The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the personal and professional lives of designers. It's harmed our ability to efficiently collaborate, gather user insights, keep a healthy work/life balance, or even maintain stable employment. Ayan and Evan discuss combating "Zoom fatigue," overwhelming meeting schedules, and substitutes for our beloved sticky notes and whiteboards. You'll also hear stories of hardship and hope from members of our community. Stay safe out there!
Helpful Links
Welcome Stamp Program - looking for a change of scenery? To make up for falling tourism revenue, some countries are offering special visas for workers to temporarily relocate.
The Rise of Quarantine UX - customer habits and expectations are changing. For how long is in question, but businesses will need to adapt to survive.
Dscout - a platform focused on performing diary studies, a long-form approach to qualitative user research that can be safely done during the pandemic.
Miro - a very helpful diagramming and sticky note tool for collaborative design sessions.
Catchafire - had an internship or job opportunity rescinded and unsure what to do with your time? Consider volunteering for a non-profit to do some good and develop a portfolio case study.
More Ascend UX Content
Visit the Ascend UX podcast’s website for more episodes.
Read our blog on Medium for helpful articles on UX design.
Contact Us
We love your questions and feedback! Please send them to ascendux@pros.com. We read every message and may use your question in a future show.
Ayan Bihi or Evan Sunwall are always happy to connect with listeners on LinkedIn. Just add a note mentioning the show in your invitation.
Credits
Thanks to Ultravice and Lakey Inspired for the use of their music.
Thanks to our producer and editor Brandon Robinson.
This show is created by PROS and the PROS UX Team.
Copyright 2020 Ascend UX. All rights reserved.
Ep 5 - Working in a Pandemic
Evan: [00:00:00] Have you decorated your home office , Ayan?
Ayan: [00:00:03] I haven't really, but I got a kitten, so [laughs] I don't know if that works.
Evan: [00:00:08] So you've outsourced the decoration to a kitten. The kitten will decorate it for you.
Ayan: [00:00:12] She actually does more destruction than decorating.
Evan: [00:00:35] Howdy friends! This is the Ascend UX podcast, a show about the experience of user experience design. I'm Evan Sunwall.
Ayan: [00:00:43] And I'm Ayan Bihi
Evan: [00:00:45] So Ayan, we're recording this episode in the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic. How has your life changed over the past few months?
Ayan: [00:00:56] I think it's safe to say it's changed a lot on so many levels [00:01:00] from my outlook to life in general, to just taking things one step at a time. And even in the way I work and consequently live.
I think the biggest thing for myself and for others who I've spoken to is the effect of no longer having to commute and seeing how much of a space that took in my daily life.
So, even the night before, making sure everything was ready, making sure to be up at a certain time, to have certain things done before I have to catch that bus, or trying to get the bus to come home. Not sure how long that bus will take, not sure what time we'll get there, not sure how much traffic.Looking back now, I was like, "Wow, that was a really stressful moment in my everyday life." By removing that, it’s allowed me to have less stress, which is great because there's so much more stress outside , in our everyday life now. So that leaves space for that. But also just getting more time for myself.
Evan: [00:01:55] You got that gift of time to invest in other things that are positive or helpful or healthy. I've actually felt that too, this void I kept making in my life to commute two hours a day. Now I can play with my son. We can play Legos. We can run outside in the backyard. It's really great.
What about some of the negative?
Ayan: [00:02:15] Oh, the negative? So, at the beginning I realized that I didn't have much structure. You wake up, maybe go straight to whatever space that you dedicated as your office space and just go long into the day without really creating a break. And I'd realize just how tired I'd be at the end or how my eyes were burning from staring at the computer, or I think what they call "Zoom fatigue". So again, it really requires structure that we would have had in the workspace originally, but now it's putting that on yourself and saying, "Okay, in order for me to take most of the day, I have to create my own structure."
So I'm not saying I'm a superhero in the sense that I do this every day, but I try to create healthy patterns. One thing I did, and I really liked, was [00:03:00] just going for a walk in the morning. And meditation, I really enjoy that it’s a nice moment to create a break from yesterday's workday and the new workday that awaits you.
And also just taking maybe 10, 15 minutes within the workday just to disconnect. As designers there's not just creativity, there's a lot of technical aspects in our work, so our brains can be overwhelmed. So just letting your brain calm down maybe you'll get that Eureka moment.
How about you? Evan? What's some negatives that you've noticed?
Evan: [00:03:29] I had a discussion with my wife. We needed some cheese for a dinner and the cheese had gone moldy and she's like, "Oh, we need to get this cheese or otherwise dinner's going to be really thrown off". And I had this moment of crisis, like, "Oh my gosh, I have to go to the store? And buy cheese?!" And it's just this stress for the most mundane tasks that you never gave a second thought before. And now the act of buying cheese is this crisis moment of "Oh no, I gotta get a mask and should I do this? Should we just order it and just have it delivered?" It is a stresser that permeates your entire life.
And I do miss the structure and the focus that an office environment provided where there was a definite separator from the home and work life. There's a lot of uncertainty, but there is certainly some stuff we're going to talk about today to illustrate what's going on right now. And some tips and techniques to help you all.
