Recruitment is the necessary evil mountains of Mordor that we as researchers must pass through in order to gain access to our users. But what if it doesn’t have to be like that?

Recruitment: Back-and-forth, error-prone hell

I love our users, but abhor the recruitment process with a passion. Accidentally misspelling a user’s name or giving them the wrong date and time is the kind of mortifying mistake that keeps me up at night.

Before the new process I’m about to share, we used to

• Manually contact all our users and maintain multiple back-and-forth conversations — explaining the research, how it works, proposing time slots and finding the Goldilocks slot that works for everyone
• When recruitment periods were tight, I’d find myself checking my phone outside work or on-the-go to coordinate users, all the time hoping I don’t make errors while doing this on mobile
• And even after a slot is confirmed, there’s having to remind yourself to make sure the user gets a Calendar invite, and then remembering to remind them so they remember to show up

The writing was on the wall:

A purely human-driven recruitment process was too manual, error-prone and delay-heavy.

If any of this resonates with your soul, welcome fellow recruitment-weary researcher. May you find rest here.

What success looks like

As designers we must not just articulate the problem, we must define what good looks like. For me, that was:

• Efficiently and correctly scheduled research slots
• Users are well-prepared with the details and what to expect (and show up!)
• A process with flexibility to accommodate edge cases and the variability that come with every new round of recruitment

I also wanted this solution to try and keep within the tools we already used at Stampede. This not only avoided unnecessary additional tool subscriptions, it minimised the learning curve for other Stampeders looking to replicate the process.

At a glance, here’s how it works:

This new process uses existing tools Stampede already uses:

• Notion: The database keeper
• Google Calendar: The scheduler
• Claude AI: The personal secretary

Now, let’s break it down:

1. Set the stage with Claude, Notion and Google Calendar

1.1 Connect Claude to Notion and Google Calendar

1.2 Notion database and message templates

• Set up your database of users in Notion.
• While you’re at it, include message templates in the same page that Claude can use to generate personalised messages for your users, such as:
  • Initial outreach messages
  • Messages with booking links
  • Pre-session reminders

1.3 Google Calendar Booking Link

Google Calendar’s Scheduling Appointment tool is great for pre-setting research slots and letting users pick the slot that works for them. This takes a huge amount of manual work out of the back-and-forth ‘Does this date work for you?’ dance.

1.4 Give your Claude Project recruitment instructions

If you’re not already using it, use Claude Projects to keep context about your project all in one place via ‘Files’. We’ll give it some recruitment instructions here so Claude will apply them to any chat you open up.

Here’s the sample prompts I used:

Notion page for recruitment:
<INSERT LINK HERE>

Contains recruitment list and message templates.

==========
Rules to follow when updating the user recruitment spreadsheet:

1. For any change you make, confirm it back to me in the chat on the exact change you made. 

For example, if my prompt was:
"Change John's slot to 2 Mar, 9am-10am", you make the change and then confirm it back showing the before and after in table form.
* 1st column header: "Field", data: Date
* 2nd column header: "Before", data: John's original slot date and time
* 3rd column header: "After", data: John's new slot date and time

2. If a change I made might have missing details, also clarify with me if I want to add the missing details.

For example, if my prompt was:
"Add in Mary Sue, new user"

Make the change, confirm back to me the change you made (as per Rule #1), then list the other details that are missing (like email address, Whatsapp number) and ask if I want to update that too.

3. When I prompt for it, do a Daily Verification Check between the Notion and Google Calendar.

* Flag any mismatches in a table, comparing what's in Google Calendar and what's in Notion. Don't make changes without my consent. 
* When verifying, the calendar event title does not have to be identical, what matters is the correct user, date and time, location (virtual/physical).

How to match the participant:
* In most cases, the email listed in the Notion for the user should be the same as the email of their Google Cal invite.
* If this is not the case, look for the closest match - e.g. the user's first or last name in the event title, initials in the email address.
* Where there is ambiguity, flag that unknown to me so I can specify which users match between the Notion and Google Cal. 

Situations you might flag:
* A user's Notion status is '5. Slot booked' but their date/time in Notion doesn't match that same user's slot in Google Calendar -> Flag the difference to me so I can reconcile
* A user's Notion status is '5. Slot booked' but has no Google Cal invite set -> Remind me they are missing a calendar invite
* A user's Notion status is '5. Slot booked' and they have a Google Cal invite, but the location or video conferencing has not been updated.
* A user's Notion status is '2. Pending reply' -> Prompt me to check in on this user for any new replies
* A user's Notion status is '3. Replied; to send booking link' but they don't have a corresponding Google Cal invite -> Remind me they haven't received the booking link yet
* A user's Notion status is '4. Booking link sent' but they don't have a corresponding Google Cal invite -> Remind me they haven't booked a slot yet
* A user who has a Google cal invite set but in Notion, their status was not updated to '5. Slot booked' and/or the date/time is not shown in Notion
* A user's status is '6. To reschedule', and there is a mismatch between the Google Cal date/time and the Notion date/time -> Prompt me to reconcile this
* A user's Google Cal session has already passed AND/OR the Notion shows their status as '7. Session Complete', but their Notion 'Incentive' status is empty or still at '1. To send incentive' -> Remind me they still need to receive their incentive

4. If I prompt you to make a change that would create a scheduling conflict (e.g. two participants at the same time), flag it to me before making the change.

5. If there is any ambiguity or edge cases not covered, clarify before making changes. 

For example, 
* If my prompt was "John's rescheduled to Mon, 2 Mar" but there are two Johns, you ask me which John I mean. 
* If my prompt was "Billy rescheduled to Monday" you confirm which Monday date it is and what time.
* If my prompt included a name that is slightly different from the Notion but still has high-confidence match, e.g. I mispell "Samuel" as "Sameul" but the Notion says "Samuel Lee" (and there is only one feasible match), make a best-guess match, apply the change, then let me know in your response the guess you made to ensure you got the right person.

Instructions for Claude for generating messages for users:

1. Follow the displayed formatting (bullet points, spaces, bolds/italics) you see in the message template provided in Notion, but your output for me should be in code block form, formatted according to the platform conventions I will send it on, so that it will display the formatting as intended.

For example, if I will send it as a Whatsapp and there is a bolded bit of text, use asterisks because when pasted into Whatsapp, it will display as bold. For example, the block of text for me to copy from you would look like this:

"Hi Jane,

My name is Stephanie. I'm a researcher with Stampede Design.

Would you be available for an interview on *24 Mar, 9am-10am*?"


2. If you do not know which platform I plan to send on, verify with me first.

3. If you are not sure what the user's first name is, check with me first. Usually, in Malaysia, first names follow this convention:
* Cindy Tan (First name: Cindy, Last name: Tan)
* Tan Chee Wern (First name: Chee Wern, Last Name: Tan)
* Muhammad Abdullah (First name: Abdullah, Last name: Muhammad)
* Jacob A/L Mathew (First name: Jacob, Last name: A/L Mathew)

2. It’s go time — let’s reach out to users

Unless you need to recruit more users than you can practically contact manually, I prefer maintaining the human touch here. The first outreach is critical for building rapport and getting valuable information about your users before you’ve even met them in person – how they speak, their concerns or hesitations, adaptations they need for a successful session. Besides, if users detect an AI is talking to them, the ick-factor can throw them off before you’ve even begun.

