My Dear Friends of Figma in Hello there config we’re from zendesk in melbourne australia my name is beau and i’m a product designer hello i’m emma and i’m also a product designer hi i’m rachel and i’m a content designer and today we want to talk to you about something deceivingly simple design.
Pairing design pairing happens when a designer and someone else from a different team be it another designer an engineer someone else jump on a call and share the honest messiness of their creative process often with a cup of tea in hand it all sounds basic in principle but it’s what’s going on underneath this.
Simple weekly ritual that makes it such an interesting point of discussion in this cultural moment of hybrid and post pandemic work we find ourselves in to help me unpack how design pairing came to fruition yes that’s the first of many fruit-based puns in this talk rachel emma and i are going to step through what happened that caused us to.
Kick off this experiment in the first place why we think it’s useful for your work and how you can take this idea into your own hands to strengthen not only your designs and product but your work relationships as well to start off with we need to lay the foundations as to why two people.
Intentionally designing side by side has such a different weight to it in 2022 a lot has changed in the last few years for what should feel like it was just yesterday 2019 may very well go down as the last year of normal work and let’s be honest it feels like a century ago but even before the pandemic hit a storm with a very little s was kind of brewing.
In our own team and it was starting to spread us thin our team was scaling and becoming more distributed not knowing who to ask for x y and z unsure of what people were working on separated from our colleagues by vast oceans and time zones i’m sure these are familiar experiences to a lot of us.
We knew discipline in both circulating work and forging meaningful connections was required so we could ensure our product looked like it was coming from a cohesive group of thinkers and also so we could feel as though we knew one another as colleagues on a level beyond pixels despite the time zone structures have been put in place and.
Culturally we were seeing this diverse team of creative thinkers work with and come to know one another really well but then the pandemic hit and we found ourselves removed from the social spaces of design thrown into a working from home model novel at first however removed from our.
Communal style of working the slippery slope into our own echo chambers of creative disorientation and doubt i began and doubt when you’re trying to design something is a horrible feeling this is how i’ve personally felt at certain moments over the last two years like i’ve been thrown into an edward.
Hopper painting it’s an image i’m sure we can all see ourselves in the loneliness and melancholy captured in his work has mirrored our physical and mental cells of light and our professional climate in a lot of ways as well for decades great design has been done around tables pens and paper and.
Relationships architects industrial designers even early software designers our design ancestors in some ways they all worked in social spaces where trust was born vulnerability slowly grew and critique became an organic occurrence in discussions likewise our modern day open offices have been designed for us to assume a.
Public posture which has us naturally moving into shared spaces for both interpersonal and work based incentives what are we to do when we aren’t sitting at the table anymore two years or so into the pandemic untethered from our usual way of working we’ve at times moved from public-facing design to inward-facing design it’s.
Become a bit too easy to turn work into a single player game when we’re together we design for our world but as solid individuals we run the risk of designing for ourselves which leads into problematic territory concerning bias and diversity just to name a few so with all this in mind we had to try.
Something new a lot of old structures and processes struggled to meet us in the season we found ourselves in historically these checkpoints have provided great benefit to the team larger group workshops critique sessions and so on but with interpersonal connections.
Struggling to forge trust levels diminishing as a result and zoom fatigue hitting us like a tidal wave speaking in front of 20 plus people on a zoom call some of who for new hires didn’t exist in 3d yet wasn’t high on people’s wish lists so what did we try well we tried this thing called design.
Pairing design pairing is an intentional recurring co-design session where two people work their way through the chaotic moments of the creative process before screen sharing kicks off these calls start with acknowledging the human in front of you even if time is short a.
Simple what’s new taps into something a lot of us have missed over the last few years knowing what’s going on with one another then the sharing starts the point of this call isn’t to show the glossy stuff straight away the point is to deliberately show up where you and your work are at be completely lost.
