A Chat with Shopify Plus UX Lead Davis Neable
Part 2 in our Fluxible Week DesignChats Interview Series
Today we continue our interview series for Fluxible week with Davis Neable — the UX Lead at Shopify Plus.
I have had the privilege to speak with Davis about design on several occasions, and have always been impressed with her perspective on design, what it means to business, and how the process of designing an experience is really open to anyone.
Can you tell me about your first experience with ‘design’?
I don’t think I knew it was ‘design’ at that point, but I would have to say it was my dad thoroughly planning our family summer trips.
He’d spend months brainstorming activities, plotting out routes, identifying kid-friendly sites — pretty much thinking about all those different touch points. And every year, he’d iterate on the trip experience, asking questions like, “How can I make this better for us as a family?”. For example, one summer he introduced the journal. He had prepared little duo-tangs, and every day had a different entry in it as to where we were going to be so that we could, in our own ways, capture the experience.
Looking back I would say my dad’s travel planning was probably my first real experience of how broad designing experiences can be.
Can you speak to your path into design? From our discussions, you have a somewhat non-conventional path.
Coming out of high school I had really no idea what I want to do other than that I enjoyed sciences, and I also enjoyed people, so I went to the Univerity of Waterloo for Kinesiology. However, after my first co-op stint in a physiotherapy clinic, I realized that environment was not for me.
Fortunately, I caught a guest lecturer from our ergonomics department, and thought I’d give that ago. While I really liked the design systems component of the field, I didn’t find much inspiration working on engineering lines. So again, I tried my hand at another co-op, this time at Corel (that’s showing my age!) — and I loved it! Being able to solve problems in the context of innovation and cutting edge technology was really where I found joy and purpose. From there, I did a year in Silicon Valley and then went back to do a Masters of Computer Science, in Human Factors.
My 1st lesson learned would be that anyone who is listening, if you have the opportunity to do a co-op program, do it, because it teaches you more I think about what you don’t want, as what you do want.
All that learning has lead you here to Shopify Plus, can you talk about your role as UX Lead?
UX is comprised of 4 different roles at Shopify — design, research, front end development and content, and each of those disciplines roll up within their own pillars in the UX organization.
At Shopify Plus, we are trying something a little bit different where it’s a single UX team made up of each of the roles. We’re seeing if this change in organizational structure enables a more focused and consistent influence on projects, since all four of those roles will be equipped with the same mission and goals.
My job here is to grow and build that team. Right now, we’re heavily focused on product initiatives, but as we grow, the team will slowly increase its scope to other merchant touch points, including marketing and sales.
On the topic of design, there seems to be many ideas of what design is — what do you believe design to be?
For me, design is more about experience than it is about pixels, or even a user flow. Having kids really crystallized this notion for me. As a parent, I’m continually challenged to design experiences that will engage and stimulate them — creative playtime, exposure to foods, learning new skills, etc. It forces me to always thinking about how can I best present this <insert experience> to my kids.
It’s a bit tongue and cheek, but it’s literally that the experience is the design, and what differs between outputs is the medium through which that experience is conveyed.
How does UX and Design fit into the organizational structure at Shopify Plus?
I am fortunate enough to work for an organization that gets the value of UX on the bottom line. That is realized in many ways, including the fact that UX has a seat at the Shopify Plus leadership table. We are responsible for influencing the way our merchants experience the brand, whether that be through product, or service. To date, we’ve mostly influenced product design, working closely with engineering, and product management to shape the roadmap.
What are we doing wrong as a design industry? Is there something that we should be doing differently?
I would say we are not educating people in what design actually is, and by that I mean that we don’t think of design broadly enough. If we did, people could help themselves way more. When we think of design as synonymous with experience, we encourage everyone to think about themselves as a designer. We are all constantly shaping experiences for others, and by raising awareness to this, we can invoke a greater amount of empathy for each other.
One of the things that I did when I started at Shopify Plus was offer UX office hours, where anyone could come with questions. Folks took me up on it, and I encouraged them to think about the problem a little bit differently, to think about, “Who is my end-user? What do they want to get out of this feature?”. Just by doing that little bit, they were able to take things in different directions and make bigger positive impacts. I think that’s one of the biggest benefits really of having a UX organization is the advocacy for the end user regardless of who that is.
Looking back on projects you’ve done over the years — what is one that stands out? Why?
When I was at IBM I worked for a period of time in an area that was doing business rules software, that was software that was considered business software, but absolutely was not. You needed to be a developer to be able to understand and use the product. The language, or the content and the kinds of terms those concepts were presented in a very businesslike way.
Anyways, the point of the story is that I was on a team that set off to actually make this a lot more focused on the business consumer. That was a really fascinating piece of work because the majority of my time was spent actually understanding who the heck that was. We spent a lot of time traveling to different businesses, speaking with people, and I remember, the biggest impact we had was going in with no assumptions, and just doing a lot of listening.
..the biggest impact we had was going in with no assumptions, and just doing a lot of listening.
You hear that all the time, “don’t have a script” when you are interviewing users. It’s true, go in and listen, see what people say and riff off of that. The things that came out of it, who our executives thought we were going to target with this, actually ended up being incorrect, we ended up identifying a whole new target audience because we entered with no assumptions.
You’re involved in the Fluxible conference here in Kitchener-Waterloo, can you talk about what Fluxible is all about?
Of course! Fluxible is really a flagship event here in the KW region. When people think about KW, they tend to think startups, not realizing the very rich ecosystem that supports it. Fluxible is a great chance to show some off that local talent and raise awareness outside of the region. The Toronto-Waterloo corridor is ripe with opportunities for collaboration, and Fluxible is one way to tie those communities together.
What piece of advice would you pass onto aspiring designers in the region?
Design is experience. It’s not about a button, or a pixel, or a feeling — it’s about it all, wrapped up together. One of the best ways to better inform your designs then, is to experience. Challenge yourself to get out there and be. Take a walk, try a new activity, build something; the details of the ‘what’ aren’t important, it’s the experiencing that’s key.
As a member of the local design community in KW, is there something our community is lacking right now?
I’d love to see more talent call the region home! With our extremely strong post-secondary programs, there is no shortage of bright young talent. But we’re missing those with some experience under their belt, who have lived through “it” a few times and are now in a position to lead and mentor the next cohort. KW is an phenomenal place to live, with the infrastructure in place to support a great lifestyle. High tech jobs only a 10 minute walk away — how’s that for a morning commute?!
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Stay tuned for more interviews from the Fluxible team. You can follow Davis on Twitter, or on Medium (@davisn).
If you want to know more about Shopify, or fancy joining Davis and the UX team at Shopify Plus, you can check out open opportunities here:
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