00:00 my hair today everybody Fredrik Philipp 00:09 von vices thank you for consuming the 00:11 Thunder nerds conversation with the 00:13 people behind the technology love what 00:16 they do and do tech good ah dude tech 00:19 hey and we're at is bent apart and we're 00:22 talking about damn wall 00:23 oh come on show Dan thanks it's nice to 00:25 be here yeah great to have you Dan you 00:27 are a the founder and design director at 00:31 super friendly which sounds like a very 00:34 friendly place my upon yeah yeah and and 00:36 you're also a teacher yes that's right 00:39 yeah at school did you mind telling us a 00:41 little bit about you and now what you do 00:43 yeah sure so I'm a designer I'm a 00:45 creative director I grew up with the 00:47 school for design grew up drawing and 00:49 doing design and so now I run an agency 00:51 it's a little bit a little bit different 00:53 agency and my role is kind of like a 00:55 director on films where my job is to 00:58 just make sure that all the actors and 00:59 all the people doing the work are doing 01:01 their best work and trying to get that 01:03 out of them it's really good metaphor 01:06 written a couple times so what is you're 01:13 talking to kind of be about today you're 01:15 speaking later on say okay I love the 01:17 title love till launch do us part that's 01:20 right yeah so my talk is about the 01:22 designer developer relationship and I 01:24 think that you know a lot of these 01:25 conferences that we go to talk about how 01:27 designers develop developers should 01:28 collaborate and and work together and I 01:30 think no one really disagrees with that 01:32 but what I find is when I work with 01:33 designers and developers especially 01:34 in-house teams work with the my agency 01:36 works with they don't really know how to 01:38 collaborate and they think that they do 01:40 until you know me and my team kind of 01:42 come in and say this is what it looks 01:43 like to really engage work with each 01:44 other so my talk today is gonna be about 01:46 like tips and tricks and like really 01:48 actionable things as to how designers 01:50 and developers can sit together and work 01:51 together not do the whole throw it over 01:53 the wall thing on how to really engage 01:55 with each other and I think that leads 01:56 to a better work did you have a personal 01:58 phil collins or genesis experience that 02:02 made this happen you know i think i've 02:06 been lucky in my career to work with 02:08 people that know how to collaborate and 02:09 i've sort of taught me how to 02:10 collaborate and and so I always just 02:12 thought well this is how it is this is 02:13 how 02:14 goes until I went to you know tell us 02:17 start working with clients and I go they 02:18 don't they don't do this and it's cuz 02:20 they don't know how to do this so I kind 02:22 of took it upon myself to be like 02:23 alright well somebody's gotta gotta show 02:25 him right so yeah I have just kind of a 02:32 little bit he's a designer yeah like 02:34 super awesome then I'm a dev and you 02:38 know we butt heads all the time sure we 02:40 don't work together no um but you know 02:45 it is difficult to kind of like have 02:47 that conversation with your designer or 02:49 vice versa right with your developer to 02:51 be like hey this thing needs to move 02:53 exactly four pixels to the left and like 02:56 having those like really difficult 02:58 conversations about really honestly just 03:00 four pixels how how would you go about 03:03 you know telling designers and 03:05 developers how to make that problem work 03:08 well so I think the the first thing is 03:10 it's about the relationship right so a 03:11 lot of people approach it thinking well 03:12 no it's all about the work and what that 03:14 kind of says and like I get the 03:16 sentiment of that it's usually a 03:17 positive one which is like no we're all 03:18 in it for to make a great product but 03:20 the subtext of that is sort of like well 03:22 I don't care about you because this is 03:23 all about people work and so I find that 03:25 the first thing it's like well we have 03:26 to like each other and trust each other 03:28 and make sure that what you're saying is 03:29 in my best interest to and if I know 03:31 that well now I have an incentive to do 03:33 what you're asking me to do and I 03:34 haven't incent and you have an incentive 03:35 to do