#8 - The future of ethical design
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Hello and welcome to the future of UX podcast. I'm Patricia Reiners, UX/UI designer and creative resident at Adobe. So in this episode, I spoke with Vitaly Friedman. He's a designer, developer and founder of the Smashing Magazine. Many of you probably know it. It's an online blog about design, coding and UX.

and they are putting a huge focus on ethical design and how to design for a better web. I really love the articles there and yeah, I can highly recommend to check them out actually. So it was super inspiring hearing Vitaly's story and how he got into design or actually web design, although his background is kind of different.

I met Vitaly last year at the awards conference in New York where he gave a super inspiring talk about ethical design. I will probably never forget this talk because he shared so many amazing examples and tips about how to design more ethically and how to avoid dark patterns as well.

I linked this talk in the show notes in case you want to check it out. I can really recommend that. So I was super curious to hear Vitaly's take on ethical design in the future and how he sees like ethical design evolving. Yeah, which is always a little bit tricky.

So we actually ended up talking about many, many different things, also about productivity and career and how to get into UX and also about the future of design. So this episode is packed with many useful tips, tips, tricks and career advices. So let's get started.

First of all, hi Vitaly, thank you so much for taking the time. It's super awesome finally speaking to you and asking you all those questions. But before we are starting, I would like you to talk a little bit about yourself. So I prepared some smaller questions to get to know you a little bit better. So first of all, what do you do for a living and what's your background actually?

Well, first of all, actually, thank you so much for having me. Frankly, I have no idea what I do with my life. This is pretty much the state of things for me. It seems like every day is a little bit different than the other. Sometimes I would be spending a lot of time designing. Sometimes I'll be spending a lot of time just kind of thinking and planning. You know, I really like planning. But originally, my background really is somewhere between design and front-end because I'm always getting bored in things.

So I was spending quite a bit of time back in actually late 1990s to be honest, designing things and specifically really weird things like VRML, virtual worlds and all kind of stuff because I was very curious. So I think that my background really is this gateway into design somehow.

I never studied design properly. I never studied like front-end properly to be honest. I did study mathematics and computer science, but it was more like a hardcore computer science and stuff. And because I'm always bored, I'm kind of always in between there and then I'm jumping back and then I'm moving into design because I really like typography and stuff. So I don't know. This is you tell me. I have no idea. How did you get into design?

Frankly, I needed the money, if I'm being very honest. So around 2001 or so, 2002, my parents brought me to Germany. So essentially I was studying in school and then I went to university in Germany. But I didn't have anything and I had to really fight for every penny, so to say. And then I just found a little note somewhere in a, I don't know, it was hidden somewhere on one of those walls.

in universities, hidden remote parts where I just passed by and there was a position for webmaster and I had no idea what it means but I played a little bit in like late 90s with the web so I felt like oh maybe that's something I could do and then essentially that was my gateway into that thing and so we designed and built and you know with CSS at the time already I mean slowly I think

Yeah, I think so. With CSS already, we've actually started building some really, really weird things, tables plus CSS plus a bit of green background. That's me. Wow. Okay. Interesting to hear your background story. I didn't really know that, so super interesting. So...

How does a typical day in your life look like now? Because now you switched completely to design, right? So what kind of things do you do usually during the day? Well, you mean like now, now or now in general?

Oh yeah, I mean, I think like generally not only during like corona time but like generally. I think like one of the most important things I learned from a good friend of mine is this really simple idea of breaking the entire day into three parts and so for every given day I'll be doing three different projects so to say and it's not a solid design it could be really anything

But the way I structure it really is in chunks of three hours, maybe two and a half hours, and then breaks in between. And that means that before I go to sleep, for example, I usually write down some things I want to accomplish next day, and it's realistic. It's not something like, oh, I really want to change the world or something. It's just...

you know my work routine broken down into parts and essentially that means that in the morning I could be designing in the evening I could be writing and in between I could be just emailing and stuff like that and it's really heavily depends of course on the timelines and the deadlines but it also depends on what I'm interested in I guess because sometimes I'm just too passionate to stop I just can't stop

Yeah, that's kind of my workflow, I guess. It's not very structured in terms of, you know, I know exactly what I'm going to do when, but I always plan a little bit ahead of time to be excited enough to get it done well, I hope.

