The UX Design Process

Ian Paget: I want to ideally spend the bulk of the time with you discussing your UX design process, but I think before we get into that, a debate I constantly see come up online in communities is the difference between UX and UI. Can you clarify what the difference is between the two?

Miriam Isaac: So traditionally, UX and UI design work were classed as being two different protocols. I believe that UI is part of UX, because UX is the whole experience one feels when you interact with a project, and that includes the interface, which is the buttons, the styling, the typography and the colours of an application.

We had to go with this way because we had to establish UX as a completely new industry and vertical because we've come from being web designers, and we needed to establish this new thing called UX and establish that this had more depth to it than just the interface of the project because at the time it was still quite surface level, but as technology became more advanced and there was more advanced interactions, we needed to take a step back and learn how to do those interactions and learn things like how do people interact with external stimuli?

How does that apply to human-computer interactions? And the whole behavioural science behind that and applying that to digital product design. I believe UI falls under the umbrella of UX, and it's part and parcel of UX because the colours, the type are all part of the experience that one feels when they interact with a digital product.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I know I primarily specialise in logo design and people listening to this probably know me more from my logo design work but I actually worked for a web design agency for over 10 years. So I understand exactly what you mean and in my role I kind of did everything and I never really saw that. I never really treated it as two separate disciplines because like you said, they do overlap. I can understand why some bigger companies do want specific individual people for each separate role, especially with UX when it can become more complex with all the research and all of the underlying work that you need to do.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, 100%. I mean, also the interactions nowadays are so complex. When Don Norman coined the term UX, he also said it wasn't just the experience of a digital product, but also with the complete product, to the hardware and to the manual and to the guidebook that would come with the digital product as well.

The problem is that that was coined in like, 1990, and nowadays technology has really evolved and really advanced, that someone just doing interaction design, just going from A to B, to C to D and then back to A or back to B or back to C, that could be so complex, that could be an entire person's job. And when people online look for UX designers, they're not looking for someone to also design the physical part of project, they're looking for people to design the interactions and do their user research.

And I really believe that we need to make this definition and move away from Don Norman's term, because when I come out and I say, "It's the experience one feels when they interact with digital product," people come back to me and say things like, "No, it's not true. It's everything, it's all the things, it's anything. It's how you interact with a door knob, it's how you interact with, I don't know, like a cup or a mug or a teapot." And I'm like, "No, these people aren't being hired to design teapots, these people are being hired to design for digital products and we need to make the separation."

In essence, they're right, and it surprised me how I've also moved away from it, because I was also a big believer. But in terms of having clarity in our industry and helping people hire for the right positions and helping people enter the industry, which we know from so many people, they're like, "What's UX? I don't understand. Why can't you send me a definition?" When you Google the term UX, you should be able to understand that right off the bat. And it has to be in correlation to what these people are being hired to do.

And not only that, I've had conversations with very frustrated product designers who design teapots and their design's drawn up, and they get messages on LinkedIn asking them if they do interaction design or digital design. And they're very frustrated. And I really believe we shouldn't be taking our terms from different industries. And we should just call a spade a spade and say a UX designer designs digital products.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I did actually notice on your website, is your main kind of tagline when you first come on the site, you don't actually say that you're a UX designer. You do say that you're more of a product designer for, can't remember exactly what you said, but like online interfaces, which I thought was a nice way of putting it.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. I think I made that like in 2018 and I don't think I've updated it for a while. I didn't even realise. Yeah, I think because I wanted to position myself, I do digital product and not have that confusion.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's good to make that clarification, especially when, and I think as well, calling yourself just a UX designer puts you into a category, but I like the way that you describe that. I don't know, would you change that now? Because you said that you did it a few years ago, would you have that sentence different now?

Miriam Isaac: I'd probably put something with UX in there.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it gives clarity to it, because it says exactly what you do.

Miriam Isaac: That's so good, that's so clever. That's what a value proposition should be, so that's where you can add that. That's what I do when I make propositions for other people.

Ian Paget: Yeah, fantastic. Now, graphic designers, we all love the nitty gritty details. And I looked on your website again and I went through your process. I'd love to spend some time going through that in detail, if you're happy to?