But here’s where you can take some of the manual work out – prompt Claude to generate all the initial outreach messages for your users off your template, customised to their names and details:

3. Once the user has agreed (yay!), send the booking link

This is where Google does the heavy-lifting – users select a booking slot, then receive the calendar invite and email confirmation. Google even sends pre-session reminders based on your settings.

4. From here on, keep track of recruitment with Claude

Users, I’m afraid, have an unfortunate habit of not collectively getting together and agreeing on all their slots at once. Chances are in the past you’ve had to constantly keep track of who’s responded, who hasn’t and everything in between.

And the more users you have, the higher the risk of error.

Enter Claude:

Remember those prompts we setup back in Step 1? Now they work for you.

Prompt Claude to do a Daily Verification Check at any time and it’ll compare your Google Calendar with your Notion database to look for all possible instances of error, like:

• Users we haven’t contacted yet
• Users who haven’t picked a booking slot yet
• Users who haven’t received their incentive yet

Gone will be the days of needing to keep a running list of all your users in your brain – let Claude handle that for you.

That’s it!

With any luck, if you follow these steps or adapt them to your work, you can focus more of your energy on actually talking to your users where the human touch still matters.

So what have we gained?

Time-consuming, error-prone work was the biggest pain point in our old process, and now what used to take me 1-2 hours of cumulative back-and-forth a day I can do in 15 minutes at the start of my day. That and just the sheer weight off my mental load of having to keep track of each user.

In other words, my brain will now leave me alone at night to rest peacefully.

What’s next?

We’re still tinkering. Some parts are still manual and error-prone, one of the biggest being the non-sync between Google Calendar and Notion, requiring Claude as the ‘workaround checker’. Who knows, the next step might be recruitment driven solely by Agents (stay tuned for Part 2?).

Move fast, do better, but stay human

At the end of the day, recruitment still involves communicating with real people — and that’s a process worth designing with intention and empathy. Automate the tracking, the scheduling, the error-checking. But keep yourself in the moments that shape your research: that first conversation where you hear hesitation in someone’s voice, the small talk that tells you more about a participant than any screener could. Being intentional about where the human stays in the loop is what ensures our research always keeps the people we’re designing for at the centre.

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to continue the conversation, let’s connect on LinkedIn.

The post How I turned hours of user recruitment chaos into a 15-minute morning routine appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

That’s where engagement analysis really matters. Not just tracking behaviour—but understanding it.

You’ve probably seen it too. The traffic looks decent. Users are clicking around. Session durations seem healthy. The data piles up… but something still doesn’t feel right.

And if you look closely, maybe conversions are stuck. Maybe people are dropping off before they complete anything meaningful. Your data’s saying something—but it’s not the full story.

At Stampede, we see teams face this all the time. Businesses reacting to numbers without stepping back to look at the bigger picture. That’s why our approach goes beyond dashboards—we turn signals into steps that help the product move forward.

This isn’t a checklist. It’s a set of ideas to help teams read their engagement data more meaningfully—and act on it.

Common engagement pitfalls

Even the best digital products hit rough patches. Maybe people drop off just before converting. Maybe onboarding doesn’t quite land. Or maybe users bounce before doing anything meaningful.

Sometimes the issue is technical: slow load times, poor mobile responsiveness, clunky forms. Other times, it’s more subtle—confusing copy, unclear next steps, or a mismatch between what users expect and what they actually get.

Without a plan to re-engage users, we find that these friction points build up and is slowly impacting product growth.

That’s where engagement analysis helps: it helps us see where things aren’t working, so you’re not just guessing—you’re acting on something real.

What engagement analysis data can—and can’t—tell you

Metrics gives us signals. But they don’t tell the whole story.

Let’s look at a few:

Drop-off Rates

People are leaving mid-flow. That’s often a sign of friction—unclear next steps, or a process that feels too complicated. It’s also maybe a sign that user actually get what they wanted, qualitative study might reveal something here.

Time on page / Session duration

Are they staying because they’re engaged—or because they’re confused? Numbers can’t always tell. Heatmaps and user recording can reveal scrolling patterns, clicking behaviours or hovers on several key elements. These further observation might be able to help triangulate the root cause.

Return visitors / Retention

If users don’t come back, there’s likely a missing hook. Something didn’t stick. Return users means the product is useful or providing a value that’s worth returning for.

Click-through rates (CTRs)

Weak CTAs, confusing layouts, or messaging that doesn’t connect can all drag these down. From my experience, A/B testing can help you make a quick tweak and see subliminal user preferences.

Conversion rates

If the value isn’t clear—or the process feels like work—people will leave before committing. Improving value proposition, flow continuity and actionable CTAs may help you improve. Learning from qualitative data will help you the most here.

Synthesising data can be tricky, we have existing biases, pre-conceived notions and assumptions. For example, sometimes long sessions are a good sign. Other times, they’re a red flag.

We’ve encountered long session durations that’s actually good for the user, for example on a long content page where users might be reading, or during highly interactive screens. Long sessions might be bad for tasks that are supposed to be simple like onboarding, sign ups or submitting an application.

That’s why context matters. Pairing data with qualitative insights—like user interviews or usability tests—helps explain why something’s happening, not just what.

And here’s the key: not everything that looks broken actually is—and not everything that’s working needs to stay exactly the same.

Making quantitative data actionable

Once the patterns has been discovered, here’s how to move from insight to real change:

• Pair data with research. Do usability sessions, product trials—get a feel for what users are actually experiencing. Read more on our approach on product testing.
• Prioritise on what matters. You don’t need to fix everything. Focus on what aligns with your goals.
• Test and iterate. Small changes can go a long way. Improve, validate, tweak—then do it again.

Small UX changes, big impact

One small but powerful fix: we once saw users drop off after using a key feature—because the next step wasn’t obvious. Adding clearer CTAs on the results page reduced drop-offs and improved retention.

A few other low-effort, high-impact ideas:

✅ Clearer calls to action

✅ Shorter, simpler forms

✅ Personalised content or suggestions

✅ Progress indicators in long flows

Sometimes it really is the small stuff that ends up making a big impact.

How engagement analysis evolves with your product

This isn’t a one-time thing. Engagement analysis evolves as the product grows.

• Early-stage – Spot friction early, refine before scaling.
• Growth phase – Optimise based on real behaviour, not gut feeling.
• Mature products – Catch churn risks early and keep up with changing user needs.

From my experience, engagement analysis was often used to continuously refine user flows based on evolving user behaviours. For many teams, this approach has directly improved onboarding and significantly reduced drop-off rates, leading to higher adoption and retention.

