Why being “Dad” has made me become a better UX designer
By: Diego Seara
Tags: Ux Design Process, User Experience, UX, Experience Design, Parenthood

I write this entry awkwardly on my laptop resting on my knees. More than 10 years ago I did the same and I wrote a love letter (via email, after all, I am almost a millennial) to the woman of my life. Today I do the same with a piece of her next to me on the couch. He’s a year and a half and he is stuffed with snot and drools and I love him dearly. And no, he’s not the only one, the other waits for me in an hour with a smile and hunger at the school door. Yes, we are a brave couple with two beautiful, empathetic and unpredictable children. And this is where the reason for this little article lies.

When I wrote 10 years ago to the girl who changed everything, I only thought about having her close and in my professional future. I imagined myself sitting on a throne of Swarovski glass while caressing a white cat and dedicated myself to tour the world giving thoughtful and brilliant lectures on design, creativity, and innovation. Yes, the ego of a graduate in Fine Arts knows no limits.

I have always liked technology and communication. I am a regular consumer of all kinds of blogs and publications about gadgets, software, trends, and design. I love creativity, good ideas, and simple things, so my love for what later would be called UX was a foregone conclusion. Yes, I was one of those people who were already UX designer before we decided to adopt the term on this side of the world… With this background, I forgot about the throne thing quickly but not about dedicating myself to my passion. I took advantage of every opportunity that was put before me to study, deepen and investigate. I drew a lot, I studied a lot, I asked a lot, I had a real nerve on several occasions and I left a lot of cash in training… but it turns out that I would receive the most useful lessons from my two snots of 4 and 1 year and a half that make me literally crazy. Come on, not even Nielsen.

Lesson 1. Design for the immediate.

Children are not patient. What’s more, patience was invented by someone who was never a child. If a child is hungry, he has it suddenly and without remedy. Improvise a meal with two macaroni and an egg, create a robot that bleeds fried tomato and with a bread brain. Your target is that. Do not wait to cook a paella because they will devour you or you will end up giving them pizza to keep them quiet.

Your designs are for now. They must respond for the moment they happen and they must serve for haste and impatience. Do not expect your user to be enchanted by your wonderful CTA’s or delight in a Nike style parallax featuring the latest Lebron Air fucker shoes. Sometimes it happens, but you have to design for what happens at the moment, to get your user to achieve what he wants in the shortest possible time. Our user is not always at home or on the couch enjoying our products; many times they are inside the car, on the subway or walking along the street avoiding dog poops. Let’s make it easy.

If they want to consult a train schedule they have to be able to do it before they miss the train to arrive on time.

Yes. Children and users want everything now and quickly.

Lesson 2. Stay updated.

Raise your hand to those who know Ladybug. Let’s see … few hands I see or few daddies. Yes, this seems like a truism, but sometimes we believe that we already know everything, after all, we have all been children and we believe that we know how they are. Captain Tsubasa and Dragon Ball are a hit, right? Well, no.

Now Ladybug, Paw Patrol, Dinotrux, Super Wings, … are the trend and they have nothing to do with what we saw. If I want to speak the same language as my children and their friends, I have to swallow Miraculous Ladybug and the wonderful world of Ben & Holly. Well, in our professional field is the same. After studying for a master’s degree you have to look for another one. Never stop reading. Add blogs to your bookmarks and devour books and case studies as if there was no tomorrow. Yes, we never stop learning. We have to continue talking like our users and as our customers.

Miraculous: Les Aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir. A French-Japanese-Korean series. WTF.

I am sorry. It is the price to pay for dedicating ourselves to something totally intrinsic to the human being; that it never stops changing.

Tip: Don’t just read about UX or product design. Sometimes we get inbred and miss out on the wonderful lessons we can learn outside of our comfort zones. In videogames, in films, in Hawkings’ books… there are solutions to problems that we may encounter long afterwards. True Stroy.

Lesson 3. Optimize your design processes.