So you're probably going to tell me that you do it differently now, but based on your website, you mention it's broken down into five steps. You've got discovery, research, ideate, prototype and design, and deliver and evaluate. Would you mind going through each one of these steps, what you do, assuming that the audience is not familiar with the web design? So could we start with discovery? What would you do within that step?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. And also my process is still the same as well, so that's okay. Okay, so my discovery, what I start is, of course, is I know I've decided to jump into a project and just get the signing and open up Photoshop or Adobe XD or Figma or wherever it is that we work in, all the different products today. I remember once writing about it and being like, I had to write Sketch/Figma/XD/Photoshop/illustrator.... It was funny because I didn't want to alienate anyone.

Ian Paget: Well, yeah. There's so many different tools now and it is hard to know what you can work on. And so we can go into that a little bit later, the specific tools that you use, because I think it will help provide some clarity for the audience.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. So before jumping into any one of your chosen tools, I like to take the time and take a step back. I sit down with the client or the stakeholders or with the product manager or with the founder, as you can see, I do work with many different types of people in this industry. Digital products can take on many different forms, and there are many different ways of working in UX, which I love because it makes my day always different.

So anyway, so I would sit down with this person and I'd ask them a certain set of questions, the stakeholders, to uncover the project need and the project goals and to make sure we are all aligned with that.

After that, I would ask questions like "If you could name one key goal of the product, what would that be? How would we measure our success in achieving that goal?" And they love this one, "What is your gut instinct when I say, what is your greatest wish for this project?"

Ian Paget: I like that question. I think it's good what you're doing with those initial question, because you're really focusing on what the goal fulfilment is. I try to do that with my logo design projects. So it's not about the look and the feel of what you're creating, it is really focused on establishing what they're trying to achieve with this project.

Miriam Isaac: Yes. And also what this does is that now you have documentation that when you, say, go into design and intuition, which could be a few weeks down the line, and they say, "Well, why is it like ... we actually want this and we want that." And you remind them, "Remember we spoke that the project goal was X, and how'd you feel about that?" I don't say like, "How dare you?" I'll be like, "Well, when you came to me, you said X and Y, and now you're saying Z, I'm wondering what's going on here." And they'll be like, "Oh yeah, you're right, let's concentrate first on our first goal, and we can work on that later."

So instead of getting stuck in those crazy iterations of this person doesn't know ... and it also aligns all stakeholders together, I try and get a lot of people in the room or on the Zoom call, so that they also with each other can align on goal as well. And that's really important, especially when you're working with different people and there's different people jumping in and giving you design feedback.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think without that clarity, it's really hard throughout the entire process, especially if you are working with, or if you are having to present to quite a lot of people, because I think if there is no clear, defined goal for the project, it's just going to be really hard for everyone. Everyone's going to be fighting for their corner, which still happens with big projects. But just having it clear from the outset, it just makes it easier for them and easier for you as well.

Miriam Isaac: It makes it easy for everyone, because it takes it outside of opinion and puts it on the goal of the project, which is more abstract and external to everyone, and everyone can be like, "Oh yeah, yeah, that's the goal. Yeah. We're all aligned on that." And that brings everyone together. I find that's truly invaluable, and every designer should take the time to do a discovery process at the beginning.

So once that's done, I'll start on my research, and the two main pillars to these research, which is user research, so that's with people, and data analysis, and that can be practically split into qualitative or quantitative, and empirical data gathering.

Ian Paget: Would you mind explaining what each of those means?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, for sure. So, quantitative data is numerical data. So for example, those are things like conversion rates, bounce rates, average session duration, demographics and email click-throughs, and you could use things like Google analytics or Adobe analytics, it really depends on what platforms the clients or the companies have in place. Okay? And that's just to cut numbers and see where people drop off, see where the greatest opportunities are, stuff like that.

Qualitative data is non-numerical data, it's the how and why of your users' behaviour. So this is where you do user interviews. I usually would ask for a list of people that I can interview from the client or the company and I'll go and do some user interview.

Ian Paget: So is this to research the existing platform that they currently have?

Miriam Isaac: Either the existing platform or if they don't have something, then I'll ask who your potential customers are, and I'll go and to speak to people. And sometimes if they don't have anything at all, then I'll usually go out and find people in their demographics of their audience, which will be uncovered in the discovery phase, like discovery questions I'll be asking who their audience is. And sometimes they could have two types of audiences, so I'll go and do some user interviews.