Done right, engagement analysis becomes part of product growth. It feeds into larger gap analyses and connects to our broader research and product strategy. Our work analysing engagement for a team as a part of a gap analysis of a government platform, alongside user research, product testing and comparative benchmarking yielded highly actionable recommendations for platform improvements. Read the case study about our gap analysis approach.

Overall, it helps with:

• Investing time and effort where it matters most.
• Aligning teams across design, product, and marketing.
• Removing friction and boosting satisfaction.
• Building longer-term user relationships.

Engagement analysis, the Stampede way

At Stampede, we don’t stop at numbers. We connect the dots.

Instead of handing over spreadsheets, we tailor insights to different teams—from product managers to marketers to leadership. Everyone gets what’s most relevant to them.

We focus on storytelling—turning data into something meaningful. Something that drives decisions.

And because our teams work closely across design and development, we look at the full picture—user patterns, tech limitations, performance quirks—all of it. That cross-disciplinary lens helps us see things others might miss.

So if your platform’s seeing drop-offs, low conversions, or inconsistent engagement, maybe it’s time to dig deeper.

We’re here to think with you, to dig deep, ask better questions, and uncover insights that actually help your product grow. And when your product grows, it builds better experiences, better worlds. If that’s what you’re aiming for, drop us a line.

The post From quantitative data to action: How engagement analysis unlocks digital growth appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

When Shaza revealed in our Slack channel her upcoming talk on AI/UX at Ørsted on April 25th, I was beaming with excitement as the notion of AI/UX sparked a curiosity tinged with a hint of apprehension in me. Would this innovative frontier replace our roles, or augment them? Eager to unravel the mystery, I eagerly anticipated Shaza’s insights.

Stepping into the Ørsted Malaysia office feels like entering a fresh, modern space. Sunlight pours through expansive windows, illuminating a space furnished with sleek Nordic design, the space feels inviting and innovative in its clean lines. Zen and Nuriy from the UX team greeted Shaza and me with a warm welcome, a palpable energy buzzed through the air with a mix of focus and friendly collaboration. It’s clear this is a place where people from over 17 nationalities are passionate about Ørsted’s mission in renewable energy, and that gets us excited to be part of it!

Shaza started the talk with the myth of Prometheus, the Greek titan who is best known for defying the Olympian gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity. The fire he gave wasn’t just warmth, but the spark of progress in technology and knowledge, and the fire that brought us to this talk today, is AI.

A little soul-searching before AI tooling

To design for a relationship with AI, we need to know ourselves first.” – IBM, Design for AI

Stampede has been a long advocate of the use of thoughtful design and technology to create positive change. Our current exploration, “To AI or not to AI?”, began with deep reflection, because as with any true improvement, the journey starts with a clear understanding of why. We found asking ourselves repeatedly, “Will doing this help us create a better world?” and if it does, “What does a better world look like to us?”, while we are on our way to creating a better world, “Are we being thoughtful with how we do it?”

Our curiosity is insatiable, like a researcher chasing down a breakthrough.

Our early journey in injecting AI into our design process

The real value will come from using AI to enhance human creativity and innovation, supporting human needs and potentials.” — Ginni Rometty

The design process, from user discovery and problem definition all the way through prototyping and testing, offers numerous opportunities for optimization. In Stampede, we view this process through the lens of “Drag vs. Lift”. Drag represents actions or practices that slow us down, reduce efficiency, or stifle creativity. Conversely, Lift refers to actions that boost productivity, spark innovation, and streamline workflows.

We looked for drags in two primary areas: Research and Design Delivery. Our strategy was to over-index on pains in the design process that are also causing business pains. Ideally, these drags would require less effort to address yet deliver significant impact. For each pain point, we then explore potential AI solutions that could act as our co-pilots in the design process.

An example of Drag is the endless design iteration cycle, which can significantly delay the product’s time-to-market. While iterations are crucial for building confidence, there is a tipping point. We use the Rule of 70% in our process, suggesting to aim for 70% confidence to make timely decisions, balancing accuracy with speed. But how do we do this?

Stampede’s UX researchers help PMs achieve the critical 70% confidence mark faster by using AI co-pilot that automatically records, transcribes and analyze user feedback from testing sessions, accelerating actionable insights and propelling product development. We also employ advanced user behavior models to help forecast future trends and predict user reactions to different design options, empowering product teams to proactively anticipate user needs and deliver solutions that resonate. This is how UX researchers in Stampede become key partners in this fast-paced decision-making process.

AI is definitely changing the game in our processes, like how we conduct user research differently now with AI-assisted proto-persona, or how we design surveys differently now with AI to role play as respondents, and it’s only going to be more exciting from here! Surprisingly the one that sparked the most conversation during the talk was, how do we design accessibility differently now with AI?

Transforming the digital experience of seniors

The crowd started stirring into accessibility topics when Shaza mentioned about how frustrating it can be for our parents to use apps that seem like a breeze to us. Technology can be a real barrier for the senior community and often it’s because we, the younger generation, design it without fully comprehend their needs. We might think an interface is clear and simple, but for someone with declining eyesight and dexterity, it could be a confusing jumble. This is where AI enters as an accessibility game-changer, it can help us realize blind spots by analyzing user behavior patterns and identify areas where seniors might struggle with an app. It can assist us in designing appropriate copywriting tone, creating a designing language that resonate with their physical and emotional needs. By leveraging AI in our process, we can move beyond designing for our current selves and create technology that truly empowers everyone, regardless of age or ability, creating a better world for our senior community (and perhaps our older selves might benefit from it!)

Intersectionality is the dawn of AI-ready teams

Lunchtime buzzed with discussions about future-ready designers with the Ørsted team. We shared Stampede’s “design onigiri” illustration, visualizing the roles of UX, UI, and product designers. Imagine a designer with business acumen and a product manager fluent in user research, these overlapping skills don’t clash, instead, they spark a powerful synergy that this intersectionality creates a shared perspective, supercharging collaborations that will move the industry forward.

Fun fact: The “design onigiri” was inspired by Shaza’s recent trip to Japan. The Ørsted team saw an opportunity to suggest a Malaysian twist – a ‘nasi campur’ version, which is really awesome, talk about global design inspiration!

And it’s a wrap!

A huge thank you to Ørsted’s UX team, especially Zen Cheong and Nuriy Arisa and your fantastic design team, for your incredible hospitality and for creating a space where we learn alongside fellow designers. It’s collaborations like these that fuel our mission at Stampede to create better worlds, one thoughtful innovation at a time 🚀

The post Designing Tomorrow: AI as a Co-pilot for Design in Stampede appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

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Well, we shared a little about the event orchestrations in the previous blog. Now, let’s focus on the next part.

We attended the workshops on Day 2 of the Focus Days and also talks on the latter Conference Days. Following are the breakdowns of our learnings there, in separate POV formats to cover our different experiences!

Day 1: The Workshop

Day 2 of the Focus Days portion, was our Day 1 — the workshop day.

All the workshops were very useful and interesting and we were keen to join all of them. The topic ranges from soft skills development like negotiation strategies and UX influence, to the craft-oriented ones like eye tracking and service design. But alas, our time and resources are limited so we need to choose really well which one to attend!