Confident anywhere in between just be real don’t be a work bot sounds pretty great right practically what does it look like well looks like this the standard zoom call and screen share combo this is christian by the way the content designer i work with we’re in our tuesday morning pairing sessions complete with his signature pink markup.
Notes this is the kind of messy sharing we’re talking about it could be a figma file like this with arrows and sticky notes it could be 30 variations of the same freaking wireframe because you’ve spent the last few days wrestling with indecision it could even be before visual design has taken place like this google doc.
That maps out the experience as a conversation between zendesk and our customer design pairing celebrates the mess and helps us refine our work and thoughts via its non-linear social nature from spending time getting to know someone on a human level to unpacking the wider narrative of what we’re.
Working on to finally zooming in on very specific design problems these calls curate an environment of unguarded sharing where your partner becomes familiar with your problem space and your favorite band as an example and a sense of psychological safety paves the way for deeper sharing to take place there’s more to it than just making the.
Design better the screenshot before doesn’t quite tell the full story it doesn’t show that we open these calls chatting about our weekends families music books and so on it doesn’t show the legitimate how are you going which inherited a whole new weight to it during the heart of the pandemic deliberate moments of authenticity.
So how does this help us make better products it’s easy to hear better products and go to places like great ux and ui scalability reliability and so on but behind these good things is a collection of stories involving unsung heroes these are some of those heroes which may.
Go unnoticed despite being foundational to getting a group of people excited and empowered to design something bigger than them with one another i can’t help but think that behind any great product is a team that has invested in one another via some of these attitudes.
We’re touching on happy people happy product we think design pairing is part of the new way of working i personally look forward to it on my work calendar especially when this tomfoolery is going down this is sonya rachel’s greyhound she’s performing what the doggos call.
The cockroach there’s nothing more traumatizing than seeing what you think is a dog fighting for dear life in the background when you’re trying to listen to rachel’s content design wisdom on a call small funny moments but they truly build something great with that out of the way i’ll pass on to.
Rachel herself as she further explores the why of design pairing thank you beau sonia says hi by the way and she looks forward to traumatizing you again in our next session so why is design pairing a worthwhile pursuit let’s go a little deeper into what we’ve.
Discovered over the past year or so of experimentation at zendesk we have over 100 product and content designers and it can be hard to stay across what all those other people are working on pairing helps us connect the dots with other projects and get a sense of how those other.
Designers are solving similar problems that means we spend less time reinventing the wheel and more time doing meaningful work if you’ve ever taken part in a larger review session like a design critique you’ll know that they’re useful for many things but often there’s only time to share.
Minimum context for your work resulting in a whole bunch of reviewers who understand just the surface level of what you’re working on with design pairing consistently you end up with one reviewer who’s able to dive deeper and get a more comprehensive understanding of your work.
When your partner is armed with all that knowledge of your problem space you get more considered feedback ultimately leading to more thoughtful design work beyond all the designers we work with there’s also all the cross-functional partners we connect with as part of our process.
And the great thing about design pairing is that it isn’t bound to the people with the same title as you anything goes with this simple framework pairing with these folks can help strengthen important relationships and also give you a better insight into how other disciplines work everything i know about figma i actually.
Learned from my product design partners during a pairing session let’s talk productivity often the meetings in your calendar become roadblocks to you getting your work done and with remote work bringing more meetings than before carving out the time to do your work is.
Harder than ever i know that when i look at my jam-packed calendar at the start of the week i feel totally overwhelmed but when i see design pairing in my calendar i don’t think ugh another meeting getting in the way of.
Doing my work i think great now i might actually get something done because pairing is a meeting in which you actually do the work it’s a real working discussion that moves things forward and results in tangible outcomes ultimately speeding up your design.
Process in her book called content design sarah winters describes pair writing as a way of getting through both the first and the second draft simultaneously pair designing is no different so let’s go back to design critiques sharing the messy inner workings of your mind at a crit can be difficult at the.
