Femke van Schoonhoven

Let Us Know Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's so great to be here and see everyone here today. So full. It's awesome that you guys came out here for this. So my name's Femke. And today I'm going to be talking about hunger, home runs, and dopey ideas. So this is going to be a bit of a talk about design and prototyping and the power of those early stage ideas. But you're probably already trying to figure out by now where I'm from because of my accent. Although it was probably hinted at earlier. So I'm just going to start first by introducing myself and letting you know where I'm from. So I'm from a country down under that actually has more sheep than people. It's actually quite an embarrassing statistic. Okay. We're often commonly referred to these days as Middle Earth, which if you've read or seen the Lord of the Rings movies, then you're probably already figuring this out. And we also got recently dangerously close to changing our national flag. You probably don't keep up with the news down under because it's not that interesting. But to give a bit of context, the flag on the right is our current national flag. And the flag on the left was the proposed new one. Thankfully, we kept our current flag. But the interesting thing about this was that it was actually a public design competition. So anybody in the country could submit a design for the new flag. And we got some pretty awesome submissions, including this one. Which, yeah, I know, right? Unfortunately, this didn't happen. There was a panel and judges. But, you know, I think this deserves an A for effort. It's pretty good. So by now, if you're thinking of Australia, you're quite close but not quite there. I'm actually from a beautiful country across the ditch of Australia called New Zealand. And this is a photo near my home. That's actually me in the photo there walking on a new trail that had recently opened up. And I don't know if you can see it. I don't think you can quite see it. Probably not. But in the distance, you can just see the South Island. So this body of water that you're seeing in the photo is the Cook Strait, which is between the north and the south. Oh, oh, no. Sorry. Just going to get a sneak peek there of everything to come. Right. This is our family dog, Coda. Such a wonderful dog. I think he's the luckiest dog in the world to be playing in the mud there. I really miss him. This is an actual photo that my boyfriend, Owen, took. This is literally what the night sky looks like in New Zealand. And it's quite magnificent. Probably one of the things that I really miss the most about home. This was just taken at my parents' beach house. But my boyfriend and I decided we'd seen enough of the Pacific. At least for now. And we wanted to explore more of the world, especially Europe. But it's quite time-consuming and expensive to travel Europe from a country like New Zealand. So we decided to hop on a plane, which ultimately took about 40 hours. Don't recommend it. And we ended up in this city that I'm sure you've all heard of called Amsterdam. So that's where we live now. So I had to adapt to some new cultural changes. Country of Holland. Well known for its strong climate. They're making it fresh. It's like two waffles with sweet caramel between. It's quite delicious. Of course cheese, a staple ingredient in every Holland household. And biking. I'd never really ridden my bike much in New Zealand. It's quite a hilly terrain. So coming to Holland, which is extremely flat, and being able to ride my bike anywhere has been really awesome. So during the day, I work in design and marketing at Atomic. And we're an interface design tool. We are in the cloud, so we're based in the browser. And it's for teams to collaborate and prototype. And during the rest of my time, which is the mornings or the weekends, I freelance as a digital designer under the apartment, which I run with my boyfriend Owen. He's the front end. I also co-host a podcast called Design Life. And I co-host that with a friend of mine, Charlie, who lives in London. She's also Kiwi. And we talk about design and side projects for motivated creators once a week. And I also write on my blog and my newsletter under the apartment. So I like to keep busy. So I'm also quite a strong believer of this. If you can achieve anything in life that you want, you just need to take action in order to achieve it. But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Today I'm here to talk about three thoughts. And now, we often disregard thoughts as small fleeting ideas. Things that come to us, but we don't quite feel they're good enough to share. Or maybe important enough to share. We kind of just let them slip by. And in today's internet and design world, we're often bombarded with dogma and commandments. Big, bold, and pushy statements. Statements such as these. Designers should code. Or designers shouldn't code. Don't reply like that. Reply like this. Share this photo. VR is the future. Some of these are starting to sound familiar, right? Especially the designers should code one. If you're on Twitter, I'm sure you've seen it. And it goes on and on and on. These big, bold, pushy statements. Telling us what to do and how to best do it. But here's the thing that annoys me. Are they really helping us move forward? Are they really pushing us? I feel like with these commandments, we just end up in this constant cycle of debate. So we're constantly talking about it, sharing our opinion, sharing what we think. And