Plummer: Right. That's bad. I disagree with that.
My only hope is that, like we said, the, the landscape changes so often that maybe these people. It can't really get a hold because you know, who knows in 10 years will Amazon will be the juggernaut or will it be somebody else could be somebody else?
[01:14:28] Thomas Watkins: Me? I think I applied for, I think I found PROS like literally on monster.
[01:14:35] Jennifer Plummer: I, so did I that dates a person, but yeah. monster.com.
[01:14:44] Thomas Watkins: Oh yeah. It dates the hell outta you. Yeah.
[01:14:49] MattieCakes: Yeah. I've never heard that. Yeah.
[01:14:52] Jennifer Plummer: That was the place you that was before. I don't think LinkedIn exists at that point.
[01:14:57] Thomas Watkins: Oh no, it definitely didn't exist. Yeah. Um, [01:15:00] until like the late,
[01:15:00] Jennifer Plummer: definitely not. Yeah, it was, yeah. You went to monster.com. Yeah.
[01:15:05] Thomas Watkins: Is this a website where you, so you like, like you search for jobs and then on the hiring end?
I, I guess probably similar to Upwork is nowadays. So like think now if you think of like Upwork, but a primitive version of that.
[01:15:21] Jennifer Plummer: Yeah.
[01:15:22] MattieCakes: I don't even know what Upwork is.
[01:15:24] Thomas Watkins: I haven't heard that. Cause it's, cuz you're happily employed this lot.
[01:15:28] MattieCakes: there you go. Something that I think will is gonna be like the trend, if it's not already, especially for like technical roles is moving away from resumes and more into like portfolios. Mm. And not just like, cuz I know they're like I was, when I was like applying for jobs, I was like looking up things and like a lot of the resumes, all go through that, filter the ATS, I think it's called. And like some people would, um, I don't think it works nowadays, but they would take all those key words that you mentioned and put 'em all in white and like transparent [01:16:00] and just throw 'em on their resume. Mm-hmm and so it'd get picked up by the ATS. And so like if that's your system and you're like really on just key words, you're not gonna get the best people. You're just gonna get people that know the system. And so like having a portfolio. And I just, I tell I'm always like advocating for anyone to make one, even if you're just like a writing role, I was gonna say, just because it's like, it's there to show your work.
And like that showcase, I think is more powerful than, I know this. I did this in this role
[01:16:31] Jennifer Plummer: for, yeah. For a software engineer at a company though. It's not like you, you have something that you say I did this by myself. It's so collaborative. And it, it, and sometimes like if you're working on some of the products I've been working on it's I joined the company in 2005, but this, the code is, you know, written in 1998. So what, what do you say is my, you know, and then someone's gotta review that in an interview process.
[01:16:59] MattieCakes: Well, that's [01:17:00] where you go and you make your own project. It can be anything just to like show those skills.
[01:17:04] Jennifer Plummer: Doesn't have to be super that's true. And, and, and that is my biggest pet peeve. So if I, if I ever interview, if you have something on, on your resume, I guess if you hide it, I can't help that.
But if it's visible on there and I ask you about it and you can't give me the, like, I, I, I, I know everything on your, your, your resume. You're not gonna have like a quick snappy answer for, but if you can't give me an intelligent answer about a concept you put on there, or, or you just say, oh, it was kind of, you know, adjacent to what I was doing, then it's like, well, you didn't really work on this.
So mm-hmm, make sure when we prepare for your interview, make sure your resume matches your actual experience. But yeah, it's a struggle out there. I, I actually wanna do some research on this cuz I'm I wanna see how we. Make some improvements. Um, so if anyone has any recommendations, send them my way, any research that they they've done send 'em my way.
Cause I do wanna learn a little more about this. [01:18:00]
[01:18:00] Thomas Watkins: Yeah. I have a love, hate relationship with portfolios. Matthew is your, is your training, is, did you have an art background?
[01:18:07] MattieCakes: I have an education background and education background in biology.