Best of times now add in remote work zoom fatigue and all the other fun stuff we’ve come to know and love over the past couple of years any feelings of intimacy camaraderie or safety that you might have felt while sharing a physical space with your.
Reviewers is now harder to find with that wall of passive zoom faces boring into your soul you’d be forgiven for feeling anxious under prepared and ready to chew your own arm off to get out of there but with pairing there’s zero prep.
Needed just show up as you are your partner is there to help create order from the chaos and figure it all out with you think of a design pairing as training wheels for your bike it’s a safe space to learn fail.
And explore ultimately helping you feel confident ripping those bad boys off and moving into the next stage of review so you you end up getting clarity while staying comfy we’ve all been there you notice someone creeping on your figmaphile.
Your heart begins to race panic sets in as designers we’re often predisposed to showing the pixel perfect designs rather than the mess but there’s so much to gain from getting comfortable with sharing your work and also yourselves.
Maybe even over sharing if that’s your thing with arriving at a place where we can allow ourselves to get messy and let it all hang out and pairing offers an intimate space to build that vulnerability muscle ultimately leading to a mutual feeling of trust and psychological safety.
Because when there’s trust and psychological safety everything becomes easier it’s easier to relinquish your perfectionist tendencies guilty and show imperfect work it’s easier to verbalize the stuff that keeps you up at night or at the very least keeps you from.
Getting your work done it’s easier to admit to the imposter syndrome that you might be feeling more often than not you’ll find that your partner feels the same way our colleague mata claims that design pairing has been her top aid against overthinking.
Personally my top aide against overthinking is watching an adam sandler movie but pairing is a close second design pairing is also one of the places that we now do the important relationship building work that more structured meetings don’t allow for.
Share netflix recommendations meet each other’s pets have an impromptu book club stave off the social isolation that so many of us have experienced the past couple of years it’s not just about the work this is where the water cooler moments now happen.
That’s a watercooler by the way no one understands my art so in a nutshell what we’ve discovered over our year of experimentation is that pairing is good not just for your work but also for your soul which means that we have a host of new unsung heroes to add to those that beau.
Mentioned earlier and we’re starting to see all the surprising ways in which design pairing can sneakily contribute to making better products here’s something i learned about emma hello during our pairing sessions as you can see her son is a gifted artist.
But also maybe loki hates me uh if you can’t read that speech bubble it says i don’t care about your friend i’ll try not to take it personally let’s hear from emma now on how the rest of the zendesk team feels about pairing spoiler they definitely do care about it that is right thank you.
Yes thank you rachel i think i think that’s because you’re not part of the cool club but maybe i can send you an invitation afterwards anyway back to the talk so it seems like people are starting to catch on to design pairing and rightly so.
Our friends at zendesk have been trialling this process for over the last year and it turns out they feel the same way about design pairing as we do we care deeply about creating big impact and it shows here in these numbers when we surveyed our team it was revealed that a hundred percent of them.
Felt more connected to their teammates since pairing and 75 percent of those chose the highest level of connection on our five point scale oh say hi to chris he’s one of our ux researchers connections aside cindy here shares her sentiments towards the benefits of.
Pairing and it’s a key ingredient to a successful design she says good design is the outcome of thoughtful consideration experience discussions and of course trials and errors.
Cindy gets the value of design pairing and it turns out the rest of our team does too overall the feedback has been incredibly positive so let the pairing experiment continue so as we know it covert added another layer of relational detachment zoom fatigue is a symptom we’ve all felt.
With a move to remote life in fact google tells us that turning our camera off is a very common search request and as i delved deeper i discovered there are so many hacks we can do just to avoid being seen but when our cameras are switched on and.
We are truly seen this is where the magic happens relationship philosopher ester perel tells us that true vulnerability between two people is not a mandate it’s a possible outcome that grows out of closeness and trust but being ourselves means we have to be brave enough to trust others.
