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22:04
Transcript
0:00
Thank you so much for making your time
0:02
to be here. It was really beautiful day
0:04
out here. I landed in New York on
0:07
Monday. It's been so cold since then and
0:09
this was the most beautiful day I've
0:10
seen since I got here. So, I'm really
0:13
glad that all of you decide to be here.
0:16
Hope you can make a meaningful time
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0:18
together. As Brian just uh gave a very
0:21
warm introduction, I'm Hi. I'll be the
0:23
first presenter of the event today. And
0:26
uh what I'm going to talk about is the
0:28
timely skills product designers need now
0:31
in 2026.
0:34
So on that note um before I jump into
0:37
topic I wanted to talk a little bit
0:39
about myself or quite a bit about
0:41
myself. Um I am currently a senior
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0:44
product designer at Lyft. That photo on
0:46
the left was taken at the New York
0:48
office a couple of days ago when I was
0:50
visiting. And uh before Lyft I was at
0:53
Capital One. That's the photo on the
0:54
right. When I was at Capital One office
0:57
and before these two companies, I was at
0:59
different fintech startups, sometimes
1:01
B2B companies or sometimes 10% startups,
1:04
too. And fun fact, these photos are two
1:07
years apart, but I was wearing the exact
1:09
same vest. So, I guess I really like
1:11
wearing it when I go to the office. A
1:13
little more formal than what I normally
1:15
wear.
1:16
And uh outside of my nineto-five job, I
1:19
am a content creator uh influencer. Um
1:22
so I started this a year ago. Um I got
1:26
blessed by algorithm. So I'm glad the
1:28
account grew very fast and it's been a
1:31
really interesting um challenging
1:33
journey. I found it really difficult to
1:35
understand like what people want to see
1:36
from me but at the same time I really
1:38
like the feeling of connecting with
1:40
people. Yes, internet has its own harms
1:42
but at the same time um when I feel
1:45
connected with people I just see the
1:46
more brighter side of it. And a little
1:50
more about my background. I am
1:52
originally from Korea. The photo on the
1:54
left is when I graduated from my
1:56
undergrad in Korea. And the photo on the
1:58
right, I'm based in Toronto, Canada, but
2:01
the photo is actually in the New York
2:02
City that I took last year. So, um I I'm
2:06
based in Toronto in Canada. Uh I have
2:08
been moving around a lot in Canada, but
2:10
that's where I am now. So, on that note,
2:14
let's get into the topic. I wanted to
2:16
start with this question. What do you
2:19
think is on every product designer's
2:22
mind these days? Like literally every
2:24
day all of the product designers think
2:26
about Yes, you're right. AI. Um, but not
2:30
just AI, AI dot dot dot crying face.
2:35
That's how I feel about it and that's
2:36
how I found most of the product
2:38
designers feel about it or honestly most
2:40
of people feel about these days no
2:42
matter they are in the tech industry or
2:44
in in different industries. And um when
2:47
I think about AI, these are the memes I
2:50
found resonating. Claude just dropped
2:52
another update and I start tearing up
2:55
and they literally drop updates like
2:57
every day if it's not every the other
2:59
day and I was learning and I'm like I
3:01
was just catching up on and you just
3:02
dropped new one. I have to learn it
3:04
tonight otherwise I'm going to be behind
3:06
on it. And the next meme I found is me
3:09
trying to keep up with the 100 new AI
3:12
design tools launched every day. So me
3:15
focusing on one new AI tool while there
3:17
are a ton of AI other tools like
3:19
drowning and I'm like oh my gosh they're
3:21
all dying I don't have time for all of
3:23
them. So that's how I genuinely feel and
3:26
uh I found a lot of designers in these
3:29
industries uh feel that way. So going
3:32
back to this AI dot dot dot I don't
3:35
think it's just this fancy tools that we
3:38
pay a lot of attention to. um they're
3:40
all really great tools have been
3:42
democratizing a lot of skills that was
3:44
limited to um specific experts but at
3:47
the same time I think on the other side
3:49
of this bright side is something deeper
3:53
and something more emotional and these
3:55
are all the honest thoughts that I found
3:58
we share which is like when is my job
4:01
getting replaced is product design going
4:03
to be a thing like in five years like
4:05
dang I know nothing about AI and seems
4:08
like I'm behind of everyone and like
4:11
what the heck another update like I
4:13
should learn about it or everything I
