foreign is perceived displayed and the psychology behind it all right and supreme in meeting your customers and users needs and increasing the return on investment well today we're going to chop it up about that and a little bit more because a little surprise for you at the end of this on this day 37 of 100 days of service now hi I'm your host Kylie Alexander and we are all the way live here on LinkedIn so let me tell you about our special guests our special guests today are UI ux Lee Tim engstrom at Glide fast as well as associate vice president of Professional Services and certified technical architect David engstrom we are in for a real treat so without further Ado let's welcome them to the stream welcome Tim and David to the Stream hi colleague thank you so much hey all right look the only reason I asked y'all here was so I could blow those air horns thank you so much for joining the stream I'm so delighted to have you all here now we're talking about UI ux and the bottom line oftentimes people think about oh we just need to make it pretty we need to have some fancy pictures but that's not really what it's all about we're going to get into some of that but before we do David I want to turn to you if you can tell me a little bit about how you as uh technical architect and how the team kind of works together kind of give us a view on that yeah sure yeah so the the flow sort of from Tim's team to uh the the technical team is well it's pretty seamless and it's it's it's pretty great so Tim does his thing where he talks to uh the customer finds out user information finds out how to how the customer is using the the tool and where their pain points may be he's going to speak about his process a lot more than I can because that's not that's not my process uh but ultimately what what comes out of that uh interaction with the customer is a uh a mock-up of what they're what they want their portal to look like or what they need their portal to look like um and he'll pass that on to us and then it's our job as the technical team to go in and replicate that look and feel that Tim has sort of pulled out of the customer um so yeah it's really seamless passes it on and he's there for support throughout the rest of the project so if we ever have to reach out and say hey we need to tweak this or you know what were you thinking when you got to this uh we can we work with them along the entire time yeah I really appreciate that division of labor so to speak where you're handling the technical side of this and Tim on the other side is making sure that that portal is giving what it needs to give in terms of the user interface so that brings me to you Tim tell me a little bit about how you define a good user experience a good user interface totally um there's good ux and there's good UI and UI I like to call this it's the it's the visual side and a lot of people have that initial reaction right up front but good user experience if it's really good you don't realize that it actually happened until you're through the process and you get to the end and go well that was easy or hopefully you get to the point of going I really enjoyed that and I will definitely come back and continue doing this or even better yet I'm going to share it with other people and that's that's like my goal in that desire yeah yeah that makes me think of like that kind of word of mouth sort of marketing or you know something is really good and you go to share it with someone else I don't know if you saw this article by the way what you just said reminded me of this HubSpot they were coming for people's necks they were talking about some user interfaces that were just trash and these were like big names too like Lipton I think NYU was on there it was a whole bunch of a whole bunch of websites and portals that were on there and they were saying like this is not good because of this you're going to frustrate your user your customer with that and what I'm hearing you talk about is like look you shouldn't even feel like you were going through or navigating through this it should feel like it's a silky smooth experience and I and I love hearing that can you tell me about how can investing in a user experience lead to higher return Investments how can investing in a UI ux experience lead to a higher return investment that's a big question it may take a larger conversation um I like to tie Roi directly to the actions of people um people are going to drive you Roi just in the fact that they're your workers they're the ones who are doing the work and if they're interrupted then they're not you know moving towards the bottom line so like in service now people come to service now because they have problems they want to solve whether it's it's ticketing it's you know you're getting knowledge getting self-help and if we can make that as seamless as possible we can get users into a portal they can get tickets they can get resolution they can get the knowledge that they need and get back to work it's that seamlessness and fluidity that you're looking for to engage and get that productivity back to your Workforce indeed I want to take a moment to shout out we got 20 people here joining us live I want to shout all of you out I appreciate you joining us live those of you on the replay Squad I appreciate having you here if you are joining us live and even if you are on the um replay team I want you to go ahead and drop some blue hearts in the comments section and I'm going to come back and shout you out in a moment okay so what are the key differences between ux and a UI design you kind of touched upon this a little bit at the very beginning maybe you can drill into that a little bit more yeah this this is a huge pain point for me in that and especially when people are looking for work in this industry you go through job descriptions and you see you're looking for a ux designer looking for a UI designer and you read the job description and it really doesn't correlate with what I would Define as ux and UI just because there's no there's no real process that says this is exactly what it is but the difference is is user interface is all about what you see it's going to be that visual impact when you get there it's identifying the brand there's going to be some pleasing Aesthetics behind it on the other side you get user experience and that's what you feel so it's going to be a little bit less tangible but to me it's so much more important as you people that come away with a good feeling about something is going to resonate up the brand it's going to elevate the business it's going to create that advocacy from the user to drive that word of mouth because if you get a feeling if it's a bad looking thing but it feels great you're still going to come back but if it looks great it feels bad you're not going to come back I