This Zumie wants to be an earth bender | Transit made easy with Shuttlers π
We had an amazing chat with a product designer that wants to change the world of business and design, plus a nice breakdown of something that can help you save.
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Intro
Welcome back to another issue of the Zumies Newsletter.
You already know how we go, find a sweet spot, take a chill drink, and have a good read of our chat with Ogaga John, a product designer passionate about design and healthy living. Plus our first-hand experience with Shuttlers, a product making moving around Lagos easier.
Letβs get to it π
Meet a Zumie π¬
Your career has spanned across various roles in design, from Product Designer to Creative Director. Can you share a pivotal moment or project that significantly influenced your design philosophy?
Before my first position as a product designer, I was first a brand designer and the pivotal point for me was getting a role as a creative director. This influenced my design philosophy as it allowed me to see design outside of pushing pixels. Working as a creative director opened my eyes to see how much more design impacts the business at large.
Larger than just fancy aesthetically pleasing-looking graphics and assets. I realized that factoring the business goals into how you come up with your creative designs and assets is very important and influential to the business growth
The art direction you take to marketing campaigns and processes is also actually very important, and being a designer is just one part of the puzzle to a successful business.
Another key eye-opener for me was realizing that design is not just about working with your popular design tools, but design or being a designer means the ability to solve problems creatively.
The ability to think creatively, and come up with creative solutions to business problems, with the end goal is to help the business grow revenue, get closer to its audience, and build brand trust with its customers.
Being a creative director allowed me to see design in a whole new light and this influenced my design philosophy.
Given your focus on user-centered designs for SaaS startups, how do you stay updated on the latest design technologies, and how have these advancements influenced your design approach?
Being a designer or a creative professional, any skill set in tech requires you to always constantly learn, and always constantly stay updated with trends.
As a designer focused on building products for SaaS companies and SaaS startups, I stay updated with the latest trends and technologies by having my social media revolve around what I do and what interests me. I also get involved in newsletters, articles, and podcasts.
It's a continuous learning process and the best way for me to stay up to date is by always visiting key channels that allow me to learn information and get information.
This could be from YouTube channels I've been following for a while which share information about SaaS startups, the trend market, and the newsletters.
Understanding the market shifts in how the product and building are affecting our customer base.
And over time, you find yourself just getting used to the trend, figuring out what's working, and trying to apply the new trends and technologies to your work process.
As a Product Design mentor, you guide new designers. What's the most rewarding aspect of mentoring, and what advice do you find yourself giving to aspiring designers most frequently?
As a product design mentor, one of the most rewarding aspects of what I do as a mentor and a coach is watching these designers grow.
Watching them grow from a stage of not knowing anything about design or what they want for their career to fully understanding what they have to do, and their purpose in the tech space and their career space
Guiding my mentees from being a total novice to leading teams, earning well for themselves, and handling projects from ideation stage to product launch.Β
β¦and what advice do I usually give new designers?
I won't necessarily call this advice more as I regard this as a heads-up statement.
ββ¦growth is never linear.β
Growth is never straightforward, growth isn't an all-size-fits-all thing.
What this means is that how it happens to person A is not going to necessarily happen to Person B. So understand that your journey is yours and yours alone. Stay on track, keep doing what you're doing, stay disciplined. Over time everything will begin to make sense.
You've had experiences in both the startup world and more established companies. How do you strike a balance between maintaining brand consistency and staying innovative in your designs?
To be honest, I don't have a balancing act between the startup world and established companies, maintaining brand consistency and staying innovative in my designs.
For me, it's more of a contrast. Like Yin and Yang or both sides of the same coin.
What do I mean?
Whichever position I find myself I try to understand the position I am in, and I make sure to understand the available constraints and the expectation that is required. Now all this will allow me to shape my process to fit what is needed in time. And this varies between companies and startups.
This also varies between startups and established companies.
So it's more about understanding the need, the expectation, the limitations, and creating experiences that fit into key areas.
Whichever it is, I do make sure I can have a holistic picture of the brand, the audience, and the experience I'm creating. How would that benefit the business and how would that impact customers at the same time?
Collaboration seems to be a common thread in your roles. How do you foster a collaborative environment, ensuring a seamless flow of ideas between design, marketing, and engineering teams?
Collaboration is an exciting aspect of my work and is the most successful skill that I have applied in any project and product I'm working on. And how I tend to foster a collaborative environment seamlessly by involving everybody I'm working with from the very beginning of my design process
Irrespective of your role, your position, or your ranking, I create a collaborative environment by sharing ideas and being open to receiving opinions and feedback and dialoguing on that feedback.
Not necessarily to come up with an agreement, but an understanding.
Understanding works better in a collaborative environment than trying to have an agreement (my personal opinion)
With that, my teams from the very beginning have an understanding that it is OK to share ideas, share opinions, and reach out to me or any other team leader to share an opinion and share ideas with the reason behind why they think it would work, or why we should go in that direction?
