“Empathy is the most important part of our design process”

An interview with Namecheap’s Head of UX Design, Nuno Martino

I had the pleasure to interview Nuno Martino, our Head of UX design. We planned for a short chat, but his passion and my interest resulted in a deep conversation, giving personal insights on himself, the UX team and Namecheap overall. If you are the one, who appreciates the beauty of details on how a real team works together to deliver results - this article is for you!

How long have you been with Namecheap?

I started working at Namecheap five, almost six years ago. I joined Namecheap as a UX senior designer.

The idea was to work on a very specific project, and for that project to take no more than three or four months. But then the project evolved a lot, and after that, we had lots of changes in the UX departments. One night about four years ago, Rick (Namecheap’s CEO) messaged me. I was on vacation and to be quite honest, I got a bit scared because I wondered why Rick would contact me directly. He invited me to be the Head of UX design, and to build a team in Porto to look at the entire user experience for Namecheap. 

I'm really happy to be here. And one thing that I would like to highlight here is the opportunity that Namecheap gives to everyone to enable them to progress in their career. 

As someone who’s had a professional career at many companies, how does Namecheap compare to others you worked for in the past? What are the key elements that stand out to you? 

Before now, I never worked in a company where the UX department worked directly with internal clients, as opposed to external ones. This is a huge advantage for us because we are really close to the product team, to technology, and to other business units. Everyone has huge expertise in our products. We know our customers really well, and that's also a huge advantage. So, when we come to build the user experience, we have a strong knowledge of the product, of the customer, and close connection to all the other units. We also see the results of our work in practice — see how the customer reacts to it, and from there, we can improve it continuously!

You mentioned that working for an internal client makes a huge difference. Are there any other elements of what you do at Namecheap that differ from other companies you’ve worked at?

By working so closely with these teams, we get better critical mass and knowledge, which allows us to make better decisions. This is a big differentiator. Let me talk a bit about the structure. At Namecheap, we manage each product in a product pod. Inside each pod, we have a multifunctional team. These multifunctional teams typically have representatives from UX, product, marketing and technology. 

This multifunctional team is always 100% focused on a specific product and its specific customers. Now, you may ask, with so many pods, how do you keep consistency across the products? We do this by having a really solid process inside the UX team, and by ensuring that we have the right tools (such as shared libraries, a design system and so on and so forth). The tools enable us to have different people working in different pods, while keeping consistency. 

What values drive your decisions in design?

We have a user centered design approach, and we regularly use design thinking. So, what we usually do is try to empathize with the customer, understand the customer, ideate and define a prototype and test it. 

We always start with the customer at the center of everything we do. But as I mentioned before, we don't do it alone. We work closely with our product, marketing, and technology teams. They give us some clues about what's possible from a technology perspective and what is feasible in light of our business goals. 

Our job is to find the sweet spot between customer and business needs and technology feasibility as a second step. There are also other teams contributing to the results our teams can experience in our services. Creative Lab is supporting the pods with graphic design and copy, and we have strong marketing teams, helping us reach the right customers with the right offers, and also to measure our performance.

What is the most important part of your design process?

Empathy is the most important part. If you don't have that, you cannot deliver a good product because you are really not trying on the shoes of your customers. Many of our designers also use our own products — and have this insight directly as our customers.

What tools do you use in the design process?

We use Sketch as a design tool, and Abstract to keep the shared libraries and store the design version. We use InVision and Principle as prototyping tools. To create documentation, we use Confluence, and to plan the work and track the projects we use Jira.

What is the team structure like?

It is a very flat structure. I'm the head of UX, and I'm the bridge between the executive team and my team. I help to translate how their decisions will impact the UX team. 

I'm responsible for aligning and giving the right direction and vision to the UX team. I am also responsible for supporting the development of our people and the growth of the team, clarifying responsibilities, and making sure we deliver on our commitments. 

Then, we have the head of design innovation. The head of design innovation works like a creative director for our team, always working very closely with the entire design team. The idea here is to educate the team, to give them the guidelines. Usually, when we have doubts about what direction to follow, the head of design innovation creates a process to inspire and stimulate the designers. 

