#163 - Creating Mindful Product Experiences with Jay Vidyarthi of Still Ape

Jay Vidyarthi [00:00:00]: Being a designer meant making a change in the world. And I felt like I wanted my design work to make changes that move the world in a direction that aligned with my values. And that really kind of forced me to look inward and be like, well, what are my values? Because I was like my early 20s, didn't know what they were. And I knew from my own upbringing and from I was starting a practice of meditation at the time. And I got, I was like something I definitely think the world needs more of is inner peace and well being and mental health. And frankly, already at that time, I mean, this was decades ago, but it was already kind of clear to me that technology was kind of at best neutral and worst actually making us less sane. So that started me down the trajectory of being like, okay, well how do I apply these skills and practices of user research and design and information architecture and UI to projects that actually bring mental health, well being and even, dare I say it, mindfulness to the foreground? Erin May [00:01:02]: Hey, this is Erin May and this is Carol Guest. And this is Awkward Silences. Awkward Silences is brought to you by User Interviews, the fastest way to recruit targeted, high quality participants for any kind of research. Hello everybody and welcome back to. Welcome to Awkward Silences. Today we're here with Jay Vidyarthi. Jay is the founder at Still Ape and an author. New book is out so we'll be sure to link that and send you there so you can check that out. Erin May [00:01:37]: Today we're going to be talking about creating mindful product experiences. So really excited to bring together the topics of mindfulness and product development in UX research today. And thanks for joining us. Jay Vidyarthi [00:01:48]: Thanks for having me. This is exciting and I'm a regular user of User interviews, so thanks. Some nice full circle action. Erin May [00:01:54]: Love to hear it. Love to hear it. We've got Ben here too. Carol Guest [00:01:57]: Hey everybody. Erin May [00:01:58]: Welcome, Ben. All right, so let's jump into it. So Jay, tell us a little bit about, you know, there's such interesting winding paths to research and through it and we'd love to talk about your background in UX and what moment led you to pivot more toward products related to mindfulness. Jay Vidyarthi [00:02:15]: Yeah, I mean, I started my career as many of us falling in love with the tools of UX and ui. At the time, UX wasn't really a term. I was a usability specialist. So we were really focusing on interface usability and I love the process of user research. Like I just, you know, and I was kind of good at it, which is always good when you're young in your career and you find like, oh, you know, I can have these conversations, I can empathize with people while simultaneously keeping the project strategy in mind and really notice when they're like, oh, they picked up on something and they said something quick. And I'm like, wait, wait, what did you mean when you were confused by that carousel? You know, like, you know, these little basics. So I kind of knew right away that I was a designer, but not in the, like, art kind of design. I was a designer in the architecture and research kind of design. Jay Vidyarthi [00:03:02]: But a couple of years into my career, I was starting to feel a little bit disillusioned because it felt like a lot of the projects I was working on weren't like lighting me up. There were probably, at that point, I'd probably worked on 10, 12 different projects at a boutique consultancy focused on usability. And two of them were really exciting to me. One of them was for the United nations, UNESCO and one of them was for the Canadian Institute of Health. And I'm in Canada. And a lot of the other projects were just, I don't know, some enterprise, something that didn't feel as much like true to the promise of design to like, make the world a better place in some way. And, and those are projects that balance the realities of systems and society and incentives with some sort of bolder vision. And so I didn't have the word for it at the time, but I knew that, like, being a designer meant making a change in the world. Jay Vidyarthi [00:03:55]: And I felt like I wanted my design work to make changes that move the world in a direction that aligned with my values. And that really kind of forced me to look inward and be like, well, what are my values? Because I was like my early 20s, didn't know what they were, and I knew from my own upbringing and from I was starting a practice of meditation at the time, and I was like, something I definitely think the world needs more of is inner peace and well being and mental health. And frankly, already at that time, I mean, this was decades ago, but it was already kind of clear to me that technology was kind of at best, neutral and worse, actually making us less sane. So that started me down the trajectory of being like, okay, well, how do I apply these skills and practices of user research and design and information architecture and UI to projects that actually bring mental health, well being, and even, dare I say it, mindfulness to the foreground? And that was the pivot point, I guess, which was your question. Erin May [00:04:54]: Yeah, yeah, great. Carol Guest [00:04:56]: And Jay, that's why I'm so excited to have you on, because this is not only a popular topic professionally, as we'll get into, but lots of folks personally, as you alluded to. They may have mindfulness practices. They may use some of the mindfulness tech that we'll be talking about. What does it mean then in practice to have, and forgive me here, a mindful approach to UX design? What does it mean to be a mindful UX researcher? Could you unpack what that means? We'll get to personally our own relationships to technology and the digital landscape, but if we could just focus on being a practitioner, a UX practitioner. What does it mean to have a mindful approach or to be working on mindfulness? Jay Vidyarthi [00:05:34]: Yeah, I think there's two ways to answer this question. The first is like, no matter what you're working on, are you taking a mindful approach to the work? And then there's the question of like actually working on Elements technologies, applications that are related to, well, being. But I think the foundation of being able to answer this question is like, what is mindfulness? I wonder, Ben, do you have a sense of what you think mindfulness is? Or Aaron, do you have a, like, what would you say again, we're not looking for an academic definition or anything like casually, like, what does that word mean to you? I mean, it's on the COVID of Time magazine. It's being thrown around, like, what do you think it is? Erin May [00:06:10]: I love that. Putting the question back. The first word I think of when I think of mindfulness is presence. Being present. Yeah, I tend to associate those pretty closely. Not checking boxes and going through the motions, but actually showing up for the moment in your