Eve Eden on Designing for Accessibility, Anticipating Technological Development and The Keys to Product Led Growth

Eve Eden, founder of EVE | User Experience Design Agency, believes proper product design is the key to product-led growth. In this episode of the Fortune's Path Podcast we chat with Eve about her expertise in design, her thoughts on the slow shift from physical to digital technologies, designing products for every degree of ability and the natural kindness, thoughtfulness and patience she finds in Nashville. She also shares invaluable must-hear hints for UX design best practices.

Key Takeaways

• "8% of the male population is colorblind, especially to red and green. Think about the stock market and how that reads, or any kind of financial or big data company and their prevalent uses of green and red.  People see those colors in shades of yellows and beige. ...I think accessibility design is still emerging.  User experience as an industry is still in its infancy... incorporating it into corporate spheres, companies, what does that mean?  I make it a business to help build toolkits on how to define what it is that we do." 

• "Generally people put out surveys at the beginning of a workflow or when someone first drops into their site before login or after login. But where I find that type of survey being really beneficial is after they do something.  So they come there with a certain thing in mind that they want to do. That is exactly when you should throw up those two questions: a rating scale or an open ended."

• "Nashville is a place of connectors: "Hey, you know what? I know this person, let me email them for you. There is that love here of  meeting, meeting people  organically."

• "Design principles are value statements that describe the most important goals that a product delivers for its users."

• "With product-led growth, focus on customer acquisition, your expansion and keeping your clients. There's four ways to do that. First: it's with user experience and an intuitive interface. Simplify the user journey. When someone's onboarding, consider how quickly they understand the value of the product - the interaction they're having with the first page or the first few pages - and then make sure that it's a consistent experience across all devices. 

• "The second one is UI. User interface is really the visual appeal of designing for attention. We touch on this with graphic design. It's bringing clarity and language to guide people through features. Think of things like feedback, how do you know this is working?"

• "Another one that helps with product-led growth is interaction design. Micro-interactions, you know, something that has minimal steps to complete the task or reduce friction and encouraging people to use the product later. A notification  saying, hey, you forgot something! Those are all ways to bring growth. You don't necessarily think about it."

• "The last one is showcasing  something that you can use for free. But then explaining: 'hey there's these other features that you might like!' And being exploratory with that."

Transcript

Tom: [00:00:00] What is product design and why is it important for business? What's product led growth and how do you get started with it? And what's it like being new to Nashville and living without a car? These are some of the questions we ask. Eve Eden, founder of Eve UX design agency Eve, works with clients to help them elevate their digital presence and user experience. They empower brands to connect with their audiences in meaningful and impactful ways. Eve Eden is a veteran designer and educator who works with product development teams and leadership to help them understand the value of good design. And she's our guest on this episode of the Fortune's Path podcast., it is so good to see you. Thank you for coming today.

Eve: [00:00:51] Thank you. Tom, I'm glad to be here.

Tom: [00:00:53] Well so tell me you are a designer by background, right?

Eve: [00:00:58] Yeah, I graduated with a bachelor's of fine arts and with a concentration in graphic design.

Tom: [00:01:06] And that training as a designer, how does that impact your work in technology.

Eve: [00:01:15] Well, I think there's there is a lost art that I feel like that's happened in design or color theory and typography and layout. Before in print, those were things that we hyper concentrated on. But when that translates over to the web HTML and just it's, , constraint some of that has become a lost art, which I hope, , we can overcome eventually. But yeah, that that to me is like a limitation that I'm hoping eventually we can kind of design our way out of somehow.

Tom: [00:01:59] Well so browsers and displays and computers do not render things as consistently as, say, paper. Right. And so some of the subtle differences in things like color and typography are going to get lost depending upon whatever modality somebody is using to view the content. Right? Why is it still important, given that it's hard to actually control the deliverable?

Eve: [00:02:28] Yeah. Yeah. What's important about it, I think, is it's like an it's it is an experience that you're having. It's like, imagine a CD that you received, , the alb cover or a magazine you're flipping through. There was an experience that you were having. And I do believe that , even though we're hans interacting with computers, we're still having an experience. But I think the subtleness of kerning between letters, the letting between paragraphs still is important. But I think because it's maybe not tactical, that there's some, , there's this kind of missing element which, , maybe with like virtual reality or, , wherever we're going, some of that will come back and into place.

Tom: [00:03:20] There's also still, I think, a place for paper. And so that, that understanding in your product, what parts of it would be better experienced as a physical product than just as something that's digital? I also think I'm becoming more as somebody who's written a couple of books, I'm becoming more and more interested in physical products. Have you created physical products? Do you like can you compare making software versus making a physical product?

Eve: [00:03:53] Yeah, it’s been a while since I've made physical brochures and posters and things that people would interact with. But I think it does translate over into the interaction, the design with interaction design. And haptics- like how like when you press something on your phone, even though it's not 3D in nature, there's a vibration or a sound- so we might not be thinking about it as a product that you're physically interacting with, but there are subtle interactions that we're having with sound feeling.

