Making UX Work with Joe Natoli
Making UX Work with Joe Natoli
Episode 19, Tanya Netayavichitr: The Power of WE
In both my previous experience working with her company as a consultant and this conversation, it becomes very clear very fast that Tanya Netayavichitr is someone who lifts every person she comes in contact with to greater heights. As you'll hear for yourself in the way she describes her experiences, it's never about her — it's about the people she's working with, guiding and advocating for.
Tanya's quick ascent to leadership positions in the worlds of UX and Product Design is testament to her formidable skill, impeachable integrity and steadfast kindness.
Twitter:
@Netayavichitr
LinkedIn:
tnetayavichitr
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Hello, and welcome to making you X work. I am Joan Natallee. Our focus here is on folks like you doing the tough often unglamorous work of UX in the real world. My guests shared their struggles, their successes, and their journey to, and through the trenches of product design development. And of course, user experience. Before we get into it. I'd like to give a quick shout out to our sponsors, stash studio, a streetwear clothing brand focused on quality products with a positive message inspired by the resilience to turn a negative situation into a positive outcome. Something obviously very close to my heart. For those of you that know me, the stash mantra is that even in the darkest times, there is a light revealing prosperity. Find your light. Let it guide you through the darkness. Visit stash.studio to check out their incredibly well-designed products and learn more. My guest today is Tanya not Tia Vici. She describes herself as a multi-faceted design leader, offering innovative design solutions centered around the enhanced user experience with an emphasis on simplicity, usability, and beauty. I had the opportunity to do some consulting for Tanya's team a few years back. And I can tell you that this description is very accurate. And the only thing missing is the unwavering care and support that she gives her team a very quick glance across her LinkedIn endorsements reveal a very common thread, and that is that she has built a culture where each person can work to their full potential, which I promise you is no small thing. Here's my conversation with Tanya Nadia Vici on making UX. So Tanya, how are you, how
Tanya Netayavichitr:are you doing?
Joe Natoli:I am very, very good. So the last time you and I spoke, was it a year ago or a year
Tanya Netayavichitr:or two years ago? I think it might've been two years ago. Went by pretty fast. Yeah.
Joe Natoli:So you, your, your career and your position has changed a little bit
Tanya Netayavichitr:since then? A little bit, a little bit. So right now, I think when we had met, was it two years? Maybe even three years ago? Yeah, I think it was three years ago. Wow. So I had just started at Ventura at that time and started a design team there wasn't an existing design team. Right. And now flash forward three years later, we're at about. I don't want to say 25 design professionals within the corporation. And I'm the head of customer experience and design there. So
Joe Natoli:10 that's huge to me, that's, that's massive growth. I mean, you know, three years may seem like a long time to some people, but I think that's massive growth because correct me if I'm wrong. But when you came in, there was no official sort of, you know, UX design team there, is that
Tanya Netayavichitr:correct? Yeah. There was no team at all. We had two business analysts, one who decided to go the user researcher route and is now a product manager. And then we had another business analyst who went the UX UI designer slash front end developer route. And they were in need of some, some leadership and guidance. And then that's where I came in and yeah, we quickly grew, but also Ventura. Within two years after I joined, had doubled in size as well.
Joe Natoli:So that, that growth was sort of in line with the growth of the organization as a whole,
Tanya Netayavichitr:definitely. And also the organization taking on a user centric centric strategy really opened up a lot of new doors as well. So
Joe Natoli:when you came in, did you have the intention or expectation that, you know, this, that the UX part of the business in particular was going to grow like this?
Tanya Netayavichitr:I had an inkling, I didn't know that it would be that fast and that, you know, we would go from basically zero design professionals to almost 30. In less than two years, which was crazy so that I do, I was not prepared for.
Joe Natoli:So tell me in terms of all that right at the time that it happened, how do I want to ask this? Just, I don't know, tell me about some of the, some of the challenges of, of ramping this up from, you know, nothing to. Sure.