[01:18:11] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, like the, the portfolio. Okay. So that's so kind of like a general science generalist and then you segued into being a UX.
[01:18:22] Jennifer Plummer: Matthew is a instructional designer.
[01:18:25] Thomas Watkins: It's all instructional. Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it.
[01:18:29] Jennifer Plummer: So what's your love, hate relationship with portfolios? Well,
[01:18:31] Thomas Watkins: so portfolios and, and so in the UX world portfolios, the need for them came out of the art, uh, schools, the, the, the art candidates, because it makes a ton of sense, a ton of sense for visual designer, a ton, right?
Show me actual examples of Stu so I can see it. You, what are you gonna, if you're good at making logos, what are you gonna do? You're gonna describe the logo to me. Like I gotta see it. Right. But then, and then a long time ago to [01:19:00] get a usability job, human practice job, you had a CV, right. A curriculum Vita.
So, which is basically a, a, a resume plus some academic stuff. But then at around the 2010s, there began this, there became this need more and more to have a portfolio. And a lot of people like myself didn't know what the hell to put in a portfolio. Like I was like, well, I've now worked in enterprise software, but I can't share any of it.
So you, you can have like a screen and then block. So there's, there's ways to do it. And I think portfolios are good, but, um, it, it was this, it it's, this, it was kind of a growing pain into it. And then there's some professions where portfolios like, like Matthew, what, what's your opinion on? Like, so if you're a researcher, let's say you're a purely a usability researcher.
What do you show in your portfolio? Okay. Cause it's not amazingly clear to me.
[01:19:53] MattieCakes: Your writing ability, your ability writing ability that shows your communication. I see thought process. It's that's it's [01:20:00] it gives you more than just like, oh, this accomplishment or your job, like your job description. It's like, I can see actual work and I can see how that, that your process and that, even if it's that's pretty good.
[01:20:10] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, no, no. I was just gonna say so you're so for people where writing is important, like have like a segment, a sample, like a writing sample, like here's. The nice the
[01:20:22] MattieCakes: Matthew, he had a, our, our, one of our podcasts, uh, guests. He had, he had a, a really robust resume and some of the things were just like very simple, just like concepts, conceptual things with some like, writing, like this is my process, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I think that is applicable to any career. That's like, not just like an entry level part-time job, like working at target, like you said earlier, you're not gonna need a portfolio for that, but if you're going to anything that's technical or just writing, you can do a, a blog post to even share about you.
You're gonna get a lot more information about who you are as a person and a portfolio than you [01:21:00] will on a resume.
[01:21:02] Thomas Watkins: Uh, you know, I think we should make a product where. It's a portfolio builder. You get interviewed by a bot and few questions and it, and then it goes and you plug it and give it access to your hard drive your Google, drive your Dropbox.
And it finds the relevant stuff, you know, say like, well, you know, back in 2015 in the summer, I did this really cool project. And it's like, okay, here's stuff from that time period. Was it one of the yes
[01:21:26] Jennifer Plummer: or, or even a LinkedIn pub plug in so that my LinkedIn page stays up to date. It just knows what to, what to pull out of my life and put in there.
[01:21:35] Thomas Watkins: That's gonna, so be a thing in like in 10 years, definitely five years. Maybe.
[01:21:41] Jennifer Plummer: you heard it here first guys. so Matthew, what's your, what's your heat check.
[01:21:46] MattieCakes: Oh, okay. So we talk about a lot of, uh, cryptocurrencies and NFTs. I figured I'll just keep going. I'm not sure what you guys did last but, um, AMC and Sony are doing a NFT promotion for Spiderman.
[01:22:00] No way home. Okay. So AMC is offering 86,000 non fungible tokens to AMC members and stockholders let's just keep the AMC stock meme going. So whoever ordered advanced tickets for the opening of Spider-Man, they're gonna get one of those, uh, NFTs, if you're one of those 86,000
and apparently there was a rush to buy all these tickets and it crashed the site. And I guess this is kind of something that's been happening kind of all over the place where they'll have like bots kind of buying up everything and then selling it. And so tickets on like a secondary site or whatever are going for 200 to up to $25,000.
