The full transcript of my conversation with Nicolás Molina
This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.
Introduction
Are service designers, like good wine? Based on my conversation with Nicolás Molina, I will definitely say yes.
For both age makes them better, more refined.
As part of the book tour for my next book on Service Design, I got the chance to speak with him about our shared passion.
In this 40 minute conversation, we explore topics like:
How does our understanding of empathy and design evolve with age and experience?
How can you apply Service Design to your personal life?
How to practically be more empathic with the people you work with?
How do we remove the fine print in contracts and terms and conditions?
Why should service designers learn more about quantitative data?
How mature is Service Design in Columbia?
Nicolás is a project manager who uses a Service Design mindset to bring to life early stage services and startups.
Nicolás works from Columbia, but impacts the design community worldwide by mentoring the next generation of designers and innovators. Thanks so much to Nicolás for this lovely conversation.
Daniele: Hello, Nicolas. It's such a pleasure to meet you today.
Nicolás: Hello. How are you? The pleasure is all mine. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me to this awesome book tour.
Daniele: It's such a pleasure to have you also because you're representing a country where I have never been to, which is Colombia.
Nicolás: That's true. That's true. You should come here. It's an awesome country. Whenever you want, just come by and I'll take you around. Awesome.
Daniele: I will come back to this because I have a lot of questions about Colombia. But before we go into the stuff about Columbia, I'd like to ask,
## Meet Nicolás
Daniele: when you go to a birthday party, how do you usually present
Nicolás: yourself?
Oh, this is a very interesting and tough question. Because let me tell you a bit about my background. I'm a designer. But what I do, like my actual job is product management. So I'm going into all this product stuff with tech and startups and all that. But I'm actually a designer with a background in design.
So every time I go to a birthday party or meeting new people or whatever, and they tell me like, where do I work? What do I do? Most of the time I talk about Product, startups and like digital product, that's like my speech because I found that whenever I tell them that I'm a designer and I design stuff, I go into very tough conversation about, but what is design, what do you design and before I jumped into this product stuff.
I had this specific questions about do you design chairs or do you design graphic stuff? And I had to explain so much about... That design, for me at least, or on my perspective with all this innovation, service design and all this, is not about that specific stuff, but more about strategy service, product now that I do.
So I used to avoid this conversation about design and I go deeply into product, digital, innovation, strategy. Which I think is a bit easier for people to understand what do I do.
Daniele: Okay. So it's like your three year old answer is more on the product stuff. And then once people are a bit more mature in the design world, then you say, okay, services, experiences this kind of stuff also exists.
It's quite interesting to see this difference of answers. Exactly. Exactly. That's it. And can you tell me maybe, because it's super interesting to hear, that for me, there is always a thing where many of us, we call ourselves service design practitioners or professionals or designers or whatever we want to call ourselves.
But we always work. in, in other titles than what we have, what we really do in some way. And may I ask,
## Product Design vs Service Design
Daniele: what's the difference for you when there is this big debate, product design versus service design. How do you feel about this conversation?
Nicolás: It's weird and it's tough because I have a mentor that she has a very interesting speech that she says.
That the beauty about design without a last name, without a different product design or design strategies or design, whatever, is that design is like a mindset and design is like a way of thinking. And probably more than a mindset is a way of solving problems. So if you are a designer, you have a way of solving stuff or solving problems.
And you can do it through services, through products, through experiences, through graphics, through physical objects. So I used to have some sort of a problem defining which sort of vertical I wanted to go into, but then I understood that I didn't have to make a specific choice. Because when you are a service designer, or a strategic designer, or a designer you have a way of thinking again and solving problems that allows you to tackle problems in different things.
So I don't fight anymore with. What kind of designer I am, it's not a big issue for me anymore. It used to be a big issue before, because for example, even I am a designer, but I have no clue about, graphics and like graphic stuff. I really suck about that.
So it's not my strength. So I used to say, I'm a designer, but I have no clue how to draw, for example, which is weird but now I don't have a problem with just saying I am a designer and I design stuff and it's really funny because in, in product or what I do now is that I don't design product.
I I do product management, which is really different than designing stuff. It's more like in a strategic role. So it's more about. Strategic design or service design probably within product perspective or environment different than actual product design, so I think we have different ways to call things, uh, but I just don't fight anymore with.