This goes without saying. I have never considered myself very organized until now. Since I have the beasts in my life I have realized that the time that stops while you brush your teeth can be an eternity in the eyes of your year and a half child and create absolute chaos.

I can proudly say that I am able to wake up my gnomes at 8:20 and arrive at the school gate at 9:04 with both dressed, stomach full and, sometimes, combed. The secret is the optimization of daily processes. While I wash my teeth, I wash one’s face and the other pees. Then we change. Another is brushing his teeth and I take advantage of the fact that the other is without pants, to dress him and put on his uniform while he is still removing his scythe. Breakfast? Easy, the milk with cereals is ready 10 minutes before that, and the warm feeding bottle 15. At the same time, one, two, three. Breakfast, with Ladybug in the background and Ed Sheeran in the car on the way to school. Now I can say that I am organized.

With design? Well, imagine. Easy peasy after that. The processes are natural, chained and smooth as silk. Wasting your time watching YouTube? Are you kidding? I already forgot about that.

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

Lesson 4. Play as a team.

Do I do everything alone? Never. I’m a team player. What’s more, I perform two or three times better as a team, and it’s the same for all people. If you like to play lonely as a guru you are wrong; working as a team everything is better, more effective and more fun.

Mom is the one who best plays with puzzles. I am the one who plays fights and changes diapers. Tales are my thing and the bathroom hers. We both help with supper and we alternate on the song to sleep. Laughter is shared, obviously.

In UX this is key for me. Crew. The processes are complex, long and need a lot of passion. It is necessary to do everything as a team so those good products come out. This was always clear to me and now more than ever. All together (like a Power Rangers!!!!).

UX team in action

Lesson 5. A good story before going to sleep.

Storytelling became fashionable a few years ago in this business. Really? The three little pigs and the wolf exist almost since the Stone Age. A good story engages, keeps us attentive and makes us dream and believe; motivates, teaches and seduces us.

When I studied advertising creativity we were taught to cheat the brain and hook the consumer with stories to strain our brand. Now I’m on the good side. My stories serve to captivate the attention, but not to sell anything, to accompany my user to the place he wants to reach. My children to the land of Neverland, to the moon or to the T-Rex cave; the users to the option they need, to search in the middle of the chaos or simply to captivate. Stories are sexy. If you are a good storyteller you will be a good UX and you will also hook up more. I promise.

Practice your storytelling and test it non-stop with your most demanding users. Mines are 4 and a year and a half.

Photo by Picsea on Unsplash

Lesson 6. Help him get up.

The parks are filled with hyper-motivated moms and dads with well-learned Montessori lessons so when a kid falls we ask him to get up on his own. “Get up darling, nothing happens”. The child looks at us with glazed eyes and bewildered as if he was thinking “I have fallen heartless father and it does not matter to you”. In the end, he gets up alone with a big smile of victory helped by the cry of daddy or mommy “VERY GOOD SONNY BOY”. All this is great. But it’s not worth it. Not always. If my baby falls I pick him up, look at him, kiss the tears and I clench him in my arms. There will be time to make him stand up alone. Well with our users the same. If they fall, let’s help him get up. You have missed the password and the page turns red, or you cannot link the Bluetooth device to your smartphone… whatever. Let’s help him by saying what happens, how to solve it and helping him get up: “Your password must be alphanumeric with a capital letter at least”. “Don’t remember your username? Click here to help you remember it.” “Approach your mobile device and activate Bluetooth for 5 seconds.”

If they fall, we help them get up. The reason why they have fallen is already in the next lesson they gave me.

Lesson 7. Put railings.

“You’re going to fall if you keep goofing around on the stairs.”

To prevent them from falling we must prevent the error. Remind your user that the password has to contain numbers and letters before they enter it. Constantly communicate what is going to happen and do not leave them alone. Accompany them on the road and when they fall, hold them tightly. They will not stumble and we will get them to smile at the same time. With children is the same. ;)

Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash

Lesson 8. Disney Channel goes in the 8.