Okay, interesting that you're sharing your day or divide your day in three parts. That's a really interesting idea. Definitely makes sense. So you, I mean, you're talking about like doing design work and writing and those kind of things. But I know that you're also doing like talks and workshops and those kind of things. How did you actually start with that? And how was this actually like involving? How did you integrate that in your like work?

It's actually a very interesting question because for, I think for the last decade or so, I've been trying very hard to find things that I'm really bad at and then try to get better at this. That could be something like choosing wine, but I think it's really important to identify what you are really, really bad at. I mean, there are many things that everybody is bad at, but there are certain things that they're really just horrible at.

You know, it's really difficult to be bad at, you know, a screwdriver if you need to, you know, put a pin in a wall or so. But then, choosing your own way, you can be really bad at that. And so, I tried to find those things. And so, for quite a while, I thought that I'm really bad at speaking. I just, you know, I don't have this kind of presence. I mean, we're talking maybe, you know, my first, I gave my very first talk in 2006,

And it was a really bad talk. I mean, it's still online and I can send you a link. It's horrible in so many different ways. And after that, in 2006, I actually stopped for a while because I didn't really enjoy it. It felt like a lot of work. I didn't feel like it was great and everything. And so 2006, I stopped. And then eventually, somewhere in 2010 or maybe 2011...

There was an invitation to a conference and I was very reluctant at first. And then I thought, okay, I'm really bad at that. So maybe I should try to do something with it. And I didn't go to coaching and stuff, but I was just really, it was very interesting for me. I remember it because I actually kind of just took a walk.

And then I was really thinking about what would make a good talk, not in terms of content. I mean, that has to be there as well. But like, what would make a really good experience for attendees to learn something? Like on a very abstract level, not in terms of like, this is a talk and this is a structure and things like that. But how would you even want to be, you know, see somebody on stage? And I was thinking about people who I like.

who are on stage. And then it kind of evolved and I really enjoyed it all of a sudden. It was in Switzerland actually in 2011, I believe. Yeah, something like that. And I really enjoyed it and I felt like, oh wow, that's really interesting, that's very exciting and you get to meet people and the community and I always felt like there is this very important part of mine

I really want to share, I want to learn, I want to connect, communicate. I used to be extremely introverted. Now I feel like at times I'm extremely extroverted. It's very strange. But for me, it was really a gateway again. I didn't really talk about gateways today. But for me, it was a gateway to...

to be able to share what I've learned and learn from others. And so later then I started doing workshops, which is essentially the same. All the things that I learned kind of shared with people, you know, who are coming to the workshops offline or online, doesn't matter. And this is just became a part of what I really like doing. I really like teaching, I guess.

Wow. Wow. That's so interesting to hear and super fascinating for me, actually, because I remember when we met, it was in New York at the awards conference and you were actually moderating the whole show and also gave a really awesome talk. It was so fun. Everyone really loved it. So I think it's always fascinating if people are saying, I was actually really bad at that. But then, I don't know, at some point I decided that I want to get better and

I don't know, you obviously got better. I don't know, I haven't seen your first talk, so I can't really say if it was that bad. Oh, Patricia, I will send you the first talk. Actually, sometimes I actually look at it just to, I don't know, it kind of gives me some sort of hope that I am getting better at things. So, yeah, I can send it to you.

But I think it's a really great advice actually for the listeners as well, because so many people, especially if they're early in their career, have those fears or those areas where they are actually not the best at or actually really bad. But yeah, there is some like,

opportunities actually to get better at it. - Oh yes, I think it's really important that we kind of identify our weak spots. I mean, that's been a very important thing for me actually. Really, I mean, I think it's just not matter of really tackling them necessarily, but understanding that I'm not really good at this, so I'm not really good at that. And this awareness actually helps you to

Make decisions better because maybe if there is a decision to make, you can kind of weigh in your ambition or your interest against your self-reflection in terms of, am I really good at this or should I really start working on that? I think that's a very important skill to have.