life. Jay Vidyarthi [00:06:25]: Absolutely. That's a huge part of it. Ben, do you have anything to add? Carol Guest [00:06:28]: Presence came to mind. Thoughtfulness about all of the parts at user interviews. We think a lot about recruitment and how that's not something that you just check that you should be mindful about the people you're recruiting and wanting to hear and learn from the process that they would take from raising their hand to being put into a project. So that's kind of what it thinks of for me. I have that researcher's mindset where I'm pulling apart the processes and all of the practices that go into a thing as quick as recruitment. I don't know if that's beautiful. Jay Vidyarthi [00:06:57]: This is a great foundation. I'm glad I threw the question back. That's great foundation for us. So obviously people have been meditating for thousands of years. It's been part of spiritual practices. So mindfulness is Kind of referring to the past 50 years. It's a translation of terms. But what I'm referring to when I use the word is about 50 years ago, it started to get applied. Jay Vidyarthi [00:07:17]: There was this guy, John Kabat Zinn, who brought it into the hospital setting. And that was the beginning of a journey of academic research and understanding. And there's a lot of different definitions of it, but most of the definitions include a couple of main factors. One of them is, yes, presence or awareness, which is this grounding in the present moment, like not lost in conceptual layers, which in everyday life we know is like the layers and layers of thinking. But when it comes to design project in an organization, I think we can all relate to the layers of abstraction, of teams and projects and conceptuality that disconnect us from the real human beings that we're trying to serve in our work. Right. A second element that's usually common is some element of clarity, which we could define as, like, seeing things as they are seeing things clearly. And so, yes, that is relevant for our projects because do we really see what our users are experiencing? Do we really. Jay Vidyarthi [00:08:13]: Are we just trying to check the boxes like you said, and kind of like get the validation of the place we want the project to move? Or are we really seeing what they're actually experiencing? So, for example, if we design something, what role is it really showing up in their lives beyond just converting a purchase or a subscription? Like, what are we really doing in the world? Here is a part of that. And also I would say part of it is clarity on your self awareness, your understanding of your own motivations and your organizational incentives that might be driving a product to be, for example, stickier than might be good for your user, which we'll get to, I'm sure. And the third component of mindfulness that's often included is something related to non judgment or equanimity. But you can also bring in words like kindness or care or compassion. But the idea is something along the lines of like, you know, not sensationalizing the way you approach the world. So for example, in this moment, you're on a podcast, you're listening to a podcast, you hear my voice, you hear some ideas that are coming through these words, and it can very quickly become like, I like this guy, I don't like this guy, I like this idea, I don't like this idea. Mindfulness. What a bunch of gobbledygook. Jay Vidyarthi [00:09:31]: Or like, oh, mindfulness, I love this stuff. Or, you know, and that's all like preference. And so obviously preference is important for us. But the question is, are you able to also let go of that and hear things that are actually happening and have some sort of awareness of your own preferences? Putting a layer so go to a design project, ask your stakeholders to watch a user interview and what you'll see is a lot of them are just looking for the data points that support their belief. And like, how do you create a situation where your team it's like a safe space for people to disagree and for us to challenge assumptions of the project and to see things as they are. And, and the key to all of that is awareness. How do we create a situation where we're actually paying attention to what's really happening, seeing it clearly and maybe making space to let go of our judgments till after the fact. So to me this is all about the mindful design process and then it multiplies by 10 when the project you're actually working on is acknowledging that there's a lot of beautiful, amazing technology in the world, but there's also a lot of design patterns that can isolate us, can polarize us, can manipulate us, can distract us from the things that matter. Jay Vidyarthi [00:10:42]: So you take all of that element of a mindful design process, you apply it to thinking about the actual design work in a way that brings awareness, clarity and nonjudgment to the foreground. And I think you have some semblance of an answer to that question. Carol Guest [00:10:56]: Jay what I love about that is that I think here in the States we've had lots of UX research and design leaders talk about the importance of I'm using air quotes for our listeners empathy as one of the like tools that user research professionals have. But how limiting that can be, wherein if you're at that stakeholder table saying like we just need to have empathy for the users, that's difficult to translate into product roadmaps, budget headcount and what you just unpacked was a three part. I don't know if it I'd be interested to hear how you compare and think about empathy vis a vis mindfulness. But that what you just laid out sounds like beneficial for the person working on the product experience, beneficial for the person making use of the product experience. And maybe that's a more useful way to talk about what I think many user experience professionals, what brings them to the discipline which is improving things, making things better, making things work more seamlessly, making folks, you know, like there are some mobile dating apps wherein the tagline is we want you to delete our app. You know, like that's Their tagline is we want to help you so much that you don't need us anymore. And so I'm struck by how mindfulness and empathy, which is something we hear about a lot in the UX Professional as sort of a limiting frame. It sounds like mindfulness could be one wherein they get more inroads. Carol Guest [00:12:06]: You've talked a bit and we'll talk about the book and where you expand on this a lot more. You've talked about life experience versus something we've been talking about certainly a lot on awkward silences, which is user experience. What is the difference between life and user experience and why is that difference important? Jay Vidyarthi [00:12:21]: So one of the things that's interesting about our profession is that we all still walk around talking about user research and user experience, but 90% of us don't like the word user. Right? Kind of really funny that we found ourselves in this situation. And I was starting to think about empathy as one way to think about this, which