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- [00:00]
A
Design is built on the fundamentals of craft. And earlier in your career, this is the primary skill that you're building. But eventually you realize that if you want to make real impact, then you have to be able to get others to buy into your vision for the future.
- [00:17]
B
For most people, especially if you're working in a company of any size, you can't go build this stuff yourself. You need to get people on board with you.
- [00:25]
A
That's Chris Abad. He's a storytelling coach and longtime design leader at companies like Dropbox Square and Google. And you're going to hear from them a few times in this episode. Because our job as designers is to spot opportunities that other people miss. But that only matters if you can help them see what you see. And that's why storytelling is the number one skill for senior designers.
- [00:48]
B
I think at some point, once you get past the, like, I can do the thing, I'm good at my craft, you realize that all these other skills around actually getting stuff done matter. And storytelling is a good universal language.
- [01:03]
A
Let's say you have an upcoming slot in next week's product meeting and you know you have some ideas for a feature area that you're working on now. The biggest mistake that you can make is starting to craft your presentation by pulling from all of the various visual artifacts that you've made over the last few weeks of exploration.
- [01:20]
B
They'll sort of use these visuals as like their cue card. They'll see it on screen, they'll respond to it, they'll react to it, and then they'll repeat and they'll go to the next slide. They'll look at what's on the slide, they'll decide what they're going to say. So you get a lot of content, but it's not cohesive. For someone who hasn't been living and breathing this project, it gets really hard to follow.
- [01:38]
A
That's why Chris follows a different approach when crafting a presentation. He starts with words, not visuals. Because the reality is that product leaders will probably only remember one, I mean, maybe two, different ideas from your 20 minute presentation. So the key is to build your story around a peak moment that emphasizes the exact idea that you want people to cling to.
- [02:01]
B
If you can figure out what your peak moment is in your presentation and then do that and pick that intentionally and then design around that, that's much more effective. Otherwise, what happens is you throw 20 different ideas at me and then I decide which one I want to hang on to. And that might not be the most.
- [02:17]
A
Important one to you remember in the mini episode about systems thinking where I talked about how I got buy in for the new syllabus editor at Maven after like over two years of trying. And in that, the one idea that I wanted to stick with people is that we can accomplish two different initiatives with a single building block. That's my peak moment. Now the question is, where does that live in my presentation?
- [02:41]
B
If I look back at how I would tell these stories early in my career, there was kind of a default structure that I realized wasn't super effective. What I was doing was just following the design process, like research, problem identification, solution. So it made sense to me as a designer, but it wasn't necessarily the right structure for that moment.
- [03:02]
A
Real quick message and then we can jump back into it. Play is no longer just a prototyping tool because their next release introduces Play to xcode. That means everything that you've created in play, your styles, components, even full pages and interactions, can be exported as a swift package. It's never been easier to get your ideas into the App Store, so head to Dive Club Play to learn more. You know what I can't stop thinking about Cursor. But for designers, and that's why I'm all in on Desen. It's not another zero to one tool for prototypes or side projects. It's a visual interface that gives you access to your company's existing code base so you can make updates to things like components, typography, properties, and push your designs to production without having to go through an engineer. That's what the future of product design will feel like, and you can start experiencing it today. Just head to Dive Club Desen to get started. That's D E S sn. Okay, now onto the episode. Most designers tell project stories linearly. Here's the context, here's the problem, here's how we'll solve the problem. Ta da. Now it's time for Q and A. But remember how Gabe Valdivia said the best designers are kind of like content creators? I think the best designers are probably like TikTok creators within their own company who can create some ad idea that's sticky and really engaging in a way that's really powerful. It's why I love the analogy of a recipe video on TikTok. The best creators don't start their video by pouring flour into a bowl or by showing a wad of dough lying on a table. They suck you in immediately with a gorgeous shot of the finished dish. Only then do they show their process. And that's why? When Chris is giving a design presentation, he often front loads the peak moment.
- [04:56]
B
Most likely the peak moment is like, somewhere towards the latter half. Like, probably what I'm most excited about is the way I figured out how to solve the problem. A really simple thing to do is to just front load that. Like, one way to do this is to start with, this is what I think the world looks like when all of this works really well and the customers are happier and the business is better, and then work backwards. These are the obstacles that are getting in our way that are preventing us from realizing this. And these are all the different. This is all the proof that I have that this is actually possible and that we can overcome these obstacles. Like, I've thought through it, I've tested some of these things. Things. So you sort of like back into this exciting vision.
- [05:32]
A
In the same way that a TikTok creator wants to keep you from scrolling to the next video, your goal is to capture your executive or product leader's attention right out of the gate.
- [05:42]
B
They want to know, like, what does this do for the business? What does this do for our customers? And so you start there. Rather than all of the sort of like, context building around the research and problem identification and stuff like that. Like, just start with, like, where does this get us?
- [05:55]
A
It's tempting to build up to this peak moment with a big crescendo, but if people start catching up on Slack notifications halfway through, then you've already lost. So the next time you're presenting your ideas, don't be afraid to mix up the format just a little bit and to start thinking more like a content creator. That's all for now. I will see you next week.