Is a design system a product? - podcast episode cover

Is a design system a product?

Sep 20, 20222 hr 33 minSeason 4Ep. 11
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Episode description

It seems that people are very often confusing a Design System with a component library. The differences are nuanced, drawing the line between those two will be hard, and there’s no right or wrong — but maybe this story might help us understand those differences a little bit better, and maybe it will help us understand the effort it takes to build and maintain a Design System.

It is more than just a UI Library. The whole purpose of a Design System is to define the design principles, style guide, patterns, content tone, and the rules and specifications of the “reusable” components. These rules are very specific to the product and can differ from company to company.

When does a UI library turn into a design system?

For a design system to thrive and survive, it needs a sufficient level of management:

  • Who’s making the decisions? Modern design systems have a product manager who’s driving decisions, assertively aligning with partners, and serving as the go-to person.
  • Who’s doing the work? Sustaining a design system can involve a significant amount of design, development, writing, and other work done by people committed (at least partially, > 4hr/week) to the endeavour.
  • Who’s paying for it? It’s near impossible for a system to survive long-term without a sponsor deliberately providing a budget in the form of properly allocated time.
  • What are each of you working on right now, and where do you record and prioritise things you might work on later? Yup, time for task management, which many high-performing teams increasingly formalise into a backlog over sprints using tools like Trello and Jira.
  • What can your customers (products using the system) expect over the next 6–12 months? Don’t discount the power of an effective, concisely communicated system roadmap. It generates awareness, discussion, faith that you’ve got your act together, and trust that what you do provides for what they need. 


A Design System isn’t a Project. It’s a Product, Serving Products.

 

Discuss!

 

All this and more are answered in this episode of Faster Horses.


🐎 80% comedy, 20% UX, 0% filler

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PEACE!

Produced by:

Paul Wilshaw

Nick Tomlinson

Mark Sutcliffe

Anthony Jones

Chris Sutcliffe

Title musi

Support the show

All this and more are answered in this episode of Faster Horses, a podcast about UX, UXR, UI design, products and technology (sometimes!)

🐎 80% comedy, 20% UX, 0% filler

👕 Get stickers and tees at https://www.paulwilshaw.com/shop/

The show is hosted by:
Paul Wilshaw
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulwilshaw/
and
Mark Sutcliffe
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sutcliffemark/

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Transcript

Mark

Well, let's talk about UX.

Paul

Yeah.

Mark

So how... woo

Nick

Yeah.

Mark

who's in charge of today's session,

Paul

the, ghosts in the machine.

Mark

the little UX Gremlin's

Paul

Yeah. Yeah,

Mark

this sound goes on a bit

Nick

right, settle, settle down now.

Paul

I know. Yeah. We've that? It's that extra listener we've got,

Mark

Not

Paul

just in. yeah,

Mark

Bloss in our common sense

Paul

Yeah. In a very echoey room, so So thank you. I we've now got three listeners, appreciate that.

Mark

Love it Love Yeah. today we are actually.

Paul

do some UX.

Mark

we're actually continuing on from, last week's session. No. anyone remember last week's session What the fuck talking Oh no Yeah And definitely not definitely not, an

Nick

boy what was last week session

Mark

haven't got a,

Paul

it's a little bit of a continuation and a bit of a different topic as well. So it

Nick

at the end of at the end of the last episode mark launched into a really good point and It was so good that I was like we could probably talk about this for another hour

Mark

right there. Mark.

Paul

yeah

Nick

not giving away this free content

Paul

yeah,

Nick

the one episode yet So um mark kind of paused the question didn't they That it or is design system product that needs separate consideration why why is the answer Yes

Mark

yeah. yeah It's good to know. Is three white men all agree on something, you

Nick

Yeah

Mark

UX?

Nick

Especially if it's something that benefits us

Paul

Well, that's only a intro.

Mark

yes, of course. I forgot we have do this but

Paul

Oh Yeah. a polished

Nick

turd

mediaboard_video

sound design and development teams. A box please. Another well-known brand will lots of rewards a few. Nick Tomlinson X designer, best investment company. And lead. You find it in the digital mesh. Yeah.

Nick

I never really before oh

mediaboard_video

technology fully. Why don't we pick apart the product objectives, service we'll place a special. From Bolton. Okay. This question is on Twitter. No

Nick

Thanks Paul yeah I've never noticed before but. I sound high off my ass in that in that clip

Mark

I, to be

Nick

Yeah

Mark

know if I've ever been around you when you've been high off your ass.

Nick

I have not been high in ever if you're listening mom

Mark

yeah Oh no, no. In a previous episode we asked to 10 doesn't give a shit about this podcast. So you can say what you're like,

Nick

yeah. no I haven't been high since Like probably uni which was quite some time ago now

Mark

gosh, was black and white back then.

Nick

Yeah According to that person I heard on the bus that time Yeah

Mark

The bus, it was called an omnibus it was, you know, a horse, horse legs and the wholesome Plath crap, crap. That's someone else

Paul

well, Jim, generally there is horse crap around.

Mark

Yeah I also appreciate that as you went oh, you didn't realize that there was more to the intro through

Nick

I've only heard that intro a thousand times

Mark

you nearly straight up killed Paul lineally drones on these sunny delight or whatever it is. He's drinking

Paul

God, I didn't realize. Oh, there's more so,

Mark

Yeah

Nick

a

Paul

yeah.

Nick

that I wrote the

Mark

Yeah I'm recorded. Yeah. Wonderful. So, yeah.

Paul

Love it.

Mark

Okay, lovely

Paul

Cool Is,

Mark

design system as a product. Is

Paul

is, a design system, a product? Yes. Why

Nick

product

Paul

a product?

Nick

That's the duct That's the thing under your eye produces Prague

Mark

yes. yeah, yeah,

Paul

And, it's the, it's the pro version. So you got extra features.

Mark

yeah, yeah, but you have to pay it you have to pair for it the ducks

Nick

You get to use the features

Mark

not going anywhere trying desperately to get him back on track So, so give a bit of context last week. The word is started that, last week's discussion last week's topic was, off the back of us, Nick you asking, what goes into a design. I think the short answer you know, it depends on how you at the word design system, ho ho inclusive.

You want to be and where you are within your But we quickly on the stewards came to an agreement that a product can, a PR design system can contain almost anything. and it can be owned by various people. It's more than just your component library is greater than the sum of its parts, et cetera, et cetera, but then comes the question of how you manage that how that delivers value. And that's where I'd say the question.

it a product from, it's at that point that I would pose that question to and Nick, but next just left the room. So Paul

Paul

it's a good question. Cause I say a lot of places, a lot of companies don't consider the design system as a product, which I can understand because it's not that tangible. But, at the same time you'd pay, I, say a CRM, like Salesforce or there's others. I'll if you please want us to do a promo, Salesforce will ability to do that. And, but if you wanted to have a CRM.

That adds value to your business because it streamlines sales, it puts all your customers in one place, kind of like, you know, kind of manages the whole life cycle of, that, pipeline. So that's product, but yet a design system quite often isn't considered a product because I don't, I think a lot of it is people don't quite understand what a design system is or what the value of it is. some of the stuff I've been doing recently is to say actually, design system is a product.

It is something that

A. you can either offer to your customer or worst case scenario. It's an internal product. That helps you innovate faster, streamline your development, streamline design, reduce risks, and enable you to get to market faster. and, like, if someone who came along and said, I've got product, they'll make your products, you know, make, you reduce 10% of your overhead of products. it'll cost you, two grand a month.

Businesses would snap your hand off of that because it's a, it's a massive cost saving. It's a, and I think, but I think when some of the problem is you have to put in that effort from. To, to make it a product, but then it can become kind of automated or, you know, self self-governing, those kinds of things that when it really adds value. And I think that's the, that's the key.