is like, if you boil it down, you have the capacity to feel in some sense what another person is feeling, but there's no real valence on that. For example, I can use empathy to manipulate you as much as I can use it to understand you. I think one level deeper is maybe the concept of compassion, which where I'm not only empathizing with you, but I'm trying to understand your pain points and your suffering and I'm trying to make your life better. And I think design could benefit from more compassion and less empathy. And as we start to think what is compassion like, what is a compassionate design process, we start to recognize that most of the user experience work by definition because of the incentives of the organizations we work on. We not only focus on an individual in a moment of use of a specific application, it's not even the holistic individual, it's a certain identity of the individual. Jay Vidyarthi [00:13:30]: Let's say you're working on a SaaS platform, right? You're working on this individual's experience when they've got their salesman hat on, when they're using your platform for this brief moment of time with you're kind of like we say we're human centered, but like we're ignoring most of their life, we're ignoring their past and their history, we're ignoring their future prospects, we're ignoring their holistic being and what's going on at home and what's going on in their whole life. So already in the human centered design frame, we're kind of limited when we talk about user experience. That's like kind of the time axis and the kind of holistic axis, but then you can also expand to not just this person, but the people they work with and the team they work with and their family at home. And like, this is where we get to the word life, non human animals and the environment and the ecosystems we live in and protists and fungi and bacteria. And the first pushback you should rightfully have is like, okay, this guy is getting way too big for the level of incentives that we have at our organization. It's just not realistic. But as designers, one thing that, like, my mentors in the field of design have always done, that I want to carry the torch forward, is we can both, like, work within the structures of the system while also thinking about a bigger horizon. And to me, what life experience is is like a kind of futurist idea of what design could be in a kind of like, opposite of black mirror situation. Jay Vidyarthi [00:14:54]: Like, where design becomes like truly meets its full potential. Where the design profession could play this role of like, wherever possible within the constructs, can we reach outside of like, that salesperson and their unique identity just to get those conversions through the door into just some picture of like, what is the broader effect of this over time and over other forms of life, that holistic being and the other beings around them? So I don't know how we get there. I have no, you know, I run a consultancy, a design consultancy. I'm not selling life experience yet, but I'm talking about it on podcast because I think it's something that we need to start thinking about. And the one other thing I'll say is, like, design as a profession. When I think about the table at a lot of these big tech companies and even small startups, I do think we are in a unique position where we already are able to kind of like, speak to the deeper meaning of our mission and vision as an organization sometimes where we can kind of like go to meta and be like, wasn't this about connecting people? And like, what do we mean by connection? Like, it's usually the designer and sometimes the marketing team that can talk on that level. And so where can we bring in a larger framework of like, beyond user in the moment, but like life experience? Where can we kind of broaden our perspective in ways that are actionable and don't mess up with our systems and incentives? And then down the line, if we're in a leadership position, maybe actually messing up with the systems and incentives is a part of this. Erin May [00:16:17]: Jay, I want to ask you, I Want to bring something you just mentioned together with something you said earlier, which is you're talking about, these aren't users, these are humans. And when you're designing for them and having empathy and compassion for them, ideally you want to be thinking about the whole person and their context and their lives and et cetera. You also mentioned up top that when you're focusing on a problem, you want to kind of take away those layers of stuff, you know what I'm saying? And so I'm wondering, how do you practically balance a sort of big holistic systems thinking mentality and at the same time, like, strip away too much noise, which is what I heard you saying up top too, like get to the right scope of the problem. Does that question make sense? Jay Vidyarthi [00:16:59]: Yeah, it does. And you know, thank you for bridging those, that tension. And I think, you know, one of the principles we talked about around mindfulness was awareness. And I think it's relevant here because awareness relates to things like focus and concentration. And as we know in our projects, we have to narrow scope and we have to find the right level of impact that we can make with our work. And so I think that's the answer to the question, which is you're heads down, you're working on a problem, you've got a certain, you know, let's just take a real example. I'm designing an app for a startup right now that's in the mental health space, right? And we've got a very specific idea, very specific funders that raised on a certain pitch. We have a certain clarity right now. Jay Vidyarthi [00:17:36]: When I started to think about life experience, I drew a framework which I wrote an article. We can link it in the show notes, but it's like it's a two axis between time and biocentricity. So it's like past, present, future, and then it's like the individual anthropomorphic human versus the full biocentric. And so in no way am I saying that like every project needs to serve this entire insanely ambitious map of all beings. Like, that's a spiritual frame, really. Like, let's be real, like, we are going to try to use design to be of benefit to all beings. Like, it's very Buddhist in a way, right? But what we can do is look at that map for a second and look at our project and be like, is there some other point on this map where we actually have leverage based on who we are, our product, our funders and our organizations where we might say, hey, I'm currently designing for this, like, mental Health experience and the whole team are focused on, like, getting people to come back. Day one, retention. Jay Vidyarthi [00:18:33]: Day two, retention. But looking at this time axis is inspiring me like, there's a past for this human being as well, and we haven't done anything to understand kind of who they are and how that might actually benefit. Not only, like sticky engagement. Day three, retention. What about day 300 retention? And how do we actually. That number is not going to be 70%, but for the 5%, it