The usual. For them, it has always been that way. Star against the forces of evil plays in the 8. The Umii Zoomii on Amazon TV in dad’s PlayStation. If I change any of that, they go crazy. Well with our users the same. The logo of the header always takes us to the home page and the magnifying glass means to search. Do not invent and follow what you have learned, the patterns. Easy and simple. Keep it simple, stupid!.

Lesson 9. Recognizing is better than memorizing.

You are right. Making use of patterns is the best we can do. My children know that after their bath they eat dinner and then sleep. Always the same; if this changes they detect chaos, they get lost, they do not know what goes on and they start to destroy things (at least my kids). It is the same with our users and patterns is our best ally. Users recognize paths they have already travelled on websites or similar apps, they do it without realizing it because they recognize the pattern and do it naturally. “How easy it is to use this APP” they exclaim if we do it right. Ovation for the Service Design team.

What if I want to invent a new super cool menu that is activated by turning the device? Well unless you work for Google in the next version of Android you have it difficult bro. Your users will have to learn how to handle it the first time, and the second, and the third time when they already know it they will forget after a while… frustration, chaos, and destruction.

Lesson 10. The swings for older children are for older children.

My little son wants to do the same as the eldest, but I tell you, he’s barely walking and he wants to cross a bridge. Sorry, no.

With our products is the same. The swings for older children are for older children, and those for babies are optimized for them. With our products and services the same; focus on them for greater efficiency of use, think of the user and the business model and optimize everything you can use without losing sight of both of the two actors. It’s so easy once you understand it…

Lesson 11. The unpredictable becomes possible.

“Don’t worry, he is not going to fall over there, it’s impossible. His head doesn’t fit there”.

I tell you what happened? Sure enough, ten minutes of crying and a humongous bump on the forehead.

Many times we think the user will never do this or that. Lol! Well, if you think like this, you still have a long way to go write UX consultant expert and motherfucker service designer on Linkedin. When you design a process (with your Customer Journey I hope) turn it over a thousand times, look where it’s going, where it comes from, what happens if this or that … and surprise, all the mushrooms that appear to you (that’s what I call the unforeseen and unlikely) will make you think about that screen, that process or your KO pages. Yes, you will sweat putting handrails in your designs.

An advice? Test your designs with users one and a thousand times. Only then will you find all the forest mushrooms.

Photo by Providence Doucet on Unsplash

Lesson 12. Trees are always the same.

If my children draw a tree, they always do the same: a trunk and a cloud of leaves. And the sun with its eyes and charming smile. I love my children’s drawings and icons.

Since Susan Kare designed the delete icon as a trash can, there is no S.O. that does not use that design for that process of eliminating something (yes, Linux also my geek friend). Well, that’s the way it is. Red stop. Green forward. Yellow danger … So yes, icons are a universal language but beware, those that are common or that have remained as a standard; the icons that you have designed in your home for your website and that only you understand will need literals to help anyone who is not you. So if you need to draw a tree, draw it as my children, everyone will understand the first time. :)

Evolution of the Mac trash

Lesson 13. Are you sad daddy?

Empathy, empathy, and empathy. So until bored. That is the key to your children and yourself being able to understand all situations, understand and be able to comfort or give the right answers.

My children are empathic. It is a talent that is common in my small family and that I believe is more valuable than a mountain of gold. If they do something that I think is wrong, I get sad. I drag my nose to the ground, bend my shoulders and stay still and crestfallen. My children see me and quickly understand that my father is sad, and just in case, they ask me. I certify it and then they try to do something to restore my smile. Sometimes they ask me for forgiveness, sometimes they pick up what they have thrown away and sometimes when things do not go with them, they grab my head and squeeze me as I do with them. And then I smile, how not to do it, fuck.

Well, friend, this lesson is the one that you have to take to your product. Comfort your user and try to anticipate their frustrations and frustrations. Empathy is your main weapon in this design of user experiences. Put yourself in their shoes and make the rest also be able to wear yours. It works in both directions. Courage, it’s not easy but the reward is worth it.