what I'm asking you to do I think 03:37 a lot of that is just like fine how do 03:38 you find trust how do you find partner 03:40 ability yeah the ability to like because 03:42 collaboration is really about joining 03:44 together it's a merger of sorts right 03:45 and so I think it's a lot of a lot like 03:48 that where you have to have trust first 03:49 and then if there's trust now you can 03:51 start to do things that that complement 03:53 each other and help each other I think 03:55 help is a lot of it and then aside from 03:57 that front of tactical and I find a lot 03:58 of times developers are doing a lot of 04:00 work the designer should be doing and 04:02 designers are actually doing a lot of 04:03 work the developers should be doing so 04:04 from the tips and tricks standpoint I'm 04:07 like well let's separate those two 04:08 things and let's design let's add 04:09 designers kind of take back some of the 04:11 part that should be on them all right a 04:12 lot of times developers are finishing 04:14 the design in the browser Jenn Simmons 04:16 said that yesterday in our talk yeah 04:17 they're finishing design work and the 04:18 designers don't do anything to enable 04:20 good design for developers and vice 04:21 versa so a lot of what I've been 04:23 thinking about lately 04:24 how do we flip that a little bit how do 04:26 we let designers kind of own more of the 04:27 design process and developers own more 04:29 development but also vice versa have 04:31 developers being on the design process 04:32 signers in on developing process do you 04:34 have any kind of takeaways for that any 04:36 kind of things that you've employed in 04:38 the field that you find some some 04:40 results with that so one popular one 04:42 that I think people don't take advantage 04:43 of right now is design systems are a big 04:45 topic right now and part of design 04:47 systems are this concept of tokens 04:49 all right so tokens are things that you 04:50 can declare abstractly right you create 04:52 a file somewhere whether it's JSON or 04:54 XML or something that has all of your 04:56 colors your typefaces your rounded 04:58 corner radius that's typically a 05:00 developer's job right a JSON file or an 05:02 XML file but if you think about all the 05:04 stuff that is in a tokens file it's all 05:06 to design stuff so why aren't designers 05:08 owning tokens so a lot of the things so 05:11 that's one of the things that I talk 05:13 about a lot it's like well how do you 05:14 get a designer to own a tokens file how 05:16 do you set up the workflow how do you 05:17 set up the tooling you know so that a 05:19 designers not like gonna setup gulp and 05:21 build tools and all that stuff on their 05:22 machines but how can they own a really 05:23 abstract file so that if they want to 05:25 move this thing four pixels to the right 05:27 it's about editing a configuration file 05:29 rather than sitting with a developer and 05:31 going to pixels up one pixel tupid two 05:36 pixels you know like that over the 05:39 show-me people don't really like to do 05:40 do you think it's more of like a 05:42 trepidation of getting actually into 05:44 development for a designer do and and 05:46 how do we overcome that how do how do we 05:49 make development not so scary yeah so 05:54 I'm a people person I like to talk about 05:56 the touchy-feely stuff because it 05:57 impacts our work so much I'm a designer 05:59 but I find that if you can make people 06:01 comfortable they tend to do better work 06:02 yeah and so for me the the trepidation 06:04 with designers is not that code is hard 06:06 I mean that might be one part of it but 06:08 most designers can get over that the 06:09 trepidation is if I don't do a good job 06:11 here am I gonna fire yeah right that's 06:14 the thing developers while you own the 06:16 design okay but if I don't do a good job 06:17 am I gonna get fired so a lot of this 06:20 especially in a workplace that is you 06:21 know that that's that's tough um a lot 06:24 of what people are worried about it's 06:26 like I have to do a good job otherwise 06:27 my livelihood is in the line right if 06:29 you can remove that part of the of the 06:31 equation that opens the door to a lot 06:32 more different conversation so how can a 06:34 designer Sato developer I'd like 06:36 you to own some of the design part but 06:38 if it doesn't go well that's cool it'll 06:39 