Ep.14 Don't Take Shortcuts - Alex Morin

Introduction

0:00hello ladies and gentlemen my name is Gideon Mashava and welcome for one more episode of the world class designer podcast and today I bring a new guest as usual and his name is Alex Marine hello Alex how are you doing today hey Gideon doing all right thanks how are you I'm great so Alex can you talk a bit about yourself like for people who don't know you

0:32yeah so my name is Alexi Morin I'm currently a design lead at CBC the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation so I manage a team of 10 people who create and build and make available websites and applications to a Canadian public as a national broadcaster we make available news some elements of entertainment radio podcasts what have you so that's what I do now I have a past of working in

1:09many many different industries so I've worked in aerospace in education in the retail space as well as gaming so I've spanned the gamut in terms of different areas I think it's one of the more fun parts of being a designer actually okay nice nice and how was your experience uh for the

Gaming Industry Experience

1:34gaming space I mean I so I live in Montreal and Montreal is is known globally as sort of a hot spot for game studios and I had the opportunity to work at Ubisoft okay Montreal okay at the single largest gaming studio in the world I believe about 4,000 people at that one location whoa that's a lot of people yeah um so let's let's be clear that it's not 4,000 people working on a single game okay

2:05um yeah I mean I mean the pace was uh super interesting to work with it was very fast um I mean I started working uh early early uh what is it no late 2019 actually I started working late 2019 okay uh at at Ubisoft and already by October the product that I was designing was out on uh you know already on

2:37PlayStation 5 on Xbox Series X whoa so it was very exciting to see that product come out to the world it came out with this amazing trailer and I was like oh wow my work has never been part of a trailer nobody cares that much okay it was it was super cool oh then that's pretty fast like yeah the time I think like the gaming industry is subject uh you know very much to the ebbs and flows of how people buy games and gift games to their kids and to their family members

3:12and so deadlines are very important in that in that realm okay oh so I think that that plays a part into how fast you have to go oh I see that makes a lot of sense how would you explain design to your

Design Explanation

3:26younger self with one year of work experience so I would I would tell my younger self that design is so much bigger than just you that anyone and everyone who's who's working with you that influences how something ends up is actually also doing design that design is the combination of understanding and empathy and inclusion and constraints and problem solving and multi-disciplinary teamwork

4:01and the result of all these people working together

4:05is solutions to problems right which is what distinguishes design from art for example okay so yeah I mean who are we solving these problems for um not everyone we're not solving them for everyone at the same time um but you know depending on the project we can be solving problems for everyday people business people workers children uh sometimes we're trying to propose a solution for

4:36uh situations where we might not be aware that there's a problem at hand okay I see like uh you think that everyone who's part of the project or can influence the project is doing design is a very different perspective that's that's a really good insight because if you think about it right when you're when you are doing design you're you're trying to influence a final product yeah so anyone you work with that also has a level of influence will affect that final product so in that sense if you if you consider that they are also doing design

5:13you get to include them in that process definitely and bring their expertise along with you know with the process and with the work

5:24yeah yeah that's a really nice perspective so and how would you explain your design process for your younger self so i i hear the sentence your design process uh in you know sometimes in the context of of job interviews uh and i've never really liked that expression of your design process i really don't think of my process as anything that's unique or magical or you know it's not something that only i can bring that gives me an edge in my work um i feel my process doesn't need to be different than anyone else's

5:56process um you know it's the process of assessing situations understanding problems evaluating possible solutions weighing pros and cons um and that process does sort of already exist and it's the process behind engineering now the process for engineering and design i think are very similar the main difference is that engineers often deals with you know machines physics math closed systems um not that they're

6:29simple but that um and you know in contrast designers deal with people and people are much harder to deal with since their behavior is much harder to measure and quantify with the same level of precision that engineers do okay people are squishy moody very according to context and culture um but that also makes them much more interesting i think and that's why i choose to work in the design field and not on the on the engineering

6:59field i see uh but but i i i don't think you kind of answered the question so you rather say you don't have a specific process you use any specific process i do yeah and you know my my process is i do i do the double diamonds i do the discovery phase i do ideation um i do co-creation i bring in stakeholders i understand that you know what's important to them oh i see and then i craft solutions i make proposals i test