What type of designer you are, because I understand that design is a mindset, a way of solving things and problems and if you have that specific mindset, you just can solve problems anywhere you want. And an
Daniele: image that came to me while you were saying that is, like the fight between, that Italians sometimes have where, is it a focaccia or is it a pizza?
And it's at the end of the day, it's something which is like bread, which has some tomato sauce on it and some other stuff in it, and it's just delicious. And we just don't care if it's Focaccia, if it's a pizza or the other one. And then I think that here again, I see something which is very interesting, which is this.
It's this notion that once you, when you start in a field, you get very excited about using the right term for the right thing. And as you evolve, you just see, yeah, it's a bit more nuanced than that. Drawing the line between what is a product, what is a service is a bit difficult.
And and maybe it's more interesting to just say, we have a set, a mindset that we use and we can apply it to different things. And in some roles now, it's more focused on things that are maybe digital. Sometimes it's focused more on things that are physical. Sometimes it's focused on things that are more like products.
Sometimes it's focused on things that are completely intangible. , but the mindset are the same. And then how it's used is a bit, a little bit different because the end product is maybe a bit different. It's very refreshing to, to hear that to hear that difference. Like of, when we start in our career, we are very tricky about that.
And then slowly we just relax a little bit with that.
Nicolás: Yep. And then also you understand that companies. Need different stuff. So if you go into different industries and different companies, they even call the same role with different names. So there's no point about fighting if you are one or the other.
For me, it's more about how can you add value with this specific mindset and how can you even teach other people this way of thinking. So that everyone as a team or the whole team actually can begin solving problems in a similar way. It doesn't matter if, again, you are some sort of a specific role, designer, whatever.
It's about how to solve problems together in a different, in different industries and in different companies.
Daniele: That's very strong. It's a, it's... Also recognizing that companies also use terms because they have a history which is very personal. And then one company, they might call what you do, they say, that's exactly service design.
And then another one, they might say, this is exactly product design. But at the end of the day, the question is more like, What's the type of work that I can help you do? If you want to call it focaccia design, let's call it focaccia design.
Nicolás: Exactly. That's it. That's it. Okay.
Daniele: Okay. And so this is going to be a bit of a philosophical question, but I see that
## Nicolás design evolution
Daniele: You're someone who has evolved in your understanding of design and and and your own approach to your work.
Are there other things that, where you now look back at your younger self and say, Hey dude, yeah, there you were a bit strict and now I'm a bit more relaxed where has aged on Don, what wonders in your professional design work?
Nicolás: I would say that whenever you go into university or to study these sort of things Sometimes you have a very specific view about where do you want to go, what do you want to do.
Sometimes, this is not the case for everybody. This was not like a big case for me, but somehow I understood that or I decided that I want to do like specific stuff. And then when you go out to the real world or to the workforce world you probably understand that it's not about what do you want to do specifically or what do you want to work, but how do you organize your ideas and how you become like or organize your strengths.
to be able to add value in different ways. This was a huge revelation for me because when I studied design and all this, I was way into design practices. Service Design, etc. And then I got introduced to the technical industry, like to the tech industry, right? And this is how I became product manager and I'm managing product design and different apps.
I've been working different startups for the last couple of years. So to answer your question, if I would have stayed in this I just want to be, like, a specific sort of role or a specific sort of designer. I wouldn't have allowed myself to get into this tech stuff which now I think there's a huge relationship between Service Design, Tech, Product Management, Product, Service, for me is, I like to call myself, I'm a service designer where I'm a product manager with a service designer mindset or way of thinking or something.
But once again, if I would have stayed with this mindset or this decision about, I just want to do something or become one specific thing. prObably I wouldn't allow myself to, to explore new things. And maybe I would have I wouldn't be where I'm at now, um, if I wouldn't have thought in that way.
Daniele: Strong advice for you, for the younger generation to say, you start with something, but where are you going to end is very different, might have different names and just be open to it. As long as... As you feel the mindset is right, that's like the most important thing. And then with years, you will add new elements to it.
And then suddenly, years later, you will come back to the mindset where you say, at the heart, I'm still doing the same thing that I was taught to do, just in a different context. And maybe with new skills that have never been taught to me back then, because it wasn't in that context.
Nicolás: Yep. And probably what I do now didn't exist, uh, 10 years ago or 20 years ago or something, so I always to say this and it's probably you have to treat your career with this same product or design or service mindset where you just have a couple of ideas or identify some problems Get some ideas, prioritize them and prototype and test things and try things.
