Episode 33: Deep Frontiers in UX Design Ikram Faidzal
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Hi everyone, I'm Dalen, founder and design educator at Curious Core. Welcome to our Working in UX Design podcast series where we interview a UX design leader in the industry on their experience in this emerging field. We've had UX professionals from Grab, AirAsia, Google and more join us previously and we're bringing you more exciting interviews this year.

Stay tuned for this week's interview with our special guest, who is working in UX design. Good day to everyone. This is Dalen over here and welcome to another session of Working in UX Design. I'll be your host for this session. And today we have a very special guest. His name is Faisal and he works currently at LINE, which is one of the most

popular apps for interpersonal communication in korea and and in thailand right uh am i correct on that visor uh yes um essentially south asia we have japan and many many more yeah awesome so just to introduce a little bit more about our our guests today uh faisal actually has

over 13 years of experience spanning working in digital agencies, e-commerce, as well as telecommunications, including working for Digi in Malaysia, where he is actually from. And Faisal is a strong advocate of a research-first approach. He emphasizes the importance of making data-driven decisions and continuous design experimentation.

So he's currently the UX design lead for the global commerce section and product for LINE in Bangkok and Thailand. And he's actually joining us today from Bangkok in Thailand. And today we're actually going to learn a little bit more about his experience working overseas as a UX designer. So he's originally from Malaysia.

and he has worked previously in Indonesia and today he is working in Thailand. So that's something we're going to discuss in great detail. At the same time, we're also going to discuss on the session topic itself, which is thinking deeper about user experience and its subconscious impact. So Faizal will be sharing some of his past work and how

impact is actually measured. We're going to talk a little bit more about how he pushes his design or his team in terms of achieving more impact in the work that they do. And last of all, we're going to talk a little bit more about how can us as UXers get

good jobs overseas as well as negotiate our salaries overseas because he is actually someone who has done it a couple of times. So we're really glad to have you today, Faisal. How are you today? Thanks for that introduction. Yeah, I'm really good. First and foremost, I hope everyone's in good health and having a lovely day. Thank you for having me. Awesome. So what attracted you to

first, you know, leave your family, leave your job and just kind of relocate your entire life to move to Indonesia. And you were given the opportunity to work for Indonesia telco called Smart Friend at that point in time. What was it about the opportunity that attracted you?

I think the pushing motivated for me at a time or sort of what triggered me was I was sold the vision and the big plan of the company where they wanted to venture into super app or building a super app. And, you know, we have a very strong population in Indonesia, I think probably at the moment around 250 million, right? There was also a factor for me because at a point of time that was in 2008,

I think I'm going to start with, I am introvert at best.

and I'm struggling very much with the imposter syndrome, right? In fact, me doing this is a challenge in a way because I always question my competencies with other people, right? And as clichés might sound, I really want to push myself out of what people call

the comfort zone, right? Because then when you're in more foreign environment and then you, in a way, unconsciously force yourself to adapt, right? The second, I think, was for me to find

greater purpose looking at life and career in general I think zooming into purpose for me helped me to sort of craft a better career path for myself and what my sort of advocates of or

least passionate about is building a product that ultimately has a positive impact in people's daily life, right? And hence, you know, fast forward to the M at Lined where looking at lines where it's a cornerstone of every other products and services that we have.

Yeah, Faizal, thank you for sharing that. It sounds like you're someone who enjoys actually stretching yourself and challenging yourself to achieve a lot more. And I believe that you are not the only person who actually has imposter syndrome. And I think at some point in time, any one of us here might also have this imposter syndrome. At least I can say for myself.

When I first started lecturing and teaching UX design, I had a little bit of imposter syndrome as well. So...

What was the experience like working in Indonesia? I know the language is pretty similar. You're already familiar with Bahasa Melayu, which is spoken in your native country. Did you have difficulty picking up Bahasa Indonesia? Yeah, that's a very good observation. That's true. Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu Malaysia is very... They have a lot of commons in terms of their vocabularies. So it wasn't really...

I'd say, tough for me to fit in because of that chat, vocab in a way. And even the so-called default language, whenever I go for a meeting, that will be in Indonesia, but in terms of the discussion or in a smaller group, we'll sort of use English, right? I think maybe I could break it into...

three parts just to form a context in my experience in Indonesia. I think looking at the awareness from the design perspective, right, with the rise of

tech giants or unicorns, what we call it, right? They have Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, just to name a few. There's a really growing emphasis UX in Indonesia. And these companies serve as a really good example and inspiration for smaller businesses and startups, right?

And parts of, I guess, education and training, the demands actually for UX professionals in Indonesia growing tremendously, right? More institutions, more training centers incorporating their UX into their curriculums. And you might find it's a norm in Indonesia generally that, for example, Tokopedia, they would have their own social media of Tokopedia design.

And as a matter of fact, they've been very active in, I think they have their own programs called Tokopedia Product Design Academy.