Ayan: [00:04:20] Yeah, it's really changed how we work! I remember a year or so ago, when I was in the job market and there were some UX positions for remote work, and I was like, "Oh, I couldn't do that. As UX designers, we really need to be surrounded by our colleagues or our users or our clients." And here we are today, realizing “No, maybe this can be feasible actually, as a way to work. "
I was doing research and I noticed that new opportunities are popping up also for countries. People who want to work and live in countries like Estonia or Barbados, there's a thing that's called the Welcome Stamp Program. They can get a six-month visa and you can create like a little nice cabin on the beach, [00:05:00] get some good wifi, and hop on your Zoom from there. So, it's really interesting to see how this pandemic has forced not just people, not just companies, but also countries to shift in their way of functioning.
Evan: [00:05:14] Yeah, a lot of opportunity and I think it's really opened up a lot of minds. I know it opened mine. I was always a gung-ho office worker and it was a little resistant to doing the home-work life stuff. And, after all these months, I’m a believer. I think you can definitely do this, and it affords you a lot of other advantages that office life doesn't really give you.
Ayan: [00:05:36] I think this pandemic has accelerated the advancements for homework because change takes so long for society. I think, for us to be here today would have taken years, but since we had no choice, it took us months.
Evan: [00:05:51] Yeah, it's amazing what a contagious disease will just force society to start doing differently. Like, "All right, you're all going to work from home now."
It's affected a lot of [00:06:00] people and we wanted to get some additional stories, not just us talking about our own experiences, but also how this pandemic has affected other designers, other researchers, and in terms of their work style and their collaboration with colleagues.
We have two contributors today that are going to share some stories about their pandemic worklife. The first is Rui Shi, who is a UI/UX designer who shared some of her experiences with us. And here's Rui talking about how the pandemic started for her.
Rui: [00:06:31] I was trying to find a job beginning of February, but, you know, lots of companies have freezed hiring, and lots of people are getting laid off. So, there are less job opportunities compared to last year. So, it is really difficult for us to find a UX design job. So everything is difficult for me.
Evan: [00:06:52] That's tough, and she's not alone in that. We also spoke with someone who is a user researcher. We'll just refer to them as researcher today [00:07:00] at a request to protect their privacy. This is how the pandemic started for them:
Researcher: [00:07:05] I went through probably about a three-month unemployment stint. The company I was working at before, it was a startup and the pandemic just didn't do well for them. And so, they laid off like 80% of the company and those initial months were pretty intense, especially because I felt like we had been making a lot of really great headway on a lot of the research projects and the design projects we were doing. And it just kind of was ripped out from underneath.
Evan: [00:07:32] We're going to hear from these folks throughout this episode, as we talk about different topics on doing UX Design and research during a pandemic. Where should we start?
Ayan: [00:07:42] Well, let's begin with how it's changed the way that we work. Usually as UX Designers, we're intermediaries. So, we need to have contact with our users and our clients. So, we can talk about how that's changed and what hacks we found to get around there.
Evan: [00:07:58] Jacob Nielsen is a very big fan of [00:08:00] saying "UX without users is just an X." You got to get those user insights to do your job effectively.
Ayan: [00:08:07] Yeah. And some former ways that you would do that is for example, guerrilla testing, right? So, you've been in the corner of your office trying to figure out the best way to improve this product that you're working on. And you say, "Hey, I need to put this in the hands of those users." So, there's a lot of times where you just go onto the street either to question people or to put the product in their hands to get some quick feedback. And today that's definitely not possible as we are, you know, very skeptical and weary of people. So, it's created some new ways to get around that and just to figure out how we can still maintain that contact with our users.
Evan: [00:08:42] Those office visits, going out to the coffee shop that you're talking about - really popular techniques. And now they're all just fraught with concern and basically impossible to do right now with any kind of certainty or protection. That's a big loss of information and insight that really helps designers make better [00:09:00] choices about what they're working on.
Ayan: [00:09:02] Yeah. And we were able to go very quick to get some feedback. Now it forces us to question, how can we get that feedback? We don't want to remove that from our process, so, how can we make contact with our users to allow our products to be the best they can? So, in our exchange with Rui, she lamented too on the loss of this key technique:
Rui: [00:09:21] When we were in the office, we can get clients' feedback directly. We can invite them to our office, show them what is our work, but for now we cannot talk to them in person. I don't think we can always do like video chatting all day for feedback, for user testing, for user interviews. Everything is not very efficient.
Evan: [00:09:40] That richness of checking out someone's office space and how they're working, that's all kind of gone away right now and that's definitely a big impact on UX designers.
Ayan: [00:09:51] Cause we also don't get that human cue either from observation or just seeing how people move and what body language can communicate to certain [00:10:00] things.I was just doing stakeholder interviews and we did maybe thirteen by Zoom, and it's not the same thing I have to admit than sitting there with the person and really creating a human contact with them. You know, you can maybe put them at ease by being there with them and maybe make a joke or two, which you really can't do over a Zoom call.
