Let's fix things

While Development and QA are often assigned with the responsibility to keep software safe from hackers, recent events with Facebook, Twitter, Zoom, and more show it’s designers that aren’t thinking enough of software threats and how to handle them. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Discussing the engaging user interface of Tiktok, its content presentation, and how it was a natural evolution after Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Exploring the two fundamental questions any designer should start with, and why companies seem to so often miss them - What is the problem you are trying to solve? What is the demand you are fulfilling? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

After an initial kick-off with Neeva and its disappointing Digital Bill of Rights (https://neeva.co/digital-bill-of-rights), Guus and Joe turn to the topic of how design jobs are changing. They put fourth that design is a mindset and way of thinking that forms a foundation of a designers toolbox, but as product platforms grow (voice, chat, bots, AR, VR), designers need to specialise their skills and take control of their own destiny. Designers can’t assume because they did mobile UI, they can appropriately handle VR. Instead, they need to invest their own time learning new skills if they hope to take on new types of work and stay relevant in the changing technology landscape. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe look at the https://replika.ai/ application, which creates a digital version of your personality, and discuss how bots build and grow their identity. The end of the conversation begins to tackle the future of design as a discipline, which is continued in episode 94. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

As stores, restaurants, and cafes open, Guus and Joe discuss the deplorable state of physical space design we now have to deal with. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Following up on old episodes of Let's Fix Things and The Dark Side of Design, which asked "Does it matter if all my friends are only digital", Guus and Joe continue to explore the topic, now that digital is all we have during lockdown. What do friends, relationships, loneliness, and connection all mean in a digital world. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

An extra 5-minute episode around Don Norman and design fundamentals. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Based off an article written almost a decade ago by Don Norman, Guus and Joe discuss how design education has changed in the last 20 years and the current skill gaps with students exiting university and joining the workforce. https://jnd.org/why_design_education_must_change/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

For the first time in months Guus and Joe are recording from the argodesign studio in brand new isolation booths. The discussion this week focuses on two elements driven from the COVID-19 situation. Dystopian drawbacks and potential new entrepreneur activities. The former looks at Boston Dynamics robot dogs released in Singapore to watch and remind people to keep a safe distance, the latter looks at new ways individuals are creating jobs through online worlds and video games. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Starting off of an article where a person managed to get personal data from an old Tesla car, Guus and Joe discuss the ongoing topic of data privacy, data clean up, and regulation. The discussion moves back and forth between company responsibilities, individual responsibilities, and what designers can do to help both. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

As we continue to have a global captive audience, industries such as of sports, music, video production, and more are finding new ways to engage with audiences. Applying the rule of "create once, scale infinite" everything is software now. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Jumping off Marc Andreessen's It's Time to Build essay and a post from India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Guus and Joe discuss how the COVID-19 situation is accelerating trends and changing businesses. What companies thought may take another 5 years to accomplish is happening in months, and now companies are left with the ability to either adapt, or suffer. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

On continued lockdown in Amsterdam during the COVID-19, Guus and Joe look at what technologies might make a leap forward due to this worldwide change in social behavior. While many of us thought AR might be the next big technology, will VR leapfrog it and become the more natural extension of the real world, giving us an escape during times of solitude and restricted movements? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

What happens when truth becomes irrelevant. As the world sits in their homes waiting for the end of the COVID-19 closures, many may fall deeper into their own echo-chambers. With billions of people posting their opinions and their own "truth" beside news, if you search, you can find support for almost anything. While many look at the mental and economic impact of COVID-19, Guus and Joe look at it's impact on the delivery of information and how "Truth|" may become something of the past. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Tackling the situation of the year, Joe and Guus look at how companies are adapting against the new regulations around working from home in a distributed environment. They discuss what they have done with argodesign, and how they challenge other companies, tech or otherwise, to rethink how they conduct business to produce better results under the new circumstances. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

After a one year hiatus, Guus and Joe return to discuss design, technology, regulation, and more. In this episode, they discuss what has happened in the last year, what has changed in moving from Raft to argodesign, quick highlights on the merger, and how we think of delivering the best business results we can as argodesign. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

All good things must come to an end. With Raft changing over and joining argodesign as their European office, Guus and Joe have officially decided to end Let’s Fix Things. In a longer episode, they discuss how Raft started, splitting away from frog design. The discuss the exact events on day 1, bootstrapped the beginning to get salary, and give thanks to everyone in the studio and our listeners.For everyone who stuck with us, or simply listened to a single show, we say thank you for your time and attention. Keep an eye out for new content coming soon from argodesign as we begin a new chapter for the studio. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Prima returns and joins again to discuss the long standing topic of Ethics in design. Hot off the IxDA conference with ethics being a big topic, the trio discuss why designers often miss the conversation, don’t produce results, and how they can begin to solve this towards provide solutions on ethics within their teams. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe and joined by new Raft Lead Prima Sung to discuss a recent set of news article around AI being leveraged [weaponized?] to create fake and auto generated content. They discuss how AI is leveraged in creating new materials, and how AI is impacting identity. Finally they discuss the future of work for design and what could be coming in the next decade for designers. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe breakdown the pros and cons of the “What 3 Words” mapping service. The go over the positive aspects of mapping areas without physical addresses, and the confusing aspects of why 3 random words, such as “popsicle, idea, shuttlebus”, would appear to be a good way to coordinate travel plans. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