And even the community perspective is, you know, in a vibrant city as in Jakarta, it's growing as well, right? There's a lot of people, well, these Indonesian designers that are doing mentorship out there. Budi Tan Rim, he led Bukala Park prior to that he was with Shopify. I think he is sort of advocates for good design. And the other person that I know personally, which is Faris Farhan,

also a strong player in the design scene in Indonesia. Yeah, that's sort of general view of my experience in Indonesia. So thank you for sharing that much context on the Indonesia design scene and I'm actually very curious myself because I know there's a lot going on and I know that Gojek is actually

also trying to build a world-class product over there. Together, there's Tokopedia and all these other guys who are also trying to get listed in the US. So I think in terms of scale, they're building something that is actually not just for Indonesians, but trying to launch it globally as well.

And can you share a little bit more about challenges working in Indonesia and how did you overcome it? How did you adapt to it? I'm sure the cultures are a little bit different between Indonesia or Malaysia, right? There's two sides of the corporates, right? Or at least looking at the designs in general. Although they do have this big unicorns, Tokopedia, Gojek and few others. But at the same time, there's also a company that still going the digital transformations, right?

talking about agile, talking about UX lead and what have you. This one bit that I find quite a challenge was to do the research. So it depends on where the

the segment that you are in, let's say if you're more into a corporate event, you sort of need to get your buy-in from the stakeholders that, hey, let's do research, let's try to understand more about this segment of users and vice versa, right? And with that being said, then setting up the practice of research also is quite a challenge, at least from my experience back in Jakarta. Other than that, I think...

I won't call it a challenge per se, if I could share a bit more. When we did the research, right, we're trying to redesign our website

And there was a language selector in the website, right? You know, the usual suspect, right? You see Bahasa, English, Chinese, and so forth, right? And what we found was in the language selector, Indonesian actually, they would very much prefer to see the word Indonesia first.

So what that means is when you click on the chevron, they like to see Bahasa Indonesia. The reason being because they have a sense of a strong pride of their nations. And if you go to Tokopedia, Traveloka and so forth, you

you get to see similar things, right? The reason why I brought that up, because if we look at a direct translation, bahasa, bahasa is actually a language, right? So bahasa Indonesia is a language of Indonesian. And the other part, I think, which was not particularly a challenge, but I find that

In the Indonesian market, they are pretty mature in online payment. E-wallet was huge.

I could count the amount of time that I went to an ATM to withdraw my money because I always use their online payments, right? So with that being said, then the corporates tried to venture into that scene, all the banks tried to create their e-wallets. And then what happens to the integrator then? There's a lot of integration required and then a lot of touchpoint and then hence did more research. ♪

Yeah, thank you for sharing that Faizal. It sounds to me that the challenges are not so much related to the country, but it's about the maturity of the organization that you're in. And at that point in time, you were in a telco, which is usually most telcos are slightly behind like the tech startups, right? In terms of the design maturity or even like product building maturity. So that's understandable that you have to kind of hold the hands of some of the stakeholders.

And I think what's really exciting and interesting over here is that Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world and it's growing. And you mentioned that they're extremely tech savvy. It kind of reminds me of another market, which is China, right? Which has their own ecosystem as well.

You were previously in Indonesia and you're building for the telecoms industry, which touches many people's lives. Now that you're in Thailand, which is a smaller country and you're working for LINE, how's the experience different, right? Comparing between Indonesia and Thailand. Let me try and use the same structure earlier. Try to break it down into the design awareness and then platforms of, you know, for people to get education and training and then how's the US community like here.

I think to start with the awareness, Thailand in general, they are still in the digital transformation shift. Right now, there's a huge recognition on the importance of the UX, especially sectors like e-commerce and fintech finance.

And in regards to education and training, it's a little bit of a slower pace, I'll say, if I were to compare with the other Southeast Asia countries. However, there's an increasing number of US courses available out there too, right? Just to name a few, BKK Web, UX at the Hour, that is a free event for you to attend. In Thailand in general, there are two prominent tech giants. One is Line, right?

And second is Agoda. So Agoda is actually just based opposite of our office. So if I sort of want to summarize into the strength of Thailand, or at least where the designer mindset is, Thailand generally emphasizes a lot on data.

like a lot of data. They sort of leverage that data to then try to understand and then leverage that data. How can they improve their design, right? Whereas for Indonesia, it's research heavy, right? Again, I'm generalized there.

is there anything interesting that you've discovered while working in in thailand so far because i know line has i mean we wouldn't get into personal data and and the insights of the line app itself but like what what fascinates you about the thai market like and what's what's keeping you there at the moment very good question let me start by saying that

from my observation, Bangkok, specifically, or Thailand in general, they embrace the idea of open culture, right? And it's a vibrant city. And now it's getting, you know, getting late now. And it's not like in Bangkok, it's just another level, right? There's one thing that I've noticed, though. So in terms of how they incorporate user behavior or Thai's behavior into digital channels. So,

Because of its vibrant, most of the interaction actually happened using stickers, emojis, wherever they chat. For example, let's say if I say thank you, and then they will reply with, you're welcome in a sticker and emoji, right? It's such sort of compliments to their culture in general to everyone.

The other thing that I've noticed, particularly on Thai behavior, let's say if I were to order food from line, we have here line men incorporating to our competitive scrap. When you order, almost most of the time, they will respond that, hey, I've got your order. And almost every single interaction that they will update you.

The other interesting fact that I've observed is they have a deep empathy for their culture. For example, like banks here, they actually open from 11 a.m. and then they close at 8 p.m.