This works with engineering teams, marketing teams, content teams, and even designers ourselves.
This has allowed me to always have a room filled with people ready to collaborate whenever we're working together
Ogaga, when you hit a creative roadblock, what's your go-to method for finding inspiration? Any quirky rituals or favorite places that help get those creative juices flowing?
The funny thing here is when it comes to hitting creative blocks or lacking creative inspiration, one of my go-to methods is to just go and sleep.
Sleep.
That's it. I know it's funny, but that's it. I take a step back from my laptop, and I go have a nap. As simple as that.
Other things I do are;Β
Take a walk
Watch Anime
Scroll on dribble or Instagram for 20 mins
Have wine and watch a comedy show
Well, in positions where I have to come up with something real quick. Short timeline, everything is on the line. Things I tend to do to go past creative blocks are, to talk to people, colleagues, and friends, ask them questions and opinions, or directions and I piece them together to make my solution.
We all have our first design love. Can you share a memory of the first project that made you fall head over heels for design, and how it shaped your journey?
My first design love was when I worked on a project for charity. It was a charity-based mobile app project for a client in India and the product was to be focused on the Indian market.
It was a passion project for my clients and it was my first international freelance project. I loved that project so much because of the level of impact the product was going to offer and the fact that I had to piece the client ideas together into creating a mobile experience that would be for an entirely different market from where I am based.
It was an incredible journey for me, the project made me understand the value of research and understanding the client goals and fitting them together to meet user needs.
We all have those "oops" moments. Can you share a design blooper or unexpected outcome that turned into a valuable lesson?
So one of my OOPS moments was not on a project, but for a product that I was building with some of my friends (START UP idea)
So we had a product idea to build for ourselve, and the start-up idea was to simply connect delivery riders with customers, kind of like Uber for delivery.
We built the product, ran research, developed it, and tested the product within a particular local area.
We discovered that what we expected and anticipated about how customers and users would interact with the platform was different from how they used the product.
We noticed customers would rather call the startup which was us to make complaints or even communicate with the delivery rider and get information about their delivery than speak with the delivery riders themselves. This made us shift our model from connecting to being the middleman.
We noticed this created a better experience for our customers and made them feel their order was taken well care of.
This helped me fully understand how anticipating and preparing yourself for blooper moments and margin errors is key to product development.
What's a non-negotiable part of your daily routine that keeps you grounded, whether it's related to work or personal life?
A non-negotiable for me would be exercising and working out.
I'm always very focused on healthy living, healthy lifestyle, and healthy habits.
Working out, going to the gym, and doing some form of physical activity before I get started on my day is a non-negotiable for me because I believe a creative mind should also embody a healthy lifestyle.
Another non-negotiable for me will be praying. I am a Christian and I believe in God.
To get started with my day, I pray for help with coming up with the best creative process to solve problems.
Beyond your design passion, what's something else you love to do or talk about? Any hidden hobbies or interests?
I love talking about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A key interest for me outside of design is healthy living, exercising, working out, and staying fit. Because I believe health is wealth, which is a common saying.
I love the idea of business concerning tech and design, so I find myself reading books about businesses, and understanding how the stock market works, building startups, and managing people.
Learning more about business, understanding historical architecture, and knowing how to maintain a healthy lifestyle that would foster a long life.
My other hidden hobbies include making art, sketching, teaching, and giving talks about career developmentΒ
Other times I find myself daydreaming or thinking about new product ideas that would benefit the design community at large.
If you could escape to any fictional world for a day, where would it be, and what would you do there?
ο»ΏIf I could escape to any fictional world for a day.
It's going to be an anime world and my top 2 picks would be a fictional world Baki, Baki the anime and Avatar the Last Airbender.
I would love to spend the day in those fictional worlds, Baki, because I would love to be the character Baki and know what it is like to have such a massive strength as a human and have a father who is the world's strongest man. I feel like there'll be a big flex than Avatar the Last Airbender. I'm a fanboy just because I want to see Aang (the main character ) in action and know what it's like to bend an element, and I would love to be an earthbender.
Todayβs title is in the tweetππ½ π©
Omoooooβ¦have you seen the price of fuel and taxis? Itβs for people making blood money.Β
The first time I heard about shuttlers was from a friend who was attending an event, and she asked if I would like to go with herβ¦ there I was, planning to take a ride to the event but imagine the shock on my face when I saw Ikotun to Yaba for 15,000NGN. What did I say about these ride fares and blood money?Β
The next time I tried Shuttlers was for myself. The onboarding was pretty easy and the interface was also simple.Β
See the video below for a proper breakdown of how the platform works.
Sweet right?Β
Found this recommendation useful? If you loved it so much, chances are that someone on your timeline needs to see it too, so share with the world, dear Zumie π
Β Until next time,