It’s good to be home! After being gone for over a quarter, Guus and Joe return to talk about the news of the week. This episodes looks at Mark Zuckerberg’s goal of holding public discussion forums and the ability of Ring camera employees to potentially access individuals feeds. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Anki, the company that brought us the robot Cozmo, it back with Vector. A friendlier companion robot. Guus and Joe look at what the different roles and styles of robots / bots currently in the home. The share that while Vector, Alexa, and the Google Assistant may do very similar things, they are very different in their personality and drive. They discuss their wishes for robots to become better companions. Finally they close with a brief overview of how the field of design is growing, as robots, AI, and assistants, become more main stream. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe review Raft’s 2018 Trends report to provide a mid-year assessment. They speak to three trends and offer support in how they are coming to fruition through the year. They share that trends never arrive unannounced. To be applicable for companies, they should be emerging topics and not wild long-shot guesses. While their supporting materials are often dystopian, they close by sharing they are very hopeful for what these trends may enhance in people’s lives. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Now several weeks removed from returning from Brazil, Guus and Joe discuss their take-aways from the Thought for Food (TFF) Summit. They focus the episode of bringing the humanities and empathy to Agriculture. They review that while food is a cultural and social event, the production of food is cold and statistical. The opposition serves as the foundation for 15 minutes of discussion. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

In a continuation from last week, Guus and Joe go deeper on the cultural principle of respecting clients through client empathy. They discuss how designers could benefit from understanding the client POV further, whether it be political aspects, internal strategy, or personal views. Sharing their views that while designers speak heavily of user empathy, they should equally look to understand client empathy. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe discuss finally hanging up a series of posters that provide cultural guidance for the Raft office. Sharing their views on why the Raft culture is a bit unique, pragmatic, challenging, and mature compared to other design studios. They engage on each principle, what it means, and why it’s important. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Over the course of their consulting careers, Guus and Joe have worked with multiple companies within their accelerators or incubators. This episode is dedicated to a couple lessons they have learned working in these teams including the need for process, learning from failure, and building on company’s cultural principles. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

After ordering a Revolut prepaid card, Guus and Joe discuss how every company, organization, and team have a choice to either be unique, interesting, and provide a great experience or be mundane and accept the status quo. They put forth the simple theory that any area or industry that has a low barrier to entry (e.g. capital investment) and can be done digitally is ripe for start-up disruption. Note: Joe met with Val Scholz, Head of Customer * Engagement, not “Experience”, as Joe accidentally mentioned during the podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe look at the growing discipline of DesignOps. The combination of program management for design tools, workflow, process, and integration with the development team. They discuss the need for alignment of tools and planning within larger organization and how DesignOps can be fundamental and helpful to larger teams. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

In the last several decades, digital design has been the new mecca for designers. Everyone has rushed to design the latest website or application. Now, as products change, and screen based systems mature, we must ask “what is next for designers”. Guus and Joe reflect on breaking down design to its primitives and refocusing on the “job to be done” along with the tools designers have at their disposal with each customer touchpoint. As products bring in voice, home devices, and digital assistances, the role of design must evolve to stay relevant. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Are we wise to ask companies to control what we see and hear? Guus and Joe look at the recent trends involving public outcry over content presented through different companies. With fake news being the topic of the year, more people have been asking for Facebook to take control over this situation, but is it wise to ask a private company to control what we view globally? The duo also look at companies personal ethics in presenting content, such as Spotify stopping all promotion around R Kelly. Finally, the discussion looks at how only a few decades ago, local governments and regional companies provided content guidelines for countries – now with globalization, it’s less clear, and content alongside ethics are determined by the country of origin. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Google I/O happened, and the world is afire with the Duplex demo in which the Google assistant makes a phone call and sounds like a human. Guus and Joe reflect on the ethical stance of this type of situation. That perhaps we don’t live in a simulation, but that everything around us can now be simulated; that trust is a strategic asset now more than ever. They also discuss how these types of products affect the future of design as a discipline and what design must do to remain relevant. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

A second episode discussing the issues around GDPR coming into effect in Europe and what that will mean for companies. The duo discuss the EU cookies regulation, and if these regulations are helping put users back in control, or simply create a “pop up soup” of dialogs that annoy, rather than assist, users. In the end, they question if the way regulation is done should be rethought, and what are designers roles in driving new regulations and guidelines for software. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

With the countdown to GDPR in the EU and Facebook being questioned by Congress in the US, Guus and Joe look at how to responsibly and ethically design for personal data privacy. The discussion looks at the infuriating task of designing privacy policies with understandable language. It then couples with the fact that users never read privacy statements as they are always in the way of core tasks. In the end, they question if making privacy easy to understand is an impossible task. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