Tanya Netayavichitr:So I definitely don't think that Antara was prepared for it. It was much like if you think back when folks were started adopting agile, right. For me at that time I was at PBS and it was in, I think it was like 2017 or sorry, 2007 or 2008. And agile was a new concept to folks. And you think through doing agile versus being agile, right. You go going through the motions of, right, right. We're going to have daily stand ups and we're going to move to combine or something like that. And people are just going through the motions. So I think it was very similar to that within the organization to adopt a user centric mindset. And you and I both know that there are many misconceptions about UX. Yeah. And many, and, you know, we may not have branded ourselves in the right way, but P people were thinking, tell us what the process is and we'll follow it. And that's not what it is. Just like agile, right? So it's, it's the mindset shift. It's adopting these core philosophies in the way that you do things the way that you work and the way that you ship products now. So that was something that leadership was trying to understand as a whole. And of course, making that cultural shift was, was definitely challenging. So with my experience where I had been before, I'd been in really large corporations, really small startups in Ventura was kind of a middle ground there. And so some of the challenges. I faced. And the team had faced was how to properly integrate that into a new project or an existing project. So it's definitely been quite a learning curve there, but we're, we're getting there and it, it didn't happen overnight nor do I think it ever does happen overnight. But we're still, we're still working to make things work and better integrated for both. You asked an agile, what did you
Joe Natoli:do to, or what kinds of things did you or the team do to sort of move people from this very prescriptive, you know, way of thinking, like you said that tell us what to do and we'll do it. What did you do to move them from that to a more holistic mindset of like, no, it's in everything that we do. It's about everything that we think about, you know, it's about how we make the decisions we make. Well, we
Tanya Netayavichitr:also, we started out with a lot of training. You were brought in to talk through the generating UX requirements. We had one of my mentors, Dan brown come in to talk through research. We had Debbie Levitt come in and to do two full days of training. We which were two different cohorts to integrate UX. So there was a lot of talking to professionals who had been in the industry for quite some time, myself and my team. Also provided training to the corporation as well, but that wasn't enough. What was, what really was instrumental was us winning a UX focus project that was massive large enterprise complex systems. And it was hard. It was, it was really rough to get a team. Integrating UX is one thing, right. But for this specific project, it was 104 AP. And so that's a lot of communication. It's a lot of strategizing. It's a lot of evangelizing in a cultural change. So I would say it took a really good year, year and a half for team dynamics to be in a really good place for folks to understand the value of understanding users working together and getting into a great cadence, both with agile and with UX. So being able to live that and see results within an actual project is what helped to shape what we were trying to do within the corporation.
Joe Natoli:Was it that kind of thing where as it went along and people were sort of seeing not just improvement, of course, you know, in the, in the project or in what you're working on, but improvement in the ways in which they work with each other maybe, or, you know, improvements in them feeling like their work was. Useful valuable at a, at a much deeper level. I mean that those kinds of things help ease that sense of like, okay, this is all new. And it's kind of freaking
Tanya Netayavichitr:me out. Definitely because those misconceptions, those early misconceptions of following a user centric model means big design upfront, or they want to control the user experience. Other folks in other roles don't have a say were quickly broken into. And a lot of the philosophies with UX and agile are very similar, right? Like people over processes and, and trying to move to true cross-functional collaboration is what happened. And that example was set and also the participation of our stakeholders, our clients, and our users in basically every phase of product development showed that value. We were having developers go in during the discovery phase and assessment and things like that to better understand the users and vice versa within development researchers and designers, weren't dropping off at the end. Right. And so within the team, That built that core value of trust and communication, and really letting people do what they did best while opening their eyes to see that the user experience is everyone's responsibility.
Joe Natoli:Would you say that during the course of that, that work, that project, that everybody's, you know, all the different roles you just mentioned that everybody's depth and frequency and involvement was consistent from start to finish, like you said, as opposed to people dropping off at different points,
Tanya Netayavichitr:I don't know about consistent, but it wasn't like throwing grenades, you know, it was no longer, no longer those, those dead jobs, those handoffs. But there were more supporting during those times when you would think that, oh, that role shouldn't be in that phase. Instead, like for instance, we have. A lot of business analysts who were research focused and very interested in the user experience who were analyzing business requirements, but helped out with facilitating research sessions and taking notes and joining in, on user sessions and whatnot. So they understood that user researchers and business analysts are not the same, whereas before they had thought that. Right. And so that's a big thing too. And they ended up helping out with UX QA towards the end when we were already in production. So yeah, it's, it's definitely been eye opening for those who have wanted to come in with an open mind.
Joe Natoli:And I think it helps, I mean, this kind of structure and way of working that you're describing helps tremendously. I have come to believe that a big part of the reason. UX never gets fully integrated. Quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes with my hands. Inside organizations is because there never is a true integration. It's still relegated to this part of the process or this part of the work or whatever it is. For instance, you just said to me, and I don't just mean you extras. I mean, everybody, you mentioned the developers, right. Are involved upfront. They're being exposed to things like research. And if you think about what the definition of agile is supposed to be, it's very difficult for one portion of an organization to be agile when everyone else is still sort of conducting themselves in a very waterfall like manner.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Right.
Joe Natoli:Definitely. And it, it sounds like that's kind of how you sidestepped that trap.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Yeah. And I mean, let's be real, right. Nobody is truly as agile as they say they are. And so. What I was alluding to a little bit in the beginning was that UX design, maybe isn't branded as well as agile. And so everyone wants to be agile, right? But then UX is a little bit more complex with all of our acronyms of CX and UX and ECB, HD, whatever it may be. Right. But eliminating those silos was a big part of, I hate to say buy-in, but it's getting those different roles to understand the value that we're trying to bring across the entire experience, both internal and external for our, our users.
Joe Natoli:I think I know what you're getting at and you say, I hate to say buy-in what is it if it's not buying it? Well, a
Tanya Netayavichitr:big part of it I will say within Conterra right, is the support. That the team is given to make a quality valuable product. And so the reason I hate to say buy in is because it feels like you're trying to sell something instead of really proving the value of, of being user centric, that's where I was going. Right. And so luckily I have that full, like 150% support, you know, from leadership. And we've been lucky there where I know as in a lot of other organizations, they might not get that support.