Ayan: [00:10:21] But during our exchange with researcher, this change in work style wasn't all that disruptive for them :
Researcher: [00:10:26] A lot of the research I was doing was global research. So, I was doing a lot of things in Europe, and jumping on a plane wasn't always feasible. And so, I was doing Zoom meetings at weird hours anyway. And so, having that everybody's remote, it's just makes it so much more helpful.
Evan: [00:10:43] You must master a video conferencing app, Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting. We have an international audience our company and so we got really good at doing remote interviews: scheduling them, getting the timing right, conducting usability [00:11:00] testing. And now everyone really needs to do that. You've got to master every setting, every option, every trick in these tools to really do your job effectively.
Or perhaps you may even need to pick up a remote testing platform. There's like usertesting.com, that's one of them. And try to get a better handle on deriving insights from remote interviews, remote testing sessions to refine designs and make them better for users.
Ayan: [00:11:27] Yeah, and I think Rui experience with this is quite typical:
Rui: [00:11:30] some of my coworker they actually do a lot of interview online. They set of meetings, one-on-one, like their presenting the prototype, the problems and then let them to do interactive things.
Evan: [00:11:43] Yeah, Rui mentioned having some tools I think they use Invision and having them be able to interact with the prototype, even leave comments on the prototype. It was certainly more friction and it took longer and harder than what she used to do bringing people into the office and getting that contact time, but it was still [00:12:00] working out for them and getting what they needed by doing these remote testing sessions.
Ayan: [00:12:04] So, I guess, as we were talking about earlier, some techniques for us to connect with users is no longer available, but that could also open up the opportunity to use other techniques that we weren't used to using.
Evan: [00:12:15] Ayan you mentioned that you actually done a diary study, is that right?
Ayan: [00:12:19] Yeah, I did one a few years ago. It was very rich. It gave us so much information. It was for a product that was based on how we could improve how people eat. So, we had maybe about 10 participants and we asked them to journal what they had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner by including photos. And it was really in depth because we did it over maybe three weeks to a month.
Evan: [00:12:44] Yeah, I've never actually done a diary study because it was just - a lot of work - to give it to users logistically and have them fill out and provide this information. But you can certainly do that in a pandemic and it may be something to dust off and perhaps give it a try if you're still [00:13:00] looking for that richer, qualitative insight from what your users are thinking and feeling and doing.
Ayan: [00:13:04] Yeah, it gave us a lot of data and it also allowed us to take that information and apply it after, as we were testing with the same people.
Evan: [00:13:12] What about desk research? What about actually doing research online about your users?
Ayan: [00:13:17] So I've been doing that even before as well, but it really depends on type of service or product you're using. For example, right now I have a client and we were doing the stakeholder interviews and to prepare for the user testing, I kind of just went online to see what type of reviews that they were receiving from their clients.
So that also helps. But again, it's not a hundred percent as talking to the user because you don't know if the website is loyal or if they have an interest by putting these reviews on it. But I think it's always useful to give you a bit of extra information before you take the next step.
Evan: [00:13:50] Yeah, if you could do some additional research on your users in this safe way, why not? You may have to rely on that to supplement what you may be getting from these [00:14:00] sessions. Another thing to supplement is all the analytical data, the survey data, AB testing, testing out different designs, and maybe on your website.
Though there may be a temptation to just exclusively rely on that because you can safely get that data. And there may be a resistance to like, well, all these other techniques, diary studies or scheduling remote testing interview sessions, that could be a little harder. So why don't we just use the data, but it's not going to tell you why it's not going to explain or give you insight into why people are doing these things with your product or service. So, it may be important to blend those things together.
Ayan: [00:14:35] I think also the way we work is changing not just outside of our company, so with our clients, but also the way we work with our colleagues during the pandemic. And we speak often about design thinking and how we can apply that to improve our client's work process. But I think now since we are working with our colleagues from a distance that also be something that we can apply to the way we work [00:15:00] ourselves.
So looking at new ways to improve communication, for example, or just trying to help our companies not just cut costs, but also develop new products and services to innovate.
Evan: [00:15:11] The role of the designer as someone who has vision, who can create something from nothing is a really powerful skill to have. And could actually be really important to help a company work through a stressful time, developing a new product or service, or just facilitating, getting people to share, what we need to do next, or how might we solve this problem for our market or for our users.
Ayan: [00:15:35] Yeah, because our role sometimes is kind of agents of change. We're kind of there to push things and question things. So living in a time that's very disruptive to our regular habits, can be very useful and allowing our companies to really rethink how we can reduce certain things to improve the way that we work.
Researcher: [00:15:54] There's a lot of disruption that's happened because of this pandemic and businesses are being forced to respond in ways [00:16:00] that they didn't think they would have to. Rather than being held to this is the way it's always been done, we've learned that just because it's been done that way, it doesn't mean that it has to be done that way and we can push the envelope and we can make things change if we really want them to change.
Evan: [00:16:16] Maybe the way the company works, needs to change and adapt because of Covid concerns a very popular one is e-commerce integration. They need to digitize. They need to change and remove contact points in how they sell their products and services and UX Designers, Service Designers - that's another subset that focuses a lot on that in that end-to-end customer experience - your skills are going to be called up to really help these companies deal with these forces of change that are happening and that's gonna become very important until we get back to some point we were before.