Miriam Isaac: Also, you could use things like going on to seeing their social media comments, reviews on their website or the product, you can use things like Hotjar surveys, Microsoft Dynamics or Yotpo. Also Quora, I find, is a great place to find out information about a company as well. The next one-

Ian Paget: Sorry to interrupt, just before you move on to the next one, those interviews that you carry out, what type of things are you asking? How are you going about doing those interviews and what are you trying to find out?

Miriam Isaac: So it's usually conducted over a Zoom call or over the phone, or if I'm lucky, you can do it in person, it really depends on the client or the company. And I'll ask questions, things like, "Well, how does this product make you feel? If you had a magic wand, what would you change about this product? Would you recommend this product to anyone? What was your greatest pain point in the product?" And really finding out, at I do is I interview at the least, five people. And I will from there, look for patterns within those interviews to see of a common pain point that could be an opportunity for us.

And what's also important is that some people, they put user interviews on this pedestal, but you've also got to be doing this other kind of data as I'm talking about the stuff like the heat maps, the reviews, the customer research, the stuff that's already being said about the product and the company, as opposed to also the empirical gathering, which is the active user interviews.

But also you're looking at past customer data like surveys, because things are going to be said in those things that are very different to when you get on the phone with someone and you ask them actual questions as opposed to someone giving post-survey feedback. It's very different. So you want to also align that data with that data as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. And in instances where there isn't currently a website or an interface already, what are you asking those people?

Miriam Isaac: What I would ask though, is I would go and ask for their competitors in the stakeholder interview, and then I would do research, user research of the competitors, and find out what those pain points are and create the strategy around that.

So yeah, I've done it all. I've seen it all, I've seen the people with stuff, without stuff, with nothing at all. That's what I mean, though, I do get asked that question a lot, because people, I do see designers who are new to it, they're just like, "How do I do it? They have no product." So I've learned how to overcome those barriers in my long career.

Ian Paget: I interrupted you when you was talking through the research. So, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you went through the qualitative, quantitative. Did you go through empirical data?

Miriam Isaac: Yes. I actually touched upon it a bit because active user interviews, like ones that you go out and you actively go and interview someone, that is empirical data, because that's gathered through intentional observation and experimentation.

Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. So in those instances you can sit down with them and see how they're actually using something.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. I think usability testing, conducting heat maps on a project, conducting AB testing on a product. So you're putting up two versions and you're taking that data is active, you going forward and collecting more data through intention, as opposed to the other ones which are more passive and you can collect that might already be existing, and you're kind of doing your investigation of previous data as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. So once you've got all of that research together, I know that you would move on to that next step, but what would you do with all that collected information? Would you put that together into some kind of document to present back to the client?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. And that would usually also go with, if there's already a platform, I'd also be doing an audit on the platform, a UX audit where I'm just benchmarking against UX laws, and that goes all together in one presentation with the order of the current platform and all the interesting facts, the key insights that I gained from user research or from the data analysis, and then I would send it back to the client so that we can all align on how we're moving forward in the project.

Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. So at this point you've worked out the goals with the client, you've done the necessary really in-depth research to understand where the problems lie. And it sounds like at that point you would have quite a clear direction of the challenges that you're facing and the issues that you want to address.

So I know that now you would progress to ideate, which you have separate to prototyping and design. What happens in that ideate section of your process?

Miriam Isaac: So, I usually speak about ideating because ideating is getting everyone together and presenting those findings and being like, "Okay, what should we do now?"

Ian Paget: Yeah. So it's basically clarifying a direction forward based on all of the collated data?

Miriam Isaac: Yes. Yes. And that's like collaboration, bringing everyone together and being like, "Here's where we are, what do you guys think? Let's get some feedback, maybe let's do some sketching together." Or they could just turn around and be like, "No, Miriam, we like this, you go forward." It really depends on where you're working and who you're working for. They might not want to be involved or they might want to be involved, it really depends.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah, I've seen a couple of pictures, I think they were on your Instagram or maybe on your website, but I've seen some nice photos that you have of things pinned up on boards and whiteboard sketches and all that sort of stuff. Is that what happens within that step?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, it's generally, usually I'll bring in also different designs, and I'll ask them like, put some stickers on them, see which ones you like the best. And it's really a collaborative bringing all the findings together and putting them on things like post it notes and print outs and being like, "Okay guys, let's collaborate."