Nick

Yeah. If could that's the thing is the business like try to sell it into a business Your you're saying allow us to build this thing as we as we work Whereas you could buy an off the shelf product that was already done ready it to go they'd find it easier to sign that off and say yes to it Wouldn't

Paul

yeah,

Nick

of ties into a point that I think I made in like a episode from ages ago where I was like I can see Design systems becoming a an industry

Paul

yeah.

Nick

a a sales tool of of agencies and companies and stuff that just sell you a design system

Paul

Yeah.

Mark

Yeah. could investigate that as, a bit as a business idea and business model of, almost as a kind of solution to this, because one of the things that I've been looking into recently with my reading. And I'm kind of learning has been around treating your internal UX team like it's a business within the organization you're in now, this is very distinct from UX as a service, which is typically can be quite a bad thing.

it's mainly, kind of a, it happens at a, like a leadership level or a strategy level is about assessing risk and pitching things to, to, to people to get the, the overhead that you need the time and the runway that you need.

but it's, it comes down to this being instead of entrepreneurial, is that, it's a nice little word I've not caught in this by stretch, but, that I've been reading a lot of, but yeah, having, having the ability to say this is what you'll get and when, and this is the return that you'll get on that anticipated, no, is a really difficult thing to visualize because.

It's almost every other department within your company will have metrics that they measure against whether that's finance, whether it's product and product delivery, whether it's, hair char have, OKRs, KPIs, like that. It's a bit more difficult for UX to, measure that. There's actually, I think it's just because it's not, we've not been around for that long UX has been what, 20, 30 years old, when it started properly galvanize.

So we don't have the same laundry list of metrics that in positions where the metrics matter. and that's how they understand value, can understand what those metrics are to be. So that's something that I think we've got to figure out as part of this

Paul

Interestingly. So we're just doing a piece of work on this. In fact, we should get drew on to talk because Drew's done a lot of work. So,

Nick

Drew for the

Paul

yes.

Nick

audience

Paul

So Drew work with me, as a superstar UX researcher. And she's also Nick's better half. I would

Mark

is certainly

Paul

definitely say that.

Mark

Yep Because

Paul

Yeah.

Mark

thing is Nick's other better half is me.

Paul

yeah, true. Yeah. So.

Nick

in the equation

Mark

Which leads to the question, what's it like having two halves, both which you

Nick

think I'm about to have an existential crisis

Paul

so yeah, so I drew has been relayed to work on this. So we're putting in a, it's almost like think MPS of UX. So, an even though I could talk about the shittiness, sit on PS and sort of the dark UX. In fact, we should do an episode on this because there's loads to dig into here.

Nick

can't believe we've never done an

Paul

I know.

Nick

UX

Paul

Yeah, no, it's because

Mark

true.

Nick

I I must say I probably shouldn't say this but it's my favorite type of I I find absolutely fascinating

Paul

is absolutely fascinating. Well, let's get the, a ring of candles we'll right on the floor and chalk, we will couldn't drop the dark UX in a future episode.

Mark

Absolutely

Nick

Halloween

Paul

Oh, oh, oh, a little bit

Mark

I now challenge almost like a UX files are challenged, could be defined the darkest UX

Nick

Oh

Paul

Oh

Nick

And bring it

Mark

And,

Nick

a

Mark

the

Nick

just brainstorming live in the podcast now

Mark

Yeah. yes.

Paul

Yeah.

Mark

This is how the sausage gets

Nick

I was just gonna say exactly the

Mark

but she's the name of one of our podcasts. So I'll go

Paul

yeah.

Nick

go back and listen to that

Mark

Yep

Paul

it's funny. I was in a, to go off on a tangent, I was in a meeting the other day and

Nick

on this podcast

Paul

somebody used that phrase and I went

Mark

yeah Woo. Yeah, love it

Paul

they did. Yeah, they, they did admit later on this store.

Mark

good. Good, These ideas should be stolen

Paul

but anyway, going back to, can't remember what I was talking about.

Nick

talking about drew doing the Doah

Paul

the sauce. So the system usability scale, so think NPS of UX. So basically it's a 10 set questions and we get, our users to rate a product or service on those same things, questions that then we can do those once a quarter, once every six months and stuff. And then we get a metric of, this is the soft score of X product. And then we get, a good kind of flight. This, this is the roadmap for it that we can improve on there.

If something's got to ISIS, do we need to kind of light may look like dunk shifts by essentially performs. Okay, let's leave it. You know, it was something kind of like, could look amazing, but it's got low sauce. That could be our next thing to tackle. And it'll just give us that focus, but then it'll give us those metrics to then go, actually, because we've done this, we implement, this is the design system that's going to the, this has got the sauce on it. This has got everything else.

We'll have the metrics to back it up. And I think it's because I think a lot of UX is, comes with that designy fluffy of like, oh, it's a feeling it's a, it makes you feel good, but. With you. And I think this is the big difference between UX and traditional graphic design is it's how people interact with it. It's not just about how it looks.

And I still think there's that misrepresentation in the whole UX industry that we don't kind of everybody just kind of like, oh, it's design, more than design. It's a lot shit.

Mark

And,

Nick

Is

Mark

result, the very easily dismissed people don't understand and it's not, it's not being dismissed in the sense that no one has seen value in it. They're not just, they're just not seeing the right kind of value in it misaligned it with preconceptions about, graphic design, for instance, with being visually oriented. But much of what we do has got nothing to do with visuals. It's very

Paul

yeah yeah,

Mark

pattern driven and, and, you know, you use it driven ultimately. so yeah, I think a big part of, getting people to think of your design system as a product is first on a level of understanding of what UX is and what it's hoping to achieve. Now, one thing that I've noticed, cause we're, we're again, where I am. I'll just show where I am at work. I'm currently building the UX roadmap. Is happening on two levels.

And I think one is far easier to view a product than the other, but they both need to happen simultaneously. And one is what's happening, in UX a centralized way, basically the work we're doing on the design system, which is done by team, the UX team, everyone owns that in the UX team and something we're all working on. Then you've got the UX of the individual products.

And I think there's a key differential differentiator there that people in a product management or product ownership situation need to understand is that there's a difference between what goes into the component library, what goes into the design system and then how they ended up identify the UX required for those specific product features.

and that there's actually, these are actually two different things, which are very closely related, but ultimately, require a different, different kind of inputs from different.

Paul

yeah,

Nick

That's that's

Paul

Cool.

Nick

that you were talking about Is that something that you've come up with yourself Paul

Paul

No, no it exists, exists, sell direct. So it's a proven scale, so you can Google it.

and the good thing about a scale is that if somebody in like a competitor has used it, they've published this, you can actually the benchmark your product against the competitors, and you can then, even, even if they haven't got a published source, you can actually give the same scale to, you know, a, a user on a competitor can use it on yours, and then you can benchmark your products against somebody else's, which then becomes quite a nice tool to say, actually,

we are not performing as well as this. And then I think that that's quite an easy. Thing then to kind of go I'll look at the value of this, is that look at this, look at where we are compared to something else in the market,

Mark

so I think this, this needs to be positioned properly as well, because we actually did this a little while ago. it was, I remember it was researcher Dr. Maria Maria Panagioti that, did our SUS study for us? is it S U S, S O S?

Paul

As us.

Mark

There we go. Cells. We actually phoned that we're actually more usable than we anticipated. And this I think to be positioned properly because that if this is to be used as a conversation staff or not a conversation, and, it needs to be contextualized with competitors that we are doing better, or at least looking at the, how much you'll benefit from, okay. We might be at 60, 70% or however it's measured. if we were 80, 90, how much better it would be.

because otherwise you might have people go, oh, I'm better than average the whole thing then

Paul

yes Yes is. There is that worry as well.