like what you said it reminded me of a quote look Tim you got me every time you say something it's like makes me think of something else it reminds me of a quote from Maya Angelou when the quote goes something like this if you guys in the chat know differently hey correct me but as I recall it goes something like people will often forget what you said but they will always remember how you made them feel and that's kind of how I'm equating what you said in terms of distinguishing user interface versus the user experience which is all about how you make them feel which is a little bit less tangible but it's Everlasting am I am I understand in that correctly exactly I mean that that feeling is pervasive and you only have a little bit of time to establish that um because it's like there's so much psychology and cognitive bias that goes into a user experience um and it's it's building more and more I think last time I checked on a certain site there was 106 different psychology principles and cognitive bias that relate to building a good user experience and so it's like it's it's leaving this world of subjectivity into an actual objective science and it really it's starting to make a big difference I like to hear how science and art are coming together and how you're able to better serve the needs of the customer so that that's that's really great news I want to ask you also how do you balance Form and Function in user experience um this is where I'm going to jump into metaphors and I love metaphors and anytime I do a workshop it's like metaphors metaphors um one of the things that happened to me during covid was my wife decided we need to learn to dance been doing that for two years West Coast Swing I should just pitch that out they're so fun but what I learned as as a lead and they keep on pushing this on us is that you know it's not about me I'm there to make the other person look good and to make them feel good and to me that that is so pervasive as far as a user I'm there to build something that makes them look good that makes them feel good so what subtle cues can I drop in there to make it feel like they're driving the ship that they're moving through in a purposeful intentional way so that they when they get to the end they feel success they feel accomplishment and to me that's that's where it all just starts to come together it's a puzzle all the pieces are in place and you just have something that they don't realize they did they just feel successful again feelings I love them and it's going to drive a successful Roi because you're going to get people using your platform over and over again doing the things you want them to do but making them feel like they're the ones who did it um that's great I love that and David I want to turn to you right now and um how can the use of prototyping increase the return investment for service portals uh yeah right so prototyping basically means that we're building a you know an image of of what we're going to build for the customer the you know image of the the website but not a website actually right so it's just a snapshot of what we're going to be building for them um and we can build that way quicker than we can build an actual website in an actual portal so prototyping allows us to iterate back and forth with the customer on on small changes that need to be made that we don't have to invest a ton of time on um and it really gives us more confidence at the end that the design that we've gone with is what the customer wants so that we're not having a back and forth and wasting money right wasting time because time is money uh with the customer so uh this this before we had this this program in place before Tim came on and really started this uh this effort prototyping wasn't a thing that we did and we'd build what the customer wanted us to build in live time and if tweaks had to be made that's just more time that we're investing in in the total build so this really does give us at the end of the day uh it you know helps the customer along because we're spending less time on that iteration you mentioned saving saving time is money and you also mentioned that you know before bringing Tim on and investing and really building out this effort which brings me to this what are people getting when they're bringing in Glide fast as a partner to to actualize their UI ux experience that they're not able to get anywhere else right well gosh the things I could list they're getting whenever they get cloudfest right because they're getting getting you know nearly 600 of the the top mines in the in the industry um because we all work as a team we're not just we're never one person uh but yeah what they're getting from you know Tim is an expert with 25 years of experience so they're getting Tim's expertise uh and his team's expertise so his team has has taken on everything that Tim has learned as well because Tim is their guide and really passing that on to the best Architects and the best developers the best consultants in the business um so they're getting nothing short of uh you know amazing this and outstanding this from us yeah hey hey and I'm only gonna do the air horn at the beginning of the stream but y'all keep dropping these bombs and I can't let them go and acknowledge okay but but with that said I know that you all have a webinar that's coming up on June 29 2023. David can you tell us a little bit and Tim feel free to jump in here as well about what folks can expect at this free webinar yeah uh yeah so we're gonna go into more detail with what we've been talking about today really the return on investment of user experience good user experience um and you know we're going to go into some numbers we're going to go into some sort of you know when you see the numbers you're going to be a little bit wowed because uh you know some of the return on investment metrics that are out there uh around ux are kind of mind-boggling um so yeah we're gonna go into that we're gonna go into the the how and the why of of those numbers um and you know ultimately we're going to talk about our process a little bit more and just go into more detail than what we've we've gone in here yeah indeed indeed so folks if you're interested your organization needs uh overhaul or if you're curious about what we're talking about here when it comes to UI ux and how your organization can integrate that into the your service portal experience this is the place to be so you can either take your phone right now and scan this QR code on your screen and if you happen to be looking at this on your phone no worries because this link is also so in the description of this video uh Tim I want to go back to you how do you determine what design elements to prioritize in your ux design oh that's great that's great for for me for the business prioritization is