And as I said, this could be ... I think it's more common when you work within a team. As a solo, hired like a hired gun, and when I go back to the client with the findings, they are usually like, "Oh, this looks good, Miriam. You go forward." They're not that interested in having a session, they're just interested in going forward, because they're busy with their business and managing their own employees and they want me to take care of it.

So it really depends how I'm hired in terms of that. Because I don't want people to feel worried like, "Oh, I'm not doing this collaboration sticky note stage." That's okay. It can happen in different ways.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I mean, that does make sense. So in instances where there is a team where they want to get involved, you have that workshop to clarify a direction, but you don't always do that because you're able to present the findings that you've done, share a direction, and I guess then they could just say, "Yeah, go ahead."

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. Yeah. I would say it really just depends on situation, and UX can take many, many different forms. So it really just depends on the level of involvement that people want to be involved with, and that's all spoken about in discovery as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Now I know the next step you're working on prototyping. This is something that I really like that you do, and everyone needs to go and check out your Instagram because these are really cool, but I see you do a lot of these really nice sketches. I don't know if you're showing them to clients, but you can explain that shortly.

So this prototyping section, would you mind talking through what you're actually doing within that? And would you mind talking through these sketches that you've done as well?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, so after everything's been designed and researched, as you know, I'm always like "oh my God, finally, we can start drawing.. yay!. You get get to that drawing stage, the fun bit. So yeah, after that's all done and we've all got direction, I can finally start with creating the screens, and what I do is I usually start on paper. It's really my preferred way of working. I know some people would like to do a wire frame on the computer, whatever it is. I find paper just, it's amazing in terms of getting those initial ... because going from idea and insights to physical product is quite the creative jump.

So, for me, drawing on paper works. That's how it works for me. It really gets my creativity going, it really gets me thinking. I enjoy creating my paper wire frames and really trying to figure out things on paper. It also, for me, it really helps because you're on your mobile phone application, your phone is in your hand, you can feel it.

And I feel when you go straight into wireframes on the computer it's far away from you. When you do it on paper, you can really feel how this experience is going to feel. And sometimes yeah, I'll cut things out and I'll see how that feels, and I'll see if it works together with each other.

I just find that it's a great process. I know some people aren't into it and I've definitely been on podcasts where people, just to talk about prototyping.

Ian Paget: I know it's one area that I really wanted to speak about just because you do it differently to anyone else I've seen. I mean, when I've worked on web design, I've sketched stuff, but it's literally just been a quick scribble just to get an idea for what I want to put together and then I'll do it in the computer. But I just like the way that you're doing it. It feels like you spend a lot of time working in your sketchbook and you put a lot of detail into it. And I don't know, you can tell that it's your favourite part of the entire process just based on what I've seen.

Miriam Isaac: Oh, it's definitely my favourite part. I also just find the final product comes out so much better when I've done it on paper first. I don't know why, I can't explain it, because I would have tried, sometimes when there's been a really tight deadline, and I'm like "Okay, I'm not going to be able to sketch," and I've tried to skip it, I've seen that, "Oh no," I've ended up spending more time on a project because it's not come out as well.

So I really believe in sticking in my process, because I really see ... for example, I was recently working on a assignment board, which is like a table of different tasks that a user might have on their board that they need to go through. And I started, I did try and ... it was part of a much larger project. And I tried to start it in XD, this section and you know what, it wasn't working. It just wasn't flowing. And I sat down, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to sketch this out." And I just finished the UI design yesterday, the client loved it, and I just knew it was because I went back to paper, I went back to my process.

So I really think that's really valuable. As I said, I feel interfaces is an experience. And if I'm starting on paper, it really starts that whole process of creating an experience others speak about.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. One big question I have, and I'm sure other people might be thinking this as well, what are you showing your client? Are you showing them sketches or are you putting together an actual wire frame in some kind of software first to show the client?