Ayan: [00:16:51] I think this time has really shown a lot of companies that going online to sell their products is no longer a choice, it's [00:17:00] actually necessary for them to survive.
Evan: [00:17:01] Yeah, it's a matter of survival, right? You have to do this, you have to start to streamline and reduce contact points, allow for your products and services to be sold, and you may need a designer, you may need someone to help facilitate parts of the company that maybe historically hesitant or resistant to embarking on some of these endeavors.
So, in addition to all this change that may be happening within the organization, there's also some new tools and skills that you may need to adopt to maintain productivity. So within our own group, we adopted Miro which has been a really helpful Post-it note white boarding tool because all our white boards are in an office that we can't go to, they're just collecting dust. They probably have historical doodles and sketches from what we were doing months ago at this point. And when we rolled out that tool, particularly just allowing people to whiteboard and do these collaborative sessions, everyone [00:18:00] gave a lot of positive feedback on just having this tool in their toolkit. Researcher had something to say about this.
Researcher: [00:18:06] Sharpen your remote skills, your virtual skills, a lot. Learn how to collaborate online, like look to really strong collaboration tools like LucidChart, Miro - anything where you can do a virtual sticky note.
Evan: [00:18:20] Do you miss your post-it notes?
Ayan: [00:18:23] I do, actually, I have a little stash in the corner of my house, just waiting for the right moment to come out and take over my walls.
But yeah, communication's a huge part of the way we work. So how can we transition that into the digital space and to, just work with maybe our design team or our colleagues in different teams?
It allows us to test out new tools and perhaps they actually work even better. Because, because one thing, if I may admit about post-its is that it's such a big waste in the end of, you know, I feel bad for all those trees. So, if you can go digital, why not?
Evan: [00:18:57] You get to keep what you made and if you need to go back and [00:19:00] refer to something it's there, it hasn't been thrown away or collected or erased. That is a pretty nice perk to be able to reshare that content.
Another point on sharing sketchbooks phone cameras, rapidly sketching. There's going to be a push to want to continue to digitize things, given the circumstances. But for UX design, when your kind of working through those early concepts, trying to remain low fidelity, trying to not get too invested in your early designs is going to be still very important. So even when you're trying to work through concepts and ideas, in a low fidelity way, you know, you can still take a picture of a sketch from your sketchbook and share it with your colleagues and put it onto a digital white boarding tool and share it with them. And that, that can still allow you to be a little nimble and quick in those early stages.
Learning new tools and skills may be, easier than you think, actually, that some of these resources like training, like conferences, obviously they'd seem really distant, remote. Maybe budgets have been [00:20:00] slashed, conferences have been canceled, but Rui had this to say about developing her skills during the pandemic:
Rui: [00:20:09] There are lots of online resources. For example, there is a UX conference in Dallas which I have to drive to there, or I have to fly to Dallas, but for now I can just attend online. I don't have to drive. I don't have to fly there. I don't have to be there in person. And also, Adobe Max, the creative conference? This year is totally free.
Evan: [00:20:29] And researcher had this to say as well about skill development.
Researcher: [00:20:33] I took a few classes online, just to keep the skillset going and keep it building and to occupy my time. So, I felt like I was still, you know, working, quote unquote.
Ayan: [00:20:43] We have this time and why not use it to brush up on certain skills or also acquire certain skills that we would have thought we weren't able to really dedicate to, since we were maybe busy commuting or had other things to do? So, I think that's great that they're taking that time to improve their skills.
Evan: [00:20:59] Yeah. Just [00:21:00] the idea that there may be some resources that you kind of wrote off or didn't think about before, it actually may be available. That may be offering a condensed course or greatly reduced discount. You may have some extra time on your hands to work on those skills. This is a great time to do some remote learning.
Ayan: [00:21:17] Yeah, and I love what Rui said too. It's that, now, since everything is digitized, we have access to events that we might not been able to go to before. So, why not take advantage of that as well?
Evan: [00:21:29] Also in making a mention about developing skills and doing more things, and in this time, attention feels drained. Feeling fatigue seems to be a common thing. Zoom fatigue definitely has been talked about a lot. That is totally a real thing. Definitely. Absolutely. Because building relationships and communication is going to take more effort we're missing out on nonverbal cues, facial expressions, body language, us as human beings have not [00:22:00] evolved to do such continuous, regular digital, online communication. It is taxing. It is draining to stare at a screen for hours and hours a day that you definitely were not doing back in pre-pandemic life where you would kind of get up and go get a cup of coffee and go take a quick walk at the office or go talk with a colleague. Now we're just staring at little boxes on our screen to try to get that human interaction that we need to collaborate and do our job successfully.
Researcher mentioned how this affects their research:
Researcher: [00:22:36] Virtual research takes an even keener, sharper ability to notice people and to read what they're feeling and thinking, especially when you have to engage that through a screen and you're missing everything roughly from the neck down in terms of their body language.