We also have team managers. They are accountable for optimization within their teams. To see what is working and what is not working properly. They are responsible for individual growth and for improving the process, or at least to adapt the general process to a specific challenge and ensuring that the stakeholders are receiving the right answers from the UX team.

And most importantly we have the UX designers and the UX researchers. For pods with more than three designers, we have a design lead, because it's important to streamline the communication. Instead of involving everyone, we have one person who represents the team in the pod.

Our flat structure supports the development of our people, while also ensuring control and alignment of their work. This strong foundation makes it really easy for new joiners to start. It is a light and natural process – so people pick it up really quickly. 

How would you describe the UX team in only 3-4 words?

The UX team is a very flexible team. 

We already faced a lot of changes and Namecheap is changing and developing quickly, and we react to these changes at the same speed! This is great because the process is elastic enough to adapt to several different scenarios, and kudos to the guys in the teams as they are personally also really flexible, and adaptable.  

Openness is another word coming to my mind — it's a very open team. It's friendly, and we have great relationships with other teams. It is also the most fun team, a very positive team. It's good to interact with them. They like to party a lot, and like almost all Portuguese, they like eating a lot as well.

It sounds like perhaps you are also a group of friends?

Yes. In fact, talking about COVID, one of the hardest parts of working from home is the emotional part. We are really connected and we are used to being at the office and we are really missing it. 

From a productivity standpoint, I don't see any negative impact, but from an emotional standpoint, it’s certainly had an impact, precisely because we have that strong connection. Most of us have worked together for more than four years, so it’s been tough being apart.

Have you tried new ideas to help this?

Well, we have several different (virtual) meetings with the team. We have a bi-weekly meeting with the entire team. The purpose of this meeting is not to follow up on work, but more about sharing things. Sometimes just talking and seeing if everything is good, and if everyone is okay. We also have a monthly call with the entire team when we do the balance of the entire month, where we share some of the projects we are developing.

We also have short daily calls. Here the idea is to give updates on the ongoing projects, and raise any issues. But even on those calls, you can see that someone is probably not feeling well. Then we can jump on a personal call and try to figure out how we can help this person.

How do you stay inspired and passionate working on the same product over the years?

Well, Namecheap is a really fantastic brand. It has huge potential, infinite opportunities, and space for improvement, innovation and growth. To be quite honest with you, I sometimes think that what we see from Namecheap today is only the tip of the iceberg. We have so many opportunities, and so much work can be done, that it gives me inspiration and makes me hungry for more.

What’s the process if someone wants to work on a different team?

Where it's possible, we will support them. Right now, we are in a process like that. We have a new open position that will be filled by someone who is currently working in another pod, and their position will then be offered to someone else in Namecheap.  

We are offering the opportunity for our people to learn, move, and be promoted inside Namecheap. We need to plan well and balance it with the business’ need for stability, and we are getting better at this.

How do you stay current in the industry?

Let me give you a few examples: We have a knowledge sharing session every two weeks. In those sessions we discuss design, and each person can bring a different topic to talk about: it can be an image, a movie, or whatever they think can trigger some kind of conversation. 

Then, we share our thoughts, impressions, feelings, and learn from each other. Another example is Innovation Week: We have one every few months, and our people can participate in different training and workshops organized internally. 

Last time, our team presented their UX research for the rest of the company. This time we will offer our colleagues a chance to understand our design system. But we can also participate in internal programs. For example, we’ll have a session to help our people better manage the rapid changes that are happening in the external world.

What advice would you give to people starting their career in UX and design?

The main advice I would give to the designers is: when you’re inspired by something — be it a poster, an ad, a movie, a picture — try to understand why you like it. 

The reasons we like something are very emotional, but for designers it’s good to rationalize them to try to understand why they like it. Dissect the emotion, and observe the individual parts. Understand the elements, the relationship between them, the typefaces, the grids, the colour palette — everything you can take from that object, take it. 

Do it as many times as you can, and with practice, you will start to recognize patterns, and you will start to understand which combinations work to create certain emotions, and which do not. You can then try to further understand the decisions behind the design — who was the target group, what impact was intended, etc. As personal advice, I’d say: be empathetic above all, “wear your customers’ shoes,” be resilient, be persistent, be nice, and have fun.