Understanding UX with Waleed Fahmy-Quiz A Creative

Quiz A Creative | Understanding UX with Waleed Fahmy

As part of RiseUp’s Quiz A Creative online series, we hosted Waleed Fahmy, CEO & Head of Design at Webkeyz, an Egyptian born company with over a decade of experience in interaction and model design. With offices in Cairo and San Francisco, today Webkeyz is a premier Product Design Consultancy firm. Waleed took questions live from the audience and we’ve rounded up some of the session’s key moments below! Check them out for some expert insights on the world of UX Design. 

Q: What is the connection between UX Design and Product Management?

User Experience (UX) design has a general meaning and a specific definition. The specific definition concerns the design, wireframes, and wire flows of a digital product, etc. However, in most cases, when people refer to UX, they mean the term’s general definition, i.e. the entire process from the very beginning of the product cycle until the customer’s perception of the final product. Moreover, there are elements of UX in every single step of product management, starting from the very core of why the product was even created in the first place!

Q: Tell us more about design consultancy: 

The idea of design consultancy started with a very basic idea. We wanted to work on UX, including user flows. However, in 2009-10, the market wasn’t as mature and research capabilities weren’t as strong as they are now. Over time, design consultancy became a much more expansive domain than just UX, it started to include design strategy and lots of other more processes. 

Design Strategy refers to how you position your product from a design perspective. For example, why change your product from being feature-oriented to being customer-oriented? 

Overall, design consultancy has to do with crafting a product from scratch, looking at all the variables, all the gaps in the market, and creating the most suitable solution. There’s always a business driver involved, but our main focus is always design. 

Q: So what does Webkeyz actually do?

We have different teams that work on different procedures like User Experience, UX Research, Front End Development, etc. We handle User Experience from every single possible angle to give our customer the optimal overall experience. 

Q: What are the best tools for UX Design?

In my opinion, it is your pencil. Do not overwhelm yourself with the complexity of all the different tools out there. At the end of the day, your pencil puts everything on paper. 

Do not limit yourself to one tool. To be good at Interaction Design, you need to be flexible and able to adjust to different tools. You can learn one tool every day and cover them all, but that won’t be what makes you stand out. 

In order to be your best at UX Design, we need to look at the skills you should have before looking at the tools. The most important trait for a great UX designer to have is their analytical skills. However, my opinion is very subjective and depends on the people I’ve seen. Some people believe you can know all there is to know about UX Design in just one year. In my opinion, the UX design learning process is a constant one: you keep learning throughout several years of work and experience. 

Design, in my opinion, is turning the ambiguous into concrete. In order to do this, you need to master your analytical skills, being able to bring someone’s dreams and goals into a realistic product, bearing in mind that not everything they’ll say might be right. You need to be able to distinguish between what is realistic and what would simply result in a failed product. Ultimately, because a UX Designer works at the very beginning of the product process, they have the power to create and perfect the product for the customer. 

Q: What is the best process for Product Design?

The process is very simple: 

1. Understanding needs to be done
2. Analyzing the task at hand to see how it can be converted into a design
3. Creating the product design & 
4. Validating the product design. 

However, this process can differ from an Interactive Tool to a Content Based Tool. For example, let’s compare a game against any other content-heavy product. The product design process for a game will focus on user flow and user testing for experience. On the other hand, content-heavy digital products require information architecture and a content inventory. 

Q: What is the difference between Usability and User Experience?

Usability → refers to precise, data-driven metrics. For example: recall vs. retention, or measuring the learnability of a product and its conversion. 

User Experience (UX) → refers to how you use your usability (these metrics above) to give you a positive or negative overall experience of the product. 

Q: Is there a future for UX Design amid ongoing advancements in technology, VR and AI?

As long as there are human beings and machines, there has to be an experience of some sort. However, the interface may change using different technologies. Twenty years ago, we didn’t have phones or computers with strong landscapes and imagery to give stronger UX Design. Now with VR, we need usability to measure its user experience and we need human interaction to validate the interface. In contrast, AI is simply a mechanism behind the scenes, which helps facilitate this process.

Q: What is the best UX Experience you’ve ever seen?

Airbnb has a very strong user experience. Spotify has a strong user experience but its not as consistent.

Q: What about the integration of UX/UI integrating into standard marketing processes?

UX and marketing overlap a lot! Here are just some of the ways: 

→ RESEARCH: UX and Marketing professionals conduct similar research processes, like focus groups. Each department usually has different goals from these research processes, so we typically reach different findings. 

→ MESSAGING & USER ENGAGEMENT: Part of a Marketing team’s function is to send messages or promises to users about the product. Once users access the product, UX starts to do its work by enhancing customer experience. 

→ ALIGNMENT: At the end of the day, marketing and UX Design need to be aligned 100% to send the right message to customers so they know what they’re buying. Any misalignment or discrepancy between these two functions can lead to major product problems. 

Q: Is it more important to be creative or analytical in my UX design process?

I believe creativity comes in many different shapes and sizes. However, if you are not an analytical UX designer, it simply won’t work. They’ll take your requirements and place them on screens with testing, but won’t deliver you your final output. Of course, all UX designers should be creative because there are different patterns for different situations, but ultimately, you need to be able to decide which kind of designer suits your product best. 

Q: Google & Apple keep changing their UX Design and experience, is this a good decision?