4:15
learned last month is too old now. Let's
4:17
say last month maybe I could tell my
4:19
corkers like this is a new AI tool I
4:21
learned you all got to do it but now
4:22
it's old now. um and I don't know how to
4:25
keep up with it and again the thought
4:28
around like aren't we all just getting
4:30
unemployed soon like when is it
4:32
happening and some exhaustion coming
4:35
from it and uh I want to say the reality
4:38
is this is not just our anxiety this is
4:40
not just our anxious thought or
4:42
delusional thought this is the reality
4:44
these are some of the articles I found
4:47
released from like a couple of months
4:48
ago or this month um layoff in tech
4:52
always always has been a thing but now
4:56
AI is accelerating it even more. It's
4:59
driving it even further. I have a lot of
5:01
friends who got uh laid off like this
5:04
year and honestly I wake up thinking
5:06
like maybe it's going to be next like
5:08
the reality is there. So for that
5:10
reason, we spend a lot of time like
5:12
learning new AI tools like out of FOMO
5:14
like I don't want to get laid off laid
5:16
off like maybe if I learn AI tools more
5:19
maybe I'm going to get laid off later
5:21
than most of people in the industry. So
5:23
we spent a lot of time learning it which
5:25
is great um catching up with what's
5:28
happening in the industry but at the
5:31
same time I want us to like pause here
5:35
for a couple of minutes and actually
5:37
take a step back um beyond just learning
5:41
new AI tools because
5:43
getting better at AI tools and picking
5:46
up more AI knowledge itself doesn't
5:49
solve all the problems. Yes, it's there.
5:51
we got to learn it. But that's not the
5:53
only thing we need to do now.
5:57
So on that note, as we take a step back,
6:00
I want us to think about what AI is
6:02
actually good at versus what AI is bad
6:05
at. They're not perfect at everything.
6:08
So what AI is good at, they're good at
6:10
analyzing data data or recognizing
6:12
pattern as we all know. They're really
6:14
good at skimming through like really
6:16
massive data sets and finding the
6:18
patterns and similarities and anomalies
6:20
and telling us the analysis result much
6:23
faster than the human. And second thing
6:25
um they're really good at automating
6:27
repet repetitive tests such as naming
6:29
all the Figma layers. It used to be
6:31
frame one 05 but then now they named
6:35
into like something more useful or
6:37
writing the code or building a prototype
6:39
based on the existing UX patterns.
6:41
They're really good at it. They're also
6:42
really good at re combining existing
6:44
ideas, pulling in um everything they
6:47
have seen the world and turning into
6:49
what I was looking for. But at the same
6:51
time, AI is bad at those three things.
6:54
Understanding nuance. AI is really bad
6:56
at understanding like sarcasm or passive
6:59
aggressiveness. If it's aggressive,
7:01
they're going to pick it up because it's
7:02
very direct. But passive aggressiveness
7:04
that's so subtle, they're also bad at
7:07
picking up the humor. like something
7:09
that humans can read the room and
7:11
understand from something very subtle.
7:13
AI is not really good at that. And
7:15
second thing is AI is bad at having a
7:17
common sense. I believe all of us
7:19
experience like using chat and you tell
7:22
it to do something but it's just not
7:23
following the common sense and now you
7:25
have to verbalize everything that you
7:28
thought is very common and normal and AI
7:30
does not understand it. And third thing
7:32
AI is bad at is handling unfamiliar
7:35
scenarios. So how AI functions is again
7:38
pulling in what they have seen out there
7:40
and then respond to what they see here.
7:42
But if it's a very new situation they
7:44
didn't get any input on they are going
7:47
to be very bad at responding to it. But
7:49
beyond what AI is bad at I want us to
7:52
think about what AI cannot do. So this
7:55
is beyond what they're bad at. First is
7:58
creating original ideas. AI will never
8:01
give you something that has not existed
8:03
in the world. That's just how AI is
8:06
built. So it will it probably can draw
8:08
your portrait in the style of Picasso or
8:11
Van Go in a very similar way similar
8:13
way. But then it will never draw your
8:15
portrait in the art style that has never
8:17
existed in this world because AI is not
8:20
going to create it. And second thing AI
8:22
cannot do is building trust or
8:25
relationship. So think about like who
8:27
you trust or have good relationship
8:29
with. It comes from the risk and
8:31
vulnerability you have with that people.