Nick

that's One thing I wanted to say is like are all sorts of KPIs you can set against the performance and the improvements that the design system are making thing that worries me is that if you make your design system a product product owners get involved And then.

the the the danger then is that the tail starts to wa the dog and the efficiency of producing the components in the design system overtakes like building and properly and building accessibility and and stuff into a that's That's the thing that worries me the master think

Mark

yeah. I can actually

Paul

Yeah

Mark

completely. I've noticed that, as our team's grown, where there's no 20 of us UX designers and researchers in our team and that, so that doesn't include the UI dev as well. And there's even more of them. The process that we've had to implement, just because we've needed structure that happened over the lockdown, went across geography, across department, et cetera, et cetera has created a bottleneck. It becomes a different beast to manage.

and I think in one hand there's a symptom of growth, but I think, I think you're absolutely right. And that if you said did that too early on in the process, you'd get in your own way. It should be because you were focusing on not enough on perhaps getting something tangible out there initially to, to use and to prove and validate what it is that you're trying to achieve. you know, trying to do so much.

Paul

But yeah, there is another as well caveat with this as well. Cause it depends on, you know, you've got to take in some biases of the user and their adeptness. So for example, if, you gave her a SUS survey to somebody who uses Photoshop day in, day out, they would rate that very differently than if you presented that to somebody who just opened it for the first time. so there's those levels. And I think it's that he, you do have to be careful about kind of light. well does score is positioned.

I think that that's very similar to the, like an NPS though.

Mark

yeah. Yeah

Paul

kind of like, you know, if you gave an NPS survey to somebody who just had shocking user experience say, the, your mobile phone operator, Nick,

Nick

You saw my LinkedIn up there

Paul

I saw your LinkedIn runs.

Nick

it were even a ramp I don't think was it wasn't it wasn't long enough to be a ramp It was just it was just professional opinion as a UX designer

Paul

I just, you know, and if you gave her the NPS to somebody just out of bags, guns, then you know, that, that isn't, and this all comes back to the diet UX, which we'll talk about that future episode. And it's like, it's some of the people and kind of what they do that will give flight the highest scores, bigger numbers, bolded numbers, there'll be, make them more prominent.

And like just some of the things that's crazy, but I think, yeah, it's a good scale, but it's gotta be taken with a pinch of salt and it's more of an internal one to show how a product the design system is improve in your product suites or that, that particular

Mark

I think, I think there's a really interesting opportunity with this though, because you, you, what you identified though, was, you know, absolutely rightly two different Photoshop users, is those who use it every day, probably professionally. So a power user for sake of argument, and then someone who's just, just being onboarded motivate.

Paul

Yeah,

Mark

Those are two incredibly valid. Use cases, user sets, protal personas, or whatever you want to call them to explore.

and I think if you are using an SQS survey or something like that as a one-off blanket tool to measure it, that's fine, but you do need, I think there's a huge opportunity to go further in it, it to specific types of individuals, know, especially if that aligns with say, what your business is trying to achieve, you know, what your business's mission and vision is for that financial year or whatever.

if you can go to, you know, Johnny Green Bollocks and say, I've got, I've got, aligned to your mission statement about improving our onboarding to get more users, customers, as they're, they'll say the, this is your SUS showing how usable we are to those specific, users. Give me lots of money, please. think that's, that's more likely to be effective.

Nick

That that's a really good point though So is S U S S

Paul

yeah System usable. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick

that on this episode is that something that benefits the team and the design system directly Or it a carrot on a stick for like the product department and the product owners Like if if the product owners weren't involved or didn't they'd have to be involved for it to be a product and for it to work properly but let's say didn't get any kind of into the decision as to whether or not it was a product Would you elect to have this like system grid thing

Paul

Aye. Aye. Yes, because for me then that shows the two, two reasons. It gives me kind of like then, this is, this is what I need to focus on next because this has got really bad sauce or if

Nick

List

Paul

a tree lists. Yeah. And it'll give me kind of like, oh, this, this is my, you know, this definitely needs fixing, but also as well over time. Cause I'm doing this regularly. It'll give me a flavor of kind of has this improved or, or what you know, could be, we we've added something in, or we've just changed the word on something and it it's dropped off a cliff, but I'm then doing over that time, it looks.

metrics to, to put weight behind kind of improving stuff and kind of focus the effort on, let's do that. Let's do that because I think as much too much UX is detriment is would nice people and we want to solve the world's problems. Other light that isn't, that isn't always the case. was interesting. I was having a conversation, today with a time when we were talking about a product and we were saying like, really, we don't need to do any UX on it. The UX stinks. It's not very good.

It doesn't look great, but it's doing its job. like we're not running complaints. We're not having any bad reviews about it. Doesn't really bother me. It looks like a piece of garbage because it's doing its job and like to change, it would just urk people more than it would to solve a problem. And like, you know, are we boiling? What's that phrase boiling the ocean to,

Nick

and effect in it

Paul

yes.

Nick

if if you don't touch it no one will notice Whereas if you tweak were just to tweak the UI

Paul

Yeah. Yeah.

Nick

people on to like complain about it and then a load of other stuff those complaints that everyone will just kind of fine with up until that point

Mark

yeah, I think this form can be quite tricky because, you know, you're not necessary if you go taking this approach, which when you've got a long list of shit to prioritize, I think enough. there is to be things where you can't prioritize that rhino. So let's definitely not upset the cart, not likely to innovate in an environment like that.

you will get to a point with your UX where it is kind of fine, but you know, you're not going to, it's very difficult to innovate without disrupting certain things without, you know, without obsessing a few people. No, Again, I think there are contexts where this can, can, can be different. So, it's one of the things that we're really looking at where I work now, which is we have our power users who are generally fine with everything. Whenever we say, what do you think of this?

If my favorite RPA tool. It's old and clunky, but it's my favorite RPA. it's difficult.

Paul

Did they say it's my favorite or only.

Mark

Well, that might be why if it's, if it's the favorite, because it's the only one that provides the offering there needs that we've called market in a

Nick

Yeah, that's a big win

Mark

Yeah. exactly

Paul

That's like that's like saying I've only got one child, but it's my favorite child's

Nick

out of my remaining legs This is my favorite one

Mark

So

Nick

So.

Mark

No, no, no, no. You make a very good point, but I think, the other side of that is it's still, they're quite settled with it. They've been using it for a long time, so it's actually more like what next set, which is, you know, it's, it's kind of fine. just kind of, I've done what I need to do with it. I've got paid for it. So jobs are good and can continue to do my job as I expect it to be done right now.

However, if we go and speak to the people who are just learning to use Blue Prism, that can even be inside the organization, because we all do the foundation training as part of our onboarding, then it's a whole different tool sets a whole different kettle of fish in terms of, the problems

Nick

I was just gonna scream kettle of into a microphone then I'll save it for the tumble If I

Mark

Yeah. Okay. and I think, the, the, again is where you get these opportunities to, to be disruptive in a more controlled way, shall we say, because you're able to target it to specific use cases and those use cases can be different to how say your power users would interact with it. how that into your design system as a product. However, I don't know. I went on a wild tangent there, so

Paul

No. I just get, cause no, it was good. It's a good point here. Cause I think this, this is where, because this is where if, if your design system is a product, then by default, if it's a good product, it automatically fixes those problems along the way. So. if you can make loads of loads of improvement, I'll give, let's say you make this fancy wizard pattern. That is absolutely amazing. it's a lovely onboarding tool and like, why wouldn't you implement that on absolutely everything.

Even those things that performed really well had a good score. If you go down that route, you just implement it because you've got it built, you know, it's kind of free.

Mark

lift and shift.

Paul

the air lift and shift, and it's really easy to do. is it, it's interesting. Cause I love when people say, is it a product these come from, product owners, a project, product managers, and question whether a design system is a product and I wonder. If, for example, if they were doing like an agile product and they didn't use Trello or they didn't use, Jira or, any other agile project management tool, which is a product, would they be able to affectively do product management?

And product they want to share without that product?

Mark

exactly. Yeah. And I think that's a, that's an incredibly good point. The Paul, yeah. I want to snap that off immediately because yeah, it's what we're designing internally with a design system is a product that facilitates UX. Now even go a step further with advocacy as UX, design system as a product, it is ultimately the users use it. It is ultimately your users, your customers who benefit from it. But yeah, I think you've got a really good point.