Tom: [00:04:41] As I'm getting older, my sense, I've never had particularly good control over small motor skills in my hands. Handwriting has always been terrible. And I'm thinking about haptics as a way to help someone with the really pain-in-the-ass glass interface that we have because there's so little feedback in that it's so easy to miss your target. So is there an opportunity to rethink interface design to make greater use of haptic feedback? So I can find the teeny little arrow that's the back button? I was showing my 95 year old mother in law the other day how to navigate the Substack app. And it's like, “oh, there's a tiny gray arrow there.” And you have to keep pressing that to get back to the top, right? Right. So what opportunities do we have to use more physical feedback in design to make just navigation easier.

Eve: [00:05:43] Yeah. So you're really touching on accessibility design and how sensitive we are to, let's say people who , might not have good sight or color, , 8% of the male population is color blind. Especially to red and green. And so think about, , the stock market, , and how that reads or any kind of financial or big data company and how their uses of green and red are so prevalent. Right. And so, , people see those colors in shades of yellows and beige. So it's really hard for people to understand, , what we're looking at. And so the use of icons and the use of just other ways of, , handling error messages , and just like visual elements so that people can,  understand what's going on without necessarily, like, the primary use of reading or, , let's say you just moving, moving a screen. So, yeah, I think accessibility design is still up and coming. I think just user experience as, as a industry is still, , in its I, I would say it's in its infancy still, even though it's, , people would say, well, it's been a 20 year run, I would challenge that a little bit. I'm thinking maybe it's more like less than 15 years. Just because that terminology hasn't been used that often and, and even just incorporating it into corporate corporate spheres, companies. What does that mean? , I'm, I make it a business to help build, , tool kits. Right on how to define what it is that we do. Right. So yeah. So from an accessibility standpoint, there is there's still more to learn. I think maybe on the other side of the pond, Europe is doing much more than maybe the kind of what we're doing.

Tom: [00:07:59] So let's talk a little bit about Eve as a agency. And when you're starting a new client, what are some of the common misconceptions they have about UX and what design can do for them? And then how do you we'll just start there and then I'll ask a follow up.

Eve: [00:08:19] Yeah. So common misconceptions and how we can help. So I think maybe the how we can help is huge. That's probably why we're sitting at the table, is that they have some sort of idea of how how user experience can help them in their digital service. And so some of that could be they're having problems. You know, with they're having problems with the employees that and just the usability, their workflow. It might be taking too long. Maybe there is like a significant drop rate, but they're not sure why, and maybe it's in certain parts of the platform. So I think it always it does come down to nbers or , what I would call like user satisfaction. And Yeah, just completing your task. I usually put out a survey with those two questions because I think those are significant. If did you complete what you were supposed to do? And how satisfied are you that tells you a lot about what's happening. And so to kind of bring it back is how we can help, I think. Are those things happening, the completion rate and is it a good, , high satisfaction rate and what we can do there.

Tom: [00:09:47] Can you talk a little bit about the mechanics of collecting that survey data? Is that something that you're doing? Just just describe how that happens.

Eve: [00:09:55] Yeah, sure. So generally I think people, put out surveys maybe at the beginning of a workflow. Or when someone first drops into their site. You know, even before, let's say, log in or after login. But where I find that type of survey being really beneficial is after they do something, so they come there with a certain thing in mind that they want to do. That is exactly when you should throw up. The those two questions and I think those two questions are enough. They could be, , a rating scale or an open ended, I think, rating scale people interact with more with like an option to enter a comment. But I think it really is significant after they complete something that they were they intended to do and why they're there.

Tom: [00:10:49] So you'll when you're working with a client, you might set up an in-app survey that when there's somebody reaches a certain point in a workflow, then that comes up and says, did you get done what you were trying to get done? And how satisfied were you with it? Yeah. Do you find that? , I find those kinds of surveys super annoying and tend to kind of just check out of them. I'm assing I hope I'm in the minority. Like, how do you drive response rate for that sort of a survey?

Eve: [00:11:21] It's a good comment. I think you're right. People are annoyed because they've been traatized by them. Probably. We have way too many of them and they're in the wrong places I think. Yes. And so I think if it's maybe more thoughtful where it's, let's say, not stopping you from what you're doing. That could create less friction. If it's something that , maybe it's, , email me later about this so that there's this option to say I don't have time to think through this right now. Let me do it later. But that's why we also kind of think through. Well, it's only two questions. How how much easier can I make it? So no. No writing. You know, maybe it's a thbs up. Thbs down. You know, smiley face, a sad face, something like that, where at least we get a gauge. And so what you may see is an improvement there. Hopefully that user experience professionals are, , getting smarter with, well, if I want to really figure out, are you doing this well, are you happy with it. You know, and just kind of making it really easy. That's that's the simplicity of what we do to, , to touch back on,  why people would need, , a user experience professional. It's because we could take a complexity and simplify it or an annoyance like a survey and say, well, let's just take it to its bare bones with a thbs up, thbs down interaction. And if you want to do more, you have an opt in, something like that.

Tom: [00:13:01] So let me you're new to Nashville, and that was one of the things we wanted to talk about. So if you were thinking about Nashville as a experienced designer or just as a designer, so you mentioned, like, things that are annoying or things that are maybe positive. What are some stuff you've seen about Nashville that if you could change, you'd change. And what are some other things about Nashville you feel like? I hope this never goes away.