is for day 300 retention. It's life changing. And so how do we bring that into our design process so we're not so narrowly focused? So I haven't looked at the whole map. Jay Vidyarthi [00:19:07]: I'm not thinking about protists and fungi, but the map of life experience has helped me at least broaden my perspective to one degree that fits the shape of my project. Erin May [00:19:16]: Yeah. And I hear you kind of saying you've got this bigger picture in mind and you've mapped it in some way. And then to your point about trying to really have a positive impact on people and systems, you're maybe not going to change it overnight with a small design, but you can have that in mind. And are you then trying to incrementally move toward that vision or how do you think about that? Jay Vidyarthi [00:19:35]: Yeah, well, I think really, as user research does, like user research, anyone who's done it knows that one of the superpowers of user research is to question assumptions. Right. You can do, you know one of the jokes I often say, because, like, there'll always be someone who says, oh, you're going to do six interviews. That's not statistically significant. Like, who cares about six people? And the thing that I always say to my potential clients is, I'll be like, no one ever asks that question after watching six interviews. Erin May [00:20:03]: That's right. Carol Guest [00:20:04]: Yes. Erin May [00:20:04]: Right. Yeah. And the point isn't stat sig. You're right, it's not. Jay Vidyarthi [00:20:09]: Yeah, that's right. Because assumptions get questioned, which is like, some founder is out there in the world with a certain belief of what their technology is and how people are going to engage it, and then they watch four people completely miss the boat on that. Erin May [00:20:22]: Yeah. Jay Vidyarthi [00:20:22]: And they're. Exactly. And then they're at least like, maybe I don't have everything figured out. And often, like, founders and leaders are people who are used to having everything figured out. But human beings are complicated and sophisticated and you never know what they're going to do. That's why you need to do research. Right. So similarly, life experience is a way of Thinking about this, which is like, listen, seven out of the eight hours of the day workday, you're focusing on user experience, you're doing user vision, you're doing ui. Jay Vidyarthi [00:20:49]: But if you get the team together around this campfire of like a bigger picture, even for half an hour, and you question some assumption of like the example I gave before, like, yes, we're focused on day one retention, but what if focusing on the past is what enables day seven retention? Erin May [00:21:04]: Right, right, right. Jay Vidyarthi [00:21:05]: Or, you know, let's take the biocentricity angle. Right? It's like, okay, so maybe we're not saving the environment with this mobile app, but what is the energy use of this app? And maybe we should be considering that, or, hey, we're creating something that has audio and what is that actually doing to the people around the person? We created something for the workplace and we may be disrupting the workplace by audio that blares or whatever it may be. So thinking about other beings other than just that user can question some of the assumptions in our project. So it's not so much as incremental as questioning assumptions and saying like, if this is a map and we're typically focused, like when you see the map, you'll see it's like this. It's kind of striking that most user experience work is this tiny little red dot at the large map of possibility. And so like, at least put one other red dot on the field, if not a heat map. Erin May [00:21:55]: Right. Being aware of those externalities in a proactive way as part of the design process too. Jay Vidyarthi [00:22:01]: Right, yeah. And that's where like, let's be real, the incentives of our organizations are not always set up for this, but we often do have the power as designers, even junior designers have the power to at least put one other red dot on that map. Right. But as you start to climb in your career and you start to be in larger positions, like I am running my own fractional product team in design. It's a mission driven organization that we say a lot of no because we only take on projects that are related to mental health, well being, mindfulness and compassion. We would be a much bigger and more lucrative organization if we didn't do that. But it's a kind of double mission for me. Number one, I just want to see more technology that supports wellbeing and mental health instead of destroys it, which is frankly a lot of technology. Jay Vidyarthi [00:22:48]: But the other thing is, I've spoken to members of my team who were just super excited to be able to work on something other than the kind of traditional path of design. And so like, you know, I'm not at the point where I'm advocating or influencing massive systems change at this point, but we each do have the ability as designers to make some influence in our corner of the world towards a broader perspective. And as I said before, I think designers are well positioned to do this. And we're also, we're a curious bunch and I think we're interested in the larger field of awareness, to use the mindfulness term. Like there are other beings on this planet and what if your design project could actually think about them? Erin May [00:23:27]: Awkward Interruption this episode of awkward silences, like every episode of awkward silences, is brought to you by user interviews. Erin May [00:23:35]: We know that finding participants for research is hard. User interviews is the fastest way to recruit targeted, high quality participants for any kind of research. We're not a testing platform. Instead we're fully focused on making sure you can get just in time insights for your product development, business strategy, marketing, and more. Erin May [00:23:52]: Go to userinterviews.com awkward to get your first three participants free. Carol Guest [00:23:58]: Jay I want to linger a little bit more before jumping into your book and some of the strategies and tactics you've talked about for our own relationships with technology and the digital landscape we find ourselves in. And that's on this incentives idea. Aaron and I, for example, on the content and marketing team here at User Interviews, we think a lot about maybe not mindfulness, but we're aware of our brand image, we're aware we want to speak to our audience in a way that shows we've listened, that we've thought about things that they care about. And lots of other brands and companies, not just user interviews, try to measure sort of brand sentiment, right? And it sounds like that's a kind of a marketer's way to look at like, do you like me? Are we giving things that feel like we're giving more than we're taking? For the UX designer and researcher, you've mentioned retention, which is a big metric for a lot of SaaS companies, certainly user growth, user satisfaction, usability, all these various metrics. Is that what mindfulness looks like for you when you're