Joe Natoli:Well, there's a lot of fear. Yeah. There's a lot of fear, especially because, and I sort of get that right. Because if you haven't seen it yet, Or if you've sort of been witnessed to these very, a lot of times through nobody's fault poor integrations of teams and, and ways of working, I you're sort of reticent, you know, to, to put all your trust in something like this. If you're an executive, if you're a stakeholder, if you're a, you know, someone whose neck is on the chopping block one way or another for results or performance, I totally get it.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Definitely. Yeah. And it, it doesn't always work. Right. You know, we're, we're lucky on this one specific project that I'm speaking about, but there are many others where embedding design professionals might not be the right time. They might not be ready for that. And we have to look at that as well to see what would work and what wouldn't work.
Joe Natoli:Yeah. I don't think it's ever the same way twice.
Tanya Netayavichitr:yeah.
Joe Natoli:I mean, especially if you work with multiple clients, multiple external clients, it's never the exact same flavor. Twice. That's why I think some of this sort of set and forget it methodology that I, that I see and read about and hear about all too often, you know, it, it kind of makes me nervous and is why I talk so much about it or maybe against it is that you can't get married to a recipe. There's no such thing. It doesn't, it doesn't always apply the same way, you know, for every organization, every project, every team combination of personalities, what have you, and it sounds like that's the approach you're taking.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Yeah. There was a lot of folks who will think, okay, well, now that we've found this right recipe, if you will, to work, it'll work across everything. And there was definitely no one size fits all. And, and understanding that from the get-go, I think will help people succeed a bit more because a lot of folks are looking for that. Especially with a lot of clients that I've spoken to like, well, if you've done it there, you can do it anywhere. Right. And, and that's not the. So you and I both now,
Joe Natoli:yeah. Let me just press this button and
Tanya Netayavichitr:we make this playbook for you.
Joe Natoli:Yeah. It's, it's hard. I think it's, I think it's tremendously hard is tremendously challenging and that's a hard sell, right. Because everybody wants a sure thing. Everybody wants that reassurance. I mean, let's face it. All of the stuff that we all do every day is, is hard. These are not easy problems to solve. So I get it. I totally get it. How hard was it for people on the team? And when I say that, I mean, you know, everybody from you extras to designers, to developers, to your business analysts, to how smooth or how rough it was, sort of the slotting in and out of, of people in places and collaboration and all that. Like I I'm in my head, I'm going, like, how did you guys wrangle all this at that
Tanya Netayavichitr:size? We, you definitely experiment. And not to say that I'm a huge advocate for just like always breaking things. Right. I don't think that that's the right way to go, but I think that you should be able to learn quickly and adjust. And you know, of course we add all about that. So we did experiment with the way that the team was structured. I think that plays a big part, especially with a team of 140 all together. Right. So also. In the beginning, it was really hard to establish a multi-track approach with research, feeding, into design, feeding into development. And I think once we were able to get those dynamics in place, understand how much actual time was needed for upfront research, just to get the right amount of requirements and design and whatnot. Then we really kind of hit our groove and had different teams responsible for different things. Right? So we did have some research teams. We had some development teams in that really even got research ahead, research and design ahead of development for a full pie, which was amazing.
Joe Natoli:Wow. How much did I said generic term, but I'm trying to think of a better one. And I can't how much the communication play into getting to the point where all this was starting to run the way it needed to.
Tanya Netayavichitr:That was key and everything. And when we had first started out for this specific project communication wasn't there. So it was really bumpy, very, very bumpy. And I so my role on, on that project was to be the design lead, if you will, to oversee and help out with project dynamics and issues and whatnot. I had to have a few sessions where all of the roles got together and what I call a mashup where we spend like a full day together to talk through. Issues things that are going well, what we can work on, not to say like it's a retro or anything like that, but it's to get everything out on the table, be completely transparent. And, and candid with one another across all the roles so that people were able to be empathetic to their coworkers and understand what their perspectives might be. And that was, that happened at some of our toughest points to where things just weren't going. Right. So it definitely was not all smooth sailing, not like any project ever is. But that helped to surface a lot of the issues that came up and. I want to say it really made things work to where people were honest with each other. They were honest with themselves and were able to move past those hurdles,
Joe Natoli:which I think is is a huge, huge part in this. The reason I asked that question, one of the biggest challenges I've seen in every organization I've ever walked into is always communication. It's not so much, you know, that people don't want to talk to each other. It's, it's usually a combination of, of bad old habits or structures that don't allow for frequent communication or ideas about wasted time doing this or that, or meetings or whatever, or tools in some cases, right? When you have distributed teams, it's all sorts of things. But what you just described as is music to my ears, because of what I've seen by a large throughout my career is that that is usually. The solution is like, let's get real about what's happening here, how often it's happening, how it's affecting all of us, where we are, what we need to do, where we need to pivot. And let's not sort of cause ourselves on any unnecessary pain, just get it out there and deal with
Tanya Netayavichitr:it. Yeah. There are a lot of, a lot of folks, right. Who still operate in what we would consider. I don't know, maybe 10 years ago where it's more top down communication, command and control, right? Closed doors conversations, and a few folks make decisions. And then it trickles down into the team. And I think breaking those types of communication barriers. To be more cross-functional to actually pivot as a team instead of, as a group is, is really key and communication is, is number one. Yeah,
Joe Natoli:I, you maybe, and I'm not going to go into the full story, but you just made me think of this. I was actually fired once from a client because I had to sit down with two executives and I said, look until you sort of allow these people to talk to each other on a more frequent basis. And until you allow them to be honest, give them some safety, right. To voice everything that's going on and, and empower your managers to deal with it. This isn't going to change the outcomes that you're dealing with, the physical and financial and emotional pain that you're all feeling is not going to go away. And they got very upset with me and they fired me. And then two days later, They call me back and it was like, all right, let's try it.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Well, that's good. You gave them a reality check.