We needed to make full use of this opportunity, so we deliberated in-depth on which workshop to be attended by each of us. Factoring in the relevance of topic with our domains, strength, future project and function considerations, finally we settled with:

• Me (Sarah): Soft skills for UX professionals by Prof. Clemens Lutsch, Claudia Bruckschwaiger & Hanna Köhler
• Azim: Service design and UX – a conversation by Eric Reiss

On to the learnings we obtained from these two workshops!

In Sarah’s perspectives:

In this workshop, the speakers, led by Prof. Clemens Lutsch, divided us into several groups consisting of multiple hats to allow us to see different perspectives from different roles.

We were given some activities to increase our self-awareness about our own capabilities. To top it up, the speakers then provided some input about how these capabilities have been useful to our lines of work. We were then given an assignment to role-play based on several scenarios. These scenarios were to mimic the real life situations on how we adapt to different kinds of challenges during communication.

The outcome of this workshop emphasised that our technical skills are just medium to execute, but in order to be successful in design, there are many other soft skills that we need to master, and they are not easy and that practice is all it takes to succeed. There were 3 categories to these soft skills, being communicative, social and personal soft skills.

Communicative soft skills revolves around the way we designers communicate with the people we interact with. This includes our business or product team, our developers, and our designer peers. Examples would be the negotiation skills, active listening, ability to abstract, linguistic fluency, or ability to enthusiasm.

Social soft skills on the other hand would be on how we are dealing with the interactions with our team, like resiliency, emotional intelligence, conflict resolutions, diversity competence, or even ability to cooperate. Do you see the difference from communicative skills?

Personal soft skills is all about the core supporting your work executing. These skills revolve around the how behind you are executing your tasks or job, like analytical skills, decision making, creative thinking, strategic thinking, self reflection and willingness to learn. Whether or not you realise it, we pretty much rely heavily on these skills in your day to day work. It makes our executions more human and user-centric.

My take was around the communication area (that includes conflict resolution, influencing, negotiation skills, etc). We heavily practice this in Stampede, and it does not get any easier because you definitely don’t experience the same situation every day. We work with people from different industries, priorities and personalities. It is all about us versus the problem!

Azim’s Point of View:

Relevant to my designation as a UX designer, I enrolled into service design workshop by Eric Reiss of FatDUX. I had no prior deep knowledge about the details of service design works at this point of time, which makes this workshop such a pivotal moment for me to realise that services are everywhere – and they can be designed.

The workshop was filled with lessons that Eric himself has gained throughout his life and related them to the UX design or service design domain. One simple example, Eric told his personal story of cat food catering to “customers” (himself as cat owner who buys the food) rather than the “real user” (his cat, who didn’t appreciate green peas in the cat food) and the story of great service nuances provided by the hotels he stayed in during vacations, each of them provided the audiences with clear examples on how even the minuscule details can affect user experiences.

Those were the personal touches that Eric had throughout the session, but being a workshop that is geared towards service design, naturally there are technical lessons being passed down.

Some of the discussed methods and tools have already been incorporated into our practice in Stampede — like the how-tos of user interviews, building user persona, or ways to design effective surveys. Strengthening the fundamentals is always great as a starting point and further validates that what we have been practicing is on the right track.

However, plenty of methods and tools presented were new to me (or even to anyone in Stampede) that brought massive value out of this workshop.

The Service Star provides a clear visual on areas to be focused for the service provided, either for the company we are evaluating or our own service. A star-shaped spider chart would be ideal, but that would be an extremely rare (or even impossible) case where the service provided is perfect. On the service provider side, they would be able to gauge which areas to be improved and maintain the performance.

The ergonomics of need can outline users’ perspectives in clear metrics to detect which part of the service could be focused upon. The outcome will also prepare the service provider for what kind of situations they will face when dealing with customers (eg: when the attitude and expectation are already negative to undergo the task, how can the service provider handle the situation in the best way?)

Aside from the typically-used customer journey map and touchpoint matrix/service blueprint (which often end up being too convoluted and needing massive effort to be understood by people who don’t follow the process), FatDUX have their own framework of communicating the outcome better to stakeholders — the service-experience scope sheet. By filling in this sheet with the details and touchpoints involved, it will communicate the design clearly, outlining the factors and actors involved in the service, with a clear demarcation of the period in service.

There were many learnings to be unpacked and relayed to the team for us to improve our service design practice. This avenue is waiting for us to explore structurally as some of our recommendations when tackling digital UX problems were in the form of service design, and we are eager to flesh out the solutions using methods gained here to maximise the value that our clients can receive.

Day 2 and 3: The Talks

Finally, the main event starts — the conference.

The day started with the official launching of the event, as this is the day where most attendees registered for. We got to see the fantastic opening ritual where there were drums, gongs and an opening act by the Founder of the event itself, Hannes before all the talks started.

Once again, we faced the same dilemma — all talks were exciting for all of us. We had a problem here! The 2-day conference was filled with talks given by speakers that came from many countries and backgrounds. Yet it was set to be multiple tracks segregated by theme ranging from leadership to design management to UX research, it would be wasteful if we focus on just one or two, and miss the talks that would benefit us.

We had four team members, so why not split? To maximise what we could gain out of this, we made use of our numbers and specialisations, strategised on how to split up and went to the workshops that would give us the highest impact on our growth opportunities. Shaza and Wan attended the ones that were relevant to the business side, I (Sarah) attended the ones about design advocacy, and Azim attended the ones that were heavy on the UX research side.

We saw that the strategy deemed effective after several talk sessions, and we continued to do so till the end of the conference.

Sarah’s Point of View:

As a product designer, the central theme of the talks I went to was design advocacy. It emphasises that designers educate and collaborate with non-design teams and stakeholders about solving problems using design. The outcome of design advocacy is the value of design being recognised and practised in not only business, but also the technical team.

One of the things I learned was that when it comes to advocating design, the key is opportunity. However, designers ourselves are the ones who should create the opportunities. Scott Parker, who talked about “Functional Process to Strategic Contributor – Realising the Value of Design”, explicitly covered the topic where designers are problem solvers and how we are responsible for realising where and how we can create opportunities for ourselves when it comes to making the value of design visible across the organisation; we should not just wait for those opportunities to come our way.

On top of that, I learned from Ashnee Gounden of Discover Limited who spoke about “Scaling Design with Limited Budget and Time in a Sustainable Way”, that there are considerations when it comes to advocating design. You need to look into the UX maturity of the particular organisation. Evaluate it before you can start navigating around it; this is because as designers, we need to understand before giving solutions. Find out what matters to the organisation and work your way to improve the UX maturity level. Trust me, the “scaling” portion is most exciting part.

Scaling here would mean how you would navigate to increase that maturity itself. How do you plan that incremental journey and what your considerations are. Of course, there are many ways to improve it. It really depends on what matters to the organisation and what their challenges are. Empathise their situation before coming in and introduce the process. Really look into it and strategies based on all the resources you have. It was John Bowie who emphasised “Influence is Not Enough: Inspiring the Unconverted”. He talked about how people respond to inspiration more than influence, so what can you do to inspire them? And what’s next?