So why is that? Where's that empathy elements come from is usually Thai people, they are very busy in the morning and afternoon. From my country, Malaysia, right, we open at nine and then close at four or five, right? And then by the time we try to, you know, go to the banks and then it's already closed, right? So I think that's a really nice touch in terms of being empathetic towards their people and also try to really inject their culture into digital channels.

It sounds like a very friendly culture and it's very known for, from a tourism perspective, it's one of the most hospitable places

cultures in the world, which is why people enjoy visiting Thailand in islands such as Phuket, for example, even Chiang Mai. Lots of digital nomads love going there. As you were speaking about this, I kind of noticed something. The company you work for, which is Line, is actually from Korea. And I noticed there seems to be quite a number of Chinese companies or Korean companies that

expanding their presence in Southeast Asia, right? Like in Singapore, for example, we have Baitans and we have a few other Chinese companies. And then in Korea, there's also Line over here in Singapore, although it's not as popular as it is in Thailand. And kind of relating it back to the

the past where there was like physical goods and they were actually sort of being exported to countries in Southeast Asia, like your Samsung, your LG,

and all these other brands. I'm kind of curious from your perspective, coming from Malaysia, working in Thailand, working in Indonesia, how do you see the future of products that are built from the ground up, from Southeast Asia? What are your thoughts? That's a big question. If I were to look at from innovation perspective and then adoption on the technology, I think Thailand is showing growth

great interest and even the fact that they are in the G20 what we call this gang right with the other giant economy country there's definitely more investment towards digital particularly here in Thailand reason being I think

They're trying to sort of create a hub for the digital where try to attract more investors in and then also by hiring a more, what do you call it, a spatriot, right? Similar for me, right? Because they wanted to bring a different spice and different flavours to the company in general, right? So innovation perspective, I think Thailand is,

I think they are focusing more towards digital touchpoint rather than the physical aspect of it. For example, the hardware stuff. I'm not saying they're not, but if you look at the design specifically, there's almost an everyday experiment that's going on with their design, right? If you're looking at Agoda specifically, they love AB testing, right?

So that's innovation, right? And then the other part was on, I guess, the talents in general, right? Not just Thailand, I would say, even Asia in general, right? We have a lot of promising talents that enable us to invite more investors into the country, right? Malaysia, Singapore, and so forth. I hope I answered your question there.

I think you did. I mean, it's great that you brought up Agoda, right? Agoda was actually, although they were founded by foreigners, they have actually been headquarters in Thailand for quite a number of years and was subsequently acquired by Booking.com. So they are an international website. They are an international product. And we see that as an example of having the right infrastructure and talent

We have Grab. Grab's incredibly focused on Southeast Asia and the region itself. They have no ambition to go where Uber is competing.

But they're also trying their best to build a global product and a world-class product as much as possible. So I definitely agree with you on the point that there is actually the talent and that potential to build global products. We just haven't seen quite a number of people do that at scale, at least on the consumer side. But on the B2B side, I think that we have

several SaaS and B2B startups that actually serve global clientele, whether it's in Malaysia, whether it's in Singapore, whether it's in Indonesia, for example. What's sort of your play over here? Like, do you intend to work overseas as long as possible? Or do you intend to kind of like go back to Malaysia? And yeah, what's kind of like your intention in the next couple of years, if you have planned so far? Yeah.

I hope my manager is not in the room. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'm starting to toy with the idea of working abroad after my tenure with DG. For those who don't know, DG is one of the prominent telco in Malaysia.

And at that time, I remember I was targeting more towards the Europe and the Western country. I remember that I applied a few and managed to get at least one verbal offer. But then to make a long story short, you know, there's one recruiter that, hey, Faiza, what do you think about this opportunity in Jakarta? I thought, huh, yeah.

That's interesting, right? So I said interesting because at the same time, if I were to think about European or Western countries, that's

That's a long shot and also that's far from my home country. So I thought, oh, Indonesia would be a great stepping stone for me. And yeah, and then 2019, I joined and based in Jakarta. And then a couple of years after the COVID hits, unfortunately, then I had to come back to Malaysia and then join SIC, that owns Job Street and Job Stab.

And there's always this fire in me that I don't think that my journey has ended yet. So then I start telling the idea, all right, so let's hit that road. And somehow still here abroad, there's still this fire in me that I want to continue to challenge myself.

And, you know, we talked earlier about imposter syndrome and the introvert in me, right? And I just want to see how far that I can go. And to a certain extent, to prove, you know, people will have doubts about design as a career in general, right? Design cannot make

you know, a sustainable life in general or kind of make a good money. There's no higher prospect and what have you. I'm fully with you over there because I was, I also went to design school and, and I know at that point in time when I signed up for design school, everyone was like looking at me like,

There's no future in design. So I don't know why you're doing that. Why don't you sign up and be an engineer? So I was like, no way. But I totally get it. And I also see that it's very promising to see that a lot of companies are coming over

or are being set up, or are unicorns, right? And they're hiring aggressively locally. And they're building global products. They're putting their product building functions in Southeast Asia, which is actually really, really exciting. Because that's where the population growth is going to be. That's where a lot of the

consumers and customers are actually going to become middle class in the next couple of years. We're going to see a lot of people rise in terms of prosperity from a GDP basis. So it's really, really exciting to see what's going to happen. And I know this is like a new frontier for you as well as for many of our listeners as well, which is why it's nice to hear from the ground what you are seeing, what you are experiencing, and

Do you have any advice for anyone who is looking to work in Southeast Asia, right? And maybe is offered an opportunity to come to Southeast Asia, to work in Southeast Asia. What are your tips? What are your advice as a foreigner trying to work in another culture? Let me share the tough part first. I think the tough part in working abroad generally is...

sometimes it can be emotionally exhausting every single day, right? The moment you move, you're basically living a double life, right? You basically technically put your life on pause in your hometown, right? Or your home country. But obviously you feel blessed with the life that you have, but you also have this sense of homesick, right?