Eve: [00:13:27] So I'll start with that latter. I think Nashville just in general is a really friendly place to be. I find the people extremely open. I think there is a shared experience that's happening with people moving here and , kind of understanding each other, why we're here, what are we doing here? Which is great. I think there's something on the, , coattails of of Covid. And just like where cities are, , booming or changing and why people are going there is really interesting. So I love that I think from a tech standpoint, like someone in, in technology, I I do notice that Nashville is a place of connectors. So, hey,  what? I know this person. Let me email them for you or let me, , just make a quick introduction. In a networking event. So there is that kind of. Yeah, just this kind of like love there of, , just meeting. Meeting people very organically. And so I do love that now, just being here a little over a year, a year and a few weeks. Happy anniversary. Yeah. Thanks. July 1st. I think there's Yeah, I don't, I don't know, I feel like I'm, , I don't know if it's because of 2023, 2024, the market, , it's election year, this intensity that we're all feeling. I'm just noticing as a, as a someone in being an entrepreneur getting their name out there, , building trust with people. It's been really dry. And I feel like that's the right word of just something's wrong. Like, I feel like, , people are kind of holding on to what they have. Maybe similar to the housing market, things aren't moving. People are just staying put. There's something happening. And so, , my hope is, , just kind of reading of what is to come, maybe 20, 25 might let go of those reins and things will start to, , just start flowing back, flowing like they used to. I don't know.

Tom: [00:15:44] It's it's an interesting observation. I'd say that 2023 for us was was a tough year and it was a very hard year to for a nber of reasons. One is I made some bad decisions as a leader. And the second thing was there's some just it felt like the market also stiffened where it was hard to get people to make decisions. It still seems like it's hard to get to get people to make decisions.

Tom: [00:16:14] So one of the, like, classic scenarios in marketing is how do you build urgency? And I'm not sure it's even possible to build urgency. I feel like that's something that somebody has to feel on their own. I don't know if I can instill urgency in a buyer. What are your thoughts on that? Like how do you get how do you get people to make a decision?

Eve: [00:16:36] Yeah, , it's it's almost like the saying of like, can you change someone?

Eve: [00:16:42] I don't think so. I think it's really up to them. And I think you're right with the, the, , creating a sense of urgency. These are tactics that may work and maybe a more healthy. A market conditions, perhaps? That's kind of where I'm not a salesman. But I think, , just teaching people and helping them understand what you do. Well simplifying your message those all key, , what I've noticed is that kind of stays with someone. If someone can actually reiterate what you do simply you you they'll remember you. , I've had people I've met at networking events, , I haven't really talked to them for years, and they still remember our conversations. So I think there's something to be said about your messaging and how you approach people. You know, that kind of a it's it resonates with people and it stays with them.

Tom: [00:17:46] Have you ever experienced that phenomenon of someone who, , introduces you to someone that they know that you don't know? And the way that they introduce you is like, I never could have said it that well.

Eve: [00:17:58] H. I don't know, maybe I'd have to think about that one. I feel like that is Yeah. I've heard people sometimes s up what we do, and I'm like, that's pretty good. And it was just like, that was just three words, ? And so that's that's nice. But yeah, I've not have you, have you experienced that.

Tom: [00:18:21] Something similar. You know I think so. There's the there's certainly been times when people have said, oh, I remember when you said blah. And I'm like, I have no memory of ever saying that. That doesn't even sound like something I would say. Yeah, but just the idea that you've had an impact on someone recently, I had a colleague who came to visit me on a business trip. He came to our home, he had dinner with us, and he said how that experience became a model for how he wanted to be with his sons. And so it was like no one could say anything better about my life than that. And so that was very unexpected. And it's a personal thing. It's not, , although I think the personal and the business are very closely related.

Tom: [00:19:13] Yeah. Similar. So you said. So you want Nashville to hang on to its friendliness?

Speaker3: [00:19:18] Absolutely.

Tom: [00:19:19] Hang on to its its connectedness, its sort of interest in its entrepreneurial community. It's a very supportive community. Putting you on the spot a bit. Yeah. Anything you change about the town?

Eve: [00:19:30] Let's see, I. You know, I'm usually pretty careful with that. Just because sometimes it's like I don't have enough data. I think maybe with the town, , just in general with people being more exploratory perhaps. Or , being more open to understand sometimes I think sometimes we have an idea of what somebody does and we, we might shortchange them and not kind of hear them out fully. Some, , in business, I think, , talking fast or just, , sming things up and being quick to understand is helpful. But, , usually there's like a whole story around that. So maybe , just providing some of that, , breadth of what these services do. And so instead of, , oh, let's just make this a 15 minute call. Maybe it's, , a couple calls or, , let's get to know each other over a period of time to really understand each other's work, especially when you're an entrepreneur and you're wanting to help somebody else. It's really good to kind of maybe be in that business owner shoes. So having a few conversations and and getting to know each other may help because then you get a little bit more of that understanding or, or really understanding the nuances of, of what's happening with that.

Tom: [00:21:09] I think to me, you're making a case for thoughtfulness and patience. And those are virtues. Every part of our society, in my opinion, could benefit from not just Nashville. Two things I threw out there, or one thing certainly is public transportation and more walkable communities. , you're from Chicago, right? Yeah. Do you miss being able to walk from one place to another?

Eve: [00:21:34] I still walk, okay. I don't have a car here.

Speaker3: [00:21:37] Oh, wow. How's it working?

Eve: [00:21:38] Yeah, it's I'm working hard. Walking.