If it doesn't work, just do something else. So what I'm trying to say here is that I found,
## Applying Service Design to personal life
Nicolás: I find myself now, um, applying this service design mindset, not only to my actual job, but also to my career. To my way of thinking, to my way of doing things. And I understood this really recently, like a couple of, maybe one or two years ago.
And every time that I think about my career, what I do, what I like to do, etc. And I think, how can I apply this mindset to my career specifically? There's so many things that happen, so many new opportunities, so many new... Ways of tackling my work, so many new ways of professional or personal growth.
So I find that service design, strategic design, innovation, and all of this design similar concepts. hAve a, like a bigger opportunity to apply this, not only for specific stuff, like for jobs and stuff, but more broader stuff, career, life, et cetera.
Daniele: It's so funny. You know how.
Similar ideas come back in different conversations with different people. In one of the last conversations I had with Tulki, and he is from Saudi Arabia, just to show you like the difference from a guy from Switzerland, a guy from Colombia, and a guy from Saudi Arabia. And we all three have kind of the same.
element that we say, limiting service design, or whatever you want to call it. Let's, I'm going to just use service design as this broad term. But using just Service Design for project, work project, is so limited, because you can also use it for work relationships. And it's ah, okay, this is another thing.
Then you can start to say, oh, okay, if I could use it for relationships at work. Why not use it for relationships in general? And then suddenly you say, Oh, I use it for projects for work, but how could I design the way I work with my taxes? What if it was a service design project? If I would say, how can I make my taxes more fun?
Oh, this is a design challenge, which is very interesting. It's ah, okay, there is a, I have a completely other way to see it. And I think this is so much, this The realization, obviously, that comes with age often is, ah, we're focusing a lot of energy in the project stuff. And then sometimes we forget that the same concepts apply to other stuff.
And this is something that I often see, when I hear from Service Design. Oh. Management doesn't get our ideas. Then I ask, okay, cool. What's the language? What do they care about? It's oh, we don't know. It's okay, so could you do the persona of a management guy?
Ah, okay. Never thought of that. That's basically what you're doing for them. Now do it for yourself. And, ah, okay. They care more about numbers. So maybe I should speak less about the process, but more about the numbers. Okay. Oh, they care more about impact than what the, what are the tools that we use?
Ah, okay. It's interesting. Yeah. It's a big realization.
Nicolás: That's true. Very true. And,
So I said at the start when you told me that you're, that you are a good representative of Columbia. And so I'm very excited about that too. And, uh,
## Service Design in Columbia
Daniele: how do you see the kind of service design and innovation scene in Columbia?
Maybe how has it evolved in the last years?
Nicolás: When I graduated from the university, like studying design and all this I always thought that. What I studied didn't have much of application or you couldn't apply much of what I did in the actual market. And I think one of the things that I did is that it made me force myself to...
to look for different opportunities, to look for how to apply this in a real world, because for me the theory and the real world is a bit, sometimes it's a bit different or a bit far away. But nowadays I find that this innovation stuff or design stuff or service design stuff is more a reality for people and for companies.
I believe that because of startups there's a lot of, it has been the startup culture in Colombia has been growing a lot for the past couple of years. So we have about, I don't know, a couple of really important startups nowadays. And this has made the market to explore more about design like specific roles related to startups, which are UX, UI design, that sort of stuff, product design.
But in terms of innovation, I think that companies are now learning how to do it, understanding the importance. And I would say investing a bit in terms of how to be more innovative, if this is a correct word to say, how to bring designers into the specific teams, how to get designers into C level positions how can we have companies that think about the user, that think about user needs.
Not only about numbers, profit, and all that, which is really important for companies. But I'm trying to understand that companies in Colombia nowadays they're starting to understand this in a bigger way which didn't happen before, before if you were a designer or, even the word, the name of a service designer, I think didn't exist.
10 years ago, or even 5 years ago, this is barely starting to, to people understand how does it work, what do they do. And this is really hard because as we were, we're talking about this before, if you are a service designer or a strategic designer, you are like a generalist. So you know, a lot of things.