Evan: [00:22:53] Yeah, it's trying to extract that information, get that perspective through these little [00:23:00] windows into other people's worlds is definitely challenging. And for Rui, she actually did find a new job during the pandemic - Yay! Great. But there was a drawback.
Rui: [00:23:12] Everything is virtual now. I had a virtual onboarding, virtual meetings, virtual work. I don't met any of my coworkers, my boss and manager, I don't met anyone in person. So, I don't know their personally. I can't talk to them in person.
Evan: [00:23:26] Yeah, so great news, but also really challenging to get connected with all your new coworkers and understand them better and work with them effectively.
Rui: [00:23:37] I was scheduling a lot of one-on-one meetings with some of my coworker and also my manager. So that's helps me to understand everybody like, what their personality, what is their hobby? What is their working style, how we can cooperate as a team. How as a UX Designer can I contribute my value to this engineer team, things like that.
Ayan: [00:23:58] I can see that as being really [00:24:00] difficult. For us, there's a bit more advantageous because we were already integrated into a team. So, the process of going from working in the office to remote was just more streamlined because we didn't have to imagine how to integrate into a new team. But yeah, I can imagine it being really hard. How do you create that contact? How do you create that relationship with people that you have yet to meet?
Evan: [00:24:25] Yeah, before you could take them out to lunch, have a shared meal. You can just go over to their desk and talk with them for a few minutes. Now you need to schedule a meeting with them over your videoconferencing software to try to foster that connection. Ultimately, the way you build up relationships is face time, spending that time talking and sharing. And now you have to go through these additional hoops, this additional effort to make all that happen with maybe perhaps a new group of people that you're working with.
Ayan: [00:24:56] And also a lot of those moments that we can build when [00:25:00] being in the office are often very spontaneous. You know, you meet at the coffee and you say, "Oh, how are your kids? How was your weekend?" Or when you cross each other in the hallway and now you have to really create a structure saying, okay, "Hey, would you be free for a quick call between 3:00 PM and 3:15"? You know? And we're just talking about zoom fatigue. So, the only solution to create this is by adding an extra meeting on there’s so many that you have. So, you definitely sympathize with people who are, looking for a job, through the pandemic. And on top of that, they have to integrate into a team that they have yet to meet. It can be really difficult.
Evan: [00:25:34] Yeah. I just want to talk about your cats! We just want to talk for a few minutes about your cats, and now I have to schedule a meeting with you, you know, to try to create that seamless, non-artificial engagement that helps build trust and build relationships with other people. It feels weird and it takes more work.
Ayan: [00:25:52] But also, if you look at a more professional aspect, that human contact is what also lets you be noticed in your company to a certain [00:26:00] extent. And it can be detrimental in the long run if you don't have that for the advancement of your career.
Evan: [00:26:07] I mean, you gotta pay the bills, right? You gotta have that job. You gotta get that paycheck. But certainly, there is a disruption when there's established networks and connections that are already within your company and you're the new person, and the only contact you've ever had been through these constrained communication channels.
That is definitely something to keep in mind, how do you overcome that? Sharing your video, but here's a tip that actually has helped me a lot: hide your self-view. I don't think I'm a particularly vain person, but I know when I share my self-view of my camera in Zoom meeting. My eyes constantly dart to my own face because, "Oh, look, it's me. Oh, look it's me. Oh, look it's me." And so, sharing your face and be able to at least get some body language is important, but turn it off for yourself. That could help reduce some of the distraction you may be feeling when you're doing a lot of [00:27:00] Zoom meetings.
Ayan: [00:27:01] I was reading that there's a new rise in botox due to all of the Zoom meetings that we have. So people are being overwhelmed by looking at themselves and that leads to critique. People are also being stressed and overwhelmed by their personal presentation that they have to constantly see every day on Zoom.
Evan: [00:27:23] I don't know about you; I don't walk around with a mirror in front of my face when I interact with people in an office. And now for some, you could be dealing with that feedback given to you, constantly.
Ayan: [00:27:36] I was just thinking about that, actually imagine you're in a meeting room and everybody has a mirror in front of the. As they're trying to present their findings or their work, it could be very overwhelming and troubling just to have that constant presentation of yourself being fed back to you.
Evan: [00:27:53] And speaking of presentations, there's also just the act of scheduling meetings too. Right? Okay. We're going to [00:28:00] meeting, after meeting, after meeting, and it seems they seem to chain together and fill up your entire day. It could be usability testing. It could be talking about a feature with your colleagues. Very important stuff. Need to do it. Yet, you don't actually have a break for yourself. So finding a way to maybe change the default meeting that you sent out to colleagues, try to encourage and nudge others to bake in three to five minutes at the end of the meeting that could really help you in terms of just staring at something that isn't your screen. That could be a huge restorative effect to your work life, if you start to try to apply that and kind of nudge your colleagues to bake in micro-breaks during the day.
Ayan: [00:28:43] Reminds me of when I was a student. So when you have a test or an exam for every hour that you dedicate to studying, you give yourself 10 to 15 minutes of a break. So, I think that could apply here too, you know, just giving yourself that little moment to there's so much to do. And I think we can feel [00:29:00] not guilty by doing nothing for a moment or two.