Tom: [00:21:42] So how did you get here today.

Eve: [00:21:44] I took an Uber. Okay. But there was a two busses I could take to come over. But yeah I think if it was one bus I'd definitely do it. Yeah. So just being from Chicago, definitely like more transit, more bus schedules, just more bus lines.
Eve: [00:22:03] And a ways to get from A to B. But yeah, I do feel like yeah, that's that is something that. Yeah, it's, it's just a new and upcoming city. Right. So you just grow with what, , with what's happening. That's similar to just being an entrepreneur. You're, , sometimes you don't actually know what it is your product offering is sometimes that happens because the market is telling you, actually, we just really need this. We don't need, , these three other products.

Tom: [00:22:36] So for Eve your design studio, have you changed that way? Have you responded to kind of you had market feedback?

Eve: [00:22:43] Yeah, absolutely. I think it's it was hard because you, you want things to kind of stay the same because you're like, I know how to do this. Well but, yeah, like any good business that it wants to stay relevant, you have to kind of figure out what it is that people are looking for. And I think we're in transition right now just because of what's what we're feeling this year.

Tom: [00:23:10] What's that transition look like going from what to what? Do you have a sense?

Speaker3: [00:23:14] Yeah.

Eve: [00:23:14] I think what's happening is most products have some sort of digital experience. And so we went from physical, , here's a CD-ROM or, , you have to walk into a place to get something to. Now here's a website. So I think that there's a

Speaker3: [00:23:44] Sorry, Tom. That's okay.

Eve: [00:23:46] Okay. I kind of lost track.

Tom: [00:23:49] We were talking about the transition that you're seeing. So you feel like right now design digital products in general are going through a transitionary period, and you were talking a little bit about what you thought that looked like.

Eve: [00:24:01] Yeah. And so with that transition of, , going from, let's say physical to digital services, I think now we're going from digital services into, , virtual services, which I know is like a little provocative because we don't, , , we don't really know, , what that entails. , maybe if we played Pokemon or something, we kind of see that augmented reality that isn't we're not talking about as much as when it first came on the scene. Now it's, , generative AI. But what is that? And I think that's where it's this kind of interactive space that doesn't necessarily have a physical presence. It's just something out in the ether.

Tom: [00:24:50] That's interesting. Have you tried some of the like I tried the Apple Goggles. I don't remember what they're called. Vision Pro, I think. Have you tried some of that stuff?

Eve: [00:24:59] I have.

Speaker3: [00:25:00] Yeah. What were your thoughts?

Eve: [00:25:01] Like meditation practices?

Speaker3: [00:25:03] I haven't tried that. Yeah.

Eve: [00:25:05] Some of my friends actually created an augmented reality video game of their little characters that you can feed and and take care of. And so. Yeah, just I think it's I think it's great. I think it's just another avenue to explore and see. Is this where your company is going or where your products and services are? You know, I think there's , we're just we just keep moving. We keep changing. And so shifting that , sometimes it depends on the type of person you are. You'll wait for others to do it, and then you feel a little bit more confident. Or you could be the latter where you're like, well, let me take a step in and take that risk and see, is this going to be profitable for me?

Tom: [00:26:00] It's interesting about so you started the conversation about talking about color theory and kerning and some of the things that we're that are critical to paper based designs. And it's it feels bizarre to me, or sort of stupid in a way that we would have to buy $4,000 pair of goggles to have a be able to read a newspaper. Because we've decided that that for whatever reason, paper's not worth it anymore. But it is interesting to think about what elements of physical design will come back into those in a those virtual realities. So my, my experience with the, the goggles was that it's quite emotional to try them. In that the, the experience was overwhelming in some ways, , to but they also feel totally impractical. For anything really for, for anything. And so there's, it feels like there's an enormous barrier to entry to me in my mind, to adopting any kind of VR right now, it's just the, the hardware of. It's so awkward and expensive. Yeah, even the very best hardware we have , stuff like, I. Okay, I get to that through my browser. It's free. Anybody can use it. Now, the quality of what it produces is very debatable. It feels like it's kind of very generic and conventional, wisdom driven. It's a sort of smary of the internet, which isn't that the internet's not very bright. And so what it produces isn't terribly insightful or bright. But there, , from a certainly that is a case of design led growth in a way. So, like what what is the the experience of using, like, ChatGPT. So as a designer, when you look at ChatGPT, do you have any comment on things they've done well in that experience or maybe things that aren't so awesome?

Eve: [00:28:18] I love the ChatGPT feature of speaking and then having that interaction that we're having, which is this kind of natural conversation. And what's really great, and I think was very surprising just last year is when we started to interact with ChatGPT is how much it could remember or that you were having maybe multiple conversations later and it brings in. Oh, well, I remember you talking about, , this like New Year's goal that you had. It's like, wait a minute, this is like months later and you still are remembering it. I think those are those are , those delights that we talk about in user experience where it's like, oh, wow, this, this is almost like,  it's like a friend , someone that's actually paying attention to what I'm saying and then can regurgitate it back to me so that I can think through it. Well so I think those are those are fun. Those are fun features. To have that I don't think. Yeah. I think that surprised people.

Tom: [00:29:28] I've you don't find that creepy at all that it remembers that sort of stuff. You know, it's like, I'd rather you just sort of forget everything I ever told you.