7:37them out but to me this is what designers do it's not my process there's nothing special about what i just described okay you can find that you know in a book it's taught at schools um it's a it's a very effective process i don't want to like um i don't want to shame that process or say there's anything wrong with it i think it works and we we can arrive to very powerful solutions through that process i just don't want to say that it's mine that's that's my perspective okay i understand so which

Mistakes and Lessons

8:11mistakes would you tell your younger self to make that's a really tricky question um because i think i think we like to tell ourselves that we all learn from our mistakes and i certainly have um mistakes i've made in the past have taught me a ton you know but in contrast i wouldn't necessarily want to make the same mistakes i've made in the past okay but also i don't think it's reasonable to predict what a mistake will teach you as you're making it the lesson you learn

8:45from a mistake usually comes weeks months or years afterwards right and in that way mistakes and growth and healing sort of make us who we are despite our best efforts to not make mistakes and do a good job so it's a very interesting dynamic here at play okay i see so i know i know i'm not answering the question specifically

9:12i can think of lessons that i would have wanted my younger self to learn again the mistakes that i've made and brought me to where i am now are unique i understand i don't think i would have to change that okay i see but there is any specific or particular like lessons that you would want to put your younger self through i mean of of course um but it mostly relates you know it mostly boils down to you don't take shortcuts okay right that's that's how you build experience i see i see i think i don't

9:51consider myself as someone who takes shortcuts i i i uh as i read recently in a book i like to take the long hard stupid way sometimes okay just see see the sights and enjoy the challenges along the way and appreciate that they are a learning opportunity okay and not just race to a result for example yeah i think it's it's a it's a i think not taking shortcuts oh taking shortcuts will be the mistake

10:22i'm not sure if i'm i'm using the right words here because you end up learning that taking the long path is rewarding by the end wouldn't that be correct yeah yeah i would agree taking the long path in the end yeah i think is is the rewarding path a lot of the time okay and uh what would you recommend your younger self to focus on so i think this question does kind of relate to the previous question yeah um in that you know where where do i find maybe areas i can grow in and that if i had an

11:01opportunity i would tell my younger self to focus on that and grow in that for me that area is learning about math and statistics okay so this may sound strange um in high school i hated math and i did everything in my power to make sure i never had to do it again in my professional life okay but now as i work in a very data informed environment i do feel it's lacking sometimes in my toolkit when i talk about

11:37measuring success in a piece of work okay and i've tried to jump back into math but you know i haven't quite fallen back in love with it so every time i'm given the opportunity to sort of understand numbers understand what it is i'm looking at when i'm talking about uh statistics and and yeah measuring success in a product i i would like my understanding to go deeper oh and likewise so what what do you think

12:11are the benefits of maths and statistics so if if you've ever jumped into a a analytics suite you know of anything that measures success in a product there's so many numbers and so many ways to interpret them okay and there's outliers and uh you know normal curves and deviant curves uh and having a better understanding of that helps the numbers tell their true story unfortunately there's there's a lot of

12:41ways to have ways to interpret um stats like this and it's easy to have them you know twisted to whatever narrative you want instead of just telling their true story so i feel that a better understanding of that area would would be that benefit i see that makes a lot of sense uh so i think my next question is kind of related to this which will be what would you suggest the younger self to learn to get extra skills so skill i mean hard skills wise obviously it's expend the time and so it's that oh don't take

13:18shortcuts okay in terms of words to live by i think there's a change in mindset that can be much more impactful and in that sense um the first piece of advice i would give to my younger self is be comfortable in discomfort okay keep push keep pushing yourself to go to new areas where maybe maybe you don't know enough but that's when you have to learn being comfortable in discomfort will make you grow okay and and in that same sense in that same direction don't don't have an ego don't be

13:56that designer that is 110 certain of their solution and that will not listen to anyone else okay stay humble in your approach listen to others learn about what they do and what's important to them and how they might want to affect the process and design the product in that same way okay

14:20i see it's a very very very challenging thing to do especially when you're younger it seems like uh like uh like ego it's highly related to how inexperienced you are most of the times because it's sort of inversely proportional yeah what it should be yeah yeah it seems like people with less experience are the ones who are the who have the biggest egos so i think it's a very valuable lesson here uh so like continuing on the on the learning part what would you encourage your younger self to