Joe Natoli:Wow. Before I walked out, I said, look, if you're happy with what's going on right now. Okay. If you can sleep at night, if, if this isn't following you around on your shoulders all day long, 24 hours a day, then Hey, keep doing what you're doing. But if I'm you, I don't want this. I don't want the stress. I don't want the pain. I don't want the aggravation, like who the hell wants to live like this. So all that reminded me of that story. And it's, it's the kind of thing where it goes back to what we were saying about, you know, you asked about how it's it maybe has a perception problem, a branding problem, a messaging positioning problem. Because the parts that aren't really well-defined or talked about enough, I think are the parts that you and I are talking about right now, which is, you know, how do people. Communicate with each other. And how do we make sure that everybody's involved at a level that's productive, that's helpful. That's collaborative, you know, I think silos are, are easy and sometimes it happens unintentionally.
Tanya Netayavichitr:I think definitely. I mean, it's easy to blame. It's easy to be reactive. So it's going to continue for a bit, right. Until people change their mindset. And
Joe Natoli:I think I can imagine I'm guessing here. Right. But, but it would seem to me that, that an undertaking, as large as the one you just described with as many moving parts, as many people, you know, big projects, how much of your job became helping the humans involved? In addition to just doing the work. In other words, helping people move past their worry and their fear and their failures, maybe in some way, w places where they're hitting the wall, places where they're frustrated places where they're like, I don't think I can do this. And. Did you have any of that? That
Tanya Netayavichitr:was most of my role. Yeah, that was most of it. I mean, there were definitely times where I had to go hands-on with the work. Right. But the majority of it is everything that you just said because of the size of the team, the client, it being new, there were, I want to say around 18 to 20 design professionals within that 140. Right. And then outside of that, majority of folks had never worked with design professionals before, so it was a new way of working. So a lot of that was dealing with. Misconceptions a lot of people problems and working through that for sure. Yeah.
Joe Natoli:Yeah. Okay. It is to a large part. And the reason I asked you that question and the reason I think it's great that we're talking about this, this instance is experience. I think it's very easy for younger people or people who are just getting into this profession in particular. I think it's very easy to get seduced by this idea that well, here's how projects work, right? We, they go this way and, and everybody works together and it all feels a little too neat and tidy for me oftentimes. And I think what happens is folks who are new to it and particular when they get on their first project and they see the sort of inherent difficulty in chaos and all sorts of other things that occur just naturally, right. It's just a natural order of order of things. And I think it, it sort of shocks them and they get discouraged. And I guess I'm on a mission just to show that, look, it kind of, it never goes this perfect smooth way. These bumps are part of the deal, right? They're part of how it works and, and dealing with them is a huge part to me, at least of doing UX work.
Tanya Netayavichitr:I completely agree. And I think throughout the beginning of that project, right. What I kept hearing from a lot of folks who. Traditionally had not worked with any design professionals before. I feel this is the most dangerous phrase ever is, you know? Well, we've always done it that way.
Joe Natoli:Talk about a grenade,
Tanya Netayavichitr:right. And so if you're going in on a project that you've never tackled before, that is new to you. Working with people that people in roles that you've never worked with before, and you want to tackle it, how you have been for the past, you know, 20 years or so, it's probably not gonna work. And so we. You had a lot of folks who joined that project and it was their very first role and they just, you know, went in both feet first and they killed it. They were amazing at it, I think because they were so open-minded on how to work with other people, other roles and stepped in and did whatever they needed to do to, and took initiative. And so it's very telling when you have those, a lot of the, a lot of projects, not just this one, but I think multiple projects, when you have folks that are very set in their ways and come with that kind of mentality of we've always done it that way. It's dangerous.
Joe Natoli:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And what you're encouraging and by, by you, I mean, you specifically, what you're encouraging is the opposite of that, right? To say, no, this is a unique situation and we're going to deal with it for what it is. Not, not what has been done in the past. Not what we think is going to work. Let's deal with. You know, I, I lose my patients every once in a while and post something on social media because I, I react to what I see. And a lot of what I react to is this idea of, well, that's not UX. That's not how that process works. That's it. You're not doing real. You x-ray. And unfortunately, this always comes from people who are entrenched in this industry who really, to me, if you've done something for long enough, you really should know better. Right. It comes across as, as judgmental comes across as gatekeeping. And above anything, everything else, I think it just doesn't help anybody. Right. It doesn't help anybody do anything by saying, because what they're saying is what you just said, we've always
Tanya Netayavichitr:done it this way. Right, right. Doing the same thing that, you know, bothers us. Yeah.