Miriam Isaac: It really depends on the client, and I mean, I'm such a classic UX person, I will say, it depends. Sorry for being cliché, but it really depends. Some clients, I will show them the sketches and will sign off on sketches and they'll love it, they love it. They hire me also because they love the sketches, and they want to see their stuff in sketches, it's part of all the whole experience of hiring me, I think. [Hysterical laughing]

Ian Paget: Miriam, I have to say I'm sure there's a lot of listeners that you're really cheering up right now.

Miriam Isaac: Anyway, do you know what, I did a podcast with Connor Fowler, and he was telling me, "Miriam, when I was editing the podcast, the spikes were so hilarious."

Ian Paget: I know, yeah. I know one of the first things I watched from you, I think the first thing you did was just burst out laughing, and you hadn't even said anything yet. It's funny. So I hope listeners are just laughing away.

Miriam Isaac: Do you know what, I listened to this podcast called Dollop, it's about these two guys, they do a history podcast, and they laugh the whole time, but they're also really serious about history. And I'm really learning a lot about the stuff in history, the pockets of history that aren't taught in school, but they laugh about everything. And I said to my staff, if I ever made a podcast, it's going to sound just like this.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. You have to do that. You have to make that a thing.

Miriam Isaac: So what were we talking about? Wireframes?

Ian Paget: Where we got to, we was talking about wireframing and prototyping. So I know that we said about sketching, and sometimes you ... I understand what you mean. I think everyone understands this, the audience of logo designers. I never show sketches personally, but I know from time to time, you get that client that just understands, and you know that they would understand the sketch, but then you also have these clients that you know just wouldn't get it and you know that they wouldn't appreciate those sketches. So I know what you mean by "It depends."

So I'm curious then, you've done the sketches and you need to create a prototype. I'm really keen to talk about the tools here, because I know it's a land field of so many different options out there for prototyping. How do you go about that next step of putting together some kind of online or computer-based prototype?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. So what I'll do is ... there was a time where I worked in Sketch, and then I heard a lot of people talking about XD and Figma. So what I did was, I did one project in XD and one project in Figma to learn each program on the job. And also, I was very familiar with Sketch, and there wasn't really a learning curve, but I've landed now on Figma. I really prefer Figma to XD, and I'm sorry to the XD fans.

I'll tell you why, I find the sharing tools really powerful in Figma, and as a user experience designer, you're doing a lot of sharing, you're doing a lot of iterations. It's great that the way you share is really live. When you make a change in the file, the client can see that straight away. There's no generating or exporting or attaching, there's just one link, and everyone can come into that link and comment on that link. And it's got that fluid ... I'm not saying this right. That's dynamic-ness, no, that's not a word.

Ian Paget: Just making up words now.

Miriam Isaac: But that need, that's something I can say, that need that I find as a UX designer, when you collaborate, because there's just a lot of collaboration, because you could be working with a UI designer, you could be working with a UX designer, you could be working with a product manager, you could be working with a founder. It gives that ability to work with many different people, which is what was really missing when back in the day we were in Photoshop doing this.

Ian Paget: Yeah, oh, hell yeah. I think the interesting thing with that, there are loads of different options, but what it sounds like you've done is you picked the one that works best for you, and it's not necessarily the best one, it's just what you prefer yourself, what you prefer to work with. I mean, it's good to hear that you tried everything. And I think that's, like the example that you said of trying one project in one thing, one in another, is actually a nice way of experimenting with these tools and seeing their capabilities and what you can do with them.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. Yeah. I've always kind of done that as well in terms of, I've been doing this, designing and building for the web or for digital for like 10 years now, and even when I was making websites, I would always learn a new technology as I made the website. So it's kind of just how I approach it. Yeah. Because you could be stuck in a debate forever, Ian, like on Twitter or...

Ian Paget: Oh, yeah, you could, yeah.

Miriam Isaac: "Should I use Figma, should I use Sketch, should I?" No, no, no. It's just hot air until you get into a program and see what works for you, it's just hot air until that point, and it's just a bit pointless debate because ... but then also, you could be working for a company that, "We work in Figma." You have to work in Figma, forget whatever you believe in, right? "No, no, no. You've got to work in XD now. I'm sorry, mate." So be fluid and be adaptable.