Um, but apparently only like the lowest price tickets have any interest. Um,
[01:22:45] Thomas Watkins: yeah, so, wow. NFTs NFTs. That's a crazy new world.
[01:22:50] Jennifer Plummer: So, is it an NFT of like a, a image from the movie
[01:22:55] MattieCakes: or I think it'll be like some art image.
[01:22:58] Jennifer Plummer: I haven't seen any like the cons [01:23:00] concept art maybe, or,
[01:23:01] MattieCakes: yeah, potentially just something to go along with the movies, which, uh, as I like get more and more of it, like these things just seem kind of like, I, I see the functionality of crypto and NFTs, but just, it only almost reminds me of the like 2003 craze. Like the beanie babies. Yes.
[01:23:22] Jennifer Plummer: That is a good, I I've got all
[01:23:24] MattieCakes: beanie babies. I spent thousands of dollars and
[01:23:27] Jennifer Plummer: they're now, what are you doing with what is happening with those beanie babies? I think I checked, I checked lately. I think I was like $10, $20 or something like that, where people were like, oh no, they're gonna be worth thousands of dollars.
So. Wow. Hmm. You know, I love my nerd stuff too. And I feel left out here. Spider-Man is like, just, okay. I don't understand why Spider-Man is the favorite everyone's favorite. I like him, but why is he like everyone loves Spider-Man I don't get it.
[01:23:59] MattieCakes: I [01:24:00] think it's cuz he, his world is more relatable than everybody else is. Like he's a, a kid and maybe not everyone wants but he is like a kid and his villains aren't like anything crazy. You know? They're not like
[01:24:14] Jennifer Plummer: Superman's villains maybe. Cause I didn't grow up with comic books, but like this great college, that's such a, like a pretty compared to Lex Luther crank album looks crazy.
He's crazy guy. Who else? Sock. Okay. I don't know.
[01:24:32] Thomas Watkins: Yeah, that's true. He, he Spider-Man is a lot more normal and yeah, I'm not, I'm not, uh, so much a comic book person.
[01:24:39] Jennifer Plummer: He's no, he's cute. And he's funny. He's got clips and he makes me laugh, but I, I just, people love him. And like, I think this movie, like the fact that they're doing this with movie shows that they're like, this is like easy money.
We're just going to, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna say we have NFTs. It's the, it's the hot new thing. And it's [01:25:00] coupled with Spider-Man. This is gonna be, and I, and I'm just like, I, I don't, I don't get it. I like him.
[01:25:07] Thomas Watkins: So you're not gonna get your kids a oh, I'm going to Spiderman a Spiderman NFT for christmas.
[01:25:13] Jennifer Plummer: No, but as soon as you said that, and you were like, the tickets went on sale. November 29th. I had to like resist picking up my phone and being like, I didn't preor my tickets for this movies. so I was like, literally, I was like, oh no, this is, this is not the right time to do that. So yeah. I don't know. Oh, we'll see.
Can you hear my cat meowing? Yeah,
[01:25:41] Thomas Watkins: we can totally hear your cat sounds hungry.
[01:25:45] Jennifer Plummer: she never comes down here ever. And of course this is the time
she's not hungry by the way. She, she, she's never hungry. She likes to say she's hungry. She's not. [01:26:00] Okay. This has been a long one. We're we're an hour and a
half.
[01:26:03] Thomas Watkins: This is good. This is, this has been a good one. This was fun. Yeah. Really
fun.
[01:26:07] Jennifer Plummer: Tom. We need to catch up more often. Absolutely.
[01:26:10] Thomas Watkins: Absolutely.
Um, thank you.
So I can't help the finger.
That's end up
that's that's what I know,
[01:26:24] Jennifer Plummer: but thank you so much, uh, for coming. Um, thank you to our listeners. This is a great conversation. If you wanna go have your own conversation, go out and ask someone.