It actually would probably increase our productivity, that little moment of a break.
Evan: [00:29:07] You feel anxious that because you're not there, you're not getting the face time, especially if you're a new person or new new employee, you want to be productive. You want to look like you are a valuable employee to the organization. And that just drives you further and further to filling up your time, not taking little breaks that you would have normally customarily had if you worked in an office and that's going to be to your detriment. You're going to run out of gas. A few more months of this, you're going to feel extremely fatigued and drained.
Ayan: [00:29:37] Well, that also leaves a question too, as our job is to present our work. But we're also creators, so we have to create work. So where do you find that time to create that balance between going to the meetings, getting the updates, presenting to getting that little quiet time for yourself to really reflect on how you can improve those features or, you know, analyze those findings that [00:30:00] you got.
Evan: [00:30:00] Decline the meetings just decline them. Just say, I'm not going. That sounds a little bold, but there is some truth to this set some standards. There's no agenda. There's no clear purpose for it. Reject it. Say "I'd like to understand a little bit what we intend to talk about."
That's not unfair. That's not being mean. Doesn't have to be an essay. Make sure that when we do sit down and discuss a topic or a key issue, that people had a little bit of preparedness. That we're not just going to get together in a Zoom meeting and stare at each other, or even yourself perhaps, and not getting anything done.
Ayan: [00:30:40] I guess it's including actually structure also in the way you work and not just like your morning routine or something, would you have done that pre pandemic?
Evan: [00:30:49] Yes! Yeah, because even at the end of the day, yeah, you still have a finite amount of time. You're trying to work a balanced workweek. And so being a little protective of your time, [00:31:00] that when we go and discuss and collaborate and share, there is a clear goal in mind. We intend to come to some conclusion or some decision and your colleagues, your peers, are being good about that. And you're not having your valuable work hours filled up with a bunch of blather.
Ayan: [00:31:18] It's all about creating boundaries if you're able to, if we go back to the profile of people who just began in a new company, it might be a bit more difficult for them at first, but hopefully they'll be able to do that with time. But I think a big theme of what we're discussing today is boundaries are no longer, really existed in the way we work.
[Because before we had designated spaces, you know, I wake up, I go to work, I leave work. I come home or maybe there's events in between,
But that's not the case today. So, there you are. You're in a meeting you're seeing your CEO's living room, you know, that would not have been the case before. So it's really interesting to how to define those boundaries.
How about you, Evan? How are you dealing with working and living in one space?
Evan: [00:32:02] I have definitely felt the pressure to create a home office really quickly. I had to convert a room to afford a lot of virtual meetings and virtual collaboration and working. I try really hard to stay out of this room when I am not working. I had to buy a new desk, a work office chair. I definitely know when I put in an ergonomic desk and I had just a decent chair that wasn't like a kitchen table chair, it really helped to make it comfortable. And so that could be something you could talk about with your company.
Is there any kind of working from home equipment stipend, perhaps? Is that something that's available? And if it isn't pay attention to your body, try to get a little bit of that work boundary baked into where you live and then just contain the work there. And then at the end of the day, shut it off, walk away.
[00:32:54] Ayan: [00:32:54] so for my example, I'm kind of the opposite. I have a space that adapts, everything in my apartment is [00:33:00] technically my office, if I will it to be,
I think it's interesting what you said, because sometimes, I wonder if not having that designated space where I go to reduces my productivity To a certain extent. Because I have to, you know, adapt the space already to say, okay, I have to write, so I'm going to use this space. Oh, this is going to be more reflective. I can use this space, but I've always been curious, like this underlying thought in my mind, does this reduce my productivity in a sense?
I do totally agree be it just improving your internet connection. As we were talking about earlier, there's so many calls or just really creating a nice little space for yourself.
I like what you said, actually, that you don't go to that space when you're not working. So again, you're making a boundary to that extent, to a certain extent.
Evan: [00:33:47] Yeah. And, you know, Rui had a good reminder on the need of improving that home office situation.
Rui: [00:33:55] I stay at home for almost five months. I really sometimes get bored and I don't [00:34:00] have inspiration. Like every day, staring at my screens - every day, every day, I don't have any inspirations! So, I started to decorating my working space and make it the way that I like. I think for designers, maybe it's the time you can get some decoration to make things happy.
Evan: [00:34:19] Have you decorated your little home office situation, Ayan?
Ayan: [00:34:24] I haven't really, but I got a kitten, so laughs I don't know if that works.
Evan: [00:34:29] So you've outsourced the decoration to a kitten. The kitten will decorate it for you.
Ayan: [00:34:33] She actually does more destruction than decorating.
Evan: [00:34:38] Do you have a display? Do you have some sort of additional display as well? Like you've kind of set up in your space or are you using a laptop.
Ayan: [00:34:45] So if we talk about the pandemic, I've been quite a nomad cause I had to move three times. So, in two apartments, yes, currently today I don't, but when I did have them, it was really great actually.
