Karwei Ng & Will Anderson, SapientNitro

Thanks so much for taking your time to meet with us and talk here about what you guys are working with at SapientNitro. If you could start off sharing who you are and what you're working with and what SapientNitro is. Yep, so we work for... SapientNitro has now been merged under the publicist banner, so we're actually called SapientRazorFish now. And, sorry, a lot of you will be good at telling how to. And yeah, we're both Design Strategists, so we sit within the strategy team and we kind of work more around experience and looking at where design can be integrated to help businesses make money and create kind of interesting, meaningful experiences, let's say. I'm based in London, Carl was based in London with me and then moved to Hong Kong about a few months ago. Do you want to go? Yep. Awesome. Okay, so share a bit about your session today. What was the topic? What did you guys present about? So our talk is called Digital CopyCats, Escaping Playlist Cave. And where it came about was, you know, our observation with our design industry, basically, you know, firstly we're creating digital copycats. So websites that look and feel the same, products and services that copy each other, as well as even tech giants copy each other. So Facebook copying, Instagram's copy of Snapchat stories as an example. And the other thing that we observed about our industry is that we tend to adopt a cookie-cutter approach to design. So if you look at our design process with design thinking, for example, it stands for D scores five hexagons, starting with empathize and ideate, define, etc. That design process is actually all the same, but packaged in different ways. And so what we wanted to do was break free from this digital copycats and see if we could evolve our design process, which we feel right now is at risk of contributing to homogenous design. And could you tell a bit about your suggestions for how you could evolve that design process? Yes, so Carl and I actually did an experiment off the back of kind of finding these two things out, but noticing them as kind of big issues in our industry. So we came up with three routes, which one around below the iceberg thinking, which is not like traditionally in services design, an iceberg talks about the front end and the back end. This is much more about the polished products and services that we kind of traditionally see and kind of use and emulate. And actually looking at the unseen and kind of the invisible. Some examples are the consequence of so many people taking up the job as an Uber driver in London has had a consequence that actually a whole cuisine, the Bangladeshi cuisine is near extinction because so many people who traditionally own those restaurants are now Uber drivers. So we basically see this as kind of an interesting way to see a bigger picture of where our products and services fit and what the context they live in is. Secondly, do you want to just write conscious experimentation? Yes, second is conscious experimentation, so this is a way of doing. So we launched our experiment and we called it the Will Why experiment. And with this we really want to encourage people to not just blindly follow those five hexagons and follow our design process and consciously find ways to evolve it to build more meaningful products and services. And then lastly, it's uncomfortable design, which is much more of a mindset, it's slightly more abstract. But as Kaj said there, in order to kind of experiment with how we do things, we actually felt like it was useful to kind of access this state of uncomfortability. And when you're uncomfortable, we found that although it is, like it says, very uncomfortable, you actually access a much more further thinking, I guess. It puts you on edge, it allows you to maybe let go of some of your darlings or helps you idea in more interesting ways. When we say we want to create things that are different or away from homogenous copycats, we can't do that if we don't access new thinking. So uncomfortable to have a lot of things. Do you see that this is something that brands are actively looking to avoid being copycats? Or do they even recognise that they're actually copying each other? It's a really good question. I feel like in our design process a lot of the times we're tasked with finding best practice or best in class examples. And just this act alone kind of implies that we want to copy because we want to be the best or we want to copy to achieve that. But what we realise is that firstly, looking at these best in class examples means that you're already looking at what exists and hence copying what's second best. So I think it's a bit of both. There's conscious copying of what already exists as well as unconscious copying where you don't realise you're just adding to the sea of sameness and not necessarily doing anything meaningful or differentiating. I think to add to that as well is that a lot of people said a similar question. They said, well, what if they want to copy? What if it's something that works really well? I guess the way we look at it as well is that yes, that might be the case, but by ignoring the below the iceberg connotations, the unseen and visible, it just seems like is it worth ignoring those things as a business? And we believe it's not. So you mentioned being uncomfortable when you're in the design process. What are some of the actionable tasks that you could do as a business to get there and start from not just copying but being inspired and then develop or iterate on the idea and improve it? So the first example is we used improv to access the state of uncomfortability. What was interesting is our ideas were totally some not safe for work and really different from some of the ideas that you normally put on a process. But what it did was, as Will said, it got everyone on edge and it was the most visceral feeling that we had in design. Everyone was smiling, everyone was really actively listening and collectively entering this space that we didn't know where we were going. And I think that's quite different from normal design thinking. We were also inspired by art thinking, which was kind of this concept that John Maeda talks a bit about. And the author that John Maeda refers to, which I can't remember the name at the moment, she references that with design thinking it helps you build a better airplane. But with art thinking, like the Wright brothers, you can crash and land, but you still believe that flight is possible. And that's kind of how we feel with uncomfortable design using improv accessing that visceral discomfort. And that's what they have in a more instinctive, visceral sense. So I think bringing that visceral feeling back to the numbers and the hard data is kind of where the future of design is heading. And our second point is about, we talk about, a couple of designers also being about letting go of canvases and tools that traditionally often