14:56read so i've always read a lot of non-fiction books not to say only design books um but i think two two books that have been important in my life and i'm only going to name two because i can name way more uh the first is how to make friends and influence people okay by dale carnegie wrote that one and it's just a very good manual of operation of how to deal with people okay because typically you know most designers in order to get the work out have to work with other people and that's the

15:30most normal thing ever and so having having that knowledge and understanding people better will make those dynamics uh easier in the design process okay i see i see where you're going here yeah and then the second uh you know very much a classic the design of everyday things by don norman okay why why the second one it's such a seminal design book that started you know if you go to any design school

16:05that's going to be on your reading list and it was for mine okay nice uh yeah it just goes about i would say it's the it's the equivalent of the first book but for not for how people work but how how people work with things okay and even though in this day and age the things we make are not always physical i think a lot of the same rules apply i see that makes a lot of sense uh on the same light of

16:44thoughts which people would you encourage your younger self to follow would you say don norman um so i would i would take that question with a grain of salt um so i would recommend not anybody in you know in particular i would say find find a mentor that's very important um find someone that you know you respect and also that you admire for what they've accomplished or how they work okay and

17:16proverbially go to war with that person find out how they are and what they do through thick and thin okay yeah and work work with them and and ship products and with that you know i want to put out a warning don't get up don't get caught up in the glamour of like twitter famous or dribble famous designers um design to me is much more a journey than it is a destination and that's why i think it's so

17:48important to find someone to go on that journey with you who can help you grow rather than focus on a target who only because that's who we are online right we only show the best side of ourselves but really design is not all happiness and smiles and roses okay and so i would i would advise find that person who you can spend time with and who's who is able to just take that time and mentor you

18:22help you grow from that fledgling designer to a junior designer to somebody who has a little bit more confidence in working with team and building products and you know some years later you will be that same person taking on a mentee no i see so basically it's find a mentor yeah yeah i would that's what i would advise okay and then yeah the mentor can be somebody somebody some can be somebody with a

18:53a certain distance from you they don't you may not have to work with them if you're a single you know one designer uh a one designer team in a very small company that's a trickier situation okay

19:09but i think there's so much value in being able to to spend that time and having those those tough conversations with with your mentor and and learning how things happen and the speed at which they happen and then the scale at which they have to happen i see that's uh that seems like a really valuable and like advice but on the mentor side like do you have to find example like i've read like days ago

19:41that the relationship mentee and mentor doesn't have to be formal so sometimes you can get i i used to i used to say that i take like team ferris as my mentor even though i don't necessarily know team ferris any and we've we've never met but because i listen to like a lot of team ferris podcast or guy russ from another podcast that i listen frequently i took them as my mentors would you

20:12say that those kind of relationship will work as for designer also that's an interesting yeah very interesting question i think there's a part of that which can work and i would go back to what we just talked about where be careful that this person doesn't only share their successes okay make sure that they also share their failures and how they have learned from their failures okay i see that doesn't mean you know do go on twitter and get

20:44inspired and do go on dribble and get inspired there's nothing wrong with that and it's fun um but there's so much more

20:53yeah okay i see yeah like it's a very very nice warning like don't yeah i think it's a very important one because we usually get inspired by the successes and the first time we get into a something that doesn't work who feel like a failure but no people usually don't show the failures too

21:18so and alternatively if you can't find a mentor find a community okay for me for me that community has been the ixda the interaction design association it's a global community there's several events throughout the year there's a slack where we share questions and advice and stories and it's incredibly helpful to get those different perspectives and learn from other people who have gone through similar situations

21:51that you know you're going through or i'm going through and where we need help oh definitely that's yeah uh so which tools would you suggest the younger self to learn to become expert in would you say uh remember you said about uh analytics like being able to to analyze numbers in a like more cohesive manner would that be the case i mean in that case i would i would say that the tool is is math and statistics okay

22:25um so i think tools are to to me tools are a means to an end okay and they can be super fun and we can nerd out about them and be excited about new features but i think in the end they don't matter as much as we think they matter okay it's important to learn what's behind the tool and what is it that the tool is actually doing for us what's the theory what's the research what's the history or reasoning behind why this tool

22:56exists and quickly we'll learn about the limitations of that tool so i would say instead of learning a specific tool to my younger self i would say learn how to learn about tools then the tools won't matter anymore okay and at some point you will be able to build the tools yourself nice if you understand truly what you're doing and you have a goal in mind that's a design problem and you're a designer good news right you'll be able to design that tool yourself and to to go where there any any available tool