There is a it's owners and managers, depend on particular tool sets to do their job, but seem to be okay with that because the outsourced, because as UX designers, we have to build a toolkit, a toolkit, a toolkit, for everyone to use, that becomes a challenge that becomes something that needs to be or approved or, or excused.

Paul

Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah.

Nick

thing about the design system that I always used to kind Push back about it being a product is when we release like a V one of it or whatever you could potentially that to the public and people could use it. Like you know like material or like Shara or something like that And I don't I mean material I don't know how material works but there's absolutely no way a company like Google is releasing that to the public without somehow making a

profit on it .Whether that's through like the data of the people that use it or you know I I don't I don't know how that works but that is potentially one day a product or something You can make a name off or you know if you do it particularly well something you can go around and talk to people about and become like a an industry leader on and if it wasn't a product and you couldn't get that value out of it you wouldn't be able to do that.

Paul

Yeah. But essentially they were where design systems came from were kind of like from, so for example, apple have their human interface guidelines. They were a rigid set of rules that you must adhere to, to put your products into the app store. And the reason they did that is because they wanted to maintain control over the quality of what was going into the store.

So they didn't want and loads of shitty links, cars, style apps, going into the app store that were really confusing and what essentially they didn't want the bottom line of it. What they didn't want is for loads of people to go into an apple store and say, I've got a problem with an app that. will know don't belong. and they didn't want to think loads of shifts for, if you didn't follow these guidelines that they'd have to resolve and fix.

And essentially that's what they did and for, and it was a profit making, tool. So it's a product, it was a way of reducing, support our products. and then,

Nick

sort of compliance

Paul

yeah, yeah, yeah. and then it was, it was also a good kind of like, you know, a quality control thing to sell products. and then Google, when they released Android, they, released material design, and that was essentially a way for developers to quickly make apps that they could say. Onto the Google play store for then Google to cream off 30% or 15% now, or whatever, wherever the you, so it was a way for Google to make profits. So you told me, right.

Is, you know, they put a lot of effort into it to, to, to make profit. And it is, that's what, that's, what it decides to sell them. Does that, I think there's. Not the grasp, but it actually makes money. It does. It makes your company money, whatever you want to do with it, whether it's an eternal process, because it will either save money or be, or get more users onto the system, you'll have more happy users.

You'll, you know, it'll do your marketing for you because your word of mouth people, you know, unlike people are quite happy throwing shitloads of money into marketing and say, let's run a campaign. We don't know for work, but it's proven that time and time again, if somebody loves the product, they'll tell the friend about it. and they'll tell their friend about it. like that's a no brainer. I like that. That's the gold standard for marketing. It gets lost along the way in UX.

And I think it just gets kind of like what, why we're doing, why we're making this, why are we putting this effort into it?

Nick

Were were you talking about some kind of algorithm Awesome At mark last week about the

Paul

Yes.

Nick

out how much money the design system is serving you through efficiency

Mark

something I'm currently working on, based on a, a principal. Let me just find the principal on seconds

Nick

Because that got monetization all over it Just

Mark

yeah.

Paul

the word formula.

Nick

Yeah, Yeah.

Mark

and it's,

Nick

Algorithm

Mark

on fits and Fitz law is,

Nick

that the one that if it exists as porn of it

Mark

unfortunately not but interestingly rule 34 does mean, does steps that fits law will have. Of

Nick

yeah

Mark

will be of fence law. Yeah. so fit law is, basically the idea that the time to acquire a target a function of the distance to, and size of the target. So essentially the time it takes your users something they're interacting with

Nick

not Yeah

Mark

component. It's something that needs to be considered. Part of the component itself. it does of course depend, on, on where things are. but then it's also crossed with the another law, which is which one it's the doc Doherty, Doherty Doherty, the DAPA

Nick

Docker

Mark

the O H E R T Y doctor did, for our short, which is that productivity soars when a computer and its users interact at pairs of less than 400 milliseconds per interaction. And that ensures that the computer isn't waiting for the user and the user isn't waiting for the computer. is where you can do a lot of, it could do a lot of research into the responsiveness of your system potentially save for pneumonia. the algorithm I was talking about.

Nick

That's a that's a scientific term

Mark

Yeah, fucked on and money you will

Nick

the

Mark

surprised how many people are willing to listen to that scientific term.

Nick

Oh yeah

Mark

but the idea was from last week, I've not been able to work on this, since, and when I do, I dunno, I should probably write an article or something, we are using it our intend to use it to, as one reason to make our components more accessible. And the idea is, is that if it's using, if use a component in a particular way, for example, so you've got a combo box it takes your user.

let's say for the sake of accessibility, this could be applied to any user, but for the sake of accessibility, say, it's your users who are, who have a visual impairment, be it permanent, temporary, or situation. And it takes them, so many seconds longer than it should use that particular component.

say that within your software, the average day that they're using your software or average user journey, they're on, about barking on the end, came to that interaction, say 10 times far, so far, they're five seconds longer than it should. 10 times a day. The rain came through in that 50 seconds. for each user doing that.

If you've then got 2000 users in that bracket, you can times that 50 seconds by 2000 understand that you've got 100,000 seconds being lost a day, which can be, turned into a monetary value based on how many that person implied to do that or

Nick

But in industry that you are in and the company you are in you can use that. as a USP to sell your product to the person who is saving that time which which is is an incredible like tool

Mark

exactly it because, because it's, and this will work for almost any complex system, because as you all our dear listeners systems depend on specialized trained users, which means that of the time they're being paid to use your software, or at least they're using it themselves as part of job and, making their income, which means that there's someone paying them and you can go to that person. So it's going to save them this amount of time. going to save them this amount of money.

Now believe it or not money, won't be the metric that you want to use if you're thinking of a more generic user. and this is again where

Nick

So

Mark

be more accessible. Someone who isn't specialized, isn't being fair to you, then saving them time is the next person. and if you're able to serve them so many minutes out of a process, so many hours out of an interaction,

Nick

Sorry I thought you were gonna say so many time then and I

Mark

you

Nick

laughing

Mark

can

Nick

you're gonna save them so many time

Mark

many times that,

Paul

me talk

Nick

Sorry

Mark

no, no,

Nick

no, no no

Mark

that, that becomes something very, tangible to, to the people who wouldn't understand, you know, why such a thing as good, a good thing to do

Paul

It's interesting, isn't it? Because I think again, kind of, if you, if you applied that to something else, so say for example, you were working on a really old laptop and it was really slow and it took ages to boot up. You'd go to it. And my 9.9 times out of 10, you'd get a new laptop. but, but to do that, to reduce, next woman up for your ex tombola is making sure the, arms are greased

Nick

Loop in the

Paul

yeah. And if, if one employee had like a slow cyst, and it was kinda like something that could fix it was, you know, an old laptop. It was the, hard driver veiled, just go off and fix it and there'd be no quibble whatsoever. you equip all her news, you know, but at the same time, if he said like, oh, I'm going to fix this, that'll make it five seconds for every single one of our users and turns that by, you know, kind of like, sometimes it goes like the whole year, but it's a bit hard to

Mark

Yeah, but if you've got 2 million users, then you start getting these ridiculous figures that sound so big, that they're abstract, that's just the reality of, know, there's other ways you can think about this, there are, you can type it into Google and you will be told how much time average you spend of your life on the toilet. And it's pretty depressing. You spend, we spend a third of our life asleep, a third of our life, and this is a lead. And if that's, if you're sleeping properly,

Nick

That's what people who get up in the morning

Mark

yeah. you know, and so these things have come from. The compound effect, compound consequences.