Joe Natoli:It's just not helpful. All right. It's not helpful. I think there are, there are always multiple paths to the. Outcome. There's always multiple ways, you know, to do the work.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Right. And as designers right there, I remember there was this one designer that I had spoke to and I won't name any names. But he said, you know, I'm always happy with my first design.
Joe Natoli:Wow. I wanna meet that guy.
Tanya Netayavichitr:And so, you know, it's kind of taking on that same mentality where it, you just know, I mean, and you and I, having been in the industry for some time, you never get your first design and there's many different ways that you can go about trying to find a solution. And I think that that's the same for. Team dynamics and project and how to get to that end
Joe Natoli:goal. Yeah. That, that to that's a music, a foreign concept. I don't understand. I mean, even, even after you've, you're forced to be done, you know? Right. You still look at it every single time you're confronted with it. After that all you see are 40 things you want to change, like why the hell didn't I think about it and why didn't we? And, and I think that's okay. Right. That's that's part of what keeps you good. I think that when you become that, self-satisfied, I think you seized to be useful to yourself first and foremost. And I think you're, you're, you're not helping anybody else accomplish anything either. And I think that's, that's a bummer if, for lack of a better way to put it.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Yeah, definitely. No, no growth there. Hindering yourself with your first solution.
Joe Natoli:So speaking of growth from the time that you started, right, when you first got into design and this could be as far back, you know, maybe from college, I mean, you tell me from the time you sort of dipped your toe into this area, to where you are right now. I guess I'm just going to leave it open. What, what, what brought you here? What, what interested you in the first place and what happened to sort of spark or inspire or inform the evolution of, of how your career
Tanya Netayavichitr:has gone? Let's see. Well, I've definitely always been into the arts from the moment I could grip a crayon. Right. I've always been into traditional art and all that growing up, I think from the time of like three years old. And then. In high school, when I was in high school, they didn't have any of those programs. You know, like what they have now for what I'm assuming would be graphic design and web design. And then, so when I was in college, right, it was just art. When I was in college, they had labeled it interactive media. And even the folks that I had talked to within admissions, weren't sure what that was.
Joe Natoli:I remember those days, like that word was big media. It's like interactive, new media
Tanya Netayavichitr:was another. Yeah, there, they weren't sure what it was, what it entailed, but luckily I go do it, go do it, give us your money. And take these courses that were not sure what they really mean. But I had a really great foundation where I just, I started off with, they had, I went to art school and they had coding as well. So I had learned PHP, my SQL, you know not to date myself.
Joe Natoli:I'm more curious about how, how early or how young, this kind of stuff was that,
Tanya Netayavichitr:that it was, what is it when I was around 1920? Yeah. They had anything in everything, which was great, because you could see what you really wanted to focus on. Probably the
Joe Natoli:benefit of, of, of that. Right. Is it all being new in that the it's kind of the kitchen sink,
Tanya Netayavichitr:right? Right. And then they had of course, like Photoshop, InDesign and illustrator classes as well. But me getting to see how my designs could go into code was what interested me. And so after that, I went to, you know, the AOL and PBS and Washington post and was really able to hone my skills there. I, I pretty quickly in my career and went from designer to senior, to a director at PBS, and then joined the Washington post to really help out with team dynamics there as well. And then luckily I was able to join H shapes which was a big change for me because. Going from those really big teams, really big corporations of like thousands of people to eight shapes at the max. When I was there, I think we had about 16 people and learning from just full on professionals within research and design was completely eye opening. And also working completely distributed, opened up new ways of working together with, with people from all over the place. So. That really tuned me into getting into the nitty gritty problems. Whereas at AOL PBS in the Washington post, it was more so designing in-house right. And not really talking to a plethora of users and going through what I would consider best practices of processes that are instilled for certain problems that you're trying to solve. Right. And so when I was at H shapes and then moving to Magnum, I was able to instill a lot of those best practices and building on things that I wanted to focus on to help me really grow and get to know people in the industry that. Were trying to solve those really complex issues within inner team workings and working with clients and real problems that people have been facing on a day to day that they are actually addressing.
Joe Natoli:So if you had to narrow it down to a couple of things, you know, like you said, you, you sort of rose up through the ranks pretty quickly from what I can see and what it sounds like, right. In terms of what you were able to do, what you're able to take on. In my experience, there are normally some personality traits that go along with that. What do you think that was for you? For
Tanya Netayavichitr:me taking all of that experience. And then when I started out Ventura, right, I'll be honest. The big reason that that drew me to Ventura was meeting with those two business analysts who wondering, and do, you know, product manager now and the other, I would say designer front end developer, Is to be able to help them succeed. And so I think a big reason that I do what I do is to better the lives of my, my team to push them, to be able to do the best that they can do in their job and me helping to pave the way within the organization to change that, that mindset that was was there when I started. So I think that I've definitely come a long way. There's definitely way more work to do. Always, always, yeah, but I think perseverance and being able to separate yourself from the problem to see things a little bit holistic. And have that vision has been what's what has kept me going to see that we're, we're definitely improving the lives of folks, of our users and within the corporation. So I don't know if that's full on personality trait. But I, I like to be very candid, very transparent in everything I do. And I think that the company really appreciates that candor.