And trust isn’t something that’s built overnight so how do i make it happen i hear you ask we can make it happen by understanding and modeling our relationship green flags when we see them we often feel safe heard and validated.
And comfortable to be our amazing selves so relationship green flags are the positive signs to look out for during design pairing sessions when they are present they provide productive respectful and meaningful discussions setting us on the path to pairing.
Success here are just some of the examples we embrace here at zendesk when it comes to connection we want to take the time to get to know our partner and when it comes to design we share our work no matter how scrappy the design is we lean into embracing friction it makes us better designers.
And we build better products and when you make time for fun as well as doing the design work in the session it’s the ultimate green flag value bundle design pairing leaves you feeling connected productive and energized.
Okay i am not going to lie being vulnerable is really hard it goes hand in hand with fear and i think fear is something that needs to be normalized our friend v talks about how you’re not going to die when you do public speaking and the same goes for this.
You’re not going to die in design pairing i remember in my first few weeks at zendesk trying to understand everything insert brain explosion emoji instead of telling bo about my messy work i wanted to take the opportunity to show him the work.
I mean take a look at my design files when i first started pairing with bow i had millions of questions trying to understand technical terms intentionality grid systems and components what i liked about these sessions is that we were comfortable enough to say hey i really don’t know the answers to.
This thing let’s work it out so in the end i didn’t die from design pairing in fact both saved my life and when you bring design pairing into your process these unsung heroes become major players in the orchestra of product design okay i know we’ve covered a lot just now but i wanted to recap on where we are.
Today we all know the way in which we work has changed forever this folks is what i have been wearing for the last 237 months my covert fashion mood board includes exploration of textual fleece vibrant colors.
Oversized pockets and elastic waistbands but that is not the cultural reset we’re talking about here this is the cultural reset we’re talking about design pairing is something you can start today well maybe after config is wrapped up.
Here’s what’s worked for us just find a partner set up a meeting and show up simple but the beauty of design pairing is that it can be anything you want it to be customize this template and do what works for you and your pair okay i will now pass you on to the.
Person who saved my life thank you so much but before i do there’s something you have to know about beau he makes really cool keyboards i’m not really sure what the fancy dials do i’m sorry but i’m totally here for the design so here he is thank you emma for broadcasting my weird.
Fascination with expensive pieces of metal and plastic for the world to see i have no shame though shout out to the mechanical keyboard gang especially the zendesk crew as the saying goes no idea is new in art history towards the late 19th century salons and cafes were hubs where creatives and thinkers gathered to share.
Their work in 1920s paris novelist and art collector gertrude stein opened her salon to the likes of scott fitzgerald ernest hemingway picasso and matisse the space she created enabled them to engage in open discourse about their work which impacted their art it was their own moment of escaping the echo chamber have we in 2022 come to a new salon moment.
Where designers look above and beyond their buddy on slack to their wider workplace and creative circles instead has hybrid work given us an opportunity to come full circle and make design more of a social exercise than it has been in recent memory let’s be real design pairing in essence is a simple method of open thought and.
Screen sharing nothing groundbreaking however everything about its core nature represents inherent value the forging of authentic human connection the emerging of trust and vulnerability through those connections and how these facets make us feel safe to show what we think is messy and bad and know that something great will come next.
Together these qualifiers cultural hallmarks of teams that create better products all you need to do is find a partner make a regular meeting and show up as you are and see the fruit that comes out of these sessions to our friends zendesk thank you so much for helping us bring this talk to life and your.
Investment in us we hope our pun-based humor didn’t push you too far and defigma thank you for inviting us here to sf to speak we’re so grateful and finally thank you viewers from all around the world for joining us today we’re looking forward to seeing where design pairing leads try it in your own workplace and if you do reach out to us.
Online and let us know we’d love to hear your stories we hope you enjoyed the rest of config
Your company is growing. Your designers live all over the globe. You’ve been working remotely for what feels like 237 months …
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