it just ends up going round and round in circles. And then suddenly, do we really need to spend another hour discussing and debating whether designers should code? And it's a shame that our ideas often get pushed aside. Because the smallest of thoughts can cause us to make the biggest changes and improvements. Now, I'm not here to tell you a new commandment. You're all here at One Day Out, tuning out the noise of the rest of the world, which is great. So I'm just here to share three little ideas. Hopefully, they're three little ideas that will inspire you. And here they are. Hunger, home runs, and dopey ideas. And now, these are three ideas that we've been talking a lot about at Atomic. And we've been sharing them with a lot of designers. And we've seen some of those designers put those ideas into action. And it's been super inspiring for us to see. And I hope they'll also inspire you. So the first one. Be a hungry designer. Once you've done the bare minimum, what do you do next? What's your appetite like? Hungry designers are the ones that are exploring. They're spending their free time learning and finding new ways to help push their team forward. They're hungry. Now, here's a hungry designer. No, I'm just kidding. It's just a cliche of what a designer should be. We're not all hipsters. We're not all men. And we don't all ride bikes. But what I'm trying to get at here is that hungry designers are not defined by rank or prefix. It could be anybody. You could be senior, junior, mid-level. It could be your boss. But quite often it's not. It might actually be the designer that just started in your team last month. And they could be any kind of designer. They could be product, UX, visual, motion, anybody. The hungry designers are the ones who have the courage to put their hands up. Now, this is also a hungry designer. They're the ones exploring, contemplating, scheming. They're really hustling. Between the gaps and the cracks of calendar appointments, client meetings, and other projects, they're looking and trying to find ways to push their team forward. They're thinking of new ideas, and they're also exploring new tools. And they're also inviting their teammates in, too. They're looking for ways to challenge the design status quo. Great background music suddenly decided to join us. The hungry designers are the ones who are forever starting conversations with their teams about better ways to design. So, I have a lot of friends in my network of designers that aren't hungry. They don't have much of an appetite. They're cozy, they're comfortable, they're not challenging the status quo, and they're not embracing new tools and workflows. And that could be you. Maybe you're quite comfortable where you are, and you don't see the need to really push the boundaries further. But let me tell you this. You're missing out. There's so many new design tools, practices, and workplaces. And workflow ideas. That I encourage you all to embrace that change. Imagine how much further we could get ahead, or be ahead of the game, if we all embraced those changes. And I think it's about time that we do. Because our industry is showing absolutely no sign of slowing down. So, I want to get a sense for how hungry you guys are. So, you're all here for one day out, because you're keen to learn more. So, raise your hand if it took you more than one hour to get here today. Raise your hand nice and high. Okay, so most of you. And keep your hand raised if it took you more than three hours to get here. Those are the people from Copenhagen, right? And what if it took you more than a day to get here? Anyone had to be on a plane for more than a day? Oh man, I was hoping there was going to be another New Zealander here. Laughter. Laughter. You're all hungry. I think almost everybody in here raised their hand. So, you all have some appetite to learn more. And I think we need to be grateful for the hungry designers around us. Even if there's only just one hungry designer in your team, you should go back and thank them. Because their hungriness, hopefully, is going to have a domino effect on the rest of your team. So, the hungry designers are the ones that are pulling us forward. When we're all sitting back, relaxing our chairs, happy with our workflow, they're the ones encouraging us to get out there and try new tools, practices and workflows. And they're not waiting to be invited to those things either. They're researching. They're scheming. They're staying ahead of the trends and seeing what's coming out next. And they're embracing those things. They're also inspiring us to work better. And helping us to work smarter as a team. So, I want to make sure you go and say thank you to the hungry designer in your team. And if you don't have one, then I challenge you to become that hungry designer. So, the next thought I want to share is don't try and hit home runs. And this is a thought about prototyping. So, I'm sure that most of you here know that prototyping has absolutely exploded in the last year. We've seen so many new tools and practices for how to prototype. And what is prototyping really? Well, prototyping is about taking an idea and transforming it into an easy to understand flow. And it's not just for designers either. It's for non-designers too. It's a way for those non-designers to help understand what we as designers are trying to communicate. So, prototyping helps to reduce confusion. It also improves collaboration. So, you can prototype with your team. On the same idea. And it also opens