8:33
you know that oh this person acts like
8:35
that when they have a bad day and they
8:37
make a mistake and they this is how they
8:39
apologize this is how you make it up to
8:41
so trust trust and relationship is
8:44
coming from the vulnerability and AI has
8:46
does not have that that's why AI is not
8:48
going to be responsible or accountable
8:50
accountable for any tasks you do at work
8:54
and last thing AI cannot do is
8:56
empathizing or motivating so the empathy
9:00
that AI shows is based on what they
9:02
learn They simulate the emotional
9:04
reaction, but it's not that they're
9:06
going to feel the feeling you share with
9:09
AI. Um, and also it's not going to
9:11
motivate you. Think about how many times
9:13
Chachi Pitty told you this is an
9:15
excellent question and you didn't feel
9:17
flattered, right? It tells you like this
9:19
is such a great idea and you're like,
9:20
yeah, of course you tell me all the
9:21
time. You don't feel it compared to if a
9:24
human tells you, hey, that was a really
9:26
great question. You're like, oh, maybe I
9:28
ask a great great question. Right? So
9:31
empathizing and motivate AI is not going
9:33
to do it. And uh what the reason I have
9:36
been talking about this is there's three
9:38
things AI cannot do. It goes into one
9:42
skill which is storytelling. And that's
9:44
the number one skill I would want us to
9:46
focus on.
9:49
In terms of storytelling, this is the
9:51
quote I really like. It's very cliche.
9:54
It's probably overly used um quote in
9:57
marketing world. So it says facts tell
10:00
but stories sell. I found this quote
10:03
really applicable to any industry that
10:06
we can think of. So facts the screens we
10:08
design, the codes we write, um the
10:10
prototype we built, it's going to tell
10:12
the number. Yes, it's going to tell
10:14
something the fact, but what helps you
10:17
sell it is the story. So story really
10:19
goes a long way. And on that note, um,
10:23
going back to this AI tools that we
10:25
looked into earlier as these tools and
10:28
many many other tools are available,
10:31
anyone can build anything. I'm a
10:33
designer now. I can launch an app
10:35
without talking to an engineer. And an
10:38
engineer can design something without
10:40
talking to me at all. So, anyone can
10:42
build everything. Cool. And uh in this
10:46
age
10:48
because everyone can build everything.
10:50
It's not about building fast or many
10:52
anymore. Everyone can do it like um any
10:54
time like overnight while you're
10:56
sleeping. So it being fast or being many
10:59
what you built it's not going to be a
11:00
gamecher. But what matters now is how
11:04
you're going to sell it. It's about how
11:07
you're going to sell it through your
11:08
stories. And storytelling is the best
11:10
way to sell something.
11:13
And on that note, what do you think is a
11:15
really good story? Like what's the story
11:18
that you're like, "Ah, that story was
11:19
really, really good." And uh to be more
11:22
specific, how can we make a good story
11:25
for our audience? Something that will
11:27
help our audience to remember it and
11:30
feel something out of it. And I would
11:33
say the clearest sign of a good story is
11:36
when the audience roots for the
11:38
protagonist success. you see the
11:40
protagonist is struggling and then
11:41
you're like, "Oh, I feel for them. I
11:43
want them to be successful. I want them
11:44
to succeed." So, that's a clear sign
11:47
when um the presenter delivered a really
11:49
good story.
11:51
And I found superhero story is a really
11:54
great example for that. Um I got the
11:56
photos of the Marvel. Um I grew up in
11:58
Korea. I didn't much I didn't watch uh
12:00
much of Marvel stories, but whichever
12:02
background you have, every culture has
12:05
their own superhero story. So what does
12:08
this um superhero story does is they
12:12
follow the hero's journey. You think
12:15
about every superhero that you can think
12:17
of and then they start with some kind of
12:20
conflict. Maybe they got abandoned by
12:22
the parents or the world is falling
12:24
apart or now they got kicked out of the
12:26
village they grew up in. Um so that
12:29
first part is the conflict and now they
12:31
have the failed attempts. They try to do
12:33
something like oh let me save the world.
12:35
Let me be a nice person. let me help
12:36
other people and uh a lot of those
12:39
attempts go into failure and then last
12:43
step is the breakthrough. They make
12:44
their final action and finally works and
12:46
that's how we enter the phase of like
12:49
everyone happily lived ever after. So
12:52
the hero's journey consists of this
12:53
three factors and uh I now want to talk
12:58
about how can we actually replicate this
13:00
at work. Okay, the hero's journey is
13:02
really good, but how can we position
13:04
ourselves like that at work?