But you don't draw stuff, you don't design specific stuff. So for companies or for management, I think that sometimes they understand the value, but sometimes it's difficult for them to understand how can I measure this person, what do they do exactly. They understand that they add a lot of value, but I think this sort of KPIs, metrics, OKRs, that sort of stuff, somehow, I think is a bit difficult still but the good news is that companies and people around They are understanding the importance of this.
So
Daniele: it feels like it's a bit of the startup scene who is pushing and that people from that then see, ah, okay, design really works. Ah, okay, cool. If the startups do it well, and it helps them to grow, maybe we can steal a few things and then it trickles down to other companies.
Nicolás: That's how I see it because if you go into a really traditional company And you look into, which are the designers that they hire, they probably go into graphic designers, because they need marketing campaigns, they need flyers, they need traditional stuff.
You, you don't see strategic designers, uh, working for those companies, like innovation hops in those companies. This didn't happen before. Now I see that this is. Not very common, not that every company has one, but it's like a trend that is beginning to grow. And
Daniele: it's very inspiring, to see how every country has a bit of a different path, in some countries it's government that is pushing and then It's like other sectors then follow and say, Oh, if the government does it so well maybe we have to, we can learn something from it.
In other places, it's the startup world, which is pushing, and then it gives a bit of a different flavor, to, to the service design that is practiced. Especially with, I imagine there might be a bit of a technical aspect, a bit of a digital aspect to how service design is also perceived in Colombia, which might be a bit different than how it's maybe seen in the UK.
Nicolás: Yep, yep true, definitely.
Daniele: Awesome. And I'm super excited because, I'm slowly getting to know you better, which is always something very interesting. And to go deeper in that, I'd love to, to use the opportunity of the book Service Design Principles. 300, one to 400, after the second one, I always have to think about the numbers.
And I'd like to use that opportunity to poke around to, to understand your relationship, with service design, how you see it and how you see its value. So my first question to you would be,
## Good Stuff: Shadowing for empathy
Daniele: what's one thing that you resonated with in the chapter that you read, which was, how can we help people learn and
Nicolás: remember?
Awesome. I would say that one of those sub chapters or specific chapters, which was let me read it, forced me to shadow someone else from time to time. I found it really interesting because in the book or yourself, you talk about What if you follow somebody so you can understand what they do, and maybe broaden your information, your knowledge about how to do different things, how to apply your knowledge to other fields.
But I see it in a very interesting way, or at least, like, I understood it in a very interesting way, and it's... If you work in a company, if you work in a team, if you work like with other people, which is a must for service designers, because service designers, we don't work by ourselves.
We need a team to work, we need a team to do stuff, to do projects, to do research, to come up with ideas. So service designers by a fact, we are team members, and sometimes I think that is very important for people not only to understand or to get some knowledge about what other people do, but to have this important word for us, which is empathy, and empathy is about not only how do you perceive other people work and et cetera, but how you actually getting this people flesh to understand how the this person feels.
What what's hard for them, what's easy for them. And I think that, and these specific chapter made me remind this because when you shadow somebody, you don't only learn about what this, like how can you apply stuff, how can you learn stuff, but also the effort that this person is putting in their job, so I, I remember a couple of my, my. diFferent jobs conversations that I've had, and it's some of the teams like saying, I don't understand why this other team is so slow or why don't they don't send me stuff or what, why it takes them many weeks or many months to do something. And thinking about, again this specific topic, if this other team would have gone into the other, team A into team B.
and understand that the task that they're doing is really hard. or that they don't understand it correctly, or that everything that could happen, this, this empathy stuff, or this empathy concept, would be a very, or at least an easier way to do it, to understand the other people. If you shadow somebody, you really understand what they do, why is it hard, why is it easy.
If you probably didn't give the enough information or the correct information for them to do stuff. So I really liked this specific chapter because the first word that came to my mind is empathy and for service designers or designers I think this word is. It's a word that we talked about, I don't know many years ago but it's still a really relevant word for us.
So that's that's something I really liked.
Daniele: I love how you come back to the word empathy because, often one of the way I pitch these books is say, we often hear the advice be empathic. And then it's like, how the fuck do I do that? It's and and and I think that's where, sometimes there is this gap of what's the very practical down to earth thing that I can do.
And I think, as you say the shadowing part is not only to learn the technical stuff of, ah, okay the IT guys, they do it like that. Ah, oh, I didn't know about that. But also the emotional part, seeing them receive a request. And then be, ah, damn again, and say, ah, they forgot this again, or this doesn't make any sense.