up the design process. So, it's not just non-designers taking part. So, why then are many designers still struggling to make prototyping a part of their everyday workflow? Many designers still see prototyping as something they do at the end of a project, in the late stage. And only then if they still have time. Or they see it as something to do to add extra high fidelity to an already established idea or design. And usually by the time you get to prototyping, you're so biased towards your idea that you're trying to fight for its survival. And this is not the way to do it. We see lots of designers embrace prototyping in the late stage of their workflow. But in my opinion, this is just a way to anticipate. To animate your lazy ideas to life. What we should be doing is bringing prototyping into the early stage of the workflow. And using it as a way to help express our ideas. Imagine the possibility of a tiny little idea that you had. And then you prototyped it before moving it forward in the workflow. And quite often, we're scared to bring prototyping into the early stage. Because we're afraid of failure. But I see failure as progress. Because prototyping is not about being right the first time. It's about trying again and again and again until you get it right. So to me, if you've failed on something, you've explored that idea. You've tried different possibilities of it. Yes, it may have failed. But at least you tried something. And by doing that, you've learned something along the way. So you've learned what works and what doesn't work. And then through that, you're able to make better decisions. More informed decisions going forward for your version 2. So failure is not failure. It's progress. So don't be afraid to embrace prototyping early. And when you are prototyping, it's important to share. There's a good cycle of sharing, testing, iterating. You don't have to be right the first time. You can keep going through that cycle as many times as you need to, to get to the finished idea. And we see designers that are completely paralyzed by the idea of prototyping. They think, oh, it's too complicated. There's too many tools. Which ones do I use? Which ones do I not use? When do I do it? Why do I do it? Do I code? But we've also seen designers embracing prototyping into their daily lives. And their daily workflow. And they're completely embracing it. Not just one, but the whole team. And it's amazing to see ideas that start as tiny little ideas be prototyped into something much bigger. The potential of that idea, if you prototype early, is exponential. So remember this. You don't have to be right the first time. Don't be afraid to prototype. And don't be afraid to prototype early. So the last thought that I want to share with you is about embracing dopey ideas. So in today's internet and design world, especially software design, we're seeing our industry become incredibly complex. We're seeing a more sophisticated workflow. And we're seeing growing design teams. Not just by size, but also by experience. So how then can we maintain a culture within our teams that embraces the sharing of ideas? Quite often we're too afraid to speak up. We don't think anyone will care what we have to say. Or maybe we don't think it's important to raise. And someone once said this. We're no longer in the design business, but we're in the business of design. But there's more to it than just that. I'm sure you all know who this is. At the memorial of his recently departed friend, Johnny Ive reflected on how him and Steve Jobs used to share and bounce ideas off each other. Tiny ideas. Dumb ideas. And here's what he said at the memorial. Steve used to say to me, and he used to say this a lot. Hey Johnny, here's a dopey idea. And sometimes they were really dopey. Sometimes they were truly dreadful. But sometimes they took the air from the room and they left us completely silent. Bold, crazy, magnificent ideas. And now it's a great thought, isn't it? You can picture the saying. Two of the greatest thinkers in a room sharing and bouncing their ideas off each other. Poking and prodding at them. Throwing them into the wild, not afraid of what they may turn into. And some of those ideas that they shared probably turned into the products that we all use today in our daily lives. Imagine if they hadn't created that environment where they could openly express their ideas. Now, the here's a dopey idea construct has been used as a way to express your fragile ideas. So rather than going up and being all bold and like, oh, I've got this great idea for something. We should do this and this and this. Maybe if you approach it like, oh, I've got this little idea. It's a way to kind of share an idea that you have without all of these bold assumptions. And we've seen the here's a dopey idea construct be used by many designers for a long time. But often in different ways. So, for example, a colleague may say to you, hey, what do you think of this? And that might be them just showing you a new little interaction pattern that they just prototyped. Or maybe they say, hey, this is a bit crazy. But, and that could be them pitching a new idea in a team meeting. Or, this probably doesn't work, but, and that could be something else entirely. I'm sure you've all heard of these before. And if you haven't said these yourself, you probably have someone in your team that does. Share these ideas. Bad ideas stand the greatest chance of taking flight. But you don't need to know all the answers. So it's a shame that most