either helping clients or when you were an in house researcher? Are you bringing a mindfulness to an interview? Do you have a mindfulness metric that you're engaging? Forgive me for being so like, you know, are you just copying and pasting the word? I know it's not that simple, but what does it look like for an organization, especially one not in maybe the practice of building something that they could call mission driven or mindfulness or health related. What does it look like? Are they again, is it some sort of measurable outcome? Is it a new kind of practice? Is it socializing this with other stakeholders? What have you found successful? Jay Vidyarthi [00:25:20]: Yeah, I think there's a couple of ways to slice this. Like, fundamentally what we're working on does matter, and so that is definitely a huge part of it. But I hear in your question, let's put that aside for a second. Say, for those that are listening and whatever they're working on, how do we find this? I mean, it's really about keeping an eye on the big picture every step of the way. So obviously y'all are very interested in recruitment, right? And so recruitment can easily become a numbers game research ops, like, we just need to kind of get the people and hit the screener or whatever. But when you're crafting that screener, if you can take a breath, literally and take a second to just come out of the context of the narrow goals of this project and actually say, okay, who are we really meeting here and who are they more holistically? Like, maybe we don't just have to ask them in the screener the three questions, like, do you use SaaS software? Do you have a sales function? It's like, you know, what are your values? And like, do we have that understanding of our target audience more as human beings? Clarity and awareness of who they really are? Right. When it comes to structuring a moderator guide or designing a user interface. Right. Jay Vidyarthi [00:26:24]: Similar principles apply, like, are we asking questions in depth into like the deeper experience that people are having so that we're not just trying to tick the boxes in our design project, but we're open to being challenged and we're open to having our assumptions question and we're structuring the research in a way that people are comfortable telling it like it is. Right? Having that independent moderator who starts the session by saying, listen, I actually didn't make anything you're going to see today. I'm not invested in the project. In fact, you won't hurt my feelings if you tell me it sucks. Sure, let's get into it. Right? Like, that's like a mindful way to like meet someone where they are. Now, when it comes to UI design, dark patterns, light patterns, recognizing that designers are choreographers of attention, and attention is inextricably tied to well being. If you create something that choreographs attention, that can be a very usable flow, like a touchscreen, very usable to use a Touchscreen. Jay Vidyarthi [00:27:20]: But if you create something with a touchscreen for a three year old, this is a human being that is learning fine motor movement. What are you simplifying? That's actually not great for them because they're not learning a key skill that they need in that moment. Similarly, you can take that to an adult. You're working on social media. We're all feeling a bit of loneliness these days. And it's like, how do we make social media create authentic reciprocal relationships and not transactional relationships that someone who's feeling very lonely might get too stuck on? These are all kind of mindful, compassionate frames of approaching a design pattern. And then I'm also going to bring in the like practical organizational right. When you get to the end of a research or a design project and you're delivering UI and you're delivering a research report, I think there's a difference between like throwing that report over the fence and being like, I hope this changes things and then getting frustrated when nothing changes versus, for example, inviting those stakeholders to be a part of actually watching those sessions live, the popcorn or the latte and like sharing on Slack or in a boardroom while we watch together and really celebrating that. Jay Vidyarthi [00:28:28]: The way I like to put it is that like 50% of the positive outcome from a user research and design process comes from the report and the Data and the UI. And I think 50%, I really do believe this, at least in my world, 50% comes from the human capacity for empathy and compassion that influences downstream strategic decisions. Like we've all been there six months later when that senior leader is like, there was a research session with this lady, Barbara, right? Carol Guest [00:28:54]: And they remember the name or they remember the story. Jay Vidyarthi [00:28:56]: I don't think she had any of this and I don't think she's going to get this either. And that's like that sparkle, like, not to get too mindful, spiritual on you, but like that's that sparkle of compassion. It's not just empathy. It's not just like, oh, I understand you and so I can design something that works for you. It's like, I want Barbara to get this. Like, I don't want to leave Barbara by the side of the road. I want her to love this product. And I actually don't think that's counter to a lot of our organizations. Jay Vidyarthi [00:29:20]: Despite the incentives, that's what we really want because in our hearts that's why we do this. But also I think we know that day seven retention isn't going to float the company forever. What's going to float the company is people love the product, like deep product, market fit. And so we have to keep that larger picture. And again, it comes back to that clarity of the big picture. Erin May [00:29:39]: I love that idea of doing user research or exposure to user research is not just about the knowledge and the insights you get from the research itself. But if I'm hearing you right, it's really expanding your capacity to care about users in general, whether you're learning new things or not. Right. It's that, oh, I should really think about them as actual people here. Yeah. Jay Vidyarthi [00:30:01]: I have a great story to underline this if you'll bear with us. Stories that sound familiar? Erin May [00:30:05]: Yeah, we love stories. Jay Vidyarthi [00:30:06]: Okay, cool. So I'm running a design project. There's a company out of Toronto called Inkbox and they're doing these like Hannah based tattoos. So they're like not temporary tattoos like the ones for kids, but they are temporary. They last two weeks, but they look like real tattoos. Really cool company. They're working with me. They're doing a promotion around wellness and like, you know, positive affirmations for kids that are studying for exams and stress. Jay Vidyarthi [00:30:28]: Like tattoo it on your arm during the exam period and stuff. And at the time, they've since fixed this, but at the time they had like a metric on their dashboard which was like an error rate of like 20% or something like that, which meant that 20% of these tattoos were having