When it comes to design debt, of course, a designer like me would be excited to manage it. “What are my considerations?” “How much are my resources and capacity?” “What can I do with everything that I have currently?” These are the questions that you need answers before executing. According to Alicja Suska of Outlaw Design, who talked about “The ROI of Managing Design Debt – Getting the Leadership Buy-in”, communication of the return from managing the design debt is also crucial as it definitely helps the overall organisation to be more effective and profitable in the long run, so create those opportunities! Leverage the people around you as this helps us understand other people’s perspectives and priorities. This was also covered by Manuel Schnell of Kelag and Juergen Hillber of Red Bull. They emphasised gathering and understanding what the other team is doing so that the whole team could see things eye to eye. This way, our solutions will be richer with inputs from multiple disciplines.

As a plus point, Alejandro Carbejo shared “Context and Empathy as Pillars for Collaborations in DesignOps”. This is where I learned how the DesignOps team at the back end has been supporting the structure of the design team to collaborate as support to other teams in an organisation.

The interesting part is that Stampede has already been practising these for years and attending the talks diversifies my view on navigating situations.

Azim’s Point of View:

I was assigned to attend the UX research & management track, which is very relevant to my line of work in Stampede — UX design. These talks have expanded my horizon on how research can be done from an international perspective, with some familiarity about how we have always done things and issues faced in projects (many things are similar!). But of course, there are many new discoveries made here, which opened my eyes regarding the level of international design thinking. Wish I could cover them all but here are some of the selected highlights we could all learn from!

There were talks discussing the process. One of the notable one I have attended was by Javier-Bargas Avilla from Google, where he shared his experience of improving YouTube’s localisation feature, where they started with the complex German language as the base model (German translation were atrocious, at least according to native speakers). He outlined the metrics used as base to be gauged, and emphasised the importance of collaborative effort with the deserved party (locals in this case) which in the end lead to measurable success.

And there were talks discussing the methods. Dr. Panagiotis Zaharias from UX Prodigy discussed long-term UX, where he made the stance that the UX research methods we have adopted so far are actually measuring momentary experience only, not considering the long-term experience yet. Sourced from academic studies, 4 methods were outlined that have yet to be used in real practice; Day Reconstruction Method, Experience Sampling Method, AttrakDiff, and UX Curve — with their pros and cons to be considered before use. All these to capture the user sentiments of long term usage, in order to leverage on hedonic quality (related to user’s intrinsic motivation) of a product which will result in memorable experience and loyalty.

Then there were talks about the tools. Bill Albert of Mach49 shared about the advanced tools that can be used to measure user’s emotion to gauge the experience by breaking down the existing spectrums when classifying emotions and prioritising the relevant ones to UX. Plethora of scientific tools were demonstrated, like Galvanic Skin Response, Electrodermal Activity, eye tracker, pressure sensitive mouse or chair, and facial expression analysis, to name some — but ultimately, knowing the why behind all of the readings obtained is the most important aspect to assess the real user experience.

Another notable talk that attracted my attention was the talk attended by all four of us — about Systemic Design by Peter Horvath of Whitespace. The presentation was very smooth (too smooth even, for me who loves to snap every slide and failed to capture some of the slides this time) and eye-opening, where Peter described the components of Systemic Design and the relations between them. It took me quite some time to absorb the topic of systemic design fully, and how it plays into the bigger picture of UX design.

Overall, the conference was a treasure trove for those who love the research aspect of UX design and have curious minds open to new ideas and concepts — especially for the ones who are fairly new in the field like me.

Closing

So, as we look back at all these moments and learnings from the workshop and the World Usability Congress itself, we realise that design is so much more than just looking good or being functional. It’s about creating connections, understanding each other, and constantly evolving towards the greater good.

At the end of the day, design isn’t just a job for us, it’s a lens through which we view and interact with the world, imagining all the ways it could be better with every new thing we learn, every fresh perspective we take in. It just brings us one step closer to a future that’s not only smart but also kind and inclusive.

So, let’s embrace the complexity, celebrate the diversity, and continue to design not just for the eye, but for the heart and mind. After all, we are designers, aren’t we?

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A few months ago, us from the design team were buzzing with excitement when Shaza announced that anyone could potentially attend the World Usability Congress 2023 in Graz! About a week later, Azim, the UX Designer, Wan, from business development team and I, the product designer, got the news — the three of us were selected to join Shaza herself for the trip!

We strategised ways to gain as much knowledge, as this conference is a treasure trove of UX practices in global level presenting many learnings that we could adapt and adopt. Even though the four of us have different roles in Stampede, we came to Graz with one mission in mind. We all want to find opportunities to elevate the design capability standard in Malaysia! On the 8th of October 2023, the four of us packed our bags and flew to Austria. We landed in Vienna International Airport and straight away took the train ride to Graz, while soaking in the sights and learning about Austria’s train system along the way.

World Usability Congress is an international conference organised by Youspi (an Austrian UX, CX and Usability agency) focusing on topics revolving around usability and user experience design practices. Held annually since 2013 in Graz, Austria, the conference brings together professionals, researchers, and practitioners from various industries to discuss the latest trends, share insights, and showcase innovative approaches to continuously improve user experience. This event covers the wide spectrum of usability and user experience design practice; ranging from UX design, user research, product development, strategy, Ops and more, making it a highly relevant event for anyone in the tech and design field.

The event lasted for four days from 9th to 12th of October 2023. The first two days were Focus Days — containing industry-specific talks and in-depth workshops, and then the final two days were the Conference Days — the main event containing multi-track talks, masterclasses and keynote (maximum 4 tracks at one time). Azim and I attended workshops relevant to our respective practices, and then on Conference Days all four of us dispersed to maximise the learnings from the multi-track talks and connections made. Check out our learnings in another post with more detailed breakdowns!

Our main objective in Graz was to gather knowledge, but we didn’t miss the chance to connect with as many people as we can as the UX community in this side of the world is very friendly and engaging, like ours back home. We used this chance to build genuine connections with fellow UX-ers or virtually anybody we can interact with and built our presence in the region.

Even before the conference started, the interaction with the UX community already started by meeting Johannes of UX Graz — one of Shaza’s comrades in arms, having organised together the 24 Hours of UX in previous years remotely from across the world (Making this occasion their very first time meeting in person, which we couldn’t really tell from their sense of camaraderie)! He toured us around the beautiful city of Graz and introduced us to several of his colleagues along the way. Very memorable introduction to the event and hosting city. We also met Ahmed Al-Huwwari of UX Jordan and Peter Horvath — both committee members 24 Hours of UX, making this event such a special in-person meetup for them!

The following day, after completing our workshops, we attended the UX Graz meetup dinner that was open to any WUC attendees. As our usual practice in any mass gatherings, Stampede members scattered as we make connections with as many new faces as possible because we love connecting with a diverse cast of attendees, boosting the chance of getting many new and different perspectives. That very night was very exciting as everyone we met were very genuine and friendly, we also gained some insights into how the tech and design scene looks like in Europe through those valuable conversations. We all had the same mission going into the conference. The actual conference is on the next day, but we already got a glimpse of UX practice through the lens of Europeans and pumped up to go through with the rest of the event!