of these ideas are kept hidden. Just imagine the potential that they have. Imagine you share a little idea and a teammate of yours bounces off that idea. And then the one small idea turns into something huge that could have a really big positive impact on the product or the software that you're working on. So all you need to do is share this. All you need to do is be a shepherd designer. Unfortunately, ideas are kept hidden. But if we embrace our team, if we share them with the team and create a culture that enables that, and let them explore those ideas with us, the potential could be huge. And quite often, we're scared of sharing our fragile ideas with non-designers. And why is that? Well, it takes imagination to see what's not there. And we can trust our design team. We can trust our design team to see those things. But we can't always trust non-designers to see those. So sharing your idea with a non-designer means that it could risk a premature death. So trust your design team. Create that environment where you can share those ideas. So here's my message to you. It's dopey not to share your ideas. But it's almost as great as the risk of sharing it. Think of all those ideas that you have that could lead to something bigger and something great. Don't hold them back. Every leader and senior designer has the opportunity to create an environment where more dopey ideas get shared. So how can we create such an environment? Well, it's about creating a culture that embraces those dopey ideas. It's also about creating habits. Or maybe it's about creating more space that could be physically or in another way. And here are three ways that you could do that. You could have a Slack room. You could have hack days. Or you could embrace new methods. So for example, a Slack room. You could set up a room for your design team. That's just solely dedicated to sharing ideas. Nothing else. A free space. Or if that's a bit too open, you could make it a private channel. Think of it as if creating your own room. Just like Johnny and Steve had. Except yours is digital. So hack days. Innovation days. Or you could embrace Google's design sprints. That basically, the point of these is just to let you explore new things. To let you explore new ideas. Or you could embrace new methods. And one of those that you could explore was actually developed by the animation studio, Pixa. And they came up with a construct called plussing. Has anybody here heard of this construct before? Some of you? So to explain it for those who don't. Every day, the animation designers were getting together. And they were sharing their work from the previous day. And this gave the other designers in their team an opportunity to give some feedback. And they often, well they noticed that the feedback was given in the form of, Oh yeah, it looks alright, but da da da da. And they found that that was creating a bit of a negative environment. And while it was feedback, it wasn't really that constructive. So instead they embraced what they now call plussing. And it's the idea that you can give constructive critique or feedback. But only if you provide more value on top. So only if you have an additional idea of how to improve it. So instead you'd say, oh yeah, that's looking good. And what if we then did this thing? What if we then did that? And you're building and building and building. So that's another method that you could use to embrace those dopey ideas. So that's it. Be a hungry designer. Don't try and hit home runs. And embrace dopey ideas. I hope that at least one of these has inspired you, if not all. And I hope that you've learned something in this that you can take back to your design team. And help challenge the design status quo. Because we all have to be in this together. Thank you to Kasper. And the One Day Out team for inviting me. You can find me on Twitter at FemkeSVS. Or you can send me an email. My design studio is The Apartment. And Design Life is my podcast. I hope you guys have a great day. And feel free to chat to me in the breaks. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Do we have any questions? Yes, we do. If not, then I do. So I was wondering. I can definitely recognize all three of those things. Or the opposites. Because I haven't fully embraced them all, to be honest. I wish I had. Prototyping. Is that something? No, put differently. Sometimes when you work with clients. And I'm sure that a lot of people here can recognize this. Things need to be done right now instead of tomorrow. Or instead of next week. Or whatever. It's a common thing in our business, I feel. And what's keeping me personally from, I don't know, exploring the process. Trying to make it better. Is the fact that people are in such a hurry. So when you do prototyping. Do you include clients? Or do you do it internally? And then pitch something to the clients? Yeah. I think it depends on the process. And the relationship you have with your clients. Quite often if we're in a rush. We just go into this dark hole. And don't disturb me. You kind of block everything else out. And that totally goes against the point of the open collaboration. So I think if you can collaborate. Even if it's not with your client. But with your design team. And all work on it together. And really form a plan. Then you can get to something great. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So the next speaker will be on in just a moment. So unless you have to go pee. Please stay in here. That would be nice. Thank you. Thank you.