Nick

But but when you're talking about numbers that. so big that the almost abstract if you then put a pound sign in front of that and show it to a like a board member of a company can pretty much sell 'em Any idea

Mark

Yeah. absolutely Absolutely. Because the way that it works is that there's appreciation that this is an abstract figure, but it's so high that you aim for the and land among the stars as it were. you know, you're still gonna be better than where you were.

so yeah, I think to bring this back to, your design system as a product, I think you do need to have, it is, if you want to treat your design system as a product, which we're all advocating for you, I think have to have a bit of a strategy around how that side of things is, is managed, it is communicated. you know, one of the things that I'm working on now, as part of my roadmap, you know, I've got, I think six or seven different strategies I'm having to figure out.

one of them a leadership communication strategy. How the fuck do I communicate the good things we're doing to the people who otherwise wouldn't know? because everyone else has got one, even though they don't call it that even though it's probably automated through their processes, it's not been, it's not been treated like that in UX so So we need to look at that

Paul

And then going back to. If it was another product, then, you know, when you release new version of that product, then certain things have to happen. So like, you might have to kind of update your support documentation. You might have to have a diff you know, someone, employed in support that, you know, totally new to the business because that's a new feature and nobody could do before.

You'd have to kind of in, in telesales, you'd have to do all, you know, you'd have to do a promo or you'd have to tell customers about it, all those kinds of things that come seem to come kind of like by default the, not the, not because, but there's, there's a strict process for kind of when you release a, a product product, designed to, but essentially a design system should have that same rigor as it were product. So, you know, he needed.

Nick

bordering on the point that. I really wanted to to talk about on

Mark

Yes, please.

Nick

so the reason that I think uh well this is this is it So again like getting really pedantic about the question So reason I want

Mark

about the question. No.

Nick

the the reason I want a product to be treated sorry A design system be treated a product is because in order to get the maximum effect out of it you constantly as a team got things on the boil and creating iterating components Then you need to get them into the code and get 'em into the product and not just the work stream and the arm that you're currently work working on but everything that looks like it behaves like it everywhere And if you treated the design system as a

product and you had regular release window that's like sprint based or um you know quarterly in the year or whatever it is assured that it works its way product regularly consistently And you've got a date by which you can you can say right this is done for now Let's get it in everywhere once And and there's there's light level good UX isn't there because you could design the best component in the world But if that component is only used in one out of four areas on the

website or or the reverse even if it's used in three out of four places one place that's inconsistent compounds like the bad because you you are used to one pattern So not only have you got a different pattern but the pattern that is different is worse as well So it's like a the two-fold problem

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

so I I think that that's why I want it to be considered as a a a product the the issue I'm having or the issue that I foresee is like like I said earlier like the tails starting to wag the dog with it and you know having to having to have things ready for a certain day or having like product owners breathing down neck about your product

Mark

yeah.

Nick

like how do you how combat that

Mark

I think, oh, thank you. I think it's, it's a two way street in that regard, because I think there's a certain degree of if you are a, if you have the right lead time as a UX, on, on another, on your, not on your prototype, the design system, but on the, on the organization's products that you're working for, because ultimately are you work both on your centralized design system, as well as the specific UX of, of, of a product then what you need to be working for, or what hopefully gets

identified for you is that lead time. This is what we're trying to get from okay. Miles away from it yet. But we're trying is getting the lead time so that as UX designers and UX researchers, we can identify potential components there's any. development early, ideally at least a quarter ahead of any kind of development and that's generating lead time, best art, so that you do have time to well, we anticipate you need an accordion component for, for this new form pattern that's coming through.

we have got to do, we've got, let's see, you've got a quality to do it, and there's a bit of research time, but it's design time, implementation, validation time, et cetera, et cetera. But by the time it comes to put in that in the UX design of that product, your UX designer has already got that in the component library and then the design kit D drag from. and I do think you need to emphasize that kind of separation.

I think there's a point and this becomes a bit diplomatic because I, I think, and I think you're like this, Nick, I reserve the right if a product owner says, well, we need that component yesterday. You'd have to just kind of tell them fuck off followed. Rome processes.

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

well Yeah, I mean that's the thing and it that's that that's the one thing app that that always seems to happen everywhere you go is that the the process of product creation or whatever is the most important thing in world until it's not

Mark

Yeah.

Nick

And then it's you know it's run one rule for them one rule for you kind of thing And it that as soon as it benefits them to throw the process out of the window then that's absolutely fine But if you do it then it's you know

Mark

That's it. I think if you're, if you, dear listener are lucky enough to be a UX designer where your companies, a startup or it's a small team, or even. You're like the very start of a UX team in a larger organization. And maybe you're ahead of, or you're able to, you're having basically lots of workshops and lots of meetings.

Now's your opportunity to say UX happens before an UX research happens product managers or product owners, whoever it is in your organization features and do that say that until basically you, they threatened to fire you either for saying it so much and they go in yeah, we've got the picture. Or they go in whenever going to do that, mark, and then you can just walk off anywhere cause you don't want to work, but

Nick

yeah

Mark

opportunity if you're in that situation, and scream and scream that,

Nick

I I just picked up on the fact that you went you like this Nick and then suggested that I tell someone at work to fuck off

Mark

Darling, darling, Nick darling. I wrong?

Nick

well well no but I don't want all the people at home to know that that's uh well yeah one of my what are my personality traits or was let's say that it was at least I could probably

Mark

Yeah

Nick

I could probably cop to that Yeah, I've grown person since then

Mark

course Of course Yeah.

Paul

yeah, but I do do think

Nick

Paul's

Paul

no, but I think it's that it's that I wouldn't. Yeah. Cause, cause you should be the product owner of that design system there. So if, if you've got somebody you can get, so, I mean, so there's a difference between product manager and product owner, see your, the owner. So if somebody is saying this at the time, I want this, this at the time, but it's like, so

Nick

stakeholder

Paul

the stakeholder. Yeah. And then because then you, you own that design system as a prototype. know, you've got full control over, over what goes in, what goes out when it should be done and things like that.

Nick

I'm gonna write down

Paul

but, but as well as, as a product, you know, if you then turn your design system into a product, it does come with some rigors and things like that. And you think of, and sometimes, you know, a release is, you know, you kind of go like, oh, Figma, I've done a new release. What's in it today will be fixed. Some bugs would be, you know, it's not very exciting, but it's a release. It's a release schedule one and things happen like that. I like in there.

I think sometimes people, when they say I want to release, they sometimes have this misconception of It

Nick

about rule 34 right there

Paul

Yeah. Sometimes they have a misconception, you can deliver shit loads of stuff for them when actually

Mark

be a 0.0, zero one release. It could

Paul

yeah, yeah, yeah,

Nick

thing's really good because Yeah, the sometimes they'll do a release and you won't even realize that they've it cuz it updates automatically anyway And then sometimes they'll do a release they do YouTube videos all week about it

Paul

yeah. Yeah.

Nick

it's the same company It's the same release cycle sometimes it's just hygiene and bug fixes and stuff and sometimes it's like

Paul

Yeah. Yeah.

Nick

features or entirely new products

Mark

think, that fits really nicely into like an internal.

Kind of thing that you have to do here, because if you want product to be treated like a design system, be treated like a product you want to be the owner of that product as your, as a UX team, which I think is a very fair thing, because quite frankly, unless you've got a very mature organization and hire specific product owners and product managers for this, are you know, the most about what your design system needs and how, and certainly the collective energies of your UX team.

you have to be willing to communicate with the owners of other products within that system. And this is where they're, they're more, you, you might become a bit of a shit shield if they're breathing down your neck, kind of, kind of of the job, unfortunately. and you know, you'll have to. As we've been saying certain rigors in place yourself to, to, to mitigate those scenarios. yeah, you have to be willing and willing to communicate

Nick

The Freudian slip Wasn't it

Mark

yeah. Friday and all the way maybe, but, yeah, you have to be willing stick your Dick in it. No, you have you have to communicate with, other people who are doing similar ownership tasks for their products, that's how you're gonna manage the influx of requests. The influx of features that are required because, well, the idea is you're building a product or they are feature requests, requirements. It's just what might be the.