Makes absolutely sense. I think really great advice. And I honestly really love the talk you gave at the awards conference, which I just mentioned, because I will probably never forget that because you talked about ethical design more or less or like how to design for a better web.

And I think it was so, so fascinating because at the moment when we are designing or like I think many of the people who are listening at the moment can relate to the problems you talked about that, you know,

we are sometimes like integrating dark patterns or like trying to manipulate the user a little bit so that's actually not the things which we are kind of aiming for so I was wondering what kind of tips do you actually have when it comes to like designing more ethically or like designing for a better web do we have some like tips for designers which they can like use right away?

Yeah, I think it really depends on how you want to frame this discussion because I think when we try to argue with our... I mean, first of all, we need to kind of roll back. It's not like designers are bad by design, right? Designers don't want to make somebody else's life worse and they don't want to help businesses profit off weak people and anything of that kind. I think that

I mean, maybe I'm just a little bit naive, but I really do believe in the kind of general default human kindness in people. And...

What we kind of don't know how to do though is how to sell ethical design. It sounds a bit strange because you know it's ethical, it's kind of best practices, why would you want to sell it? We try to sell everything else, right? Everything. We try to sell our projects, we try to sell our kind of experience and all books, everything. But I think we really need to learn, and this is probably the main obstacle there and the challenge, how to make a case for ethical design.

how can we argue about it, right? And that means that, you know, one of the really simple takeaways is that this is what I'm trying to do every time I'm talking to a client and every time working with companies that maybe, you know, really want to boost conversion but also want to be kind and all. I'm asking for just one thing: I need a half a day with the developer,

and preferably designer and then I need to be able to test the prototype in production on the weakest traffic time ever probably Saturday morning because I do need to produce some sort of results

And in many ways, you know, it's not like if your interface is cleaner, then it's going to sell better, right? But if you have a lot of transparency going on, like where you really make it very clear, you know, what the return costs are and what the fees are and so on, most of the time you see that you end up with better results.

And that actually really shows if you can test your mockup or your design or anything on the weakest time, look out for some sort of

indicators that can actually help your manager succeed or get better. Can you boost any business KPIs? And most of the time you can, you just need to understand what it involves. Because there are many hidden costs that are involved like return fees and customer support and all of that. And if you can say that your new design actually works better in terms of reducing this cost, not necessarily increasing conversion, this is slightly different things, right? That can be really, really important.

can help and the other thing I think is really important is we shouldn't be afraid of trying things that feel authentic and right and honest I really do believe that we just need to make a case for it you can't just come to manage and say we need to do this because it's ethical I don't think this is going to work I think it never worked for me

But you need to kind of frame the problems that exist and the interest that your manager has, which is probably boosting KPIs and some sort of promotions or things like that into a slightly more honest, transparent design. And in many ways, there are connections. They might not be obvious, but this is your job then to find them. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Your recommendation is actually to argument a little bit from the business point of view and talk about KPIs.

I think, Patricia, really we know how to make designs honest and nice and friendly and all. It's just every time there is a new Trello card or a new Jira board card about pop-ups and light boxes, we usually don't question that.

And maybe it's not our role to be it sometimes, but we are the only protection that our customers have against all this horrible stuff that's happening on the web. So if you can make a case and say, maybe instead of pop-up, we should be really thinking about this and come up with some sort of studies. And there are some great resources I can send you later.

which I'll actually highlight, so that if you do that, the conversion might go up and the performance goes up as well. And just make a case. That's very important. Okay, so that's probably really helpful for people if they know how to argument and

In the end, I think many designers actually really want the best for the user, but at some point, discussions are getting so difficult that at some point you maybe say like, okay, okay, we will see how that goes. And then there are some dark patterns integrated and...

Like maybe through user testing, you realize that there are some problems occurring, but maybe even not, that's also possible, right? Yeah, that's a great point that you're bringing up here as well, because user testing can do magic, actually. So if you have a chance to talk to your customers, it's enough to have, let's say, maybe four or seven people or so and see how they experience it. Like you will find a lot of time when we actually have this install app prompt at the top, which is just...

extremely annoying most of the time to people, they will just close it away. And there is of course, the data will tell you that there is maybe 0.5% or if you're lucky 1% of people who actually install the app. But then what you really need to test is what if we kill it for one day and measure conversion?