What are you speaking on? And then see, ah, okay. Why is the emotion so strong, and what can we do about that? And and one thing that I find especially interesting is, often we have this word empathy, which is very, a snowflake word. It's like a, Oh, everything is beautiful.
And we all love each other. And here, what we're saying is we sometimes have to force ourselves to be in a situation where we can be empathic because it's not easy. It's I have no good reason to spend a day working or just watching what team B does if I'm in team A because I have so much stuff to do.
And so how can the organization, put us in a situation a bit by force, that then empathy happens. And I think this is a very interesting trigger. How can we go beyond the. It's lovely to do empathy, but how can we force us or push ourselves to be in these moments? And I'm curious, do you have other tricks that you came up with in your own life where you were like, okay, oh, this forced me to be empathic.
But if I wasn't forced to be in this situation, that would never happen. Do you have, do you see other ways to push a bit the empathic aspect?
Nicolás: Yeah maybe I think you said it better than myself empathy, this specific word, we always talk about it in a pleasant way the typical word is empathy.
Putting in the shoes of the other people, that's a typical phrase but I found that empathy is more about not understanding what's good for the other person, but what is hard for him. So what is really tough about what he's doing, does he have a, like a personal problem is he passing through a, difficult phase in his life?
I don't know. So sometimes what I try to do or what I've learned with experience probably is.
## Reading body language to build empathy
Nicolás: To read people in a better way or in a more empathic way. So whenever like I'm in a meeting or I'm in, in following, making a follow up of projects and stuff. I try to read people's faces or people.
Like physical gestures. And I try to understand if what I'm saying to this person, they really don't understand me, or I need to be more clear, or they just really angry because I said something that they hated, so I try to so the first thing I try to do is read people's physical gestures.
And then I try to go into an empathic way in terms of what's going on with him right now. Because we're not machines. We are not like little robots that we're happy every single day. And we are super like good at our jobs. We're not like that. We're human beings. So I tried to go into that, reAd the present right away and then try to understand if everything is okay and that and then move forward with it.
Daniele: Which is a very good advice, I think, it's not just delivering an information, but seeing the reaction and often do the body language reaction, it's a, one thing that I often say in workshops is when watching people, I say, Oh, your word said yes, but your body said no, I don't want this.
Could you please tell me why your body said that? And then people say, yeah, okay, I agree. I'm a bit stressed about this or I have to say yes because I know it's important, but it's going to suck for me. It's okay, how could we make it suck a little bit less? And then you see already the body, okay.
Yeah. And then you say, okay, that gives a good sign also or the opposite, when you're speaking about something, which is a big commitment and people very relaxed, maybe you didn't understand that this means that it's going to be a shitload of work. So let's clarify that.
Exactly. Exactly. And so when it comes to empathy, is there something that. In your view, again, has it been changed? So today we're a bit in a young young Nicola versus older Nicola. And I think it's quite interesting, to have these comparisons.
## Nicolás empathy evolution
Daniele: Is there something that has changed in your approach to empathy in the last years?
Nicolás: Yes, I think I understood that what I probably really like about being a designer Service Designer, all this is to be able to work with people, um, and to be able to help people. I have a really a truth feeling about, helping people solving problems and people People, persons, is a really important word for me.
I didn't, I probably knew this before, but it wasn't like a really huge statement. Maybe when I was studying or in the uni or whatever. But, in the last couple of years, I have understood that people is this specific term that for me is huge. If I have to prioritize I don't know, people versus whatever else people definitely would be something that I really prioritize.
And like tying that together with empathy, I think that this relevant, that people is relevant for me, gives me I would say a tool or a strength. To be more empathic, because I understand that working with people or working for people is what makes my work successful.
So I try to think in people every single time. It's not that I don't think about the business because I understand about business, I understand that we need businesses to be profitable and all this sort of stuff. But if we don't think about people, for me at least, it's really hard to think about a profitable business that doesn't think about people, that people is not in the center of their strategy and probably this is what has helped me.
In the last couple of years to be more empathic thinking about people's problems and I'm just going to throw a very funny or I don't know how to say it phrase, which is fall in love with the problem and not with the solution. This is something we talk about a lot in, in, in design, in product.
And when we talk about problems, we talk about people's problems, so if you think about. Which are the problems or the opportunities or the needs of a certain group of people is easier for you to think about solutions, not the other way around. If you think only about solutions, you're maybe losing or forgetting about which problem are you working for, or which problem are you trying to solve which is...