Customer on one side, you know, your, your user also be a pro your other product people on, on another.

Nick

So the reason I kind of recoiled a little bit when you said you would be your own product owner is there's like a certain amount of extra work involved in or like inferred inferred implied by that And I don't want to do it so so but but not only that but there were people in the business who were better suited to do that work Like there were you know there are product owners there already so

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

the what's the division of like responsibility in

Mark

I

Nick

labor fund the product

Mark

about

Paul

Oh

Nick

Yeah

Mark

straight off the bat. think this is so intrinsically related to UX maturity, because I think if you're starting off with a, you know, a company that has no idea what. Everything's going to be a bit of an uphill battle, almost definitely not going to get a dedicated product on the, on your, on your component library, on your design system.

So you will have, you'll have to, as a design team, pick up that work push at key points because you're also the ones pushing for the UX maturity for those jobs to become dedicated roles in themselves. and we're at a stage now with, say we're around, going off an NNGs UX maturity, emergent destruction. That's where we're moving And that's certainly, this is halfway through the whole scale. We still got a long way to go, but that means that we're now starting to get dedicated people.

We've got a dedicated accessibility team. Now we've got dedicated product owner. We don't have a dedicated product for that. but we're, you know, we're pushing for that kind of, that kind of thing in that kind of space. So yeah, I think at first it's gonna be, you've got a lot of jobs that you're probably not the best person to do, but it's better than not having them done at all.

then people start to see the value of this and become more UX aware, they'll start to, there'll be someone, fact, ideally with someone in your organization who signed steps into that space, says, I really want to become a UX product or, and I've, we've got the

Nick

Yeah

Mark

clearly a heap of work to do here. Let me do it. so that yeah, th yeah, and design ops is there's, we've got we've, I've been currently working with our ops manager and it's like, there's so much in design ops that maybe one day we'll have someone to do all that in now. It's fucking McKinsey. So.

Paul

yeah,

Nick

ops as well as a call

Paul

and then I think this, this is a lot of, kind of like the, the bowels I think Buicks have, and again, it goes back to kind of like full circles. Start the episode, kind of like, you know, graphic design over UX. There's so much more that a UX person has to do than just make stuff look pretty. And I think it's that I was thinking you were talking kind of like reminded me of the phrase that if a, if a tree falls in the world, And no one's around to hear it fall. Did it actually ever fall?

That's the same as if you've got your design system as a product and you don't tell anybody about it then?

Nick

My you well have

Paul

Well, no, I'm saying you might as well not have it, but people are not going to realize you chopping down loads of trees

Mark

Oh, I like that. No way that circle or was it

Paul

Yeah,

Nick

until we start to asphyxiate

Mark

Yeah, planet dies and

Paul

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Mark

have fallen on them because we didn't acknowledge this

Paul

yeah.

Nick

that's over an hour Do we wanna

Paul

yeah. Let's no, let let's let's

Mark

yeah. Yeah. That's all, I

Nick

the pipes

Mark

I mean, there's great deal. More, we can, we can go into this, but I think there is, if you want to treat your design system as a product, you do have to, I I think hook into the existing product systems before you start to build a role. and that's kind of what I'll, that's probably my bit of advice, TM, on treating that

Paul

And I'd say what the product team are doing. Watch, listen closely and apply those same regulars

Mark

yeah.

Paul

because that's what they're doing for a reason. So

Mark

clause Oh, if you're speaking their language,

Nick

Yeah

Mark

it is, you have to put the effort in to, to do that and to translate that if you're speaking their language, oh my God. They onboard so much easier. because they don't have to learn anything. And, and so the bar barrier to entry is so much lower for

Paul

guess again, that's the UX wheelhouse will make lives

Mark

Yeah. Yeah. That's it,

Nick

Well not

Mark

it

Nick

that but we we learn how to speak to multiple different types of people in their own manner as well Don't we which

Mark

a products on a podcast going on right now they're having this very conversation about how their tops are X person and this person, this person,

Paul

Probably. yeah,

Nick

Tomlinson Nick Wilshaw and Paul Suler where Paul SU

Paul

yeah,

Nick

prolific murderer were

Mark

was Peter Sutcliffe.

Nick

Okay

Mark

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul

So

Mark

Yeah, taught me everything. I know

Paul

that smokes.

Mark

it's a no no, no people

Nick

don't talk about

Mark

a pay. People asked me if there's any relation. And I said, yeah, he's my mom me everything. I know.

Paul

oh, I love it. I love it. Right.

Nick

I I I guess we we take it that the end of all that the the answer is yes

Mark

certainly fucking for me.

Nick

Yeah. Yeah

Mark

not to be an easy

Paul

It's. Yeah, not.

Nick

yeah

Mark

If you're, in a big company,

Paul

Yeah. And yeah. And what I'd say is start small, small. Don't do not take on the world, you know, kind of like treat it like a star, so

Nick

No take on the world

Mark

Yeah. Do it You are Atlas. You can do this, know

Paul

start, with your basic offering and then build it out.

Mark

You

Nick

Yeah

Mark

and you could

Nick

Okay

Mark

think maybe exercising your internal processes happen and kind of defining them can happen with probably your smallest atoms. go back into last

Nick

Yeah

Mark

look at the foundations of your design system how you can manage that, like a product or features of a product and, and see how that goes, because it's stuff that probably want, know, they're so foundational that your product owners want kind of, it'll be like those features that, you know, that are just bug fixes, or maybe go for the book fixes first, you know, maybe do that first, the smallest information and

Paul

See what your score

Mark

Yeah, yeah. See what your score is. Yeah. Ours is pretty high, pretty fucking

Paul

Nice. Cool.

Nick

sauce

Paul

so

Nick

Nice I've been I've been waiting to make that joke The entire episode

Paul

but so it's not time to turn the volume down. Take your

Mark

Yeah.

Nick

Apologize to N sleeping in

Mark

Yeah But our bar, a gunman bar a door and maybe buy a shotgun just in case, you know just to defend yourself, from tombola

Paul

oh, no, this one. What am I doing?

Nick

Oh God No

Mark

oh,

Paul

Oh, here we go seamless.

mediaboard_video

we pick a random object and this terrible, all grit.

Paul

love it. Love it. I'm glad you got that spring out earlier.

Mark

right. The machine or a neck.

Nick

So is that I just realized that I'm I'm channeling the Ainsley Harriott in that intro Ah

Mark

Yes. Yeah Yeah

Nick

went to the tip the other day And As I was driving off I saw a car next to me and the guy had an Ainsley Harriott like cardboard cut out just laid in the back like this And and as I drove passed I went hi Jill and the guy like spun round and looked at me So it must it must it must have been very it must have been a very big Ainsley Harriott fan

Paul

Oh,

Nick

although so big that he

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

the cardboard out

Paul

That's that's what,

Nick

old

Paul

That's the same skip the BBC to take the old props.

Mark

Yeah yeah It's also incidentally.

Nick

all TV presenters

Mark

Yeah It's what I a rashy skin shortly

Nick

Yeah

Mark

arrest. When a stroke, a chef shouted at her in her own living room

Nick

Came in with Oh if if if you don't know what we're talking about I highly advise that you go on the internet on YouTube and search for "Ainsley Harriott Hi Jill" And all will be revealed

Mark

I did think you were just going to end the sentence there. hardly add value. You go on the internet because you

Nick

Yeah

Mark

time that it will

Nick

of

Mark

you It will come see you

Nick

will see It Yeah Eventually

Paul

we'd need

Mark

retain

Nick

what was the Thing I said I was gonna sing

Mark

of fish.

Paul

Katla fish.

Mark

fish. Rich sounds like the name of mark Steelers sushi restaurant.

Paul

Free chop ships with every, every candle

Mark

That's how So,

Nick

just

Mark

methyl capital

Paul

with live fishing.