That's not going to cost you that much. Just pick again a slow day and try that. I think there are many of those things that can be done and tested. And of course you need to measure, right? Because you can't really track something that you don't measure. So that's quite straightforward actually. But I think that in many ways we are just taking a passive role at times saying that, "Oh well, we don't want to argue and stuff."

I think we actually will make it better for the business if we do argue. But again, this is not something you can convince everybody of, but you know, it's a good try.

Yeah, I completely agree. That's definitely a good point with the user testing. That makes sense to test different versions and then see if the conversion is much better and then argument with that. And another point where I'm actually really excited to hear your opinion about is the problem with behavioral design. So many things are, if you see that from the psychological area, you already have those

tips and tricks, how to guide the users through, I don't know, different, I would say like some kind of patterns, you know, for example, if you look at like booking.com, for example, and you see this like little area popping up with like, oh, three other people are watching that and there's only one room left and

you don't really know if that's true, but the user gets like super stressed and gets like the feeling that they need to buy that. And I'm wondering like from the business perspective, it's probably pretty good, but like for the user, it's really stressful and not the best way. So I'm wondering like, how would you, what would you actually like consult in those kinds of cases? Like for example, not only booking.com, but those things. Yeah, I think, yeah,

So this is kind of a long-term game here, right? So I think that Booking.com is not necessarily a bad service. It's not like they have, you know, again, mean designers or something working there. But there is this notion of loyalty that's kind of very important.

And I think that people are not stupid, really. It's like we often think that users, they will just click here, they will just click here, or they will just do that, or they will just, you know. But I think that people are really, they understand what is going on. They don't trust our services. Every time you start talking to customers, they don't trust all those little badges and things like that. Essentially, they're trying to ignore them.

Right. And while in the past it might have worked really well, right, when you say, oh, it's only two things left and so on. And of course, it's a psychological trick that will still work every now and again. But the question then is, you know, still, you know, can we measure it somehow? For example, if somebody does buy, you know, book a room.

and eventually realize that it's maybe not a great idea. Can they actually cancel? They probably will be able to cancel, but then what about the cancellation fees and stuff? And how do people rate Booking.com? It's very difficult to say because if you are somebody of the size of Booking.com or Google or whatever, you can do in many ways almost everything what you like.

right but it's about the long-term game and so the thing is that if somebody comes up with the service that's pretty much like booking but doesn't have all these fancy things it might not have the same conversion but it might have a much stronger loyalty and there is a difference because if you think about conversion it's like you're going there there are rooms I'm booking a room that's it but if you want somebody to you know subscribe for a membership of things like that you need to establish a long-lasting relationship

And it's kind of really about, it's very much like befriending somebody or building a relationship with somebody. I don't want to be friends with booking.com. It's a very annoying and noisy friend. It's probably going to annoy me with calls and everything like that. But, you know, maybe there are services that I can befriend and then I'll be happy to use them even although they might be a little bit more expensive.

And right now we're still in this position where of course, you know, booking and similar services are prevalent and they are getting, you know, the conversion is high and all of that. But the question is, you know, what about, you know, looking into the next three, four, five years?

If there is a competitor and there are competitors, will it be consistent and sustainable long term? That's a question that everybody has to answer on their own, every single company. But it's very hard to, I mean, if you are working in an environment which is so focused on conversion and psychology, this is, I don't think you will be able to make any difference

um it just you know you'll be able to increase conversion but you will not be able to make things a bit more transparent yeah that makes sense um but i think like what you just mentioned about like building relationships um and like imagine that kind of firm as a friend and that's already that really makes a lot of sense because this really relates to like what happens in the future so on the next

years so in the next like five or ten years how successful will this company be in the long term and I'm also wondering like what's your what's your take on that like how do you see the future of the web what do you think will become important what's what's really like important from your point of view to keep in mind today when we're designing for the web