driven by two things there's the users um and then there's the business requirements and they play a lot against each other um servicenow portals are what I call people problems um we're trying to solve their problems so that they can get back to work and those problems a lot of times revolve around business requirements and goals that the companies want so we're doing a balancing act there of what does the user want to do what does the business need them to do so we juggled a little bit we prioritize and make sure that the users are being kept happy and that we're guiding them through to solve these business requirements so kind of an ambiguous answer but it's it's the two priorities of the business requirements and the people and and finding that the equilibrium that has delight and it has Roi yeah I love that answer it reiterates the importance of working with the customer as a partner and bringing this kind of evolution about and I really appreciate there perhaps you can share a little bit about ux design strategies you use to improve customer engagement and loyalty yeah and this this is actually where we we start shifting a little bit because it it retention and and loyalty to me are all about gamification um and that's still part of the user experience I think it's a little bit lesser known um maybe less desirable because the word game is in there but we are trying to drive them in and find these feedback loops that that create that sense of delight and to me that's where you really start to get those really successful platforms is where you know little bells little whistles things that that are unexpected so that the user can come and go oh you know just that's kind of what I'm looking I'm not I don't want a big wow I just want to huh and it'll help drive them through to get the big relief of I did something I accomplished something and the more we get into that the more again we get that that advocacy and to me that is one of the hugest parts of retention and engagement is when they are talking about the platform in a positive way we're driving more people to the platform getting that feedback loop and then jump back out to Advocate again wow wow okay so maybe you can tell me a little bit more about your approach to designing a user experience that caters to both the novice as well as the experience user oh yeah yeah so there's a scaffolding approach that I like to take um so when a user comes in they're a novice we need to learn them and there's a concept called flow and I always miss mispronounce the guy's name is Michaela michaeli or it's chickson Michaela chicks in it's it's strange but it's it's creating this level of effort that that borderlines too much work with boredom and you you have that fine line of bringing them through challenging them and growing them and on this scaffolding thing you're giving them the tools to be successful while also encouraging them to reach out and to help others so you start as a novice you end up as a mentor and it's a that's a huge feedback loop that again I'm coming back to the big word of advocacy where they start to preach about your platform and you they start to help others through the platform through those little hurdles they encountered so that you have the user's self problem solving hurdles that you didn't encounter or think of during the original build sure indeed and finally before we get out of here I do want to again remind folks that look there is a free webinar that's taking place June 29th that's next week if you're joining me live or watching this on the day of the stream that is completely free you're going to get a little bit more information and get in David and Tim are going to get a little bit more into this during this webinar to join the webinar you want to be sure that you click the QR code on the screen and if you're watching this on mobile no worries I've left the sign up link in the description to this video space is limited it's actually free so you want to be sure that you sign up soon sign up early sign up today let's go on back and I'm gonna let you all go because I know that you have lots of things that you are building right now so final question ITIL 4 principles are pervasive in the Glide fast world right so I'm curious about how do you continuously iterate and improve a designed to ensure maximum Roi yeah and this is one of the things that I'm coming in and I'm really advocating for is initially when we work with clients we have a a bill we go through a process we problem solve we look for pain points we identify the users and we what I call our initial assumptions and we build off of that um and this comes down to prototyping where if we can get prototyping in front of the users we can get some quick initial feedback it's not real life feedback but it does help validate some assumptions the next step and this is where I'm I'm really pushing to get some more clients to do this is to have like a three month and a six month checkup where we can actually look at some hard data from from analytics and we can verify that with user surveys to see where their bottlenecks we didn't identify are there roadblocks are there flows that users are creating that we didn't anticipate and then we can start to iron them out with tiny little changes that have big impact um so that's where I want to go um and hopefully we'll get there um get more clients in to do this it creates a more healthy environment for the users and in the end it's going to increase your Roi more as they um as it grows indeed indeed I appreciate you having an eye on what's taking place right now as well as having an eye on the future is where we can go and how this is going to benefit the client and their customers the end user so I appreciate you look Tim engstrom UI ux leader Glide fast and David Arbor associate vice president of Professional Services and certified technical architect at Glide fast I want to thank you all for joining me in the Stream and I will see you at the webinar wonderful thank you all right thank you appreciate the time thanks appreciate you having appreciate you coming whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa listen if you have not done so already you want to be sure to attend this webinar if your organization service portal is on The Struggle Bus this webinar is especially for you has talked to both Tim and David offline and they were going through all of the data about you know how this is like statistical how this is mathematical some of these user experiences can look really glossy and pretty nice pictures kind of fancy fonts but they that may not be the best bet for the end user so if you want more information on how to up level your service portal that webinar is the place to be so until next time be kind and stay curious see you next time bye [Music] thank you