From a psychological perspective, I believe that if people don’t consistently see change or updates, they lose interest towards the product. That’s why Google and Apple focus on this to keep their customers engaged. 

Q: What are your design inspiration resources?

As the saying goes, “It’s everything around you.” Inspiration is everywhere, in failures, in successes, in good designs and ugly designs. They will all inspire you. Today, I believe people are focusing exclusively on interaction that engages the customer, but diminishes the product’s overall sense of design. 

Q: I work in a company where creativity is lacking due to a focus on finishing work as fast as possible, what can I do?

If your company’s culture respects design, it will give you as much time as possible for research and to understand the needs of the product and the required outputs. If the company doesn’t understand this, you will encounter tons of problems. If they feel like design can be done in 10 minutes and they only care for the output, not about perfecting the process, then they simply don’t understand how design works. If they look at other companies’ designs and compare or ask you to “just do the same as this,” this is 100% wrong and is not the right way to work in the industry. 

Ultimately, you have two solutions: you are either high in the company’s hierarchical structure and can voice your concern to change this culture, or you need to leave the company altogether. There isn’t really that much more to say. In both cases, you should be vocal about your concerns!

Q: Do you foresee a change in the UX Design industry as a result of COVID-19?

Under the current circumstances, some sectors in our industry have been booming with higher demand than usual, while others have been suffering. For example, online shopping, gaming, and other entertainment domains have seen a surge in demand. On the other hand, digital agencies are experiencing a slump in business overall. Because of the current economic uncertainty, we don’t know how long this will take or how big of an impact it will have. But what I can tell you is this: industries like design and marketing are connected with the economy and flow based on how the economy is doing. If the virus is still here, but the economy started to flourish again, then the design industry will flourish as well. 

Q: What do you think about starting a website through WIX or Shopify? 

The viability of using ready-made products like Shopify really depends on your needs. If you need something done in a week or two and you only want to focus on a specific aspect, then it will get the job done for you. However, for full customization, I don’t think it would be the best option. For brands that are still starting out, ready-made interfaces could be useful so that you can spend your initial launch period focusing on the brand and its management. Once it blooms and becomes a bigger name, you can begin to think about migrating to a better platform to have a stronger UI experience. 

Q: How do I tackle the gap between applying a good UX process and delivering a product in a short timeframe?

This goes back to the culture of the company. Applying the UX process perfectly usually takes too much time and isn’t efficient for most companies. When I was a designer, I used to hold strongly to the idea that we need to finish the process by the book. However, when I pivoted to the business side of things, I realized there’s some merit in the other perspective as well. Finishing the product relatively quickly and sticking to your predetermined timeline is important. If you spend, say, six months working on creating your product, that’s six months of you burning money for the business with no return. I would suggest trying to create the most optimum solution for the business in a time frame that is suitable for both of you, without completely abandoning the standard UX process, but also without going overboard in its implementation so that it interferes with the business’ timeline. 

Q: If a UX Designer wants to reach the level of UX Consultant, what do they need to do?

The word “consultant” has become very worn out, losing its core meaning. At its core, there are two traits that every good consultant should have: 1) the ability to listen and 2) strong experience enabling you to add real value to your client. 

To move from being a designer to a real, effective consultant, you need to accumulate a lot of diverse work experience. This will allow you to give your clients strong advice based on the real-life situations you’ve witnessed. Developing this experience takes time and there’s isn’t a ready-made formula or timeframe for everyone. For example, someone who worked in a product-based company for five years is different from someone who is in a design-based company for two years.

In a nutshell, to become a skilled UX consultant, you need:

1. High technical exposure
2. Strong soft skills (communication, negotiating, understanding)
3. Business exposure 
4. Cross-industry knowledge 
5. The ability to say “no” or “I don’t know” when you really don’t know the answer to something. No BS! 

Q: What are the most crucial characteristics of a design leader in big teams

Common leadership traits: 

1. Inspire and motivate your team members. Allow your team members to grow and develop every six months. If there isn’t noticeable growth among your team over time, then you aren’t being an effective leader. 
2. Delegate, delegate, delegate. If you’re leading a team but spend years still doing or approving every single thing by yourself, then you aren’t being an empowering leader. 

Leadership traits specific to design:

1. The ability to identify the different kinds of designers on your team. Explore each designer separately. Some people specialize in interaction, others specialize in branding. A good leader is able to help their team members find their speciality and grow in their field. 
2. The ability to detect if someone isn’t thriving in design and the courage to tell them that this isn’t the field for them. This isn’t easy, but a good leader will always push their team members towards the right direction, even if it isn’t in design. 
3. The ability to deliver strong, harsh critique. It’s nice to hear “good job!” but there’s always more to say, and a good leader has the resolve to tell their designers specific, effective criticism - even if it is harsh. This doesn’t mean you have to be rude! In fact, the best kind of feedback is honest, constructive, and respectful! Ultimately, you want to be as beneficial as possible to your designers.  

Q: If you had a time machine and met your younger self, what would you tell him?

“Do not waste your time in a company that doesn’t have a strong leader!” Young designers need strong design managers to help them grow. Otherwise, it's a waste of your time and energy and you hardly achieve anything. 

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Thank you, Walid, for this invaluable advice! To watch the full Quiz A Creative session, click here.