to be resent because someone was making an error in application. Right. And they'd been running with those numbers for months, if not, I think almost a year. And we did this research session where, like I was saying earlier, instead of just like running the research and reporting, I gathered the whole team. There's a picture of it somewhere in a boardroom to like watch it. And I always make this metaphor if it's like watching a sports game. Like, you're all gonna cheer when the target audience member like gets it and you're all going to like have your head in your hands when they're confused. Erin May [00:31:13]: Yep. Jay Vidyarthi [00:31:14]: So everyone's sitting around the table and I invited the CEO of the company, a great guy. He's one of the founders, Tyler. So he's like busy, but he's going to come in at some point. I'm in the next room moderating these interviews. I moderate an interview and this participant, basically, long story short, she goes through the application process using our prototype. She puts the thing on backwards, which effectively means the stencil is on the wrong side. So instead of getting a tattoo in the shape of that she's going to get a big black rectangle. It takes 24 hours for the tattoo to appear. Jay Vidyarthi [00:31:44]: As the moderator, I keep a neutral stance as our user research friends, left, right. I'm, like, neutral and positive. I'm curious, understanding what's happening. I send her on her way and she leaves. I come into the boardroom to find that that was the session that Tyler came into the CEO. Everyone was really stressed because the CEO came in and saw, like, the disaster session. Everyone is super mad at me because they're like, I can't believe you didn't. You need to, like, call her and, like, fix this or whatever. Jay Vidyarthi [00:32:12]: And I was like. And like, why didn't you stop her? Like, you know, this is her arm, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, you have 20% of your hundred thousand. This is happening to, like, 20,000 people, folks. But it was that one person in that capacity for empathy that led to immediate actions to change it. Because of what you just said, it just increased everyone's capacity to care. Now, if I had just done the report and been like, the error rate on our session was one out of six, nothing would have happened. But because of that emotional exchange, not even the capacity for compassion for the target audience that was there, but, like, for each other and, like, seeing each other stressed and seeing my position, and I was stressed and they were stressed, and we have to work through this together. Jay Vidyarthi [00:32:57]: And we came to that conclusion that this is a bigger problem than we think, because the reason it wasn't being addressed was it wasn't that expensive to send another tattoo to these people. But it was a lot more of that. When you think not only about compassion for people enjoying this product, but also the downstream reputation of the product and the brand. Carol Guest [00:33:15]: Sure. Jay Vidyarthi [00:33:15]: Right. So it was a huge example of. I love the way you put it, Aaron. Like, it's that capacity for care being elevated. Right? Erin May [00:33:22]: Yeah. Yeah. Carol Guest [00:33:23]: It strikes me that that's one last thing here. And that's why I think sometimes gets lost in the conversations around democratization of design practices or research practices. It's less about having your product manager be able to, quote, unquote, do an interview and more about them understanding what happens in an interview like that or a usability session or an unboxing session that, like, no, actually, your engineering team is going to see that they're opening it backward or upside down because they don't know how you've designed it because they're not you. And so, yeah, Jay, I think it's a really Nice reminder of whether we call it empowering our stakeholders or democratizing these practices, that what you're speaking to is one of the great benefits of doing so. Not just that folks have a window into what it is that we're doing and ourselves as subject matter experts, but also that channel to that empathy and the mindfulness of the person on the other side of or the other side of the experience. Jay Vidyarthi [00:34:10]: That's right. And this is the design frame of something that's core to what we experience. Like I spend a lot of time in silent retreats and I meditate a lot and I do that practice. And one thing that it's dramatically changed in my life is my ability to show up for other people. Like when I'm in a conversation, to not just be in my head and thinking about what I'm going to say and you know, just in the conceptual nature, but like looking someone in the eyes and like seeing the color of their eyes and feeling their energy and I don't mean that in some kind of woo way, just like the way they're holding their body and like their tension and like how they're expressing themselves and like it's such a vital part of like my daily life to be able to connect with people and kind of fill my cup in a time where we don't have a lot of in person interactions, but I can have one interaction today and really just feel connected with that person. And it leads to all kinds of things like vulnerable communication and sharing. And of course the implication for our teams is huge about that. But I think what we're talking about is the design frame. Jay Vidyarthi [00:35:04]: It's not just about the data on the sheet and the insights. It's like there is so much that's happening in an in person user interview. And so when I hear like the AI conversation, well, we can simulate user profiles and have them navigate the app website and AI can just replace research because we have simulated. I'm like, you are so lost in the conceptual nature of this that you've kind of lost what the Zen people call non conceptual awareness. That there is actually so much happening in these user research sessions that's influencing our compassion, our empathy, our design choices, our product choices, our general career direction. That's so much deeper than what shows up on that Google Doc at the end. Erin May [00:35:45]: You know, 100% AI bots all the way down. We're not there yet. It's interesting. I remain highly skeptical of synthetic users. Jay Vidyarthi [00:35:53]: Me too. Erin May [00:35:54]: Yes, I'm going to stay skeptical there. Jay Vidyarthi [00:35:56]: Many good uses for AI and user research. Erin May [00:35:58]: Absolutely, 100%. We've talked largely about bringing mindfulness to UX to a pm, kind of a designer maker context within companies. Your book focuses on people in the world who may or may not work in tech, interacting with tech and bringing mindfulness to that. I wonder if we could talk about that a bit. Jay Vidyarthi [00:36:17]: Yeah, sure. So people who work in tech are people too? Erin May [00:36:20]: Yes, trying to be. Yes. Sing it, sing it, Jay. Jay Vidyarthi [00:36:25]: But the reality is I've spent most of my career on this street of focusing on creating technologies for well being. And