Joe Natoli:Well, that's probably part of it. I mean, I think as crazy as it may sound, I mean, that kind of, you can call it radical candor. You can call it, you can just call it honesty, you can call it. The other terms are escaping me, but that trade in and of itself, I think is a very big deal because it's in short supply in a lot of places, particularly in large organizations where there's, there's a lot of pressure or, or inherent rules or structure or whether those things are actually there or not, people sort of feel. Here are these boxes in which we're allowed to operate. Right. And it has sort of always been the case throughout my career that I've seen, you know, when one person actually says, well, wait a minute, I know you guys are all saying this, but I can't help think, but what if we did this, or maybe this is causing this and you see the body language of eight other people, all of a sudden, you know, come to attention, like, cause you know, they're thinking the same thing. And then at that point, when, when attention breaks, then there's a productive conversation. Right. Then good things happen. So to me, that is a personality trait. And if, if you've been the type of person where, you know, and this is anybody from your first job, if you have the attitude of, I want to learn as much as there is to learn and you're willing to have open honest conversations with people around you, whether that's asking questions or giving opinions, right. I think it helps tremendously. I think it's a massive key to moving forward in your career as opposed to keeping those things to yourself.
Tanya Netayavichitr:For sure. And I think a lot of it is also with as much experience as we may have in whatever role should always strive to keep learning, you know, be always be that lifelong learner. I never think that you're the most knowledgeable person in the room
Joe Natoli:I'm laughing because that was, that was literally the tweet that I sent out yesterday. We're all beginners. We're always beginners. We're always going to be beginners. If you're any good at what you do, what you just said has to ring absolutely true. The minute you decided you're done learning. I think you're done
Tanya Netayavichitr:retire
Joe Natoli:then. Yeah. I mean, what's the, what's the point? I love that. I mean, personally, it's one of the reasons I love teaching right online and in person. Because you learn an extraordinary amount
Tanya Netayavichitr:from students.
Joe Natoli:Oh my God. Because you get, you get to see the true range of people and how they think and how they attack problems and, and they, they come up with ways to approach something that you would have never thought of in a million years. And it's, there's nothing that excites me more. I don't think
Tanya Netayavichitr:I agree. I mean, I have, so I have four daughters and the way that they tackle something is, is very eye opening. So always learning something new and especially in our industry where it's always changing all the time. You know, when, when we first started out, it was called web design. And then now we've got machine learning, AI, virtual reality, augmented reality, and don't know where that's going to Dell. We might be designing for our wrists and stuff later, you know, I think it's, it's, there's always room to learn and grow.
Joe Natoli:Yeah. Without question, you mentioned your daughters, there's four of them. Did they go about doing things differently or is there any similarity between them in terms of the
Tanya Netayavichitr:way they approach some similarities, but for the most part they're very, very different. I mean, my oldest who is about to turn 11 she's the very, she likes to look at everything first from all sides and break down problems. Whereas my second one, she just goes in and tries to break things. Right. Right. And, and, you know, apologize later. And then my third, who is who's six she likes to ask questions to people who have done it before. Right. So they're, they're very different. My youngest is only two, so she'll probably break things as well. But my three oldest definitely everything that they do, they approach very differently.
Joe Natoli:So you've got a multidisciplinary team they're
Tanya Netayavichitr:all cross functional
Joe Natoli:and in all seriousness, I mean, that's why people with different styles need to work together and balance each other out. You need somebody on that team who's sort of willing to just try and break things. And then you also need that person. Who's there to say, well, wait a minute, let's think about this for a second. We do that.
Tanya Netayavichitr:And there are lots of companies. I know Ventura is one of them where we've done personality tests to see, you know, how you might approach a problem or, you know, one of them was. If you were to plan a party, how would you go about it? You have different groups that, you know, order drinks first you know, and other other groups who wanting to want to pick a venue for us. Right. And so getting all those different groups together and working together really is, is the key because you're going to have many different perspectives and different ways of finding the right solution together. So what's on
Joe Natoli:your plate
Tanya Netayavichitr:right now, right
Joe Natoli:now. What's the, what's the what's the
Tanya Netayavichitr:challenge right now is being able to clone me would be great. So I oversee a lot of the projects within the corporation. So kind of, not to the extent that I was on that one project that we were talking about with 140 folks, I'm not super, super hands-on as I was there, but strategy of Ventura is to be user centered in everything that we do. And so a big part of that is making sure that that is integrated into the way that we are developing our projects products within the corporation. So that's one aspect of what I'm doing also of course, managing the team of about 25 or so folks now also involved in a lot of sales. To win more clients that understand the value of user centered design and agile as well. And then I've been taking on most recently, I was speaking engagement at an agile conference. And then also I helped Debbie love it as a contributor contributing author on her most recent book, Delta CX, then a lot of fun. I didn't
Joe Natoli:know that. Oh, nice. That's very cool. I've been actually meaning to read her book. She, and I've been talking via LinkedIn. That's very cool. So with all this stuff, because it's a lot, I mean, you've just described a lot. How do you. Quite
Tanya Netayavichitr:frankly, it's hard. It's definitely tough, especially with the mentoring that I do as well, because I do tend to stress about the problems that my team is having. And the team dynamics within projects and stuff. So what I try to do now, which I have not been very good at is, you know, when I get home or if I'm working from home, I give myself a cutoff time to where I can just do nothing and focus on family. And unfortunately I do end up working off the late night as well, but it at least gives me time to break free and say, you know, I just need to focus on myself, my mental health and my little ones and my husband, of course. So that helps to drive me the next.