But in regards to your question, I think there's one competency actually that I was struggling a couple of years back, which is the ability to story tell. In order for you to push yourself to being able to tell a story from, let's say, from your design, right, which is very important, is to push out the boundaries, right, and look at what's possible out there. And by me pushing myself working abroad, I

I unconsciously am pushing myself to be able to craft a better story for my profile and also apply those in my work streams, right? And in regards to advice to those who want to work abroad, there's a lot of aspects that you need to look out for, right? For example, this probably will sound a bit bad, but it's important to prioritise financial over everything else.

Study and do the benchmarking study about what the potential salary will look like. On top of that, you need to consider the tax deduction too. And for me, living in Malaysia, where in Malaysia I do have the EPF, it's what we call Employee Provident Fund,

But now me working in Thailand and then the percentage of that is different, right? You also need to think about the working visa arrangement, right? Are you being sponsored or do you need to fork out money for yourself to apply those visas?

Healthcare is another thing, right? The other big ones, I think, is the role aspect, right? Either it's contract or permanent employment terms, right? And for me, I would always advocate for if you want to work abroad,

find this permanent role. I think you put a lot of risk in your decision. Of course, there's another thing, maybe we can talk about it later, accommodation, general expenses, and all those things. So this is sort of like a general steps. Other than that, it will be

I would understand if you right now wonder, will I make a right decision to move abroad? And I question myself many times. And I've bounced the idea with my wife many times too before. All right, let's go to Jakarta.

So have that conversation with your family members. And then at the end, go in and have fun. I think that's the most important thing. Thank you for the reminders to actually take care of your own logistics and finances before you do move abroad. And talking about that, you were given offers in both Indonesia and Thailand. How did you end up getting these offers?

Did someone come to you? Did you apply for them? What was the process for you to land a role overseas? I'm glad that you asked that question because I feel like a deja vu. I think it was last week I had a chat with my mentees

And she asked me about, Faisal, can you tell me a secret? How did you get the opportunities or the offer to work abroad, right? And my answer was fairly similar with everyone else's. I go to, you know, to LinkedIn. I browse the career website, you know, the traditional way, right? But in regards to Indonesia, actually, I was...

reached out from a recruiter that was from Singapore. Then, you know, give me a call. And then I remember interviews and negotiations and what have you that took me about, I think it was three months or less in regards for me here at Lined. I send out the application via their direct website. And then I've only got response a month later.

So what I'm trying to say here is there's no secret, at least from my experience, yes, to a certain extent that networking might help. No people here and there. For me, I go the traditional way. And prior, when we talked this offline, prior that I've got the offer from LINE, I've actually got the offer from Singapore.

But then, you know, I see the sort of missions that life resonates with a little bit more. So, hence. Well, fun fact is that Bangkok has some of the most number of Michelin star restaurants. Not that I'm suggesting that you're eating there every day, but I mean, you chose good food as well, right? Like...

Yeah, Bangkok has a lot of good food, fresh ingredients. So I don't blame you for choosing Bangkok over Singapore. Tell us a little bit more about salaries as well. Because if you chose Singapore, maybe the salary is a little bit different, the tax will be a little bit different. And Thailand has a different tax structure, has probably a different salary as well.

How do you make sure you negotiate and got the best offer that you can possibly get? How did you know? What tips do you have to offer to our listeners over here?

Well, I could sense that we might need another hour. Let me try and build a bit of context and then I'll get to the question. And actually, let me pull out some data to share with everyone and we'll make sure that I share the right data. So one of the tips is to understand your market value. So there's a lot of channels out there. For example, there

There's this self-reported platform called DesignPay.asia, which is actually co-founded by United and the Singaporean. Haze is, you know, the recruiters. There's another Cox agency, which is quite advocate or at least advocating in South Asia salary benchmarking.

So, of course, there's another more validated data, which is levels.fii, right? So based on data from designpay.asia, actually almost 40% of the respondents did not negotiate their salary, while 61% do not agree that they compensated fairly, right?

And 33% also unsure about their awareness on the market rate for their salary, for their level. So here I have in handy the salary benchmark just to save everyone's time. Let me try and break it into four countries, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, and then I'll break it into median and high salary. Let's start with Singapore.