That's a very interesting question because, you know, the future, who knows about the future? But I know a little bit about the past, right? I think it's kind of interesting to see that over the last decade, the design has got much better. I mean, whether we want it or not, if we look into all the iterations that happened in the last 20 years or so, it's been quite remarkable how far we've moved from very much broken and

sturdy and inflexible web to the web that we have now. And I think it's very rare that some company or any design agency that would release a website today

I don't think they can afford creating a really bad website. It's just, you know, responsive is probably expected, right? Maybe when some basic accessibility issues are expected, right? And maybe when performance is expected. So when I look forward, I think that we will be, I mean, we're looking at a very nice future. I think if we're kind of keeping on track and

evolving things and we've been really pioneering best practices. The entire community has done a tremendous job on that.

I think we'll have a very beautiful, fast, accessible interfaces. There are many things that are happening on different fronts. And so if we look, of course, in performance, we're not in a good place now. But there are incredible browser engineers working on things and tooling is getting better and better every time. And designers are getting better as well.

And there are kind of two sides to it frankly because on the one hand we have designers who are just getting better at design because they're getting senior and then you also have new people coming in who can rely on things that already been built or designed because we have frameworks and stuff. And I'm not a big fan of using all those frameworks but they give customers a pretty predictable and in many ways good enough experience. So if you look at the broad scope of things

I think it looks pretty bright. The only thing that kind of bothers me still is that we kind of have forgotten how to stand out a little and if you are competing with somebody you really want to be a bit different. Now it's very hard to be different today because you know I have all the frameworks and tooling and it's all you know everybody's doing great work but

You kind of really need to learn that because there are some really strange examples of websites that have been created by freelancers and design agencies that look like they're from the 90s or strange table layouts and frames and all that. And I asked myself, actually, is it difficult to do it today? I mean, everybody was doing it in like in late 90s or early 2000s.

But I think that if we take a look at modern designers, they will struggle like crazy to create it because it's so different. It's not like you have a predictable grid and layout and stuff. It's just totally out of control. It's just weird and confusing and everything is all over the place. We're not used to that. So my hope is really that we kind of will find our way back and not necessarily have more Fleischer-like websites.

But we'll find that way to bring a personality of every single brand to shine on the websites and apps that we're creating. That I think is a good thing. The other story, of course, is apps versus websites. And if we will have websites at all 10 years from now, we probably will, I think. I like websites. Do you like websites, Patricia?

Yeah, I like websites, but I also like apps, to be honest. So I'm more, you know, smartphone generation, I need to say. Yeah, that's fine. I kind of like websites. So...

I think one way or the other, when it comes to websites, we still need to optimize for mobile devices. And so I think that I'm looking at the very positive side of things. I mean, just last month, I saw students who may be designing for the third or fourth month of their life, right? Because I was teaching in Ukraine, in Kyiv.

And they just came to the web, basically, to the mobile design thing. And they couldn't do anything at all when they started. And frankly, when I look at the work they did over the last two, three months, it's great. I mean, it's a bit predictable, right? It's a bit, you know, the bottom bar, the tabs and stuff.

But it's maybe it's okay. Maybe it's okay if things are a bit more predictable and generic for now as long as it's, you know, well, it's working well and accessible for customers. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Yeah, this was super interesting to hear your, your take on that. Actually, I completely agree with like the similarity of all the websites and apps and all the frameworks and everything. Yeah.

Good and bad thing. I completely agree. So good for young designers who are just like starting out, having all the resources out there, like can even download the Google material guidelines and then play around with them and already have like all the distances and stuff. So they don't really need to test that or create their own or something or learn that.

They can just use that and then learn that by doing, right? So if you have like a few tips for young designers who are starting out and want to like become the next design or the big designs in the next decade, what do you think is important? What kind of skills would you recommend them to learn or to have?

Well, I think that there are, you know, there is this basic thing that never go away and I think if you understand and work with testing, right, really having kind of a close connection to your customers and design around that, that will drive you to the best place ever.