be on me and actually mean it actually 06:41 be willing to take to take 06:42 accountability and take willingness for 06:44 that so I find that a lot of it is just 06:45 like making people comfortable with that 06:47 and how do you remove the risk from them 06:49 the risk is I'm gonna get fired I don't 06:51 have this job I have to support my 06:52 family all that stuff is wrapped up into 06:54 can we move that thing for pixels to the 06:56 right you get so many people that will 06:58 say like oh that's not my job I'm going 07:01 to distance myself that's so-and-so 07:03 that's coral down down the block there 07:06 he does that that's where I do this I'm 07:08 safe and it's exactly that too it's like 07:11 well if things go wrong I want it to 07:13 blame to be over there not over here 07:15 exactly and so if you can take that out 07:16 of the equation if you can remove that 07:17 from the dynamic of workplaces I feel 07:20 like it opens up the door to a lot of 07:21 different possibilities how do we go 07:22 down that road I think a lot of it is 07:24 trust is you know that in order for you 07:27 to do something for me 07:28 the easiest way that I can get you to do 07:30 that is I have to do something for you 07:31 first so if I can do something for you 07:33 first I think it'll make you more likely 07:35 to do something for me both providing 07:36 value and that's right but I've got to 07:38 start I can't ask you to do something 07:40 and me not do anything yet yeah I'm much 07:42 more likelihood if I go hey I grab your 07:45 beer from the fridge 07:45 yeah it's cool yeah and then I grab you 07:48 a beer or I buy your pizza and hey you 07:50 mind sitting with me while we do this 07:51 design thing it's much easier than hey I 07:54 need you to do this by you in the day 07:55 I'm actually going home cuz I gotta go 07:56 you know I got a paintball tonight but 07:59 you know good luck staying late yeah 08:00 nobody wanted to do that so I think a 08:02 lot of it is what what can you do first 08:04 for someone else and then I think 08:06 they'll be much more likely to do a free 08:07 so I have a bit of a question of 08:10 sometimes a lot of people will like 08:12 internalize that that like blame game 08:14 kind of thing and someone down the 08:16 pipeline will be like okay this is my 08:18 fault no matter what even if it's not 08:19 not their fault at all right um how 08:22 would you counteract that kind of 08:24 feeling - because I mean at the end of 08:26 the day someone might even just be like 08:27 oh it's totally my fault I to somebody 08:30 who knew about the thing and so now it's 08:32 my fault and I gotta fix it yeah I got a 08:35 couple of tools to help with that so the 08:36 first tool and certainly it's not things 08:38 that I made up these are things that I 08:39 found that other people created that I'm 08:40 like that's super useful the first one 08:42 is called a racy matrix and a racy 08:45 matrix that's RACI it stands for 08:47 responsible accountable consultant and 08:50 info 08:50 and what I do at the beginning of every 08:52 project is I list out all of the roles 08:54 that that people will have to do on this 08:56 project so all right we got to make 08:57 icons we got to do comps we have to you 09:00 know HTML with tourette's the SS get the 09:02 right job all the things that we're 09:03 gonna do on this project and across the 09:05 top we write all the roles or even 09:06 sometimes more specifically all the 09:08 people you know Jenni and Kyle and Jim 09:10 and I write you know an RSC an A or not 09:15 so Jenni is responsible for the icons 09:17 Karl is responsible for the HTML this 09:20 person is accountable for this thing and 09:21 it very clearly delineate it's okay if 09:23 things go wrong who is the person that 09:25 will accept responsibility but also who 09:28 is the person that should get the credit 09:29 if the icons come out killer Jenni we 09:31 are promoting you like you're gonna get 09:33 you're gonna you're gonna get the reward 09:34 from this too and you know some people 09:36 are not comfortable being responsible 09:37 for anything and that's okay this makes 09:39 it plain I just want to be informed 09:41 about everything but I don't want to be 09:42 responsible great Kyle you wouldn't you 09:44 have no arse on on your side of the 09:45 chart and so using a chart like that 09:47 makes it visible kind of makes it 