So the median salary for Singapore for the UX design is $84,000 Singapore dollars. That's annually, right? That's equivalent about

$5,100 or if we have Malaysian folks in the call, that's 24,000. And on the high side, around 20,000 monthly. That's equivalent to $15,000 or RM70,000. So that's Singapore. For Malaysia, the median is about RM7,000.

or $1,500. And on the high side, it could be about 30,000 to 40,000 ringgit per month or $6,300. For Indonesia, the median is about 12.5 million rupiah. That's monthly and equivalent to $800. The high is about $115 million.

that's about $7,400. And for Thailand, the median is about $85,000 monthly or equivalent to $2,400. And for high, it's about $210 million or equivalent to $5,800. So that's sort of the benchmarking that was done by, you know, I tried to assemble from different sources you might want to check out.

themselves out there. With that context, right? Now I think we try to dive in a little bit about how do we negotiate in a way, isn't it? Yeah, while you're thinking about that, I just want to summarize a few things for our listeners. Median is usually the most commonly reported figure. It's not an average of the numbers, right? So it's not the mean, but rather median is in statistics is actually the most commonly reported figure.

number that is highest occurring. So based on what Faisal was actually saying, he's saying Singapore has the highest of all the four countries, but it also means that Malaysia's figures are actually about one third of Singapore. And it sounds like in Thailand and in Indonesia, it's quite competitive to Singapore's figures as well. They're not too far behind Malaysia.

But we also have to bear in mind that such reports are usually filled up by people who may be expats, right? So they might be drawing slightly more salary than the local population itself. So the focus of this report

DesignPay is still very much on the Singapore and the Malaysia market, just to give additional context. But yeah, tell us how can we get more money out of our salary negotiation? All right, I think first and foremost, let me invite everyone in the audience or to the listener to change your perspective on how you view your career in general. I want you to start thinking of your career as a business

When your mindset about owning and running or building a business, you definitely want to maximize your number, right? Your financial and in business, of course, you want to make sure that your cash flow revenue profit, you know, remained increasing over the time, right? So you don't want to stay stagnant and fairly to no profit, right?

So let me start by saying that to understand a typical components in the compensation, right? So one is a base salary or a monthly salary. So let's say if we have an audience from Western or European, I think they negotiate in world basis. Second is allowances. The third is bonus.

Fourth is sign-on bonus. And fifth, if you want to work abroad, you can actually negotiate for relocation package, right? Either that's into utilities, accommodations. And number six, I think is, which is not much popular in Southeast Asia, which is equity-based or RSA use. I think it's for restricted stock units, right? But it's more common in the Western and European countries.

Before you dive in into how to negotiate, I think for me, you need to understand your value narrative. First, you need to know which skill sets of yours that you want to flow deeper when you go into that interviews. Try to really understand what the problem that the company is trying to solve by hiring you. Throughout that interview, they mentioned about, oh, we have a little bit of gap in research.

then once you understand that is the cap, so that's where you inject your value narrative, right? And the second is understand your personas. To those who are designers, I think it's a normal for us to understand the double alignment and the first part of the alignment is about discovery, understand your users, right? Similar to when you approach and negotiating your salary too, right? Understand your personas.

And here's a newsflash. The motivation of the personas essentially are similar, right? Which is they try to close the vacancy, but their motivation are different. So there are four main players or the personas, which is one recruiter. So recruiter, usually they're trying to identify and attract potential candidates for open positions, right?

Second is talent acquisitions. Talent acquisitions usually is about more strategic approach in identifying, attracting and onboarding top talents. And the third is human resource, which is to manage overall employees' experience and ensure that we onboard the right people.

And the last one, which is a hiring manager, right? The person who will be the direct lead of the new hire or the person who actually requested for that positions, right? So once you understand the personas, then you understand their needs, you understand their motivation, then it'll be much easier for you to craft your angle on, all right, which of the value narrative that I could inject to my hiring manager, right?

which of them my value that I could illustrate better to tell a good decision so that they can empathize with me a bit more. And the third is understand your market value. I think we covered that earlier. I think that's important. Many are actually still do not do them benchmarking studies in general.

And the fourth one, this is where it can get a little bit more detail on how would you maximize or get the maximum number on the table. So first is to understand that each company has

they have their own structure for the quote-unquote celebrity band. So do your study, gauge on the size of the company and their career level. So how I did it usually, let's say your dream job, right, to work at one of the Fang or now is, what is it,

Mama, right? Or let me try and use a Southeast Asia company. Let's use Grab. So how would I do it? I'll go to LinkedIn and then I'll try to search for, let's say, product design. And then let's see how many results that would appear. And then I'll use a second keyword, senior product design. And then I continue to, you know, principal and staff.

So then I map that out and I could see almost like a carrier path, right? And usually when the company has a bit more vertical in terms of their carrier path, they

then that's a sign that basically they are more willing to pay more money. The second one is understand the value of negotiating and psychology behind it. It is extremely important, right? I think there's a couple of tricks that I could share here with everyone is first and foremost, if you don't negotiate early in new carrier, actually there will be a compounding effect, right? Let's say if you were to accept

a lower pay today, it'll be drastically decreases your long-term potential earnings. I think that's one, right? And second is when you don't negotiate, then you lost a potential earnings by not negotiating. I think that's, that's sort of straightforward, right? So now,

earlier I mentioned about the value of negotiating and psychology behind it. Trying to visualize this, let's say you walk through the hardware store and looking for school drivers, right? And you saw there are two options, right? Let's say option A is a bit more cheaper than the option B. So psychologically, you would see that, oh, B could be better, right? Because it'd be more expensive, it might look

It might sturdier, you know, all those things. So there's some really small details on the psychology behind it, right? And also the third thing is, let's say when you're in the interview and actually the hiring committee would observe how your negotiation skills like.