Mark

yep. the freshest, the freshest

Nick

freshest off

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

off right Okay Yeah. UX Tobo pull it with the swish It's going to be a brand new of fish It's your Exton gave it a pole wash your hands because they might smell

Paul

Well, well dumb.

Mark

I feel like

Nick

Did someone say on call

Paul

No.

Mark

in, certainly, as you said that the entire applause stopped dead. How you will, the applause sign was dropped as, as that person left.

Nick

like a kettle of fish dropped like a kettle of fish

Paul

yup. Cool. So what's what's in today's machine.

Mark

Uh

Nick

Uh the topic is cooking, sausages,

Paul

can you

Nick

As in the kind of sausages, you get to cook like cooking apples

Mark

Mm. Yes.

Nick

the actual act

Paul

oh,

Mark

is, there a variety of sausage that isn't a cooking sausage?

Nick

chorizo

Mark

typically you cook that

Nick

Well you

Mark

but

Nick

you you can buy specifically cooking chorizo can't you

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

I would at that then implies the existence of non

Mark

I suppose, because been cured, cured sausage ah, there we go. Hosted by my own petard. I've answered my own question. A petard are, by the way, I thought would never hoist So. Yes, I do. Yes. It is a experience term. I understand. Or at least that's what the saying comes from. It's a type of firecracker that, was, French in origin the term.

Nick

Are you making this

Mark

no, no.

Paul

yeah.

Mark

a tree that's heisting your own petard? It was used in a Shakespearian comedy, one of them, because

Nick

ah

Mark

it was as if you were to like to firecracker on your ass to lift yourself over a

Nick

Ah like on unreal tournament where you shoot the at ground and it

Mark

Yeah. exactly. That's the modern equivalent of petard heist.

Nick

jumped by my own rocket I thought hoisted by my own patard was also a theatrical term but I thought it meant like the thing that used to lower people down from the ceiling

Mark

the Deus ex machina

Nick

that was where term came from that's what the machine was called Although it could have been

Mark

because I remember something like that because

Nick

Deus ex machina is when you write yourself into a hole and the only way that you can get yourself out of it is for God to descend himself and like dig you out and save the day But

Mark

Yeah,

Paul

sounds like our episode is

Mark

yeah. But, yeah, my understanding was because machina is Latin for machine

Nick

Yeah

Mark

Latin God. but it was what the, in Greco, Roman theater, the, narrator would often be the God of the piece that was either to her. And he would be played at being played by an actor who was suspended a machine, Deus ex machina,

Nick

yeah

Mark

I don't know if that's an actual translation, but,

Nick

think it

Mark

yeah

Nick

yeah the it's the machine that they, use lower the char the person playing the God down Weren't it

Mark

and that person would from that, that spot narrate the thing and thus, provide all the exposition that would get you out of the hole, that otherwise it may exist. So that's my understanding. Yes

Paul

bit.

Nick

Explanation of what I said

Mark

But I do think we should play as, go on Counter Strike or Unreal Tournament or anywhere you can do rocket jumps and go around doing that shooting petard hoist.

Nick

And and then people being like you can't say that anymore

Mark

Yeah.

Nick

ah just just doing it No be shooting and then do a rocket but every single time go aha hoisted by my own petard

Mark

Exactly. Exactly perfection. It would never get old. It would never get old.

Nick

to which

Paul

Oh,

Nick

what

Mark

What? Yeah

Paul

yeah.

Nick

that

Mark

Yeah.

Nick

one else gets

Mark

Well, as this

Nick

which is I was gonna say which explains the last 30 episodes of this podcast Yeah. Right So sausage Sorry how the hell did we get talking

Paul

Oh, gee. I don't know,

Nick

sausages We we we go on some tangents but that was fucking incredible

Paul

that was But at least people have learned something on this episode now

Nick

yeah Oh yeah

Mark

yeah yeah exactly

Paul

Nate. Well wanted to ask. So can you describe your current process of cooking sausage?

Nick

I mean this isn't

Mark

yeah,

Nick

sausage, ones

Mark

ones, so, oh, right. I thought

Nick

one

Mark

one

Nick

lonely a sausage that you'll ever do

Mark

you'll have a cook

Nick

can be as

Paul

yeah,

Nick

one a and sausage One

Mark

oh, I'm in with it

Nick

oh that's nice

Paul

they, I think depending on the sausage depends on the deal method of cooking.

Nick

on your method of sausage

Paul

Yeah

Nick

well yeah no I mean it's not it's not like completely by accident that this has become a a suggestion because

Paul

What did you have for, what did you have for dinner, Nick?

Nick

I like so

Mark

to our next segment, you have for dinner?

Nick

well like I think what has been

Mark

how the stone is slow. Tilly's violently ill and try and guess what he had for dinner, but from the mushy bits.

Paul

Ah,

Nick

con I how much there

Mark

sausage today.

Nick

one lonely right Sorry

Mark

That concludes our segment of what did you have for dinner, Nick?

Nick

A bit of music for that

Mark

And then just the sound of Nick been sick. That was

Paul

ah, a little come, right? Let's get this. get the sausage back on track.

Nick

let's get this sausage on the road Right So uh yeah So the the reason That I kind of wanted That I put it down is that sausages for the most part around aren't they and whenever you see like a clipper or a perhaps a a Hollywood movie where the cooking sausages they're a frying pan

Mark

typically yes.

Nick

And I don't understand why people think that Oh Jesus that people Think that cooking cylindrical meat it the the most efficient way of doing that isn't in a flat bottomed pan because you have to constantly I mean it's like you might as for time for the for the investment of time versus the payout you might as well do a nice result because you've got to stand there the entire time Constantly turning them through 360 degrees So you don't get just two burnt side Cause what'll happen is you

leave them you go shit the sausages you'll turn 'em over And one side will be completely but it's not even a side It's not even a complete fourth of the sausage It's like just the know the sliver that's touching the bottom of the pan And then your immediate reaction is to turn them 180 degrees that the burn part is facing up And then probably invariably the other side as well Cuz you forgot So

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

and if you cook 'em in the oven they just go they just look like little cat turds Don't they Cuz they cook all the way around the skin goes like rock ad

Mark

depends on how you're cooking them.

Paul

gosh

Mark

I think well, I think

Nick

I think you, are not well

Mark

unwell. I I, I, mean, I think sausages are one of the most versatile things you can get because,

Nick

things in all of existence

Mark

of existence. It's just a versatile thing. now it's one of the, I think, as far as

Paul

and

Nick

I just gonna say I hope to God one day we are not in like plane crash in which we all survive and we're walking through the forest trying To make like shelter and a fire And everyone's like right anyone got Swiss army knife and Mark's like no but I have brought this sausage

Mark

be honest, there's just, there's just an image of people scrambling around to build shelter whilst I'm nibbling on the sausage.

Nick

Have you seen that meme of the guy who's like sweating in his to pick between two buttons Swiss the Swiss

Mark

That's why I'm late for work work from home. yeah, I think we've got a couple of, of products opportunities here. the first of which is the Swiss army sausage, which I think is just a sausage with other things attached to it. But, but yeah, I was just thinking if you, how cylindrical Nick, is your meat too,

Nick

Well

Mark

because,

Nick

job with friends mark because, I wouldn't normally I wouldn't answer that question on a podcast

Mark

because if it's theory, now I'm talking theory here, I

Nick

theory

Mark

absolutely no expertise in, and I must admit sausage expertise is something I have than no expertise in, but if you've got a flat surface and a cylinder geometrically, it infinitely small, this contact area

Nick

Yeah.

Paul

Yeah,

Mark

infinitely small because of the nature of the

Nick

well Al already thought of the product to solve this problem or solutionize this problem as a product

Paul

yeah,

Nick

so we can dive right into that or we can hypothesize theorize more on the on the sausage problem

Mark

well, I'm keen on making sure we've got all the way through your process

Paul

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick

yeah

Paul

as well, I can only imagine as well, when you, when you, when you find your one sausage, you, you constantly trying to get it on that fine plane of, of like this, and you constantly can try to balance it on there. So it doesn't tip over on the already done side and the not done side. And you're just fiddling around with your sausage about 20

Mark

yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,

Paul

all over.