Real conference days came next. Naturally, we made many connections there as the WUC event was designed to give plenty of opportunities to network and mingle around — during breakfast, in-between talks (20 minutes gap between talks), lunchtime, and the night of picturesque hilltop at Schlossberg during the Networking Dinner. Networking there was so magical that we made so many new precious connections throughout the journey, and we long to see them again anytime in the future. Even after the event ended on our way back to Vienna via train, we connected by pure chance with Susanne, one of the WUC volunteers, that our hearts were filled with joy till the very end and beyond!

And I’d like to share some tips in connecting with event attendees of any large prestigious events, that might not be applicable to everybody but have worked for us;

Focusing too much on design & professional conversation topics every time with everybody can feel transactional and takes a toll on our energy. Just remember that everybody is human no matter how professional they are, and we just want normal conversations to know each other better before opening up more.

So, we tested a different approach with a Danish designer named Anton. Surprisingly, we found that genuine connections were made easily when we are invested in that person’s story. Our conversations that night started to change, as they revolved around our respective country, life, career journey and virtually anything that came across our minds. The conversation eventually led to career & professional topics at some point, but it felt more natural. It was less tiring, and we could maintain our social energy for a long duration. And more importantly, it didn’t felt

We carried this approach to make more connections throughout the event and we managed to learn more about people, common issues and values, and finally not forgetting; to talk about the design cultures abroad to learn from each other. We even scored an office visit to Eventim in Vienna (Thank you for your hospitality, Marcus and Katharina!), attributed to the small talk and genuine connections made with the people we met there. All in all, connections should be pure and have minimal underlying agenda, as we all appreciate the natural relationships between people — as we always do in design field.

The highlight of the World Usability Conference for us aside from the important profession-related learnings, was the connections made with the people, thanks to the numerous networking opportunities designed within the conference itself. We cherish all of them, and this bond will go a long way in the future in whichever means that we have no way of predicting.

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Stampede offers various solution services to address client’s problems, across the world and Malaysia – one of them being service design, to address problems pertaining to workflow beyond the digital realm.

At one point we were conducting research for service improvement of a client from the energy industry, and we investigated one of the touchpoints where potentially lies area of service efficiency improvement: the “request form”, a product that serves as the single channel for requestors to assign designers and resources to their projects. The most logical way to proceed with this investigation would be conducting usability testing, to detect areas for improvement of the form itself and reduce user frictions within it. However, limiting ourselves to a singular research method will risk us missing the insights of a bigger scope that may correlate to the problem or even be the cause of user’s woes.

What happens if we are more open about the scope of the outcome, where we are still bounded by the limitation of problems we need to address at the moment, yet receptive to deeper underlying issues including ones that are outside of assigned scope? That will enable us to solve the right problem, and we tried to achieve this by employing the hybrid research methodology, which in this case usability testing is combined with user interviews — where product testing is still prioritised, yet we open up to discoveries of bigger problems to be addressed.

Here are some of the learnings from the hybrid research method:

1. Getting the most out of the research session without spending additional time and resource

Our initial plan is to only conduct usability testing on the request form, which is merely one of the touchpoints in the whole service and was assumed to be the main point of friction by the client. But we believe that in order to really solve the issue, we need to see the bigger picture, get a clearer understanding, detect the areas needing attention and address the correct problems.

How do we do this, without additional time and resources allocation to investigate the matter?

Every research method can only cover a limited scope of results. Usability testing, the main method we need to use, can only provide insights within the test product’s confine. For broader discovery, we will need to use the user interview method before conducting the usability testing, but we thought that we could employ a more efficient approach.

From there we got the idea to combine them in the same session. In this project’s case, the product that we need to test does not contain too many flow, tasks and screens — enabling us to fit in the user interview components wherever relevant. This is a chance we saw where we could maximise the research outcome by saving the time and resources needed should we choose to do it the other way in order to cover different scopes of results.

2. Additional findings can be obtained organically by being more contextual in the research session

As explained earlier, we wanted to probe into the issues outside of the tested product to understand the service side of the matter and the correlation between them. However, the nature of questions for these two scopes will be quite different; asking them blatantly without consideration will affect the session and responses from users as the questions will be seen as coming out of nowhere and causing a mental load due to not anticipating them.

How do we organically ask the questions outside of (product) scope?

To make the session flow coherently, we strategised meticulously on where to ask the usability testing question and when to ask the questions outside of the product scope, with dependencies.

If we want to ask the users more about a certain topic that is out of the tested product, we ask them when we arrive at the relevant section in the prototype. For example, we want to investigate where the user gains awareness about the product (responses could vary outside of the tested product’s confine), we may ask them about it on the prototype’s landing page, not on the screens that is more specific to tasks.

Being organic in the question flow is important, to get the right answer at the right moment and make it feel less scripted. Putting more effort into strategising this will yield better responses from the users and obtain results efficiently.

3. Insights gained will be richer and open up bigger opportunities for consideration to be addressed by stakeholders

By opening up to a mixture of research methods, researchers also open up the avenue to explore beyond the supposed research outcome from a singular chosen method. This will enrich the insights gained further, providing more value to the stakeholders who placed the investment towards the research — be it in effort, time or monetary form.

Problems of varied scale and spectrum can be found out in one go for consideration, on which issue to prioritise at a given time. To take this case’s example, the usability testing findings about the form are actionable in the product domain and could be solved for a short-term remedy, but our discoveries beyond that (on the service level) have given the stakeholders a greater vantage point on issues in a bigger scale, to be solved in the long run.

But caution must be exercised on scoping the outcome to be investigated, be wary to not dilute the research result and to make them viable to be addressed for all parties involved.

Lessons Learnt

Any research methods — be it usability testing, user interviews, or surveys, they ultimately serve only as the means to get what we are targeting. By clearly outlining the desired outcome and being more open to how we approach the problem, we will be freed from the confine of usual practice on conducting the research and know better when or where to utilise the methods. One may even combine them, by not strictly married to the method’s outcome but by adjusting the method to get the desired outcome. This will enable us researchers to make full use of the scheduled sessions with the users, to get the most out of it and ensure the utmost efficiency is being met.

Efficiency is the crux of us researchers, as not everybody sees the value behind the activity as much as we do. Delivering them within the constraints of time and resources is one of the ways to maintain stakeholders’ confidence in research, supplemented by the apparent impact of the insights gained and the value brought upon through it.

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When I first joined Toro, which is a product team in Stampede (torotimer.com), the team was in the midst of a sprint. For those who are not familiar with sprint, it is a set period of time during which specific work has to be completed and made ready for review, usually involving the product owner, the design and development teams. The outcome is usually a prototype or solution to a problem, alongside valuable insights about customer needs and preferences.