Reason being because they're trying to illustrate in their mind that, okay, this dude, he or she is a good negotiator, right? It might be beneficial actually when you apply that in a work setting, right? In a realistic world when you join a team and then you might be dealing with a lot of pushback, pushing more ideas to the tables, stakeholders, and et cetera. The last points on that psychology I think is,

understand the psychology behind the anchoring right there might be a discussion between you and the personas that we talked earlier about hey can you tell me about your your salary expectation right or give me a range the technique of anchoring here is don't mention the smaller amount first

but mention the big amount first, right? For example, here I'm looking for $10,000, but I'm open to, you know, from 10 to 8,000. So then that's the anchor. What I mean is you put in the big number first, right?

Maybe I could just give just a two more, Dallin, if that's all right, which is about understanding the reason behind the vacancy. Let's say you try to gauge, right, the company is in a growing state. Let's say if it's startups, which round series they are at, right, B or C or even a C, right? And also...

try to gauge on do they actually need a specialist that they are currently lacking, right? Or maybe they want, you know, they make the vacancy available is because just simply need to extend the bandwidth, right? Understanding the reason behind the vacancy is extremely important because later you can leverage those understanding to negotiate salary. Maybe we can talk a bit more deeper about that.

There are so many good tips, Faisal. I didn't know you were an expert at this, but I run career programs for UXs and we actually invite recruiters and HR people to come and teach our students how to negotiate. The amount of advice you give is no less than what they're sharing with my students.

And you went even deeper. And there was something I picked up that was really, really interesting, other than benchmarking with, say, DesignPay.Asia and the fact that you do negotiate, because if you don't negotiate, you're leaving money on the table. You said something about value narrative. If I were to ask you, what's your value narrative? Can you give me an example of that?

I suppose you'll be very familiar with your own value narrative. So can you share with us what does that look like or what does that sound like? That's a very good question. Actually, I've got that question a lot from my mentees. So in a real world situation, when you go for an interview, usually your personas, right? Let's take an example, hiring managers, right? They don't ask, okay, so what is your strength? What is your value, right? So the typical practice is where...

during that conversation, they try to analyze your competencies, right? And without you realizing that, actually jotting down, at least from me, right? I jot down, oh, this guy's good in A, B, C, and D. So, you know, to answer your question, I actually don't have my, you know, how I would say, like a list of my value narrative. I think that would happen during the interview in itself. But for me, again, it's,

how would I develop my value narrative is actually asking a good question during the interview. And often I'll say to my mentees or my junior is, it's all right sometimes to ask your hiring manager, okay, how big is the team or how's the design process like? It's all right. But if you want to have that edge, you need to ask a little bit more creative question

Often I'll give them these three structures of a framework, I call it, right? The three Ps, right? The people, product and practice. So for example, in the product, you can ask about when was the last time the team was restructured and what was the motivation and why? And what is the missing piece in terms of people competencies and how can this role help the current people set up and ultimately help the products?

And you can also ask about, could you describe team's current level motivation? And then you can, in terms of the second framework, which is a product, you can ask about how often that the company or the product shifted directions and why. Or the other question you could ask is if you could share what is the most pricing issue with the product at the moment and

And you can further ask, what does the North Star of the product look like? And the last framework, which is about the practice, how would you describe the level of design maturity at the moment? What are the main gaps that you've seen that the team can improve further? So by asking all these questions, actually you're portraying your understanding

unconsciously, I think that's the key words to it, unconsciously portraying your value narrative that, oh, this dude is asking different questions. So then there will be some level of so-called, I hate to say the word judgment, right? But there will be some level of judgment where, oh, this guy is not asking a typical question about how many, how big is the team members, how the team structure is today and what have you.

I think it's really great that you point these out and questions are definitely a really good way to flex your, how thoughtful you are as a person, how deep you think about the problem. And the questions that you shared are definitely very, very good questions to ask during interviews itself. But I'm also wondering from a positioning perspective, surely, surely you,

you are conscious of the fact that you're positioned in a certain way, right? Like, for example, when I was working for Razor, how my friend sold me into Razor was that she said, hey, like, Daylon is one of the few guys who have actually worked in startups and corporates. And that's a very unique positioning, like being able to

tread between the two. I'm sure you know yours as well. And I'm curious, like, do you mention it like upfront, like as part of your introduction or do you kind of be a little bit more subtle about it?

Yeah, I think a bit of a combination of both. Although I mentioned earlier that I don't have a list, but usually I would flaunt my value narrative naturally through that conversation with the hiring manager person, right?

And often I'll say it about, again, I break it into three parts, right? People, product, practice. And let's say for me, the product is about how I have the edge on having the research first mindset, and then how can we solve the design or improve the design through research, right? By gathering the necessary insights, right?

And the second bit, which is how would you balance between user needs and business needs? And then how...

Often I'll say that how would you measure your design? I think there's a lack still, a lack of emphasis on looking at the impact and how to measure your design in general, right? And then practice-wise, I think usually I'll say about how do we create a culture where there is not silo, that is more collaborative throughout the process, right?