Ian Paget: So, what's the aim with those softwares? Is it to create just a wire frame or are you styling it in those softwares? Are you able to explain a little bit more of that?

Miriam Isaac: I generally do my wire frames on paper. That's how I work and I will present those wireframes to the clients, or whoever it is, stakeholders. And then from that, I'll start creating actually the UI directly in Figma. And so that's kind of my process. I find it works for me. I also create the design system in tandem to the UI design, so I'm also collecting components along the way, and I'm putting them into like a base document, and then as I design new screens, I'm grabbing new components.

And if I need to do a change in the component across the screen, then I'll do it in the master component. I was speaking to a developer recently and he was saying he really liked that because that's how they work with a design system, they will take the components and start creating the screen from that. And he was definitely taken aback, that designer was, that I did that.

I think that's because of my coding background. I understand that kind of framework. But it's also how I recommend ... people will ask me about design systems for some reason, and that's what I recommend.

Ian Paget: So I guess you've done all of the graphic design, I guess, within Figma, you've worked out how it's going to look, the layout, the usability and all that sort of stuff. What's the next step from that?

Miriam Isaac: So then I'll start prototyping. I'll put them together, I'll create a clickable prototype. And now it depends, sometimes I'll send that to a client and they can click through it, or what's been working a lot for me recently, because sometimes clients get frustrated.

So then I do a Loom video where I talk through their prototype. And they love that. They really get that and they like that being explained to them. And it's also another great tool to say, if you're working on a remote team of developers, you can talk over your prototype and really explain how it works. And I found that is great.

So what you do is, you press play on that prototype on Figma, and then I'll start recording the Loom video, and I will just be clicking through the prototype and showing how things work.

Ian Paget: So at that point is it's still a prototype, but you're able to present it to clients, you're able to get their sign-off. How do you then move on to the next part of making that a real thing?

Miriam Isaac: Oh, and then that developer hand-off. Yeah.

Ian Paget: So you don't actually build it, you hand it over to a web developer or whatever who could actually build that and turn it into a real thing.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. It could be massive, it could be a like a hundred screens, Ian, at this point. And then you'd also have the design system, you'd also have the clickable prototype. You'd also have a user flow and the architecture as well. That could also be in the Figma documentation, and it's all of that stuff.

I know it's a lot of stuff, but all of that stuff goes into whatever it is, I could put it in an email, sometimes I'll even write out a whole PDF and guidelines as well of how stuff works, and I'll hand that off as well so that everyone is all clear on how this works.

Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. So are you basically handing that off to the client to source a developer on their own? Or do you partner with people so that you can do your bit and then pass that over to someone else who can then execute it? How are you dealing with that side of it?

Miriam Isaac: So at the moment, usually I get hired in ways where the client or the company would have a team of developers and I'll work with the team in the handoff, and I worked directly with the developers. I don't have my own developer that I send stuff to, I'll hand stuff off. It's how I prefer to work. I don't want that overhead of having to manage developers as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I know that's a challenging part as well. And I mean, anyone who's a graphic designer, it can be hard working with developers, I've found anyway, personally. I want to talk ... sorry.

Miriam Isaac: No, I just know with developers the way to do it is to get them involved as early as possible on your project and get them seeing stuff and asking, if you're designing something complex, speaking to a developer, be like, "Is this a possibility? What do you think?" Before you really hammer that out.

Even if I've not met the dev team yet, and I'm working on a project, I would just reach out to friends on Instagram and be like, "Yo, Dominic, do you think this can work?" And he'll be like, "No, Miriam, that's ridiculous." Or he'll be like, "Yeah, that's good, I could do that." I'm like, "I know you could do that, but do you think other people can?"

Ian Paget: I think that's one of the good things that what you do, and I've done this as well myself. Even though I'm not a developer, I think if you're working on any interfaces, you need to have a basic understanding of what's possible. And if you're sure, it's always good to check with someone just to make sure that it is possible to do.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, 100%. And the best way also is finding something that already exists that is online and working and you can refer to. And developers also like that challenge of seeing something that's already live and being like, "Oh, how do you do this? Oh, I'm going to puzzle this, I'm going to un-puzzle this." They like that as well, I've found, so as long as it's online and it's working and they have something that they can refer to, they're happy to have a puzzle to do. Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I did want to just briefly ask about that handoff document, because I looked at one of your case studies and it looked like you provided some really comprehensive PDF document or something that had everything in it. I know you mentioned that you put it into Figma, so I'm not sure of your usual process, but I'm assuming that you put together some kind of actual in depth document that explains exactly what should happen when, what everything should look like and stuff like that. Is that the case or is it all contained within Figma?