09:48 transparently these are the people that 09:50 are responsible for these things if I 09:51 want to know who's in charge of the 09:52 icons I can just look at this chart and 09:54 go oh it's Jenni she's in charge of the 09:55 icons I can go talk to her about that so 09:57 that's one tool for doing that it's like 09:59 just making that really transparent 10:00 because a lot of times we assume like I 10:02 guess the designers in charge of the 10:03 icons right but no one product manager 10:06 actually decided we're gonna use some 10:07 stock icon set but I don't know I go to 10:09 the designer because I don't know those 10:10 things so if we can make those things 10:11 more visible it becomes a great way to 10:14 kind of help people to know what they're 10:18 gonna get blamed for and what they're 10:19 not gonna get blame for so that's that's 10:20 one thing I forget what the second thing 10:23 yes but it's almost like with the first 10:25 dude you find it's easy to take that 10:27 information of bringing it to one's 10:29 employer and say you know what I'd like 10:31 to kind of set this into our culture yes 10:34 and thank you for reminding cuz that was 10:35 that that's part of the second thing is 10:37 that I think leadership has to be 10:38 involved in that too and so how can you 10:41 make it so that people know what praise 10:42 or what blame they're gonna get is I 10:43 think leadership should be involved to 10:45 set up those things for the people that 10:46 are that are underneath them and working 10:47 for them to say you know I think the job 10:49 of a good leader is to say if things go 10:51 well you all get the praise because you 10:53 all did this and if things go poorly 10:54 it's my fault for not setting this up 10:55 for you so I think the leadership should 10:57 certainly be part of that culture and 10:59 that could be top-down it could be 11:01 ground up it could be designers and 11:02 developers you know saying to their 11:04 manager 11:04 hey I'd like to implement this tool in 11:06 your culture let's bring it up every day 11:07 it stand up or let you know let's build 11:09 a slack bot around this or something 11:11 whatever the internal culture is but it 11:13 also could work top-down where a manager 11:14 could say I have this tool that I think 11:16 was going to help our team and help me 11:18 to articulate what what I'm supposed to 11:19 be doing for you so I think that it 11:21 could work either way so I have a 11:26 question JTP played piano I didn't tell 11:30 me about that okay 11:31 I I played the piano since I was three I 11:34 started late okay yeah a late bloomer 11:37 yeah I played the piano since I was 11:39 three I always liked doing it I used to 11:41 have a little Casio keyboard that I 11:43 would carry with me at a church every 11:44 week and in the pastor of the church 11:46 everybody would be like hey dad you have 11:48 a song you want to play for us and I'd 11:49 like March the front of the church and 11:50 play all song it's adorable and so I've 11:52 always been used to being in front of 11:53 crowds since you know since I was three 11:55 played in bands before and my parents 11:59 never forced me to play the piano and so 12:01 I think that's the reason that I stuck 12:02 with it it's like I was never like my be 12:04 mine my parents were never left you have 12:05 to practice you have to do the Saturday 12:07 piano lessons dan I mean I did it 12:09 because I want to do it and there were 12:10 times I was like I don't wanna do this 12:11 anymore and my parents like all right 12:13 you don't have to I guess I have 12:16 autonomy here so it was cool they gave 12:17 me a lot of a lot of capacity to decide 12:20 what I wanted to do with it inside I 12:21 keep doing it I think you got some great 12:23 great parents I do I do i bear parents 12:25 yeah yeah mmm 12:27 it's very gene Belcher they love it it's 12:29 very much gene did you do I play mostly 12:43 in Christian bands so I played in two 12:45 bands before I'm one I played for ten 12:47 years as a Christian band and then my 12:49 first band that I was at I played maybe 12:51 two shows and I don't remember the name 12:53 of the band 12:53 it was either so we either had a song 12:56 called the morning after or the name of 12:58 the band was the morning after it was 13:03 just so short 13:04 like you're in a band now I'm not I have 13:10 a wife and two