And the third is on the people. I think that's where I have, I would say, have a little bit more edge on. I personally have, I would consider myself a highly empathetic person. And it's very important to really understand your people and your

Because for me, people come from different walks of life. And what I mean also by that is, you know, designer A, they might have been exposed to a different design process that we might not know. Designer B might, you know, have a different perspective on how should we get things done too, right? By leveraging those knowledge between our designers, then I could help them map out

For instance, our own design process.

Hopefully I answered your question on how I would narrate my value. I think what I noticed from what you said, Faizal, is actually being hyper aware of how you could be a potential contributor to whatever they're trying to achieve, right? Like whatever their desire is. And I think because of the fact that you're so experienced and that you understand what good looks like,

And because you're aware of that and the fact that you're asking all these questions gives the impression subconsciously that, hey, this guy knows what good looks like. And because he knows what good looks like and we are trying to get to good, let's hire him.

So I think it's excellent positioning without actually flaunting and saying, hey, I work 13 years. I have so much experience and stuff like that. But you're actually flexing your profile through the questions you're asking, which is then helping them realize, hey, there are a couple of things we haven't quite figured out.

And through that, they're like, okay, let's kind of like have a deeper discussion with Faisal to understand a little bit more. And I think it's excellent because especially if you're applying for roles to be a UX manager level and above, these are really excellent questions to ask. And negotiation is also an excellent skill to flex as you mentioned earlier. But would you recommend the same approach if you're just trying to

enter the industry, you're just trying to get in at the start, would you recommend this approach of like asking really deep questions, really smart questions to differentiate yourself? Like, would you be impressed as a hiring manager if someone asked you that?

Yes, why I'm saying yes, because last two weeks I had, you know, I checked with my mentees, which is she's, she's tired and looking out for a job. And, you know, I helped her to craft her resume and portfolios. So during that conversation, she asked me a question that I thought,

Ah, so let me give you the context, right? That she is a, what do you call this, a fresh designer, has less than one year experience, right? But she asked me about how do we measure the design? And then she mentioned, she asked me about how do we find a balance between user needs and business needs? You know, all those things. And then it got me thinking, if I were, you know, to look

back, you know, if I were in her shoes a couple of years back, I don't think I would ask that questions because I thought I would care too much on question about user flow, question about how big is the design team and what have you. There's one true story. When I was at Seek, we trying to hire a product designer.

And in the process, I was told by my manager that, hey, dude, this one guy, we put him in KIV. Would you like to have a look? And I said, sure. And then look at the profile and then parallel to that, still continuing for the talent, searching for the talent. To make the long story short, actually that dude approached me on LinkedIn that, hey,

you know, starting to introduce himself. And then it sparked my interest about him. And I remember he voluntarily asked me politely, "Hey, Faizal, do you have half an hour whenever I'd like to show you some of my work?" And again, to make the long story short, we sort of arranged a offline, not offline, like, I would say offline interview, very casual one, and then he walked me through

And, you know, then that's a reflection of a grit that he really demonstrated that I really want that job and I can demonstrate my passion. And keep in mind, he has less than, I think, less than three years or two years of experience, right?

But the levels of passion and again, the grit that he displayed, it's sort of wow me. And I'm surprised, yeah, I hired him and the team love him and I'm still at SIG. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I'm even thinking like, based on what you shared today, I'm also learning that myself, like it's ultra competitive to...

to be a UX designer and break into the tech industry today, right? More than ever since our time, since the time we joined the tech industry. So the fact that a lot of people are, are

are highlighting exactly what their value proposition is or their positioning is, and they're just putting it up front. That's one way to sell yourself. But you also helped me realize that another way of actually telling others your value proposition or your positioning or your value narrative, as you call it, is to ask really smart questions that people don't ask and to

And to not be so much of a hot sell that you, it's like you're desperate for a job, right? It's more like, hey, let's have a conversation. Let's have an exploration. Let's try and see whether there's a possibility over there. And it's kind of much more

softer approach and it's less of a hot sell. I don't know if you get requests like that, Faisal, but sometimes people try to say, hey, are you guys line hiring, for example? How do you feel about those messages and

and those requests, like, you know, like, can you take a look at my portfolio, for example? I don't mind at all. As a matter of fact, I think, you know, the traditional cold email, right? Cold mail someone. I think it still works in these days.

you know, we have a lot of apps that we need to juggle in between. And then wouldn't it be nice if, you know, one day I could get one message from LinkedIn that, hey, Faizal, you know, basically he or she expressed interest to join Line, for example, right?

I think again that just shows great in his profile. At LINE, yeah, specifically at LINE right now, we are trying to stabilize our team at the moment, but I'm sure sooner or later we will be opening a lot more vacancies.

So we've gotten to the end of the session and we weren't able to dive too deep on UX and its subconscious impact. And I'm not going to ask you to, but I'm just wondering if you have

Any parting advice, if you have anything else you want to share with our audience today to wrap up the entire session, in case you didn't cover any of them. Let me try quickly address on the second topic, I think it was, right? To think deeper about user experience and its conscious impact, right?

So if there's a formula, I think, how do you create a delightful experience for your users? It's about how do you think big?

plus think deep plus subconscious impact to delight. So let me quickly touch on what does the think big means. Think big means you adopting a holistic approach to design. It's not just about how the products look like or the actions that user might take. It's about understanding and shaping

deeper psychological journey that user undergoes while interacting with your products, right?