again, like we were just talking, if you really pay attention to those people that you serve and you really think about that larger time axis of life experience and the overarch of their life, you as a representative of technology, I mean, you've got to have some questions about that, about like what are we doing in the world here? Like what are we bringing to the world? And I think what's happened in the dialogue around like, you know, some people call it digital wellness and like our relationship to our devices. Not only are our devices like polarizing every news and political issue and even our conversations at work, the issue of technology itself has become polarized. Where as someone who loves video games but also likes to go on silent retreats. As someone who works in technology but also teaches meditation, I found myself at some point at a unique vantage point where there's many meditation teachers wiser than me and there's many technologists more accomplished than me. But there was some polarization where all my peers in technology are ready. Not all, but a lot of them are ready to accelerate to the singularity and like wait for AI to just like we don't never have to work anymore, right, Because AI is going to. It's kind of idealist. Jay Vidyarthi [00:37:45]: But my peers in the wellness space, like wellness influencers and mindfulness are becoming kind of anti tech. That little six year old who played NES and learned how to code in basic, it's like heartbroken. That technology which has been such a beautiful part of my life and something I'm so endlessly fascinated by has become this, in society has become this thing that everyone is like, oh, the kids are all addicted to TikTok and blah. Carol Guest [00:38:09]: Blah, you know, like they need blocks, paper, pencils. Jay Vidyarthi [00:38:11]: Yeah, that's right. Carol Guest [00:38:12]: Everyone needs to go, which they do. Jay Vidyarthi [00:38:13]: If they want to, of course. But the point is that all these things, there's truth and there's falsehood to all of it. But as a mindfulness practitioner, I'm well studied in the middle way or In Western philosophy, what we would call the golden mean, which is this sense of like, where's the balance point here? And one of the things that I found practicing with this in my life because by definition as a tech lover and someone who wants to live mindfully, I've had to figure this out in order to sustain my life. I've basically figured out a whole bunch of different strategies to help navigate this in daily life. And that's what the book is about. But the high level of it is that we can set boundaries around problematic technologies without fear, guilt and shame around them. And we can fully enjoy the parts of technology that we actually love and get a lot of value from. Also without fear, guilt and shame. Jay Vidyarthi [00:39:07]: Without the fear that some large faceless organization is coming to ruin all our lives and Lex Luthor is out there trying to destroy us. Without the guilt that like every time I pull out my phone I'm doing something wrong and I'm like addicted. Like binge watching all these shame dripped words. And then don't get me started about our kids who may love video games and maybe they play too much sometimes, but we don't need to make them feel bad for loving something. And there is a middle way between that. So I could obviously go on for a long time about this. I wrote a whole book about it. But the idea of the book was to help everyday people find that love for technology again, but also give them the skills to identify the problematic areas and put skillful boundaries around that without beating themselves up about it. Jay Vidyarthi [00:39:53]: And also not beating their partner, beating their friends up, beating their kids up about it. We need to find that harmony. And I think the subtext of that is we live in an attention economy where every organization is competing for attention. And as I mentioned earlier, attention is inextricably tied to, well, being. Mindfulness is a multi thousand year practice that is all about reclaiming one's choice in where they pay attention. What could be more relevant in our modern accelerating techno optimistic and techno pessimistic polarized world than a practice that's about reclaiming attention and reclaiming your mind for yourself. Not to say that tech doesn't need to be ethically designed. Scientists need to look at this. Jay Vidyarthi [00:40:37]: Regulators need to consider their involvement. But we as individuals are not powerless to take some command of our minds in our own lives. Erin May [00:40:44]: A lot of attention on attention right now. Carol Guest [00:40:47]: Yeah, Jay, before we get to our rapid fire section, there's a lot in the book. We want folks to check it out. Please check it out. We'll link to it below. Is there one quick thing? I know that I don't want to reduce mindfulness to something that's quick, but maybe something that when you share it with folks who are new to mindfulness or want to get involved in it, that it is quite helpful. Is there a practice or a habit that they can a mindset shift? You just talked about boundaries. What might they start? Jay Vidyarthi [00:41:08]: Yeah, I'll give you a quick lightning round on a couple so the first thing is there's a lot out there, a lot of voices about what you should do, like get your phone out of your bedroom and disable notifications. All of those are contingent on whether they matter to you. And some people might be fine with a phone in the bedroom. Some people might be able to use TikTok in a fun, healthy way. Others might get problematically stuck on it. So step one is take a week to just pay close attention to your interactions with that with technology without trying to change anything, ideally like journaling or reflecting on like what was like to use your phone or like capturing that moment where you stayed up too late and whether that was a positive force in your life or whether it's against your deeper intention. So before you do, first become aware. Erin May [00:41:52]: Of that's that non judgmental observation you were talking about at the beginning. Right? Jay Vidyarthi [00:41:56]: Exactly. Erin May [00:41:57]: Observe, notice and move on. Jay Vidyarthi [00:41:59]: Yes, that's right. And what you'll notice is not only, oh, this one technology, I have a problematic relationship and I need to set a skillful boundary around, but there's another technology like let's say Netflix is just a net positive in my life. Like I love watching tv, helps me relax at the end of the day. And what you'll find is once you have that realization, you get to enjoy Netflix more because you don't feel guilty about it. Right. So the other piece that I wanted to sort of break off right from the middle of the book, but I've been on a bunch of like a book tour and like getting a ton of positive feedback on this particular tip, which is like most people can identify a specific technology that they have a problematic relationship with. Like you can think about that one thing that you have some