It's
Joe Natoli:hard. I mean, it's, it's hard for for me as well. I mean, my wife and I both are self-employed and we, we both struggle with that because it's always there. It's always there and it's always on
Tanya Netayavichitr:your mind. Yeah. And I know you do a lot of you do a lot of traveling as well. Right. So I mean, there are some times when I will have to travel for a client sales pitch or, you know, something like that. And that takes a lot, a big toll with family life as well.
Joe Natoli:Last year I was gone every other month, last year. And at the end of the year, I thought, you know what? I don't ever want to do this again. It's, you know, and it's hard. It's saying no to stuff is, is hard. You know, when, when there are messages in my inbox or direct messages or questions in the online courses or whatever, and it's Saturday night, you know, And part of me is like, I just need a break from this and the other part's going, but those people they need to,
Tanya Netayavichitr:they need your
Joe Natoli:help. And, you know, look, part of that is probably, it's nice to feel needed as well, if I'm honest, but it's tough. It's tough to say no. And it's especially tough if you care about what you do, but I'd venture to say that it's a battle worth fighting because the outcome sort of speaks for itself. You know, a few things make me feel better and I suspect you're the same way. Few things make me feel better than when someone says you have no idea how much this means to me or how much it helped me or I was able to accomplish this. It's to me, it's, it's a lot like when your kids do the same thing, you know, it's sort of that same feeling you feel. I feel, I always feel very honored to be an emphasis. The world obviously needs you.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Thank you. Likewise.
Joe Natoli:Well, we're at the point where we've got about 10 minutes or so left, so I'm going to divert this conversation to what we call some hot seat questions, which aren't really, you know, they're not gotchas or anything. Cause I don't like that kind of stuff. So there's, there's a number of them that I ask. But the first one I want to start with is what do you think is it's a heavy one, I guess. What do, what do you think is the most difficult lesson you've learned thus far in your career or in your life
Tanya Netayavichitr:difficult lesson? I think it's, it's probably a very obvious one, but it's hard to do. And that is, I think, you know, it ties into what I've been saying that, you know, communication is key in almost everything that we do. But being able to see from someone else's perspective when there is a disagreement has been both really hard to do, but also very eye opening to help you tackle whatever problem is being faced in a different way. And so I've been thinking about that a lot lately, too, because of some, some issues and concerns that have come up in our recent project that I'm trying to help where if a lot of folks would be able to look at their role and other roles from a different light, it would really just change the dynamics a bit. So I think that's a lesson learned for me that I also try to have a lot of folks on my team. Try to
Joe Natoli:do any idea why that's so hard to do. I
Tanya Netayavichitr:mean, we're only human, right? So we typically human nature is to look out for yourself. What's going to help either, you know, elevate you and your career, make you look good, or, you know, even outside of work, human nature did to just want and do what you need and we're wired that way. Right. So I think that's why it's so hard to change that. I mean, I'm not going to get political or anything, but within the, the way that the world is right now. Yeah. I think that would be a game changer. The more people did that
Joe Natoli:could not agree more. I could not agree more. And that's, and that's, I think that's exactly what it is. I mean, you're watching it unfold with the, with the reactions to what's happened in, in the primary. Right? What happened yesterday, super Tuesday you know, all these things about. And I don't want to get political either, but I feel like I have to say this no immediately. Everybody's like, well, Warren should drop out. Like why? Because you think she should drop out. I mean, to, to, to what end, like, who's the say, like this person doesn't believe in what they're doing. Other people believe in what she's doing. And I, and I say this with any candidate, right? This, this knee jerk reaction to, well, they should do this. They should do this. Well, according to your view of the world,
Tanya Netayavichitr:right? It's one perspective.
Joe Natoli:There's more to it than that. There's more people involved, you know, there's, there's a lot more people involved that are going to be affected by the outcome of that. Yeah. We pretend that things are very, very simple and very cut and dry and they simply,
aren't
Tanya Netayavichitr:not everything is black and white.
Joe Natoli:No, no. So anyway, I'm with you this way. It's going to be a painful several months. I could tell you that. All right. Let's, let's go to something lighter. Tell me about a, either a hidden talent that you have or a hobby or something like that. That maybe not a lot of people know about.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Well, I am a black belt in TaeKwonDo. Are you serious? That is awesome. Yeah. So people always joke like, well, I'm going to have you walk me through the parking lot.
Joe Natoli:How long have you studied?
Tanya Netayavichitr:It's been a while. So it would be nice if I got back into it for sure. But I still can hold my own. It's funny because sometimes I joke with my husband kind of half joking and I'm like, okay, just come at me and attack me when I don't, when I'm least expecting it.
Joe Natoli:It was like, like the old tub. Do you ever watch the old pink Panther movies that was this whole thing you want to cater to attack them all the time you guys do
Tanya Netayavichitr:that? He's always like, oh no, I know how this is going to, but I can still hold my own. So those skills are still there.