Sometimes, or I found that it's easier for people for, managers, for anyone to think about, first about solutions, then to go back and think about what are we trying to solve. Because we as humans... We are programmed to solve things, to solve problems. So it's a natural thing for things for us.
But to think about again, which problem are we trying to solve? Which person has this problem and all this like background? Stuff is a bit harder. Once again, people, empathy, problems, opportunities, then solutions this is what I think has helped me to be more empathic.
Daniele: tHis fall in love with the problem instead of the solution, and then we can go even a step further. That's basically what you're suggesting here to say, fall in love with the people, not the problem, and then once you're really in love with the people, if you're really in love with someone, we all have that, where, your partner says, ah, this sucks at work, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
If you love her. So you're going to say, honey, how can I help? But it doesn't come from, I love the problem because I really don't love her problems personally. I have no love for that type of problem, but as I love her, I want her to be happy. And which is like a very interesting step, having this don't fall in love.
with the solution, but the problem, and then don't fall in love with the problem, but the people, which is quite a step by step approach to, oh, okay, now we're zooming out. Yeah,
Nicolás: Sounds amazing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that for myself. That's awesome. Thank you for that.
Daniele: I'm going to steal it from you.
We both stole ourselves, which is cool. So let me ask now, if we zoom out and we come out of of the question of the element that resonates with you.
## The bad stuff: fine prints
Daniele: What is something where in the chapter that you read, were you saying, Oh, that sucks. And how did it make you think about something where you said, I think it should have been written in that way.
That would have been
Nicolás: interesting. Okay. I have to say that it's really hard to think about this one because Every single principle resonates a lot with me but if I have to choose one, um, I would say that is the one that said, teach me something with the bills. And basically what the book said is, uh, the bills is something that, that most people read the whole thing like the bank bills and all that.
Because you don't want to pay something that you didn't, you don't owe to the bank, et cetera. So these are the type of documents that people really read it through. And the idea of the, of this chapter is to even be able to use the fine print to give relevant information for the people, which I find it really interesting, but probably what I hated about that specific part, it's not what the book said, but I really hate the fine print.
And I hate the fine print because I think it's one of those things that is against people, I've worked in different fintech and intratech startups and projects where one of the main objectives of the whole company was to remove the fine print because there are some industries, I don't want to talk about like bad things about different industries, but there are some industries that treat the fine print, um, as an excuse to sell stuff or to, so you signed something that you didn't know, you didn't read because it wasn't the fine print.
I have a really, I would say, Personal fight with fine prints and that's why as soon as I read that, I was like, no, you shouldn't write, you shouldn't use fine print for anything. But I understand what the book said. It means, I'm trying to say I understand how to use fine print for positive stuff, for good stuff, for people instead that for like negative stuff as it is used right now.
So that would be my, my, my black spot in that specific chapter.
Daniele: Thanks so much for sharing and I think it's... I'm very curious, how, let me say it like that. Often I hear people saying, Oh, you can't remove the fine print. That's not possible, and conditions, they have to be these 30 page long documents with the part, which is all in capital letters, because other ways it doesn't work.
And often people just react to it. No, that's not possible. And so you have a bit of a story, maybe that.
## How to remove the fine print?
Daniele: Could you share a bit more about how does a company remove the fine
Nicolás: print? My, my quick question, I'm sorry, my quick answer is because we had a really cool design team and thanks to the design team that we had, we understood that fine printing was a strategy against users.
It was for companies and for, managers and stuff, but it was against users because users didn't read them or even if they read them, they didn't understand them because most of fine print. is written in a very technical language, again, not for users. Doing research and being able to communicate this research or the research results to management team we were able to even prototype and make tests.
In, in, in favor of users, so we could communicate everything that we had to communicate in a better way, that users understood things so that they feel more they, they had a very like a positive feeling about the product, what they were reading, what they were receiving, but you but we didn't have to write.
Like negative stuff in the fine print and going back to our previous questions and conversations, that's why design, service design, strategic design is so important because You try to understand a group of users, you try to understand not only your final user, but the company as well, like different stakeholders, and then you try to match their different needs with the product, and then you need to add value with whatever product or service you're designing, and this is the only way we could tell management team that fine printing was not only like a, not a proper way to do stuff.