I mean, from my personal experience, probably the most successful companies are the ones that listen to customers. I don't mean it in a way like, you know, let's just hear what our customers want and then I'll just build something for them. But more like you have a concept, you have an idea, you need to kind of constantly be in the loop.

like really testing things and getting feedback and it's not even about improving interface this way but like being really connected to the people who are using your sites or apps I think it's very important

especially in times when we have all the social media and all this stuff, I think people are really picky when it comes to trusting anybody. And so they're trusting brands that they like, that they can be friends with, right? Or the brands that other people, other friends have recommended.

And I think this notion of relationships is a very critical one. So if you can find a way to develop a story, personality, design, customer service, because all of it is a part of design, to make it feel like it's a friend or be authentic, be honest, even if you have maybe some values that not everybody agrees with, that's perfectly fine because that's your personality in the end. I think these things are really important. And another thing that's important is

at least this is something that has been very crucial for me, is to understand that while we tend to break people into groups, designers, developers, QA, testing, and so on, I think that in the end, every single person who is involved in the product or project is a designer. It doesn't matter if you don't use Sketch

or you don't use X-Sure or InVision or anything of the kind. Because every front-end developer who is changing forms or buttons or position of a button is making design decisions without maybe even thinking about it. And so every single person is essentially a designer in a company. And so if you can wrap this user-centric journey at the very core of a product,

then you're probably in a good place because you'll be improving things really in a very close connection to the customer. And of course there are tools, there are books. Psychology never hurts. Like understanding how people think and what makes them laugh and so on is fine. And I think it's really interesting to, I mean, I keep repeating this, but I think it's really interesting to bring the kind of level of personality to your work. For example, I like chuckles. Do you like chuckles, Patricia? Mm-hmm.

Very much? What's your favorite chocolate? I think white chocolate. Not necessarily the brand, maybe the country. You mean chocolate, right? Yes. I would say from Swiss, usually, right? Okay. The reason why I'm asking now is that because I like Belgian chocolate. I really do.

Yes, so I'm just saying, just saying. Now, I really like it and, you know, it's really important to have fun, right? And so we just released a smashing conference, online conference yesterday. So we just announced it, right? And we spent quite a bit of time working on the post-release and stuff. And I was really, because I didn't have a Belgian chocolate for a while, I felt like I really like Belgian chocolate. And so, you know, for the conference, because it's an online conference, you have timings, right?

and you have the schedule and you know the US time and so on and so forth and I just really wanted to play I always try to bring in a little bit of you know little tiny thing that will make people smile if they discover it and so there is this you know overview of timings

And then there is also a couple of cities like New York, San Francisco and so on. And then I brought in Antwerp because I went there and I really love Antwerp. Antwerp, Belgium, it's not the capital, obviously, but you know, Antwerp, Belgium. And while all the other ones have flags like American flag, you know, UK flag and so on, I placed the chocolate emoji next to Antwerp.

Oh, I love that. That's awesome. But the cool thing is I was looking at people because, you know, we have heat maps as well generated. And people are clicking on the chocolate emoji thinking, what the hell is this, right? And then yesterday evening, because it's really, it's like a little tiny thing. It's maybe, I don't know, four, like, I don't know, six pixels, maybe eight pixels, right? Eight times eight. And so I added a link. So if you click on that chocolate emoji,

Emoji in the new because normally you don't see this not underlined or anything. It's just an emoji You get think five dollars discount so you can get your own trick. Oh, that's awesome So everyone who listens now stay secret now Just need to search for chocolate emoji and then you'll get it because you know I really miss it and this is it is there is no You know it's not like there is a conversion test going on and you know it's just fun and people who discover they will not forget it and

That's true. That's super cool. So I definitely need to check that out. So you just mentioned the conference, right? You like announced yesterday. Could you talk like super briefly about like how people could participate? How could they join? Can you sign up for that? How does it work actually?

So we've been kind of looking into online in general for the last few weeks and it's interesting because many companies really try to replicate the in-person events online and we kind of looked at the other side of things. We tried to really, we're interviewing people and talking to people trying to understand what a really nice online experience would be because when I started talking to people,

I heard things like webinars and you know corporate and boring and broken software and all those things and we didn't want webinars and so we started running online workshops which essentially is a more relaxed learning experience where you have a lot of time with the teacher essentially you take a full day workshop and it's written into five parts two hours sessions

And they split over days or weeks sometimes. So we would have Thursday, Friday, Thursday, Friday, and Thursday, for example. And there's a lot of time for people to talk. There's a lot of time for people to actually participate. And they don't have to chunk the entire day to that or dedicate to that. And it's also family friendly because most of us are in lockdowns at this point now.