Eve: [00:29:35] So you're starting from scratch?

Tom: [00:29:37] Yeah.  I have not experienced that with it where it remembered a previous conversation. I know it has that capability, but I also haven't tried to. I haven't told it my birthday or anything like that. Yeah. But you found to you that was a bonus.

Eve: [00:29:52] I think that's great because what it can do, similar to, , your comment about sming up the the internet, , the wisdom of the internet. I think it , there's just like areas for me where it's like, I just have a huge gap. I don't understand that. And so if you can s it up for me, where it's understandable, that's a benefit for me because maybe I don't have that type of person in my life that, , knows the legalities of something. But it can be pretty basic for me to understand, to say, hey, I need to I should pay attention to this. This is something I need to know about.

Tom: [00:30:34] I had a recent guest who's building a community that allows developers to use AI in their development. And one of the issues he's finding is, is that the recommendations ChatGPT makes to developers are only about half right, so they're reliable half the time. But it doesn't show its it's work. You know, there's there's not a audit trail where you can see what's the source you're pulling that from. Where do you how did you come to that conclusion, etc.. So I find it to be right now, like working with the a very cheerful and responsive, like, 18 year old where they don't actually know anything, but they have a level of confidence and where you're like, oh yeah, that makes total sense. And then sometimes you check the work and you're like, you've got that completely wrong. You.

Eve: [00:31:32] Doubted me for a minute. Like I didn't know if I was. Yeah, I could see that I have teenagers, so I.

Speaker3: [00:31:38] Know . Right.

Eve: [00:31:39] They're always calling me cringey.

Tom: [00:31:40] So how many kids do you have?

Eve: [00:31:44] I have four, four girls. Two? Yeah.

Tom: [00:31:47] So how have you gotten better as a parent over the or have you has it been the same experience with all four?

Eve: [00:31:54] Absolutely not. No. Each one came out with their own personality from, like, the beginning. So you're just like, all right. This is different. But yeah. No I've evolved I've become unlocked. You know, parts in my brain I never know I had. Yeah, they've definitely , they've influenced me and made me better.

Speaker3: [00:32:19] Can you.

Tom: [00:32:20] Do you mind? , we didn't talk about talking about this, but do you mind sharing a specific story of either a part of your brain that got unlocked or somehow where you feel like you became a better person?

Speaker3: [00:32:30] Yeah.

Eve: [00:32:32] Yeah, I think what it what it is it it's the fact that you are , you're you're trying to kind of put your experiences of life on, , this, like, new individual that's interacting with life for the first time. However, you're my, , 1990s point of view on being like a middle schooler or a high schooler is not the same. And so they're teaching me to say, mom, it's not like that anymore. Or, , this is what we're facing. It's completely different. And so then it brings an empathy and, , hbling to say, oh, yeah, I don't know what you're talking about anymore. What does that mean? And so we're, , as you're trying I think that's where a parent could flex and be a little bit more. Yeah. Just like understanding of what's happening. And then still, , obviously providing wisdom and guidance if solicited.

Speaker3: [00:33:41] Yeah. Yeah.

Tom: [00:33:44] That's a that's a big one if solicited

Speaker3: [00:33:45] Right.

Tom: [00:33:46] It reminds me of so my my dad's an entrepreneur and he is 87. He always says, how's your business? And he shares stories about sales successes that he and his partner had. And so he'll tell stories about, like, well, we would, we were always very well dressed and we would go to the building where there were people who we wanted to visit, and we would find a way to get up in the building. And then we just kind of walked the halls and I'm like, Dad, it's impossible to do that now. You would get arrested. There's no way you could get to the elevator anymore. Plus, nobody's in the office anyway. But to me, the the point he's making isn't the the mechanics of that story, but it's his encouragement about, like, you have to have the chutzpah to do that. You have to be confident enough and sure enough about what you're doing that you can talk to total strangers with certainty. And I'll say, I'm not that good at that. You know, my my approach tends to be more like, well, what do you think? And I think in consulting, , as we're both in service businesses, people are asking us our expert opinion, and it's hard for prospects to admit that they don't, that they're confused, that they don't know.

Tom: [00:35:06] And there are times when I have, like in parenting, I have an obligation to tell somebody you're solving the wrong problem. You're completely misunderstanding what the reality is. And you may or may not want to actually face that reality. So I think that can be a hard thing as a service provider about. Well when do I stop? You know, there's times when you can get a job, when you may only be taking somebody's money because you recognize that they're not ready to address their core issue yet. So it's a little bit like, when is the therapist fire their patient? Yeah. , how do you talk to me a little bit about how you manage your clients, how you bring them closer to the truth? And what do you do when you feel like they just they don't get it?

Eve: [00:35:53] Yeah. , you touched on a couple of good points with that, especially when I was managing design teams within a company. The , you said chutzpah of like saying, I don't know, in a room. You know, is that frowned upon? Right. Like, sometimes you're you want to say, I don't know. Could you explain? There's probably, , five other people in the room that would like that explanation, but we all, , don't do that. We leave that meeting not knowing. And then there's this, , wasting of time because it was misunderstood. You know, when it when it was, , talked about. And I think that's I've asked, , my design team, if we don't know something, let's just say it like, could you explain that? Is there more to that because of x, y, z that I don't understand? And just what I used to call is like having permission just to say, I don't know, like, we have permission to say, I don't know. And to come back to it that you don't need to have, like, a solid answer immediately, but you will, , just give us some time. So I think that that culture.