Joe Natoli:That is very cool. Very, very cool. Here's another fun one. Cause we got a little more time. Ah, you were on the proverbial desert island. We can assume that you might have electricity if you want it. But you can have one book or one movie or one album, one piece of music for the rest of your life. What's it going to be?
Tanya Netayavichitr:Ooh, that's a hard one.
Joe Natoli:I know it's
Tanya Netayavichitr:better to ask it. Let's see. I think it would definitely have to be an album just because music is always ruling everything that I do. I always have music on. But which album would that be? I would probably say smokey Robinson. Wow. Nice. I mean, I can listen to him forever on repeat all the time. So that would be my
Joe Natoli:go-to any particular one particular album or era of his career?
Tanya Netayavichitr:Let me see the one that has I'm blanking on the album name, but has the tracks of my tears. I could just listen to that over and over
Joe Natoli:looking it up. I'm curious which album that was. That was, I think that was the miracles, the miracles. It looks like it was going to a go-go 1965. Yeah, I personally I'm in, I'm in love with that. John rhe in that, that era of music. To begin with, because I'm in love with all music.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Likewise, it's hard.
Joe Natoli:Yeah. There's something about those songs and I wasn't born in that era. Right. But I feel connected to that music in a way that I really can't quite explain. I don't know what it is.
Tanya Netayavichitr:I go through my phases. Yeah, I think it's the album, the fabulous miracles. You, you really got a, hold on me is one of my, one of my, like top tens. So
Joe Natoli:smooth. I mean, none of that's the only word that comes to mind. It's just like, he will live the rest of your life and never be that cool.
Tanya Netayavichitr:That is true. And he's delivering
Joe Natoli:it in this, this incredible falsetto, you know, which is an art in and of itself. There are a lot of people who sing. Not a lot of people who can actually do it convincingly. I
Tanya Netayavichitr:also try to teach my girls, you know, a lot of the background music that is used, that's mixed in, in today's music, eighties and nineties is from that era. And so they, they're probably the only group of little girls that don't listen to today's music. So they're, they're really into all the different genres as well.
Joe Natoli:That's what, that's a really good to hear. I mean, I wonder if that's generational, right? Every parents are always like, ah, it tastes
Tanya Netayavichitr:musically. Yeah. It really is true.
Joe Natoli:Yeah. I know. I agree with you. I think there's very little music in it. Anyway, that's a conversation for another six hours. Last question. And that is as someone who has spent, you know, obviously a lot of time and, and a lot of time now mentoring other people. What advice would you give to someone who is brand new to UX, right? Or design or any aspect of this, this field? Cause I think it's big and wide. What advice would you give them for someone who's not only starting out, but is intimidated. Okay. About like my God, there's so much here. How am I ever going to be able to, to learn it or get to it or, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Well, I think the first thing would be, you're never going to learn everything and to not try to place yourself in a box where design has different focuses. I think our industry has, has gone that way to where you're either UX your UI, your IAA, you're a researcher, whatever it may be. Whereas 15 years ago, many of us were. I, and I hate to say, I hate this term. I'm a one-person shop. Right. But to, in the way that the industry is going right now, I think a lot of recruiters and, and job postings try to put people in that one box. And then there's the opposite where they're looking for a unicorn. Yeah. But if you are eager, eager to learn, not boxing yourself into a corner or one focus and know that things are always gonna evolve within our industry and that you're willing to take on those types of challenges to learn more, then you'll go far. And what does that saying? Jack of all trades master of none. Not trying to encourage that. Right. But then, right. But then you're able to see. What you're really good at. And that's where you start to Excel in your career and, and hone in on how you can evolve and get even better at that and possibly other things that tie into it.
Joe Natoli:Well, I would venture to say that you are living proof that that's good advice, everything that you've told me so far. And, and, you know, seeing again that trajectory of your career, I think you've had a lot of success and that's the truth, right? You have to be open to finding out what works best for you, right? Where your talents are. Are best served as only one way to do that. Yep. Tonya, I cannot thank you enough for your time today. I really truly enjoy talking to you and I wish you nothing but continued success, although I don't think anyone needs to wish you success. You've already got it.
Tanya Netayavichitr:Thank you so much. I enjoyed our time today.
Joe Natoli:All right. Thank you very much. Have a great rest of the week. And I will talk to you again soon that wraps up this edition of making UX work. Thank you very much for listening. And I hope that hearing these stories gives you some useful perspective, some encouragement, and I certainly hope that you remember that you are not alone out there. Whatever you're dealing with, someone else has been there and just like you will, they have found a way to make it work. Before I go, I want to ask you to please check out our sponsor stash studio. Once again, a streetwear clothing brand focused on quality products with a positive message inspired by the resilience to turn a negative situation into a positive outcome. Visit stash.studio to learn more. Also wants you to know that you can find links to our guests, social media, profiles, websites, and other things that they have accomplished by visiting. Give good ux.com/podcast where you will also find links to more UX resources on the web and social media, along with ways to contact me. If you're interested in sharing your own story here until next time, this is Jonah, totally reminding you that it is people like you that make you X work.