Evan: [00:34:57] I don't know if I could have worked as much as I've had over the [00:35:00] past couple of months without some additional screen real estate.
Ayan: [00:35:03] Also, I think it's better for the eyes
Evan: [00:35:05] Yes. Eye strain. Feeding into that zoom fatigue. Wow, why are my eyes burning? Oh, my gosh, that also could be how you've positioned your camera. Is there a decent lighting for yourself? Is there decent lighting for people to see you? How's that positioned? Are you craning your neck in a certain way to make sure that they can see you? What I've always read is like you want 90-degree angles. You want feet to be on the floor, or you want your arms to be kind of a 90 degree. And if you find yourself in a kind of unnatural position from your neck to your feet, that could be feeding into your feelings of fatigue.
Ayan: [00:35:36] It's not just wondering how you feel. It's also going back to Zoom face that we were talking about earlier, you know, like it's that boundary of being at home, but you have to also be presenting yourself to the best ability you have to have that professionalism, even though you're still working from home.
So I think there's some stress that people can have for that it's, you know, making sure that they [00:36:00] or wearing makeup, they have been recently shaved and their hair is up to date. I sure it led to some interesting new skills because salons were closed for many months. So, I think people had to, you know, learn how to use the scissors to their advantage.
But yeah, it goes back to the boundaries, right? So sometimes you can have your kids come in. I know I've had my cat playing around in different spaces, making noise. During some meetings, you have to accept that you can't be allowed that to be stress point for you.
Evan: [00:36:32] And Rui mentioned how this is been a little bit helpful to her.
Rui: [00:36:37] I don't have to drive to work and, you know, I don't have to wear makeup every day. So that saves me time, which is positive things to me.
Evan: [00:36:47] Some of the things that we used to do, like makeup or dressing up and looking professional. In a normal context, sure, yeah, look professional. That's important. You want to give [00:37:00] that appearance of "I am a trustworthy professional person just working out of my home office or whatever it may be." This isn't a normal time. This is a time where your kids are maybe not going to their school. You're dealing with these feelings of fatigue and stress about mundane activities or the loss of being able to visit some family, friends, or loved ones.
This is not a normal time. It's not a normal time. Some of those rules, some of that advice you may see online about you have to dress up and put on your best face. I don't think that necessarily really applies right now. Now, put on a shirt, but in terms of judging others, in terms of maybe criticizing "Oh, there's their kid again, coming into the view to disrupt the meeting..." Treat some people with some compassion, because this is not a normal working environment.
Ayan: [00:37:56] it's giving your colleagues empathy and also just understanding that we're all [00:38:00] dealing with this in our own different ways. And it's not the easiest I also like sometimes when a college who says, Hey, if you don't mind, I'm not gonna put my camera on today. It's giving that spacing. No problem. You know, I think we can be productive without having to see each other's faces.
Evan: [00:38:14] Good point, for people that you've come to know, and you trust if they're having a tough day like that. And they just want to just turn off the video camera. Yeah. Say, okay, let's turn them off together and we'll just going to chat That could be just another way you can show some of that grace and compassion to your colleagues.
So to wrap up today, we are dealing with a tough time. It's a lot of stress to people and also organizations. You need to be prepared and have a backup plan. Could you apply for a job next week? No? Maybe you should update your resume and portfolio, which has probably been languishing in some file somewhere. You haven't looked at it in maybe months or years. This is a disruptive time and you need to be the captain of your own ship.
You need to be able [00:39:00] to prepare yourself for any possibility. We don't know if your industry is going to be longterm suffering from a lack of revenue, lack of business. Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. Take care of your loved ones. Researcher described those busy early days after losing their job.
Researcher: [00:39:17] I did an audit of our current cashflow, immediately applied for unemployment and got those balls rolling and secured us financially so that I could project out and see how much time we had before we run out of money. That was the very first thing I did. Second thing I did was do a complete reboot and update of my portfolio, my resume. Once those were coordinated and all put together, I started to mass reach out to recruiters and regular connections I had on LinkedIn.
Evan: [00:39:48] The great thing about this is if you have a job, if you're fortunate, you have a job right now, you can start taking these steps today. You can start taking incremental steps to improve your documents [00:40:00] that you would use to apply to a job. Or you could maybe do a financial check and see how much time you would have if you suddenly lost that revenue, you lost that income that you rely on. You can take those steps today in a casual, more comfortable manner to be prepared for whatever may happen next.
Ayan: [00:40:19] Yeah, just to make sure that if the worst case scenario does happen, you have one foot forward to not be adding an extra stress of, do I have enough financial leeway to make it to the next month or the future months until I find my next job?
Evan: [00:40:35] Yeah, and what, it could give you a little bit of a control, right? And in a time where we have this virus, that's just going to do its own thing. There's something that maybe you could do to reclaim some autonomy and ownership over what may happen next in this worst-case scenario that hopefully doesn't happen. That could give you some feeling of control in a time where there's very little of it.