Eve: [00:37:10] I'd like more of that. Just so that we can really get clear on what it is that we're asking for, because it is, , a lot of things are muddled. You know, we're let's say it's a design team talking to an engineering team, talking to a product team, talking to marketing, just because we all have our own lingo. And so some of those things to kind of build bridges, at least I feel like is really important is, well, the language we use is is this the reason why we say this is because of why , this. And so having a toolkit or something that explains, , our deliverables, , why we pull these, , certain things out in order to facilitate workshops, , and what the end result is, what it could look like. So we do that in, , at the agency. But then we also I've done that for, , within companies, , just having something that it helps define what it is that we do because we don't necessarily all understand, right, what we, what each other does, or even our own internal jargon.

Tom: [00:38:23] Do you feel like that humility of being able to say I don't know, sometimes opens up opportunities for leadership that you have a chance to if the group oh yeah, we don't know either. And then you have a chance to help make people smarter, I think.

Eve: [00:38:39] Absolutely. And I think it, it brings I think that it's good to bring humility into corporate America. I think we are deathly afraid of looking like we don't understand. And , I don't know where that comes from exactly. , we could probably like, speculate, but sure, , but it's I think, , as as teams are expanding, there's more diversity. There's, , like Brene Brown's like, , vulnerability spiel. It's like bringing that to the surface, I think gives gives us permission. And I think it does make us smarter. And it makes us clear on what it is that we're doing, or it makes the leader that's saying these things, , clear, clarifying what it is that they want because we all don't understand. So then there is that kind of unified experience of saying we need more understanding of the vision, the project, whatever it is.

Tom: [00:39:40] Yeah. I'm finding it. So I'm a very much someone who loves strategy. I think strategy and vision are an essential part of creating a product of really any activity is I need I should have some sense of what's the outcome I'm trying to produce. And but I think that there's not a lot of time for that. Often that there's an expectation is that we're going to be busy that we'll substitute activity for thinking or for strategy. So when you're in your design practice, I'm assing you come in to projects sometimes when the design principles have been set in advance and there's an outcome that the organization is searching for. But you feel like you need time to do research and you need some time to collect some data. How do you justify that with clients who are like, I don't care, I just want you to get started.

Eve: [00:40:41] That's like a dilemma I think most people face. It doesn't necessarily just include design. So I think with, , understanding well, first you're mentioning design principles. Design principles are value statements that help explain what it is that's most important to the product or to the company. You know, to kind of just depends on, , generally, design principles are something that's more a vision of the company, and they will help if you don't have them in place or they're just not utilized to bring in other team members like the product managers, the developers to really understand as a team what is our goal or what how design looks at the goal of this product, and what are your goals for your verticals? And so when we start developing design principles, we should also be receiving feedback. That is this something that's in alignment with you? Because the design decisions we do will impact engineering, will impact how they code or will impact, , the length of the technical requirements that product develops. And so I think having principles that can be altered to help your partners product development brings a collaboration.

Eve: [00:42:22] So it facilitates, I think, communication a common language that we discussed, a framework of how stakeholders, designers, developers communicate clearly and really understand, oh, this is why the designer made this decision. It was because of, , generally a few principles like principle one. And those are kind of brought in not just as something that's on like a wall somewhere, but there in the design system there in , let's say a Jira story. So they're reminded we're doing this because of this principle of, , x. And so not only does it do that, it guides innovation. It, believe it or not, reduces development costs because there's less argents of why you're doing it this way. It's making it more complicated to, oh, I understand why you did it this way. Because our goal, our principle is, , for that greater good. And then, of course, achieving the, I guess, the highest value, which is a business goal that the company has. Right? We're trying to reach, , like X dollar amount. And this is or, , X nber of users. And this is how we do it.

Tom: [00:43:39] It's really interesting. So if I understand you're saying that design principles are sort of values made manifest. So what you what's important to you? What's your priorities are these you're going to express those through the design of your product.

Speaker3: [00:43:55] Yeah.

Eve: [00:43:56] Design principles are truly value statements that describe the most important goals that a product delivers for its users. And it helps frame design decisions because what happens in, in any, , meeting is you like come up with something. But there has to be like logic behind how did you get from, , a to , what you're showing me. And so having some kind of yeah. Just like principle or just foundation of why you did this thing. It just helps the room, , say, okay, we're we're in the same headspace you are.

Tom: [00:44:38] Well, those design principles, are they kind of universal? Do they go across all products or across all all organizations or are they unique to each organization?

Eve: [00:44:47] They're unique. So if I do walk into an organization that hasn't seen their design principles in a while or doesn't even know what design principles are. That is an exercise that we do. We provide as a service to almost like a team collaboration activity, team building activities because it, it does involve the design team to articulate why they did the thing, but then it helps products say, well, this is why I'm writing the requirements because it's, , it's feeding the ultimate business goal. So yeah, the principles really help, , strategize the things that design does, but then it takes that next level of feeding back into the company's objectives.

Tom: [00:45:37] So in that design workshop, you're talking about what's sort of some of the information you want the participants to bring with them so they can have a good conversation about design principles.