Mark

Which you

Paul

So

Mark

some would say

Nick

I'm delicious

Mark

west it, you know?

Paul

yeah,

Mark

yeah, yeah, No,

Nick

of that

Mark

that was just an audio description of Nick and his self-image.

Paul

yeah.

Nick

with a sausage

Paul

Is, well, what's your, I think I know your solution.

Nick

go on

Mark

I've actually, before I hold that thought, because I've just had a realization, which is

Nick

been talking about sausages for 20 minutes

Mark

no, no, it's, know I'm, I'm very much complicit in that, which is that we have a perfect solution for this, that we apply almost exclusively to non cylindrical things.

Nick

Okay

Mark

not going to tell you what that is, because I feel like you should be able to figure it out.

Nick

Having poop

Mark

no no Mate you can't that. So every question, so one time today, we're about to have this conversation No, the, the

Nick

that's how I lost on mastermind Oh right Yeah,

Mark

the

Nick

Tiny spit rose

Mark

sausage

Nick

but you'd have to have like three or four on the go at once

Mark

you

Nick

It'd be like it's literally like uh spinning plate

Mark

record weight, or you could probably use a system of gears and pulleys. That is that one gear is turning

Nick

an automated

Mark

or even an electric one. in fact, that brings me to my potential solution, which it seems like we've got a few here to go off, so we'll have to evolve, which is the, the automatic cylindrical meet you know is, or, one second. Let me figure out how actually spelled a MTR, the ASAM tra

Paul

go as planned at

Mark

no, no. no no

Nick

The

Paul

the ATM. but that, that what you described, isn't that kind of, have you been to those places with the hot dogs? Whether

Nick

Yeah

Paul

they're the hot dogs, kind of rotate.

Nick

The like heated rollers aren't there

Mark

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably a more elegant solution than, than the one I'm proposing.

Paul

I, I, think there's a better solution and I'm more lower cost on, I think, are they for well for us anyway? I think there's two Minecraft, the sausage too, to make good square

Nick

S squish

Paul

cubes. Yeah.

Nick

I'm I I no

Mark

okay.

Nick

that

Mark

I

Nick

reject that

Mark

I'm substituting my own.

Nick

I've been doing that all my life no. I reject that on on the most level because one of the key differentiators as a sausage is that it is a cylinder ship If you start messing with the form like Virgin into like burger territory or or even a very small meatloaf

Mark

or even small meatloaf.

Nick

and that is a sentence I expected to

Mark

think that's a brand new sentence. No one ever said,

Paul

Oh, okay. Okay. I'll I'll take that humbled.

Mark

yeah.

Nick

my

Mark

Okay

Nick

my solution is to a Mobious frying pan So essentially if you think about the reverse of everyone's suggestion if you get like a metal cylinder and you put the sausage in the cylinder then you hold that cylinder over like a fire or

Paul

Yeah.

Nick

or you know

Paul

the giant bonfire.

Nick

and the whole the whole metal cylinder you make it out Something like super conductive like water or No that's probably not the best for over

Mark

cylinder to go over a lot and fire. Yeah.

Nick

Oh I think I'm losing my mind today

Paul

Okay. So

Nick

then you hold that over the fire and the whole cylinder heats equally all the way

Mark

So

Nick

cooks the sausage All the way around through

Mark

part, is that the movement that's taking place of the

Nick

no the part is the fact that it's just if you imagine a frying pan folded into like a Mobious strip it's the same frying pan but like folded in itself

Mark

AAS. So it's it's

Nick

And then you slide the sausage yeah. exactly And

Paul

like a George Foreman grill.

Mark

Okay. So, got we've got three we've got three ideas. Like

Nick

they're all terrible

Mark

got one, which is a product that already exists, which is your automatic meet a cylinder achieve rotator cylindrical, meet tube, get the name. Right. then we've got be honest, I've just thought of the name squash fridges. So, so we might just have, oh man, I ain't got to say it the more,

Paul

Hmm

Mark

they're more versatile, they're easier to stack. They could also double up as either a burger or really been a very small meatloaf, which for some might be a problem.

Paul

I think instantly life you just go with her all over it yes, is. for anybody is on audio only. Nick has disappeared off camera His role is literally roll it around on the floor, laughing,

Mark

this has happened It's far free. We should just fair to black. Oh And then, and then fair to black. And it just says and then his birthday and twenty, twenty two was his death that, and then the Mobius frying pan, which is a continuous

Nick

Oh

Mark

top illogical impossibility, that evenly cooks.

Nick

forget that Oh, God in my eyes I'm was

Mark

I'm like mixed good. Every sick. oh damn me

Paul

amazing look,

Mark

Just, for our non video viewers. I think Mick's actually just been sick. well that was about,

Paul

but that's what happens when you eat to where these corsages,

Mark

you eat too many costly juice. Oh, stack them Oh, I don't know how Mark's dealer can sell, sell it

Paul

ah, th this is, got wedding products

Mark

yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I mean, I feel like it's just like, doing a jig and saying the word over and over again.

Paul

In fact, I think, what I'm gonna, what I'm going to suggest is that I will, or maybe between us we'll design a tee shirts for squash passages. And if you subscribe to our Patrion marks Steelers special,

Mark

will get,

Paul

you will get yourself a squash judges. T-shirts do it now.

Mark

I squash your juice t-shirt you know, maybe, maybe other things we'll go down the line. Maybe it will marked Steeler eating squatted juice with chopsticks.

Nick

I want I wanna see a squa ages advert done like mark the

Mark

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul

Oh yeah, yeah,

Mark

right. Okay.

Paul

Cool. We're doing it

Mark

Well,

Nick

oh my God

Mark

as a video graphs, special

Nick

no

Paul

on a.

Nick

I want to go out on the street and dress my yeah

Mark

yeah.

Nick

you should definitely do one now on the podcast but I'm talking like full full rig

Mark

Yes. Why not? So as Halloween, further Halloween specialist, mark steamer. Okay. That's happening?

Paul

oh,

Mark

happening.

Paul

no. I thought men dressed as a squad.

Mark

Okay, is mark Stiegler and Paul Wilshaw, I'm just saying this officially with your full title. so Mr. Paul will show will be appearing a squash EJ,

Paul

Sounds like most days.

Mark

as a squash a Halloween special. So set you in for that one. right. Okay Let's see. Okay

Paul

Yeah

Mark

Hello? Hello, it's me, your friend. I love her. And I mainly said on kill, man. I remember like the direction we want to take this. So do you find that are in uncontrollable situations whenever you are preparing your alarm sausage? Do you find that knowing this one at a time, because of the 20 minute time it's actually to fiddle with your sausage is with cat turn like results and absolutely nothing to recommend it. Well, because of heat,

Nick

Yeah

Mark

impossibility. That is your meaty to cylinder. And I've got the perfect solution for you and yes, we've taken it. We shared four sides of it given you a squat, go and get your squash, which is now only 49 pound 50. Love you more.

Nick

Oh fucking hell

Paul

Amazing Well I love it. Love

Mark

We are. and I think, I think there should just be a hard copy to, mark Sila smoking a squash message instead of a cigar.

Nick

God I feel I feel like I've I feel I feel like I've been crying

Paul

Oh dear,

Mark

well, I think that brings us up to a tiny

Paul

office tidy.

Mark

bit The final episode ever

Paul

Don't really? not really. Yeah. Cool.

Mark

right then Excellent Excellent

Paul

it.

Nick

Love you

mediaboard_video

That's it for this episode of faster horses. If you liked the show, please like subscribe and leave a review. really does help. You can join us on pets.com/fast the month. The other hospice, new from kids zone. Thanks to James. I'm Mark Sutcliffe Tomlinson, @FasterHorsesUX, and we'll catch you in two weeks fast.

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