During a previous conversation with a silicon valley software native, Guus and Joe discussed what was the best smart technology over the last decade. This week they bring that discussion to Lets Fix Things, sharing views on the different between technology, what is has enabled, and what constitutes “smart technology” - from refrigerator lights, to smart lights, and global entrepreneurship. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

A dutch supermarket chain accidentally does racial profiling with their personas, Apple’s Homepod is a really expensive speaker, and AmazonGo makes purchasing in real life frictionless. This week Guus and Joe go "old school" discussing several topic in recent news extrapolating lessons for designers from internal methods, to accidental creation of friction in products. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

An impromptu discussion after the last official show reviewing more on ethics, business, and design. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

This week we are joined by Jet Gispen from ethicsfordesigners.com. Guus, Joe, and Jet discuss ethics in design, and how a subjective topic based on personal belief can be brought into constructive team discussions. Jet runs through exercises designers can bring to their teams. She also showcases how ethics may be a way to reverse the commercial aspects of the design profession. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

This week is about race in design and technology. Guus and Joe talk to Stan Robinson, otherwise known in the Hip Hop world as Substantial. Stan is an accomplished artist who has toured the world multiple times. Stan offers his articulate views on the black community in design, technology, and the arts as well as multiple other pearls of wisdom on perspectives of how being black affects careers in these fields from early schooling.This week’s title is a ‘tip of the hat’ to one of Substantial’s latest releases.https://www.facebook.com/SubstantialMusic/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_(rapper) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guest Adriana Chiaia joins Guus and Joe to discuss leveraging the Socratic method to have stronger conversations, dismiss bias, and engage those around you in deeper discussions. The group discuss this method focused on questioning and breaking down assumptions as a way to engage conversations over other methods (such as "5 why's"), and how this can both disarm and engage to have a conversation focused on exploration over "winning". --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guest Lily Kolle joins Guus and Joe to discuss a new design toolkit she developed at Raft called Kaleidoscope. A set of questions across the product lifecycle meant to re-frame conversations and solutions. She discusses how to use the cards within conversations and meetings to unstick viewpoints, uncover biases, and develop new ideas. Get the Kaleidoscope deck here: https://raftcollective.com/thinking/kaleidoscope/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

This week Guus and Joe welcome Simply Secure's Designer Director Ame Elliot as a guest podcasting live from ThingsCon in Amsterdam. The three discuss the importance for designers to think about security as a design task and design competency. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

After several days of communication training, Guus and Joe share some of their favorite lessons on presenting content. They discuss starting with what's important to your audience.Many design presentations start with "what we did, what we heard", which may form barriers between you and your audience. Instead, start with why you did something for the company, and how it benefits them (Simon Sinek plug). In short, it's never about you, it's always about them, and how the work you're sharing advances their goals. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Put your ego aside, have a piece of humble pie, and enjoy this episode as Guus and Joe explain why designers should listen much more than talk. Using multiple examples from past teams (Microsoft, IKEA, and several un-named clients), the duo share examples of how designers have hindered projects by wanting to put “their stamp” on work instead of better address project, team, and specifically customer needs. They review the ease at which designers can think they are doing the right thing, while accidentally reversing progress or creating work that isn’t needed for a product or business launch. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

We've hit episode 50! Guus and Joe re- live their first podcast memories of trying to do three episodes in 1 day. This week they discuss the importance of story for designers.The idea that story is not simply for marketing, but a crucial element of how features and the users experience of a product come together to form something users can fall in love with. The utilize the recent Google and Apple events, as well as past work on IKEA to explain how story impacts products. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe review the recent Apple event and announcements. They look at the wireless future Apple is pushing consumers towards with wireless charging, wireless headphones, and the new SIM in the Apple watch. Joe has a moment of quite reflection on designers who complain about Apple's innovation while ignoring the technology interiors and broader business plays. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Juicero, a connected IoT cold press juicer, is closing its doors and offering refunds. As a frequent topic early on the podcast, Guus and Joe reflect on Juicero, its supply chain, dreams, and contribution to IoT. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

In todays episodes, we skim the surface of design research, specifically ethnographic research. We discuss common problems we've seem, how to avoid these, and why a lot of design research fails to lead to quality insights. We focus on design research being a separate discipline from design itself and why "immersion", or understanding an industry, is not the same as research itself. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

In todays episode we explore the bespoke nature of design consulting and what design managers, teams, and consultancies can learn from larger business consultancies in how they approach programs, clients, and services. We cover a little in our approach at Raft and how we've built our culture of close client partnerships while streamlining programs. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message

Guus and Joe look at how designers must start to analyze components, primitives, and utilize design research to create a vision for new customer journeys. The duo use the recent Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods as an example showcasing 3 steps for focus.1. Drivers of latent needs – use a customer journey as a foundation for design research to uncover latent needs and drivers for users.2. Develop a vision – leveraging trends from business, economics, technology, and more, designers must have a vision for where a product or service can go.3. Breaking down primitives – Break down products and services into primitives to understand the building blocks to be leveraged. Then use those to build new customer journeys and create new product offerings. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/letsfixthings/message