Eve: [00:45:48] So I boiled it down into four steps. But the information that I would want is, , what are your goals for your current vertical or your current feature? You know, do you have like a value prop? Is there a problem, statements that are just exclusive to the the that one feature. And and so there is this activity of just kind of collecting that information from a product lens, a developer lens, because these are usually pods of people that kind of work on one thing for a while. And and that helps as you kind of bring these pods or these groups together to then really say, , how does a design principle cover multiple verticals? How does it help kind of illustrate what it is that you're doing for the good of the company and its features or its products underneath it?

Tom: [00:46:55] So sometimes those conversations about goals can become very abstract. I remember I was involved in a large IT project briefly, and I asked one of the stakeholders in the project, so what are the goals of this project? And he said, well, increase profitability and reduce expenses. And I was like, this is going to be pretty tough. When you get responses like that, , or like you said, what's the goal for your. For this product or for this vertical? And often those goals are a statement of like, well, we're looking for, , $10 million in IRR within three years. How does that translate into design principles?

Eve: [00:47:39] Well, it becomes a criteria of saying, well, what's most important could be , just the, the goal of a reducing workflow, reducing the nber of steps. I walked in a company that their whole, their whole goal around their product is to have everything on one page, never to move like everything is one click away. You can only imagine what, after 20 years, what this product looked like, everything was on one page. They made it. It was, , but that that concept, that of, , a simplified user experience can go wrong. Right. And so that's where , we come in and say is the most important thing about it being one click away or is it that they can get to it immediately? You know, it kind of just changes the like meaning of it. And so let's say instead of having 25 features on one page that you can get to within one click should it be the four things they do on a daily basis that are most important and a priority will tackle those. And everything else can be a second or third click away. Right. So something that creates that hierarchy of, , importance and priority. And so one of those is called a heuristic evaluation. If you don't really understand the product, you're kind of new to the industry. A heuristic evaluation is a great exercise that we actually start off with. It's twofold. It benefits our client because they get a list of pain points and things that are going well, and then it helps us because it gives us some time to really kind of dig deep into the product and see what it is that this, , this service is providing.

Tom: [00:49:51] Tell me a little bit about what that is. How do you conduct a heuristic evaluation and then what's the output.

Eve: [00:49:57] Yeah. So the heuristic evaluation is something that is really just a collection of workflows that any nber of people can do. It could be admins, it could be daily users, it could be, , clients that come in, , once a quarter, once a year. And so you're really just going through the application and saying, let me complete a workflow here and let's say there's 20 of them. And so you're going through and really observing, , did the drop down work as, as intended? Did I actually, , get through the workflow in, , X amount of time. So it's, it's a compilation of really understanding what all the workflows that happen within a system understanding maybe loopholes that people do because it doesn't work as intended or it it it works how other people want it to work. And so then what the output is, is a, a collection of recommendations, pain points, , and other other issues that could be worked on. And so then it becomes really essentially like a road map of, let's say, bugs or defects or a product roadmap of new features that you need. Because we found out that your users have loopholes that they're doing instead of like the actual workflow you think they're they're doing.

Tom: [00:51:36] I think there are a lot of applications in the world that have buried value where there's features that if users were able to access them or complete them, they might find valuable. But since they can't do either one of those, they don't. Can you recommend to your customers ways for them to to retire features? I find that getting people to retire features can be a tough conversation.

Eve: [00:52:05] Are the sun setting?

Speaker3: [00:52:06] Yes.

Eve: [00:52:07] Language. Yes. I, we just, I was just talking to people about like just like the corporate lingo and how there's like Instagram just like memes making fun of us all day. So sun setting. That's the one. So yeah sun setting products are it's really difficult because what you're especially if you're the. Yeah, if you're the design team making that recommendation, I think there's more weight when it's product doing it. But you would need to bring like a really strong evidence of,  people , the friction points people just not using the product as intended. You know, a a point of saying, , we need to innovate on this and change it. So, and just bring in a whole new feature that will replace this one. We've done that. You know, even with whole products, a whole dashboard where this dashboard isn't working for you. How do we keep something that, let's say is keeping the lights on, but still at the same time building something new that just is completely different, that we just can't even reuse the code base anymore. So yeah.

Tom: [00:53:34] So I want to wrap we talking about I want to wrap up talking about product led growth first. Can you define that for the audience. And then if people want to begin to embrace that. So maybe previously they were very much a sales oriented organization. And you want them you're trying to make a pivot to be more of a product led organization and product led growth. What are some of the ways that can go about that.

Eve: [00:54:01] Yeah. So with with product led growth. So there's, , just to kind of s up that it's a business strategy. And what it really helps is, , focusing on customer acquisition, your expansion and keeping and retention, keeping your clients. And so I see that there's four ways to do that. First, it's with user experience and an intuitive interface. So what you want to do and we've kind of already discussed this is simplify the user journey. You know when someone's onboarding or, , coming to the product, at first it's like, how do they quickly understand the value of the product just because of the interaction they're having with the first page or the first few pages, and then making sure that it's a consistent experience across all devices. So if you have a simplified experience on mobile, , how does someone know? You know, my kids use online banking on mobile the whole time, right? So I was like, well, if you sign in, there's like ways to, , transfer money to your siblings. And they're like, oh, well, I don't know how to do that on mobile. It's like, well, it's a it's an experience only on the desktop. But they don't know that. Right. And so like how do you kind of make sure that if it's a limited, , experience, , give them a clue. You learn more on logging in on a browser on your laptop. The second one is UI. And so you user interface is really the visual appeal of designing for attention. We kind of touch on this with graphic design.