In my case, the sprint focused on a freelancer product, which we internally called as Toro Freelancer. My colleague Luqman and I set out to build a new prototype for Toro, as well as being responsible for the testing research plan and participant recruitment.

Lesson 1: It’s okay to take a step back to solve the problem

From the ideas we had, the product owner selected a few viable ones, but also realised that they were skewed towards a known solution space. There are many solutions out there to help freelancers get paid easier, and beating this dead horse won’t really help our users in a meaningful way.

What we missed were strong ideas for helping our freelancer improve their productivity in a way that is sustainable for them. Realising this, we took a step back to shift our focus on the right problem.

Lesson 2: Standing out from the competition

Initially, I thought it was merely a minor issue to miss the step of having solid ideas for the right problem. But after the testing later on I realised one more lesson, which is that in making a product, we need to differentiate ourselves from the competitors, not just create another similar tool in the market.

Focusing on user’s problem in being productive sustainably really tested our product market fit. If we did not take a step back to focus on that opportunity, we might just waste our time creating another common quotation/invoicing tool, getting further from our goal of making freelancers subscribing for Toro.

Lesson 3: Be selective about what we want to test

One lesson that I learned from prototyping is that we need to be selective in what we want to test. Not everything has to be interactive in a product test. Sometimes we may want to keep a non-interactive item like a button that cannot be clicked, so we can ask the user to guess where it might lead. Test time is limited and this will help us to be more efficient and focused on the actual hypothesis we are testing.

Lesson 4: Be intentional in design

Another lesson is to be intentional in prototype design, to the small details. I learned this from a situation where I only randomised the variation height of bars in the chart, without any deep thought. However, during the testing, the users interpreted the bar chart in a certain way, like the chart was designed intentionally to show something. At that moment, it exposed my bias that some users actually do think and care about the tiny details.

Being intentional with the details is also another reason why we need to design the prototype with a smooth continuity so that users are not confused, surprised or distracted. For example: add a confirmation modal first to smoothen the flow, remove an existing CTA which can distract the user from the tested path etc.

Lesson 5: Ask the right questions to screen the right users

As I was taking the lead for user recruitment, initially I was thinking of an easy path: Edit an existing screening survey, spread it anywhere, pick the users and schedule the slots.

I did not expect it would be hard and time-consuming to find the right users. It was a moment of clarity for me as to why a certain UX agency has dedicated researchers only for user recruitment.

The screening survey attracted many scammers because of the monetary incentives, plus it was posted not in the right channels. We mitigated this by verifying through their LinkedIn profile or portfolio link.

Asking the right questions also means only asking the essential questions. I learned the hard way that sensitive questions, such as gender and marital status can be intrusive, especially when they do not carry any weight in finding the right users. Essential questions could make the screening form shorter, which would mean less friction for the users while providing enough info for designers to filter them.

Lesson 6: Be pragmatic, not dogmatic

Finding the right channel to funnel quality users was also important. What worked in the past might not work this time. After getting so many wrong users in the list, I started to think “If I were an established freelancer, where would I be to connect with like-minded people?”. I eventually hit a jackpot when I found a few Slack channels that vet the users to ensure a sustained professional community.

The benefits of getting the right users would later be manifested in the quality of the testing. The users could really relate well with the prototype especially when it was able to solve their pain points. I was super relieved when the right users stress-tested the prototype. Seeing what worked or did not work for them gave us some ideas on how we were gonna tackle the next step of the product.

Lesson 7: Making mistakes is a part of growth

Understanding different accents, handling internet connectivity issues, users being very prescriptive or just providing short simple answers, and managing time limits can be challenging to the facilitator. Having diverse users tested my ability to manage these sessions. As it was my first time handling a testing, having a more experienced designer observing me and providing detailed feedback improved my facilitation skills after each session.

I made the mistake of asking too many questions early on about what the user understood from the prototype. This consumed a lot of time and did not provide insight into whether the feature was useful (and how) or not (and why not). The reason we had testing in the first place was to test the prototype by understanding users’ thoughts on how the prototype would or would not solve their problem.

After conducting the testing, I feel more confident to do user interviews/testing. At the same time, I want to keep training those muscle memories until my interviewing skill becomes natural.

Another lesson that I learned is we sort of established rapport with the users. They could be a great resource if we have questions related to our product research, such as the reason they are using separate tools for invoicing and time tracking. Some of the users were so willing to help us, and they were just an email away 🙂

Lesson 8: On deciding what to ship

As a product designer, I had a sense of ownership to carry the product to success. However, I had a lot of uncertainty about how to nudge the team in the right direction when prioritising features for the minimum payable product (MPP).

During the testing, we tested a lot of features based on our research. However, in reality, achieving the ideal state of a finished product requires going through multiple release cycles, which can take months or even years.

So how do we prioritise certain features to ensure we are on the right path for users to start paying for Toro? What if our MYP is similar to all the other tools in the market? Will users be willing to pay for it?

The testing showed that we have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) module that can differentiate us in the market, as it solves major pain points for users. However, shipping that module requires a lot of effort and other foundational features to be shipped first.

Since we do not want to release a half-baked product, should we build all those features, including our USP module, before releasing the subscription plan?

All of these questions were on our minds. After further reading and asking a few designers in the industry, we initially thought that a prioritisation workshop would provide more clarity on the path forward due to the inputs from the team. However, in our case, Shaza as the product owner, is well-versed in the feasibility, viability, and desirability, and this part is the product owner’s call to make, not the team’s. We learned that we should have discussed with the product owner first the best way this should be done.

Lesson 9: Learn from history

Later, I learned that Figma did not have the collaboration feature when it was first launched. There are many examples of successful startups that launched their products without their best-known features yet. What is more important is to ship, measure, and learn, rather than dwell in the uncertainty of which features to ship first.

Nobody can predict the future, but we can try to make the best decision at the time with the info that we have. If we fail, we need to fail fast and iterate. If the minimum viable product does not go the way we wish, at least it saves us from wasting our time and effort on the queued features. At least we learn what is working and what is not.

Lesson 10: Size the development effort carefully

I also learned that a feature might carry more complexities than I initially thought. If we overlook certain details, it might surprise us in the development phase. For example, can the user edit the invoice that has been sent? What if we allow the invoice to be edited if the client hasn’t seen the invoice on Toro platform? How sure are we that the client hasn’t seen the invoice?

Thus, it is important to collaborate with the developer to understand what the considerations and technical constraints are to build the feature and to be specific (to a certain extent) so that developers won’t undermine the actual efforts needed.

That concludes our 10 lessons. If you have any tips or best practices for designing valuable products, please share them in the comment section 👇

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In November 2023, I was in London with our designers to attend design leadership and research conferences. We have several design clients in the UK, bp being one of them. We scheduled a visit to Douglas House, home to bp human experience design team (bphxd). Having worked with the bphxd leadership team for a few years, this was our first time meeting everyone in person and what lovely humans they are.

The humans behind the human experience design

We had the privilege of meeting Roger Rohatgi, VP and Global Head of Design at bp, whose strategy towards designing the future gave us traction to design better sustainable solutions for people and planet. There were Richard Fry and Hitesh Parmar, from bp DesignOps team, who are just utterly lovely people, inside and outside of MS Team.