guilt around that you feel like you use too much. And one of my mindful tips for that would be instead of trying to focus only on willpower to try to stop that or change it or whatever. Jay Vidyarthi [00:42:48]: One of the prompts I might ask you is to inquire within or even do some journaling around what is the deeper healthy emotional need that I am trying to satisfy with this technology. So, for example, if I'm playing lots of video games, is it a deep emotional need for play or is it a deep emotional need for control or for freedom? If I'm like, on social media way too much, is it like a deep need for reputation and achievement or is it a need for am I lonely? Once you identify that emotional need, brainstorm a list of five other things that you could do to serve that need in a maybe, ideally a more satisfying, more lasting, more holistic way. And what you'll find is if you follow some of those ideas, not only will those be extremely healing and satisfying for you because they're speaking right to a wound, but on top of that, when you come back to the video game, you'll be able to enjoy it because you won't be getting stuck on it. You'll just enjoy it as something you love. So those are some. Again, the book has seven strategies. There's lots of tips, but those are some little pieces to break off. Carol Guest [00:43:48]: Thank you, Jay. Erin May [00:43:49]: Jay, the book is Reclaim youm Mind. Yes. And where can people find it? Jay Vidyarthi [00:43:52]: So if you Google my name or go to my website, jvdr3.com, I have links to all the retailers. It's Amazon, Kobo, Indigo, all that kind of stuff. Erin May [00:43:59]: Great. Jay Vidyarthi [00:43:59]: Yeah. Erin May [00:44:00]: All right, Rapid Fire, what are a couple of your favorite interview questions? Jay Vidyarthi [00:44:04]: Who are you? Is a good one. Erin May [00:44:06]: What's your name? Well, or like, who are you? Jay Vidyarthi [00:44:10]: Who are you? Well, that's the name I like. Sense I'm getting here. Aaron. What I like about it is exactly what just happened to you, Aaron, when I asked it another interview question. When I'm asking, I like to ask people, like if you were in a casual conversation with a friend, like over a coffee or a beverage, and they asked you about this product or this app or whatever, how would you describe it to them? Like picture a real friend because you get this like non systematic answer of like what someone would tell their sister about this app. And it tends to elicit like really casual, realistic answers. And sometimes I follow up with like, imagine your friend was like skeptical, but you thought this would be a really good fit for them. Like, how would you convince them? And like, I love that. Jay Vidyarthi [00:44:52]: We've also had like marketing teams. Like be like, oh, that's what we need to say in our marketing, you know, because it's just casual. And then I think the other one that I really love is like, so, you know, like when you're doing like a think out loud procedure and people are Just kind of going free. And if you're doing it well, you're kind of easing back and you're letting the thing flow. One of the things that I love to do is just point right back to a very specific moment in the follow up interview. So like you're doing this like 5, 10 minutes think aloud and usually you have this scripted list of questions that you might ask after. I usually leave a blank for a contextual question for me or one of my moderators during the think aloud to take note of like a key moment and to call back. Like I noticed back when you were looking at X, Y, Z, you first clicked here and then you went back and you clicked there. Jay Vidyarthi [00:45:40]: Can you unpack that for me? Because what I love about that is it doesn't disrupt the flow of the think aloud. So we stay in the real scenario, but then we get to go really deep on a key moment that's of like high strategic relevance and we often get a ton of great value out of that. Carol Guest [00:45:53]: Very cool, very cool. Jay Vidyarthi [00:45:54]: Yeah. Erin May [00:45:55]: A few resources you recommend. Your book, of course, and some others. Jay Vidyarthi [00:45:59]: I'm a big fan of John Kolko and all the work that he's done around discovery and synthesis for like, early stage design projects. I also love Matty Hagan's Inspired. I find myself often using this idea, especially with startups, talking about these four things we need to validate as soon as possible on a product team, like market viability, technical feasibility, user value, user experience. I find that to be a really great framework, especially for founders and startups. I think I have to shout out the ideo human centered design toolkit as well. Like it's a tried, tested and true method and it's usually good for people who don't understand the deeper side of things around this design process. So I think that's a huge one as well. Yeah. Carol Guest [00:46:44]: Thank you, Jay. Erin May [00:46:45]: And where can folks find you your website? LinkedIn? Other spots. Jay Vidyarthi [00:46:50]: Yeah, that's right. Just Google my name like I said in my website, jvdanthu.com and yeah, LinkedIn's great too. I like to post there. Erin May [00:46:55]: Fantastic. Yeah, I'll spell it for folks. V I, D, Y, A, R, T H I. And we will have it on the website as well. So we'll make sure it's shown. Yeah. Jay Vidyarthi [00:47:04]: And if you Google JV mindfulness tech, I'm sure there's not too many other people. Erin May [00:47:08]: Yeah, you'll find. I have faith. I have faith. Just want to make it easy for the folks. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much. Jay, for being here. This has been a lot of fun. Erin May [00:47:16]: You've given me some tips and things to think about and I'm sure all of our listeners as well. Jay Vidyarthi [00:47:21]: Yeah, thanks for having me. And like, you know, on this book tour, I've been talking a lot about the general audience thing, so it's nice to nerd out with my fellow designers and like, talk about research questions and life center design and all that kind of stuff. Carol Guest [00:47:32]: So that's great. Jay Vidyarthi [00:47:33]: Love it, love it, love it. Carol Guest [00:47:34]: Well, thank you again, Jay. Jay Vidyarthi [00:47:35]: Yeah, thanks, y'all. Erin May [00:47:42]: Thanks for listening to Awkward Silences, brought to you by User Interviews Theme music by Fragile Gang hi there, Awkward Silences listener. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, we always appreciate a rating or review on your podcast app of choice. Erin May [00:48:07]: We'd also love to hear from you with feedback, guest topics or ideas so that we can improve your podcast listening experience. We're running a quick survey so you can share your thoughts on what you like about the show, which episodes you like best, which subjects you'd like to hear more about, which stuff you're sick of, and more just about you, the fans that have kept us on the air for the past five years. Erin May [00:48:26]: We know surveys usually suck. 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