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, definitely. Oh, no, as part of the deliverable there'll also be documentation, which could be done in Figma, could be done in whatever program you fancy, where it's done red lining, and really, it could be a stage where ... and this could be also dependent on developers, there could be a stage where say, they've put something up on GitHub or on Storybook, and they've come back to you and be like, "Hey Miriam, what do you think?" And I see there's an issue, so then I'll go ahead and make further documentation to really explain how it should look, and I'll give them like values and proper redlining.

I do find in Figma nowadays, with the code panel, this mitigates a lot of that, that red lining we had to do manually. So we don't necessarily have to do that nowadays, but also just in general, style guides and design systems, which I'll do in Figma, where I'm talking about, okay, what's the store? How does it work? What context is it used in? What happens if this has a fixed height and it goes over the fixed height? Stuff like that, really explaining the autonomy, and then the usage usually mitigates all those problems.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It sounds like you go through everything with a fine tooth and you do everything very thorough, you do all your research properly. You work with clients to understand everything properly, you're creating your prototypes, you're documenting everything. It sounds like you do a really thorough and impressive job. So it's nice to hear all of your process.

Miriam Isaac: Thank you. Yeah. It's definitely a long process. It's funny when I do go through it, I do feel like, oh, it's exhausting, isn't it?

Ian Paget: Yeah. How long does it normally take to go through this entire process? Because it sounds like it could potentially be like a six month project in some cases.

Miriam Isaac: I usually won't take on projects that are less than like three months. I find that UX, the nature of the work, any project would be baseline of like three months. Yeah. It could be like three, six months. I've had projects going on for like a year.

It's just the nature of the work to really come to a good product that works for everyone. And it also depends on how many people are on the project as well, if there's a lot of people, lot of stakeholders, lot of opinion, it's going to take longer. If it's one person, like one start-up founder, it's going to take a lot less.

And they might say like, "Okay, we don't need to ideate together, I'm fine with what you want to do." So there's many different flavours, it could range from being this complex B to B software service application, which could take a year, I've seen. Or it could be a small application that has like five screens, and that would take a lot less time.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So would you, say if the project is just too big and it's going to take longer than that three month threshold, would you essentially turn it down because it's too big?

Miriam Isaac: No, no. I like long ongoing projects. I'd usually say something like between, I'll dedicate maybe 10 to 20 hours a week on a project for a long period of time, set up a retainer and that's how it will go, because I find that I can't work 40 hours a week on one project. I think my brain ... it wouldn't work for me. I've just seen that's the way it goes, really. Yeah. That works for me.

Ian Paget: I hope you don't mind going into this in the last 10 minutes we have, but you mentioned then about having a retainer. How are you pricing for these projects? Because I guess something like a three month project, you could probably create a fixed price, a fixed cost, but these longer projects, how are you pricing them? Are you creating like a monthly price and they're just paying, like pay as you go, or how you approaching that?

Miriam Isaac: So on the longer projects, it's going to be in retainer basis, it's going to be be like, I sell them a block of hours or have a sliding scale, like if you buy more hours, I'll take off this amount per hour, right? Because it could get really expensive.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Especially with these bigger projects, it's hard, because I've seen ... say if the project is a million pounds, say, some bigger companies, they might take that on, and it might end up just dragging and they'd end up losing money. So you do need to be careful of that. So it's good to know that you're basically creating a monthly cost for the client so that you can just keep working on the project for a set amount of hours and you see how it goes based on, I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but based on the progression of the project.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. Like recently, I'm just speaking to someone now, and they want to do two months, and they're happy to do it at my highest rate, but two months, we'll see how that goes, and then we'll work out a longer retainer as well. Which is totally understandable. But I tell them you want to probably buy a block of hours so we can protect my time, protect your time, so I can set aside the time for you, and I'm not going to take on other projects that are new.