We also had a lovely conversation with Christina Li from Design Integration, sharing how design sprints can deliver win-win results for both design process and product progress. We even ended up having an adhoc research roadshow workshop with Souleymane Camara, Head of Research and his team, exchanging ideas and our experiences in immersive research.

But above all, we had Barry Day to thank, for coordinating this visit and for just being a fantastic support to our team from day one.

Later during the week, I shared my lessons and reflections on my learner’s journey at BP Design Fuel, a monthly global streaming to bp designers everywhere. It was a lovely way to encapsulate the past two months’ journey inspired by the many considerations, conferences and connections I’m grateful to have been a part of.

Collaboration, not competition

🙌🏼 Camaraderie is one of our core values at Stampede, and seeing the lengths bphxd took to appreciate their design partners showed me this is what great, collaborative partnerships are capable of making.

Connecting with other design partners like The Brothers, Method and Zebra People also opened up opportunities for me to have an even bigger discourse over our current and future roles in designing for sustainability.

Thank you, Roger and the leadership team at bp hxd for creating this space for recognition, collaboration and learning. Thank you too to bp Malaysia team for being so welcoming and friendly to our mighty, can-do design team.

P/s: If you want to design the future too, we’re hiring!

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Throughout most of 2023, we’ve been curious about our role as designers and makers when the world needs us to go beyond the confines of our craft. This is us living in a house, one day looking at the ceiling and thinking “I wonder if it can go higher than that?”.

The ceiling is our perceived limit of roles and definition of design. The future will happen with or without designers; if we want to be an active part of it, we need to raise the ceiling.

In this edition, we look to extend these conversations from inside Stampede outward.

But first, the polls!

As participants started arriving, we wanted to take the temperature of the room, so Qi, the moderator, kicked things off with a quick poll.

We learned several interesting things about our fellow designers:

• People feel mostly hopeful and confident about their role as designers, but a few are worried.
• An overwhelming majority feel psychologically safe in their current team – fantastic sign!
• The majority who joined are beginners in design advocacy, which probably explains why the Design Advocacy breakout room garnered the most interest.

Asking Big Questions

In this talk, I shared my macro and micro reflections on the state of design in 2023. Here are a few big questions I had in my design journey.

On designing in the era of automation and AI

Are designers being made redundant by automation? For low-level pixel pushing function, or derivative design using components from a library that can be automated, perhaps. But it is also an invitation to look at how designers can influence the human-AI experience. To do this, we must cultivate future-ready designers who are explorer-builders, emboldened and trans-disciplinary, who dare to push forth the meaning of interface beyond screens.

We must also be responsible for our creation. We’ve been mostly thinking short-term in product validation. Assessment of the long-term hedonic value of designed experiences and occupational stress resulting from workplace digitalisation and automation must enter our vocabulary if we are to be proponents of inclusive design.

On design relevancy and value

All around us, designers are being advised that we need to prove our value. What is unique about design that we need to do so when other disciplines like engineering don’t? In answering this, I found that the problem with design is its value manifests not within the design team itself, but in other business-critical areas.

Consider that if the design does its job well, the value is not measured in the number of Figma components inserts or interfaces we generate. The value design brings is in how we improve product conversion, increase customer success and satisfaction, and improve the speed and consistency of interface implementation for developers. So the value of design is real and all-affecting, only not within our discipline itself and not always in the short term. But remove a designer today, and the cost of servicing the design debt will become overwhelming real quickly.

On design quality

Designers are often seen as sufferers of process pedanticism. We’re guilty of following closely our process and taking the time necessary to maintain the integrity and quality of our work, often at the expense of moving fast and breaking things. On the other hand, the process is instrumental in focusing well before speeding up so we can attack problems smarter and with cost-effective precision. Therefore, the design process and innovation progress are not at odds with each other but should co-exist.

On design leadership and being good human beings to each other

We designers over-extend empathy to our users, collaborators and stakeholders, but we often forget to use it with each other. As leaders, we spend so much time being the shit umbrella that we sometimes forget to sow and nurture the ground under us so people can thrive. Care is a positive workplace currency, but those who care most passionately are often the first to burn out. As leaders, we need to ask our people and ourselves how to become better support systems for each other.

The shift from learning to making opportunities

Makers are inherent learners, though sometimes we could fall into the trap of learning without actually doing it or waiting for opportunities to arrive without creating them.

Four of our designers shared their observations and reflections on the shift they had to make in 2023.

On design advocacy, Mai Sarah shared her experience inviting non-designers into usability testing and product ideation sessions. When design is open and made visible to others, we start seeing a proliferation of design enthusiasts and allies, as Azim found in WUC. His conversations with others in WUC not only led him to new collaborative ventures but also exposed him to the breadth and depth of the UX field.

Reflecting on Eric Snowden’s wisdom, the VP of Design at Adobe, we highlighted the importance of empathy towards our teammates, beyond our users. Recognizing empathy as a crucial element for creating a sense of safety, Adiel advocated for some ways to foster psychological safety within a team. These include practicing open communication, seeking feedback regularly, and placing trust in the capabilities of the team.

We also talked about building a future-proof team, Hidayu shared her key takeaways from the Design Leaders conference, emphasizing the need to shift the design conversation from solving issues to understanding the real problem first. Building a future-proof team also means we need to be inclusive of other disciplines, leveraging new perspectives to reach our common goal, and ultimately raising the ceiling of our profession.

The after-party experiment

Every online event feels unceremoniously cut short and awkward at the end. The host said bye. People turned on their webcam for a split second to wave to everyone. Everyone then tried to hit the Leave Meeting button while maintaining that awkward smile.

We have come a long way with online events, yet the solution to this sudden withdrawal remains elusive.

The topics we chose this time were big – each could be its own Makers theme. As we looked for ways to get people to delve, expand, and connect over them meaningfully, it became clearer that an experiment was in order.

We figured nothing beats genuine connection around a topic you’re passionate about. What happens if we create intentional spaces for people to connect deeper around things they care about? Can we do that remotely?

We launched five after-party conversations, discussing big themes like growing future-ready design teams, amplifying design value, psychological safety, and stretching our craft’s breadth and depth. Our design apprentices, from various non-design backgrounds, also hosted their conversations on fusing old craft and new.

Despite the initial tech hiccup (because of Murphy’s Law), people stayed long into the night, conversing and sharing their takes so that together, we could move the industry into the future.

This is the very spirit of Stampede Makers.

— A massive thank you to everyone who made Makers more special with every edition. If you want to join Makers #7 in February, likely in person, watch our social media posts.

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Seeing the users at the epicentre of these digital initiatives and the magnitude of impact they created, we are excited to work closer with PETRONAS’s product and DesignOps teams to further support their design process and develop greater UX capabilities. User-centred design has so far enabled better efficiency in the organisation’s work processes. Our job is now to seamlessly scale it to future business needs, where design will play an integral role in PETRONAS’s pursuit of its sustainability goals.

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