And if you go into the second, which is a thing deeper, again, there's more to the UX than just the surface level interactions on the design elements, right? The most important is involve emotions and feelings, right? And the third, which is a subconscious impact, I probably won't go through all the elements. I think there's four main elements that you can keep in mind, which is one is emotions and feelings.

Second is the memory, what do users remember about the experience? Third on behavioral changes and fourth with cognitive fluid, right? Overly complex design can overwhelm users. So if you look at that formula, think big plus, think deep and then plus subconscious impact, eventually you could delight your users.

And if I could just share a very short story on what I mean by that subconscious impact. For example, you know, Netflix, right? I'm a big fan of the American TV show Friends, right? So back in 2015, I think it was, right? The way, you know, if you binge watch TV show Friends, where let's say if you're watching through your laptop or PC, then

then during the intro, you would click or tap on the arrow next, next, next, right? Because you want to jump the intros. And Netflix actually noticed that. And what they did later, they brainstormed about, hey, what can we do about this behavior from our users, right? And to make a long story short, then Netflix,

Hence the birth of, you know, I think it's called skip intro now, right? So what are these key takeaway, right? Designing experience is not just about the best user flow that you could ever create it.

or how many screens that you're able to remove, right? But by going big and deep and do the empathy mapping where you can mark down what user feel, user think, user act, and then you sort of map that on your journey. And then that's where you could, you know, catch those smaller details such as the story behind Netflix, skipping through buttons.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Faisal. And I'm sure you approach job hunting-- and just to round up our discussion--

job hunting and the experience of actually presenting yourself as a candidate to the hiring manager, to the recruiter or to anyone you interact with the very same way, right? Not just thinking about the content you're sharing, but also how, what is the impression and what is the, what is the memory and what is the emotion you want that person to leave with? And, um,

And that's also how you differentiate yourself as a candidate aside from other people. Do you have any final tips or any additional things you want to cover on that end when it comes to getting a job overseas or when it comes to getting a job or breaking into the industry? If there isn't, it's fine because we've covered quite a lot today. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I was about to say that. I think there's a lot of candidates out there or designers in general still struggling on, or at least often, I've got a question, Faisal, I've often got a question about, from the recruiters to, you know, they ask me about my current salary or my current pay slip, right?

And or what is your expected salary? And how should I respond to that? Maybe, you know, we might need another hour just to talk about that and I could share scripts and what have you.

But the general tips that I would say is when it comes to salary is first to deflect. Before discussing salary, what you can say is I like to get a better understanding on the opportunities and growth opportunities for this position. Can you tell me more about that?

And the second is you can express your flexibility and flexibility when it comes to composition, more interested in finding positions that find good fits. And third, you can also say that you sort of indicate that you really stitch in your salary research. And it's okay to do that.

And maybe to sort of wrap up the salary topic, I think I could share just a quick common mistake. I think that will be helpful for everyone is don't just pull out a random number.

out of nowhere. I think that's first. Second is, which is I admit I did in the past, being too detailed on the number, right? Hey, I'm looking for $9,987, right? They just create more headache for the finance people and what have you, right? And the third is,

Not understanding on all available components in negotiation that we covered earlier, right? There's base salary, there's relocations and what have you. And last two years, too quick to settle.

when it comes to selling negotiation, right? Hey, Faisal, this is an offer for you. And then we'll say, oh, okay. Right? So last bit, I would say, don't do the knee jerk reaction when reacting to the lower offer, right?

I have this one, what do you call this? I couldn't find the words for it, right? But often I'll hear from people that say, oh, Faisal, I need more money because I need to pay the rent, gas, food. I'm not saying that it's a wrong thing to say, but going back to what I said earlier, understand your value narrative, markets, and et cetera, then you can leverage those to counter the negotiation. Right.

Yeah, and I think one of the things you made me realize today is actually that it's so much deeper than just stating a number when you're negotiating your salary. That's so much more. And there's so many other ways you can present yourself as a strong candidate and a different candidate from other people. If you ask the right questions, if you

also be able to kind of like think about the kind of impression that you're giving your hiring manager and the interviewer. So thank you so much for what you shared tonight. And I see that you're also a mentor on ADP List. Are you still available to and open to mentoring more people?

Oh yeah, absolutely. So if we head down to my profile and then, yeah, it will be interesting to have a chat with you guys and I could actually share what are the counter and how's this script look like if you're looking to negotiate a salary. And today I realized that Faisal is actually a master negotiator. That's as good as any recruiter that we work with. So yeah, I'll definitely encourage you to share more about that on

on your own LinkedIn profile and you can follow Faisal on LinkedIn. You just have to search his name, IKRAM, F-A-I-D-Z-A-L on LinkedIn, and you'll be able to ask him. So thank you so much, Faisal, for coming to our session today and I wish you all the best in your work at LINE. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with our audience.

Thank you again for having me as well. It's lovely to chat with you and then to share bits here and there with everyone. Thank you and sawadee ka. All right, everyone, have a good day ahead and I wish you very, very well and see you next month in our next session for Working in UX Design. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

If you did, please let me know what you think. Get in touch with me over email at mail at curiouscore.com. I would love to hear from you. Do also check out our previous interviews and other free resources at curiouscore.com. And until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Take care and keep leaning into change.