kids and that takes up 13:12 most of my time yeah and so yeah yeah 13:15 maybe a family band yeah young kids I 13:18 have a six year 13:19 oh well I guess you seven hours just 13:20 turned seven a seven year old in the 13:21 four year old oh yeah two daughters yeah 13:23 that takes up a lot of time we've got a 13:25 three and a half year old yeah I 13:26 understand but they're all musical my 13:30 wife sings she's she's an amazing singer 13:32 like she's like the kind of singer 13:34 that's like like winds karaoke 13:35 competitions kind of singer kind of like 13:38 you know people go sing karaoke and she 13:40 goes up and oh you're a singer yeah and 13:42 so it's like it's a bit unfair so what 13:46 got you into what you're doing now like 13:48 you you were on a fast track to becoming 13:50 a piano yeah that's right genius so 13:55 speaking of my good parents my dad is an 13:57 accountant my dad is a very pragmatic 13:59 accountant and so like I have I have 14:01 Asian parents both of my parents are of 14:03 Asian descent and a typical for Asians 14:05 like they didn't want me to be a doctor 14:06 a lawyer my dad just the only career 14:08 advice he's ever given me was like 14:10 whatever you do make sure you can 14:11 support your family if you know if you 14:13 want to have a family make sure you can 14:14 support them so when I was like in high 14:16 school and trying to silence oh I want 14:18 to do this like a art thing because I 14:20 always drew and read comic books growing 14:22 up don't want to like I'm an art thing 14:23 or like a music thing and I was like I 14:25 think that music would be a difficult 14:27 life you know 16 I knew that yeah and so 14:31 I was like all right maybe I'll see what 14:32 this art thing does so I went to school 14:34 to be an animator because actually I in 14:37 91 92 I think is when Toy Story came out 14:40 and I saw a toy store I was like yep 14:42 that's it that's what I want to do sold 14:44 yeah and so I went to school to be an 14:45 animator and I realized in my first 14:48 semester how difficult animation 14:49 actually is yeah now I'm not cut out for 14:51 it but I was lucky too my major was sort 14:54 of split between animation and design 14:56 and I was like oh this design thing 14:57 actually pretty is pretty cool and so 14:59 that's out of that new earth in Lucas 15:07 Films I worked with Lucasfilm so I did 15:09 at one point part of my claim to fame is 15:11 I design Star Wars comm 15:13 not the version that's up right now 15:16 version just before the Disney bought it 15:17 dadgum that's pretty cool yep alright 15:20 nice that's a certainly high point my 15:22 career that is pretty fantastic yeah I 15:24 talk about that all the time yes it 15:27 doesn't every pitch first gonna start my 15:31 slide with Star Wars and I don't know 15:34 where all of it in his book well then 15:43 for the our audience the people that did 15:46 not have an opportunity to join us and 15:49 event apart this week 15:50 do you mind providing any kind of little 15:52 goodies or takeaways from your talk yeah 15:55 totally 15:56 so I think for my talk my talk is called 15:59 to launch to us part it's really about 16:00 engaging with designers and developers 16:01 and how do they can do that more closely 16:03 I'm like we talked about here I think 16:05 Trust is a big part of that the other 16:07 part is fine tooling and find ways to 16:09 really sit together I think that's maybe 16:11 the the best part of it and that doesn't 16:12 mean you have to be all in the same 16:13 location find ways to virtually sit 16:15 together so one things that me and my 16:17 teams will do even though we're 16:18 distributed is we'll send videos back 16:20 and forth and it's almost like my video 16:22 will talk to that person's video and 16:23 then we'll and we'll do that Brad Frost 16:25 who's on stage a little bit later today 16:27 he and I did a two-hour YouTube video of 16:29 like here's just how we work together 16:31 it's designer and developer so if you 16:32 want to see what that process looks like 16:33 you can check out that video on YouTube 16:35 that's really cool okay great yeah we'll 16:37 put that a link to that in the show 16:38 notes Gopal thank you so much for being 16:41 on the show thanks for having I super 16:42 appreciate it thanks everybody in stay 16:44 tuned we're gonna have a lot more 16:45 speakers coming up soon