Eve: [00:55:55] It's bringing clarity and language to guide people through features. You know, so think of like things like , when we talked about feedback, how do  this is working? It's like drag and drop. You know, I don't need to explain to you that you drag something and it drops like, , because of the feedback, that kind of inner user interface that's like really easy and clear. Progress indicator indicators are another one. Success notifications are an error. You know something's wrong or that you did something right. And so another one that helps with product led growth is interaction design. Micro-interactions, , something that has minimal steps to complete the task or reduce friction and encouraging people to use the product later. Right. Like a notification or saying, hey, you forgot something. Those are all ways that, , kind of brings growth. It's, , you don't necessarily think about it. And the last one is just something that may be free or, , recommending an upgrade, , showcasing that, , this is, , something that you can use for free. But then explaining, like, hey, there's these other features that you might like, right? And being , exploratory with that. And then of course, there's this whole kind of viral and sharing aspect, , that obviously also leads to, , product led growth, which is, , do you have ways to invite other people to this application? Is there, , a way to share or, , put in, , a social feature to it.

Tom: [00:57:39] That's very helpful. It makes me think about it. A product I'm using now called Sonic Sonics I. And it's ten bucks per hour of of transcription which feels cheap when you first pay it and then you start using it and you're like, wow, this could add up to, , 40 bucks a month. Easy, right? And.

Speaker3: [00:58:02] So the marketing.

Eve: [00:58:03] Team, like, knows what they're doing, right? Right.

Tom: [00:58:05] And it's whether it's a product like growth. Right. Because they also hold back certain features. And then as you're in the flow you're like, yeah, it would be helpful to have that for another 20 bucks a month or whatever. And even though I'm in this business, I must say I find a lot of that holding back obnoxious. Yeah. But I suppose it's effective. You know, it's the same thing about options on cars. Where you're on the lot.

Speaker3: [00:58:36] Yeah, totally.

Tom: [00:58:37] But you don't drive.

Eve: [00:58:39] I don't I stopped driving during Covid, I had nowhere to drive.

Tom: [00:58:44] Yeah. That's right. We couldn't go anywhere.

Eve: [00:58:46] So I was like oh so I'm just, out, $700 a month. For what reason exactly. It's right when you just s it all up.

Tom: [00:58:53] Are you so are you committed to not driving here in Nashville?

Eve: [00:58:56] I am, I don't know how long it'll last, but right now it's a year and a couple of weeks.

Tom: [00:59:03] Congratulations.

Eve: [00:59:04] Thanks. I'm doing it. You got to be close to, a coffee shop. A grocery store would help.

Tom: Well, you live downtown.

Eve: [00:59:13] I do, I live in Sobro.

Tom: [00:59:15] There's no grocery store down there.

Eve: [00:59:16] You have to walk to get your food. Which helps keep the waistline slim. It's kind of that European way of doing stuff. It's like, well, you just have to get out and get it. You know, get, get the get the food or whatever you're doing. And I think.

Tom: [00:59:39] Our sense of distance in cars is distorted, like, , when you walk,  how far something is.

Tom: [00:59:46] In a car, though, sometimes it's like 30 to get there and sometimes it's like 20 minutes, like particularly downtown.

Eve: [00:59:54] Especially in.Nashville during the growth period. Right, right, right. People that would say, hey, this was five minutes away is now actually like a 20 minute, , wait, depending on like the time that you're, you're getting in your car.

Tom: [01:00:06] I love it. Well I'd love to have you back in a year and find out how your adventure of being car-less in Nashville is going.

Eve: [01:00:14] I'm voting for the public transit here. And I do call. We go on occasionally and just say hey  could you add like another another another line here, like on Saturdays sometimes I'd like to visit my friend in Murfreesboro.

Tom: [01:00:29] So have you ridden the bus here.

Eve: [01:00:30] I have.

Tom: [01:00:32] And the Nashvillians say, well, those busses are always empty. As someone who rides the busses, that's your experience?

Eve: [01:00:38] No, it's not true. Where I am, most people are on the bus. There are people. It depends. Like if you're if it's like 10 a.m. versus like, , 5 p.m. , so but yeah, there's, there's people riding the bus during, during rush hour, I think more people are utilizing it. And I feel like when I do call Wego they are happy for my recommendations. They're being pleasant with me. Maybe it's, , they're just being nice to me.

Tom: [01:01:13] That's nice town. And that's also product led growth right.

Eve: [01:01:16] There you go.

Tom: [01:01:17] Yeah it was great having you. Thank you so.

Speaker3: [01:01:19] Much for coming.

Eve: [01:01:20] Thank you. It's been fun.

Tom: [01:01:31] The Fortune's Path podcast is a production of Fortune's Path. We help SaaS and health tech companies address the root causes that prevent rapid growth. Find your genius with fortune's path. Special thanks to Eve Eden for being our guest. Music and editing of the Fortune's Path podcast are by my son, Ted Noser. Look for the Fortune's Path book from Advantage Books on Fortune's path. Com. I'm Tom noser. Thanks for listening. And I hope we meet along Fortune's path.