And then we started looking into conferences as well. And we designed a totally new experience where the important bit, I guess, is that speakers are doing something interactively live with the audience. It's not just a talk. It's like you really, I mean, the...

this is a goal of it. You really have to do something interactive. So audience has to be, has to feel like it's a very important part of it. Right. Awesome. And a couple of other, you know, things. But yes, we did announce it. It's happening in June 9th, 10th. Mm-hmm.

untwisting time between 5 p.m and 10 p.m, I believe. Okay, awesome. So I think you can all find that on the Smashing Magazine's website probably, twitter.com. I will link that in the show notes so people can check it out as well.

Yeah, that sounds super awesome. I will definitely check that out later and would recommend you, recommend everyone actually to check that out. Sounds super interesting, especially interactivity. Sounds super cool. Also from my experience of all the online things which are going on. So some interactivity is really good.

Good way to engage with the people, right? So I have some final questions now for you. First of all, thanks for sharing all those valuable insights. I think it was super interesting and really awesome for everyone to get your opinion on all those areas.

So, of course, you, I mean, one area you, one of the resources you would probably recommend is the Dyke Smashing Magazine's blog. But do you have any other resources? Could be books or blogs or articles, what you would recommend? Also podcasts as well. So everything, like what kind of resources would you recommend?

Right, so I think one, I mean I really like books but also books that are not related to what I do at all. One of the really good books that I read recently was on form design patterns that we actually published, sorry about that, but I never had a chance to read it actually. And it's all about form patterns and everything that you need to know when designing forms.

I think we totally underestimate forms sometimes because they're everywhere and they make a really important, like they're really very important part of every experience. That's a really good one. And beyond that, I go to uie.com, which is Jared Spools. He's publishing a lot of blog articles there as well. And then there is also uxdesign.cc, I believe, which is kind of like a blog on Medium. Okay.

Beyond that, I think, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but...

I'm really excited about going and wandering on Japanese websites and Russian websites. I mean, Japanese is not different but Russian designs or Russian speaking designs, well, Cyrillic designs, incredibly weird sometimes and good as well. So there is a growing repository of Russian websites or like Russian speaking websites

and also Japanese ones. And I will send them, send the links to you as well. And it's just totally out of control. Now for me, this is the inspiration pure. I mean, it's not necessarily like everything is great, everything is bad, of course, but you will find things that you will never even imagine in your life. And if you want to break out of your creative block,

you just go to five of them and that's it right so and i always like kind of looking for patterns there maybe there are certain things that they did well or not so well and

It's just crazy. I mean, for me, these two are, you know, if I'm bored, this is much better than TikTok or Instagram together. Okay, that's awesome. I need to check that out because I can't imagine something better than Instagram and TikTok. Yes, totally. I need to check that out. If people want to find you or follow your work or just like check out what you're doing, where can they find you?

Well, SmashingMag on Twitter but also we do a lot of stuff online now, so smashingconf.com and smashingmagazine.com. Beyond that I probably at some point when I'm allowed to leave this apartment you will probably meet me at some conferences or if they will take place. If not, we also run online workshops and maybe online conferences we'll meet sometimes. That would be nice.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Very much everything smashing. You'll be able to find us. That sounds awesome. So really easy to find. I guess a lot of people already know you probably from like all the things you did online. So yeah.

awesome thank you so much for for your time and everything it was awesome speaking to you and thank you for all those insights as well so thank you very much and thank you so much patricia as well for having me and all the wonderful people around you who actually chose to listen to this wonderful podcast yeah thank you thank you as well

Wow, what an episode. So thank you so much for listening and check out the show notes for all the resources. And another thing which would be so helpful is if you would rate the podcast on iTunes. Of course, only if it was helpful for you and if you enjoyed this episode. So thank you so, so, so much. And yeah, hear you in the future.

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