13:07
So this is the structure I just showed
13:09
you. So the hero's journey consists of
13:11
first conflict and if second step is
13:14
failed attempts. Not all the things have
13:16
failed attempts and in that case we got
13:18
to talk about the cost of conflict and
13:21
then last step is breakthroughs and
13:23
applying this to work. Conflict means
13:27
the business or user problem or the
13:29
problem that your team has experienced.
13:32
And failed attempts means past
13:34
initiatives that your team or other
13:36
teams worked on and did not pan out. Or
13:39
if you don't have failed attempts, you
13:41
it's your time to talk about the cost of
13:43
conflict, which is the negative impact
13:45
of the problem. And you can really
13:47
expand on how bad the problem was, like
13:50
how severely it was affecting the team
13:53
and the business. And last step, it's
13:55
time for you to position you, your team,
13:57
and your project as the breakthrough.
14:00
See, I'm positioning this amazing
14:02
project as the final solution that's
14:04
solving all the problems that other
14:05
teams could not solve. So, that's the
14:07
step you're going to go through and I
14:09
want to drop a very specific example so
14:11
you can apply it to your working
14:13
situation.
14:15
So let's say we're presenting a project
14:18
at work and uh we can introduce it as
14:21
this project is to reduce the churn
14:24
rate. It's fine. Yeah, it's it's okay.
14:27
Yeah, it's just the work statement
14:29
you're going to going to hear from any
14:30
work. It's fine. It does the job. But
14:32
the audience is not going to really
14:34
engage with their story. Behind your
14:36
Zoom call, they have some kids crying
14:37
next to them or they have some coffee
14:39
machine like just breaking down or maybe
14:42
the car on the street is really loud.
14:43
They're going to listen to you, but
14:44
they're not going to really focus on you
14:46
or like engage with the project that
14:48
you're going to share. So, what you can
14:50
do is following this the hero's journey
14:54
um framework. So, first is conflict.
14:56
We're going to talk about in this
14:58
meeting we're going to talk about the
15:00
problem the business has been
15:02
experiencing in the past three quarters.
15:04
We have been seeing consistent drop off
15:06
of users 15%
15:09
every month after three months of
15:11
signing up to our product. This has been
15:14
costing to our business a lot. To be
15:17
more specific, it created a loss of this
15:20
many dollars of marketing every month.
15:23
So this marketing budget gets wasted
15:26
because marketing team spends a lot of
15:28
money on acquiring new users and uh
15:30
improving the brand awareness. So people
15:33
have better awareness of the brand and
15:35
then more people get interested in
15:37
joining our product. Well, that money
15:39
got wasted and past projects like this
15:42
project or that project did not
15:44
meaningfully improve the churn rate and
15:47
from those failed uh attempts we learned
15:50
that what actually mattered is this xyz
15:52
meaningful insight
15:55
and leveraging this important lesson and
15:58
we're going to the breakthrough part. We
16:00
discovered that users who turned
16:02
consistently did this very unique
16:04
behavior especially after two weeks of
16:07
acquisition. So our learning is that oh
16:10
this two weeks of acquisition after that
16:13
um that's the best time for us to tackle
16:16
this user churn problem. So for that
16:19
reason our project targeted that unique
16:22
behavior we found from users and res
16:25
resulted in reducing the churn rate by
16:27
8%. And from now on I'm going to walk
16:30
you through the design solution we
16:31
built. And from there your audience will
16:33
be like oh oh your team tried something
16:36
and you failed and like oh this is the
16:38
best solution you found. They already
16:39
gone through the here's journey very
16:41
quickly in a way that they will get more
16:43
interested in the story you were talking
16:45
about.
16:46
So going back to this slide I said
16:48
earlier um when the audience roots for
16:51
the protagonist success you have to
16:54
think of it as when you apply to work
16:56
the audience is your stakeholder your
16:59
manager or product manager engineers or
17:02
CTO CEO everyone you have to get the buy
17:05
in from um for your project to be
17:07
successful and the protagonist here is
17:10
you or your project or your team in a
17:14
way that your stakeholder will be like,
17:15
"Oh, I want this team's project to be
17:17
successful. I want their stuff to go
17:19
well." So, that's how you can apply um
17:23
the trait of a good story um into the
17:27
project that you're working on.