Evan: [00:40:58] If there's people in your network, [00:41:00] just send them a note. How are you doing? Don't ask them for anything. If you have a job right now, just check in on some of the people that, you know, "Hey, I hope you doing all right at this time." T hat could at least keep those relationships fresh. And if something bad were to happen, it doesn't feel so awkward and self-serving checking with them again and say, yeah, do you have any openings by doing the extra work now you could make that a more comfortable and easier, interaction.
Ayan: [00:41:26] And also, I guess in that case, giving grace and compassion, not just to your colleagues, but within your network.
Evan: [00:41:32] I think that's a great thing. It's not for self-serving ends. if you really believe it and you really care about what's going on with them, let them know.
Ayan: [00:41:40] Cause it's true. One thing that we haven't covered yet is isolation, you know, feeling distant from others and maybe not being able to really talk about that. So, if you can just reach out to someone and just say, Hey, how are you doing that can create a conversation
Evan: [00:41:56] It's easy to forget. It's easy to take for granted. Oh, I got my [00:42:00] LinkedIn network and I've got all these different people, but having just a personal moment to make that human connection at a time when human connection is really hard to do. It's really hard to do it the way that we want to do it.
We're going to end this discussion on some good news. Through a lot of preparation and persistence researcher did get that new UX job.
Researcher: [00:42:21] I just set weekly targets of applying to 20 jobs a day, reaching out to 20-ish people a day and just start that momentum going. And the job that I have now, it was all from that mass applying of things. You know, I hit the lucky strike and got it rolling.
Evan: [00:42:38] And for Rui, her new job is working out really well as well. And we're going to end with some hopeful words from her.
Rui: [00:42:46] I know it's really hard for lots of companies, a lot of employees - you may get laid off, but don't give up. There's lots of opportunity there. It spends me like six months to get a new job. I felt I failed so many [00:43:00] times. Just take advantage of online courses or conferences about UX design and take more time to think about your career and also your skill sets. So, don't give up, follow your heart and you will get hired one day.
Evan: [00:43:29] I had a lot of anxiety about working from home. It's something I rarely ever did, and I didn't know how it was going to work out for me. I didn't know if I was going to be able to maintain my work, schedule my productivity, my focus.
And I think after all these months of trying it and just kind of embracing adaptability and just accepting that circumstances are different. I think when I play with my son in the afternoon, playing with [00:44:00] Legos or going outside and running around. And I think about all the time I spent in that car. I think, you know, this is better. This is different. It's change. It's sometimes scary, but this is better. I like this. What about you?
Ayan: [00:44:16] for me. I think I'm in the process of the reflection I have yet to take the action, but I'm realizing. That I don't properly structure that distance between when I'm working at home and creating time for myself before and after there are some days where I'm very good at it, but it’s not fully ingrained into my everyday.
And I'd like to improve that because. We were talking about zoom fatigue, but there's also just the overdependence that we have in general on screens. So how much time do I spend in my morning looking at my phone, for example, or after work, looking at my phone. So right now, I'm reflecting on that and then.
Forcing myself to [00:45:00] step out of my home and go outside. Which again, as you said is difficult because were trying to avoid being at risk, which the outside world can have for us. So, it's that balance, but trying to, just to maybe go for a run or a walk, but really impose that upon myself to understand the advantages that can place on my everyday work.
And also my health. Just having that moment to go out and. You know, taking a step back from work and not just being focused. Cause if not, then literally the moment I wake up, there'll be a little time for myself with my breakfast, but then it's opening my computer and just jumping into the Workday you know, we spoke about getting new skills. We spoke about creating new connections, but giving yourself that grace to say, I have the right to do nothing right now.
And you define that nothing. It could be, you know, reading, it could be going for a walk, but not putting that stress upon you because there's so much stress that's happening in our life right now.
Evan: [00:45:57] There's a lot of talk in the industry about [00:46:00] empathy for users as a critical component of the user experience job. How about a little empathy for yourself?
Because that could help you right now in a lot of stress to make a little bit of change. Go take that walk, or just not do anything at all and just accept it. And that could really help you accept this time and get you through to when this is all over.
Ayan: [00:46:23] Already before COVID in this world, there was go, go, go stress, stress, stress. So, it just taking that little time and giving yourself that space to be okay with just doing nothing.
Evan: [00:46:37] Well, speaking of time, that's going to do it for this episode of the Ascend UX podcast. We'd love your questions and feedback. Please send it to ascendux@pros.com. That's ascendux@pros.com. Also, rate, follow, subscribe, or leave comments on Apple podcast, Spotify, or whichever service you're using to listen to us. We definitely appreciate it.
And thank you to Rui Shi and Researcher for their courage in sharing their pandemic experiences with us. Ayan, thanks for sharing your experiences as well today and talking about this pretty tough topic. This is unprecedented and stressful, but we're going to get through it and it's going to get better.
Ayan: [00:47:19] My pleasure, Evan. And thank you also. It's great to take that time together to talk about how this unprecedented event has affected not just the way we work, but also our personal lives.
Evan: [00:47:31] Yeah, I'll see you on Zoom.
Ayan: [00:47:36] Looking forward to it.
Evan: [00:47:37] Yeah, see ya.
Ayan: [00:47:40] Bye guys until next time