get hung onto for ages. And so in our talk we talked about our iceberg canvas, which is to help us integrate below the iceberg thinking with above. But we talk about, you know, what if we killed that? We use the phrase that, you know, design tools rust too. And so often in strategy and in design we get so clung up to these frameworks and these canvases that they might have long ceased to actually elevate any thinking and yet they're still being used. Right. That's very interesting. So how are you personally as design strategists going to evolve this going forward? Like is this it or what are the next steps in this process? Yeah. So we feel like the Will Why experiment is going to continue. We've created a new Twitter handle called Will Why One to document our experiments. And I feel like we're still going to keep testing the iceberg canvas because it has worked. And what was interesting is designers haven't been thinking about integrating these below the iceberg concepts at all. And secondly, we were also thinking about how can we continue killing our darlings and evolving the thinking and adding rigor to it. Absolutely. And even just in our Q&A's after our talk today, you know, that was one of the burning questions I think. It was like, OK, so what's next? Right. Yeah. And we definitely, you know, we're saying it's not just us. We don't believe we're the only people doing this. You know, we can tell by the audience that people are thinking about this. So we see the Will Why experiment as being a great place that hopefully maybe we can kind of create a bit of a community around this movement. Yeah. So we know the people are doing this, but we're hoping that they will, you know, share with us what they've found when using either our tools or theirs. Right. Yeah. So I think that's a great way to kind of get people to, you know, turn that already exists. But maybe this is a chance for us to kind of actually get a nice concise way of getting feedback from all different Elks of design, different countries, etc. And when, sorry, but when you were asked, so what's next? What, I mean, of course, you're still starting out with the second phase of this. But what do you, could you imagine would be the next steps for this movement? Yeah. Article and then do the apply it to actual clients. Also, because I'm based in Hong Kong and was in London, we really want to add an East meets West kind of lens. At the moment, what I've observed about Hong Kong is that it feels like, you know, we're still behind. Design thinking is still a relatively new concept. Maybe like two to three years old people are still coming to Grasps with it, learning about the process. And I almost feel like in Hong Kong, they're uniquely positioned to leapfrog, to not just copy and blindly adopt the process, but think about how can we, you know, make it work for Hong Kong. Because through one of the experiments, what we noticed was that some people really had trouble, you know, even articulating their thoughts onto posters. And in design thinking, we always preach about empathy. And we realized that actually, maybe it's not as empathetic as we believe because some people are only a select group of people can access it. And I think we see ourselves in the direct future. We want to write an article about pair design. It's one massive finding, you know, that uncomfortability. Me and Ka are great friends, great colleagues, but we're absolutely opposites. And then that causes tension. And that tension, I think, has elevated our work. So we want to write a bit about that. And then secondly, we want to get this in front of clients. We've got support from our creative and our strategic and our directors to kind of actually use the Iceberg Canvas with clients. And I think by the look to the audience and by the, I guess, we're excited about this as well, that's when it's going to get really interesting. And then you start to see these things, you know, and what the outcome and how different the outcome is from using this kind of thinking. Awesome. So what are some of the other trends or movements that you could say that is impacting how the design process will evolve going forward? Sort of more on a bigger level. So it's quite interesting when we're talking about this, you know, what's next for the design process. And we even, we feel like actually maybe there's no next, right? Yeah, we kind of felt like that next is kind of the step after next. We think next is actually almost a bit of reverting. You know, we feel like we're actually in a bit of a, not a rut, but we're definitely in a stage of transition in which we're adopting this design approach, which we know has existed in industrial design and other schools of thought for a long time. But in digital, we're still kind of trying to work out what works and adopting, you know, bits and bobs for it. So we kind of see actually the future of it is actually greater understanding of it. That makes sense, before then trends actually kind of really affected it. And I would say just to add to that, we do think design ethics is going to be huge, unintended consequences. You know, the Iceberg Canvas was designed initially without us even thinking about unintended consequences, but somehow that, I guess it became a tool to combat unintended consequences. So with Tristan Harris' Time Well Spent movement, as well as other people talking about humane tech, we really feel that, you know, the design process will hopefully in the future contribute to building more meaningful products and services that aren't just, you know, user-centered for the end customer, but actually human-centered for the people who are delivering those experiences as well. Okay, so that's very interesting. Let's talk a bit more about human-centered design, which is where I see you're going as well. What do you see, like, where do you see this going forward? Yeah. I think what Karl said just there is a really interesting point. I think human-centered design gets overused. Yeah. And we sort of, you know, we assume human-centered design as being the end user having a really human experience, which I guess is to an extent, but often the consequence of that really human experience could be that someone is having the most inhumane experience possible delivering it, which is, you know, ironic and complete contradictory, you know, for a start. Could you come with an example? So, for example, we used Deliveroo. So Deliveroo is a food delivery service in London, and I think it's also in the Samara. Based in other countries as well, like Hong Kong, yeah. And essentially, you know, you can order food from any restaurant, and then people on mopeds or bicycles will cycle out and pick it up and bring it to you. And, you know, and even with Uber is a good example, you know, the actual experience they're having as riders delivering the experience is totally inhumane. They're completely restricted by numbers. Yeah, so like, every single day