17:30
So, going back to the structure,
17:32
I want to say the most important part is
17:35
the second one. failed attempts, cost of
17:37
conflict, like all the ugly side that
17:39
you normally don't want to talk about,
17:41
especially at work because it doesn't
17:43
sound great, but that's what makes a
17:45
story really, really, really
17:46
interesting. Imagine there's just a flat
17:49
perfect story like, oh, there was a
17:51
problem and I solved it immediately and
17:53
you're like, yeah, okay, good for you.
17:55
But if you saw someone or the team
17:57
struggling through something, then
17:59
that's how the audience starts rooting
18:01
for you. And I want to tell you that
18:03
this is the part AI cannot generate. You
18:06
have all these ugly sides because you
18:08
are the living human living in this
18:10
world and making the mistakes out of it.
18:13
And AI is not going to create that for
18:15
you because AI is not just walking
18:17
around running into all the people with
18:19
different personalities and like unique
18:21
problems of the team. And at this point
18:24
you may think like but AI can write me a
18:26
story. I asked Claude yesterday night
18:28
and wrote me a pretty good story. like
18:30
what about that? And I want to tell you,
18:32
yes, it will write you a story, but
18:34
that's something nonoral that's copy and
18:37
pasted and perfectly polished. And think
18:41
about a very perfectly polished story.
18:43
You're not going to engage with it. It's
18:45
very flat. And since it's copy and
18:47
pasted, maybe it will pull in some
18:50
articles that someone wrote about the
18:51
work conflict they wrote about. they'll
18:53
maybe uh recombine that into the story
18:56
that you can copy, but it's not going to
18:58
give you an original story because AI
19:00
was not at your work talking to your
19:03
co-workers and your managers. They're
19:04
not doing it for you. So, I want to tell
19:06
you the most interesting part of your
19:09
story comes from the your originality.
19:13
And out of your originality, what people
19:15
find most interesting are usually not
19:17
the beautiful sides like, oh, I got
19:19
promoted to this role. I moved to this
19:22
company, I got a raise by this much. All
19:25
the beautiful sides is like, yeah, okay,
19:27
great. But like they don't have strong
19:29
emotional engagement to it. What people
19:32
had the strongest interest in is the
19:34
ugly sides. Such as what you and your
19:37
team were struggling with and how did it
19:39
affected the team in a negative way. um
19:42
what you or the team like
19:43
misinterpreted, what was an oversight,
19:46
what was the mistake you you made and
19:48
why was there a conflict and how did you
19:50
convince the team and what were all the
19:53
push backs and frictions you experienced
19:55
along the way? So as you share this,
19:58
this is what makes your story much more
20:00
engaging, unique and compelling.
20:04
So now I got this blank slide. I was
20:07
thinking a lot about how I could wrap up
20:09
what I have prepared for you and give
20:12
you one takeaway to step away with when
20:14
you leave this room later and uh I
20:17
decided to go back to my originality
20:19
which is my background in Korean. And
20:22
this is the expression I really like in
20:24
Korean. I'll read it as
20:27
and that means if I translate it word by
20:30
word it means to move move people's
20:32
hurts and to be more contextual. means
20:35
to resonate with somebody. You touch
20:38
them emotionally or you inspire them or
20:42
you sometimes steer something in the
20:43
people. So that's the expression that I
20:47
really like and I wanted to tell you a
20:49
good story is the one that moves
20:52
people's hurt. Story is a really great
20:54
tool to engage someone emotionally which
20:57
AI a lot of times lack at. So this is a
21:01
one quote I hope you can remember as the
21:04
only takeaway out of my talk is the
21:06
stories that move people's hurts um come
21:09
from your lived experience and your
21:12
originality story again is a really
21:15
great tool. So how I hope you can
21:17
leverage it as something that really
21:20
unique to you that you cannot replicate
21:22
or ask AI to generate even tonight um
21:26
when you go back home brush your teeth
21:28
and lie down on your bed you probably
21:30
will forget about most of the things I
21:31
talked about and in a few weeks or a few
21:34
months you probably would have forgotten
21:36
about me or how I looked where this was
21:39
exactly but if my story moved your heart
21:43
you will remember the feeling and story
21:45
is a really strong way to give you
21:48
certain feeling and that's how you build
21:51
something that's going to get remembered
21:53
by people. Thank you so much for
21:55
listening.
— end of transcript —
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