Also, for me, I like to know when a project is finishing. So I know, "Okay, I am going to have an opening in three months' time and I can book another client for that time afterwards." So I find it's important to try and negotiate for someone buying packets of hours. You can really schedule your day in terms of who you're going to work for in different ways as well.

Well, for a smaller project, like a landing page, you could price that per project and then take a deposit and do that within the month or two or however long that takes. So that's going to be different to these longer ongoing SAS, Software As Service products, which could be going on for like, let me say that I've had projects that have gone on for years, even.

And that's not to say that I was taking so long, no, no, no, it's just the nature of the work and the nature of how things change and responding to customer feedback, and they want to have ... they don't need an in-house designer, but they want to have someone who's on their team and familiar and they have put aside the budget for that and they just have it ongoing, sort of thing.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It's really good for you as someone working for yourself that you've got that predictable income, because a lot of freelancers don't have that. It's probably nice for you that you know you can predict your income in several months' time because you know that these are going to continue.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. That's what I like about the nature of UX is that you can price it this way, the longer projects. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to get those little bursts of like, "Oh, a landing page." It's very different and fun in the middle.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Now, I think I want to throw in one last question and I want to ask a different topic question, just because I'm interested in this and I'm sure listeners will be, too. I read that you was one of six designers that was lucky enough to be interviewed by Instagram, which sounds like a massive opportunity. Would you be able to tell us a little bit more about that?

Miriam Isaac: Oh, so when they launched their @design channel, are you familiar with the @design channel?

Ian Paget: I don't follow it myself, but hopefully listeners will be familiar. And if they're not, I'll link to it in the show notes.

Miriam Isaac: Okay, so it's really, really funny, I got this email from Instagram, and at first I was like, I'd been featured by a different Instagram account. So I wasn't quite sure what this was. They were like, "Hi, this is Casey from Instagram, we're launching our @design channel, I wanted to interview you and feature you as one of our six designers from around the world, and we want to do one person UX design." I was a bit like, "What?"

And I wasn't sure it was real, but I checked her out on LinkedIn, I was like, "Oh, this person does work at Instagram." And I checked out her email signature, and it was all legit, and I was like, oh my God. So then I emailed her back and she set us up an interview and she asked me a set of questions, and then she picked a picture of mine, a wire frame sketch of mine that she was going to feature. And I was like, "Okay," I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting ... but then maybe like a week or two later, it came out that I was the first post on the launch of the @design channel, and I was just, that was crazy, and that really took my Instagram account to the next level, because it really gave me huge exposure and I'm so grateful that I was able to fly the flag for UX and fly the flag for also design in Israel. I was really flattered and it was an amazing experience. It really did a lot for me. Yeah.

Ian Paget: It's really cool. How did they find you?

Miriam Isaac: I think through hashtags.

Ian Paget: Yeah, nice. So you were just posting on Instagram using the hashtags and I guess, well, I mean, like I said, people do need to go and check them out, the wire frame sketches you do are really cool. So I'm not at all surprised. I think it's amazing.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah, it was great, and also at the time it was a bit more newer, UX, so some people on the page were like, so we see you do UX on the design channel and it's amazing, it's getting more exposure, and she found me, I think she must've just searched for UX and found me, found my picture.

Ian Paget: That's cool. That's cool. Well, congratulations for that. I think it's an amazing thing. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming on and talking through UX, you've gone through it in quite a lot of detail and I think even for anyone that does already currently work in UX in some form will probably get some value from it. But it's really interesting. So thanks so much for coming on.

Miriam Isaac: Thank you, Ian. It's so lovely to be here and beyond your lovely podcast and I've been following you for like, I don't know how long you. I'm also super excited to be on FrontRow with you in the summer.

Ian Paget: I'll link to that in the show notes, so if anyone wants to attend some kind of online conference, you definitely need to check out Frontrow. I'm on there, Miriam's on there. There's a few other friends of mine and past guests of the podcast that are all going to be on there. But yeah, I mean with the world the way it is at the moment, most of the conferences around the world would have been canceled. So that would be a nice online equivalent.

Miriam Isaac: Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely excited to be on the panel with you. That's going to be really fun.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It should be fun. Well, thanks Miriam. It's really good to speak to you.

Miriam Isaac: Thanks, Ian. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.