I think they receive metrics like, you know, you've met our customers, you've met our service level criteria, it was minus 3.1 minutes, and that's just, you know, kind of the tip of the iceberg of all the different metrics they receive. And what's interesting is, you know, we as customers, we're totally kind of distanced from that, and their experience isn't so great. They can't even, you know, choose where they want to pick up their order, so they don't know where they're going to deliver until they accept it. There are many restrictions, and we feel that by creating these amazing and seamless human experiences, we're actually perpetuating this world of self-centeredness and of a world revolving around you, and our efforts to make, like, amazing customer experiences. That's really summed up perfectly, and I remember one thing that we've really struck as the beginning of this was actually, you know, not having serendipity in apps is so inhuman. You know, it's so frictionless, so easy, it's actually kind of scary. Nothing in life is that simple. So there's an interesting kind of, I think, conflict about some friction, some chance to have serendipity. You know, it actually allows us not to be so self-centered, so it's kind of an interesting... And why do you think that there has been this, like, evolution within design? Why do you think that that's the case? You mean in regards to us wanting to build seamless human experiences? Yes, exactly. Yeah. I think it's one because it sells, because client, of course, every client wants to be seen as being human-natured, but I guess it's down to the mobile phone. You know, beforehand, the old-school style was, you know, you do your thing and people will come to you. But now, you know, you live in their pockets, you accompany them everywhere you go, you're a friend, you're part of their life completely. So there was no way that design could remain transactional or remain simply about, you will give you something if you give us. You know, it was so much more than that. Relationship is the kind of classic word. It is true. We do have relationships with brands to a much greater extent, you know, because of mobile phones. I think that's why suddenly people have gone crap. No one wants to have a relationship with a robot. No one wants to have a relationship with just a silly transactional thing. They want to have a relationship with a human or, you know, a human-like relationship. Yeah, I think, you know, to back up Will's point, it's the fact that we access it via our smartphones, the most intimate objects of our lives and sometimes now known as, you know, the slot machines that we're addicted to. And also the word experience just automatically implies that we as designers are designing those experiences. And I think, you know, we come in with our biases as well. We feel like, oh, you know, I minimise the checkout process. This is great. Or, you know, look at these animations to add delight. You know, we're adding our own kind of biases and almost like selfish intentions to create more happiness and delight for the user. But we focus so much on that when it comes to digital design that we've totally discounted the rest of the picture. That's very interesting. So how... Could you talk a bit about some other bigger trends and movements that you see as impacting how design processes will evolve? Yeah. What brands should be thinking into the design process? I mean, I think, not to go back to design ethics, but I mean, we're seeing with Patagonia and... Yeah, the benefit corporations with Kickstarter as well. Yeah. I think, you know, as a kind of add-on to that, it's this transparency thing. You know, brands are increasingly trying to be, how can we be transparent yet do everything so you don't have to jump through any hoops? You know, it's kind of a hard thing to actually do. It's like, how do we kind of be invisible yet sort out your most complex problems? So I think this kind of, you know, how we evoke transparency, how we deal with what data we're collecting, how we deal with what we tell customers we're doing with then really, really good design interactions is like a really complex and I think far from cracked issue. So I kind of see that transparency thing being a really big trend. Yeah. I think also maybe, you know, changing our metrics. So stop thinking about, you know, this experience as like an attentional economy. It's not just about, you know, having people spend a lot of time on our products and services. That shouldn't be a success metric by any point. I think it's really how can we make the most of people's lives, not just the end user, but the actual people delivering those experiences and choreographing that. I think that's probably where it's going to head to. So building on service design, it's almost like we don't just want to create this amazing service both back and front end, but at the back end, we really understand, you know, even the ethics when it comes to, you know, the algorithms that we're using as well as like the people delivering that experience, etc. I think on a slightly more lighthearted note as well, there's an element of we've gone so far down the road of like, seamlessness, frictionless, functional things that we've kind of lacked some creativity in some of the interactions in the apps that we have. I think there's a real like hunger from customers and clients to do something that does stand out for the sole reason that it made someone smile or it made someone feel good about themselves that day. You know, that kind of like joyfulness that, you know, initially I think, you know, especially advertising, you kind of fall into this bubble now, we're so synonymous with. It's kind of being lost and it's becoming this really transactional, functional step by step by step. And I think there's a really interesting, you know, especially our uncomfortable design, you know, how do we allow more creative and actually, you know, not as serious, you know. Sometimes you are selling a product like a chocolate bar, you know, and that is a serious thing in terms of a business point of view to make money, but it's also a joyful moment of eating a chocolate bar. So there's some kind of trend, I think, of bringing back that sort of slightly less deep and fun joy back to, you know, creating and designing interesting apps and experiences. Awesome. So here at South By there's so many speakers and influencers in different areas. What are some of the topics that you think will be talked about most here this year? Yeah, I mean, definitely AI as well as like voice interactions and interface design. Yeah, machine learning. I think design ethics will be a big part of this year's conference. I know that Fjord released in their 2017 trends for this year. What was that as well? Yeah, I know John Maynard is speaking tomorrow on inclusive design, so that should be quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. We babbled on so much.