23:35won't do the job you'll be able to go ahead and solve that problem and maybe offer that solution to the world as well yeah that's that's nice and uh what will you what you wouldn't tell your younger

Success and Luck

23:48self i'm not sure i understand the essence of that question right um okay let me try to explain there are there are things in the world that if you knew you wouldn't do it but were important for you to do because they taught you very important lessons like in your life in your career what you wouldn't tell yourself because you knew that you wouldn't do if you knew the outcome but on the other

24:18side were very important for you i'm yeah i'm really uncertain how to answer that question okay i mean i think it goes back to the mistakes we make okay and maybe i've been lucky and the mistakes i've i've made so far in my life have been recoverable okay i see like like for me for me that would be like don't try to like uh i i know have a entrepreneur vein but if i knew how hard it is to become an entrepreneur i

24:55would never try like ever but like trying to become an entrepreneur teach me how to become a better designer because i'm not impressed by pixels anymore i know that people have to make sense like i have to be have to make money have to have a purpose have to be part of the whole business spectrum and i will never learn that like from books i know you can learn that by reading but sometimes experience teach you better and uh yeah if if if someone asked me what i wouldn't tell myself is like uh don't become

25:36entrepreneur i will let myself be fooled by how easy it is to become an entrepreneur

25:44so yeah oh so is the question what would i tell myself not to do yes oh oh what would i tell myself not to do i mean i i in terms of the paths that i've gone down in my life yeah i i don't have i don't yeah i don't think i have like significant regret okay i've had a few bad

26:16i've had a few bad vacations here and there okay um but you know we live and learn i see i see so like in talking to your younger self how much your current professional success would you attribute to hard work and how much would be luck i would i would attribute you know a fair amount of of my success to to luck and privilege um i was born in a country with a strong economy

26:47and strong social net and with middle class parents who knew to send me to school i'm gonna attribute all of that stuff to luck okay and it's it's not that i didn't work hard right i've i've worked very hard to get where i am now and i was very lucky to get where i am now and i think it is a combination of both so bf 50 50 sure sure um it's interesting that you're using the word luck and not the word

27:19talent uh i don't i don't believe in talent i think people are interested in something and spend time and develop skills and that's what other people perceive as talent and they don't see the hard work that goes behind it really okay

27:38but in terms of luck in terms of things i did not choose i do think i was quite lucky i see that that's fair uh okay so like to close do you have any specific questions for me or whether there is anything that you expect me to ask and i didn't what do you do with all these people answering questions where does that take you what journey does it take you on okay first of all uh

28:10i really enjoy talking to people to new people uh like every every new person i talk to introduce me to a completely new world of ideas and thought process and i'm kind of obsessed with learning new ways of doing things so that's that's personal that is the first one and the second is being able to share all this knowledge because i believe that if each of us teach a bit of what we know to the next person we're gonna become a bit better as a as a as a professionals first of all and secondly as

28:46a person so i think it's a like sharing knowledge process and trying to build a strong network with great designers around the world so yeah it's most mostly about learning and uh what i'm planning to do like is to compile all the episodes uh the idea is to have around hundreds episodes uh and uh i'm gonna compile them into a book like with the like the best insight that i've collected

29:17talking to all the people that i'm talking to and continuing to record more episodes after that and see where that's gonna take me yeah yeah that's a very it's a very uh lofty ambitious goal and it's great that you you you do aim to share everything you gain from this back into the world yeah definitely i think uh it's like uh i know we we like i usually ask myself what we came to do in this world like it's really hard to answer that question but while i'm looking

29:53for the answer like like the most honest answer because i haven't yet i'm gonna be sharing what i know and what i've learned yeah so yeah that's what i'm doing this that's great well looking forward to the book yeah like it's gonna be a lot of work because it's gonna be really hard to to select what to not add to the book because like i think everything people say it's different

30:25it's new it's a completely and you know what makes things interesting is because of the reality that people are surrounded like when i talk someone in latin america and then when i talk someone in new zealand and then someone like from canada they can answer the same question like in a completely different way i'm like oh okay so there is a multiple ways to see the same thing and not knowing what to add and know what to remove is going to be a really big challenge

30:57i agree it will be a big challenge yeah yeah well thank you for doing this okay perfect uh so alex thanks for your time i really appreciate it and uh i'll see you next time