But it was a negative way to do stuff because the customers were receiving like a negative message from the company, or from the service they were buying. sO we tried to turn that around in terms of how can we send the same message? How can we make that the user commits to us in an insurance, in an, in a FinTech project?
In a bank account, whatever, without tying him up with weird stuff that we write in fine print. So once again, my short answer is... Because we had a really amazing design team.
Daniele: Kudos to that team. I definitely I see that they've last they gave a lasting impression to you. And and then I find extremely interesting, these steps that you're describing, which which if I try to synthesize it, it's basically you're saying.
First, obviously we need a good understanding of our, the people we serve. Once we have that, maybe it comes out that fine prints are a problem. Then we can bring that up and say, Oh, there is a problem here. And we can translate that problem into a language That's what management cares about, which is not just, fine prints philosophically feels fucking people over.
No it's less about that. It's Oh, when we do that, it's, it has an impact on the brand, on how people perceive us on the trust level. Oh, okay. This is an interesting problem. How do we solve it? Hey, let's make an A B test. We, we can very simply show to different groups of people same group of people, but divided in two, say, hey, one group will receive the normal thing and the other group will receive the new thing.
And we will see, how are the trust levels? How do people feel about the brand? How's the brand image? And and then we can then prove, oh, this, It has value to change the fine print because it enhances trust. And so I'm very curious about one little detail. I don't know if if you can go into that with all the NDAs we signed, obviously, sometimes we're limited in what we can say, but
## Metrics to prove fine print sucks
Daniele: was there a specific metric that you used?
To see if the fine print was useful or not, or damage, or
Nicolás: damaging. I was just going to say that because you need to go like deeper in terms of, you, you cannot have only opinions about usage, engagement, and that. You need to go deeper into data. So what I'm, what I try to do every single day.
With the design team, product teams and everything is we need to make decisions based in data. So we need to have two types of data, like qualitative data and quantitative data. All the research, user personas, all that sort of stuff, problems, needs, and everything is about qualitative data. And then we need to be able to measure things.
So we need a quantitative data, right? So this is where metrics, KPIs, OKRs, and all these different types of metrics come together. In this specific project, I remember that we used a couple of engagement data. It was something like how many people opened this mail or this app or this landing page versus the other group of people that didn't have that specific communication.
What about trust? If you run a survey to both teams. What do they say about recommending this app or this service or this product to their family or these sort of stuff, and I think data is huge, is really important.
## The importance of understanding quantitative data for designers
Nicolás: And I found in my career in design, uh, that we as designers are not that familiar with data.
We see this more as a. Management decisions, management sort of way of working, way of thinking. So I think that another recommendation for designers in that that they're going to see this conversation is go deeper into data. Let data show you the way around.
Don't think, don't use data only like rough numbers only, but learn how to use data in a better way, in a proper way. Because with data is a really interesting way to, to convince people about something. Instead of you trying to preach an idea or to convince people about something. If you show them data, it's like easy for them to understand.
Daniele: It's the difference between convincing and proving where we need both, sometimes we need to be able to say, people tell us that this is really something that they hate. They use these kinds of words where they say, Oh, I feel fucked over. It's very strong language for us.
Oh, this is. Qualitatively, we can say that, and then you can prove, it's not just that they think that, it's, it has an impact on behavior. We see that people engage less, we see that the NPS scores are way, way lower that's interesting stuff. So the combination is definitely important, and that...
I hope your call to action to get into statistics and and a bit more quantitative stuff will be heard. And it's definitely one thing where myself I'm slowly getting in that road and and that's made, that gives a good transition for the next question.
## Recommended resources
Daniele: What are resources that you would recommend, for people like me who are starting a bit, their journey, maybe in.
Quantitative data but also in general, you read the book you read the chapter and you might say, oh, I see there are a few additional resources for people who want to go further. What would you recommend?
Nicolás: Okay we are designers in product designer and everything. I like to see our, career as generalists.
This means that you need to be able to be able to do a good job, you need to know. A little bit about something, like in a broader way, is not that you have to go deeper in specific stuff, you can if you want, and it's part of your job and your career but I think we have a generalist career instead of a specific one so in terms of data, analytics and all this, There's a lot of free courses, there's a lot of information online maybe try to go into information that gives you knowledge about how to read stuff, how to read some data.
And how to be able to communicate that, not because you're going to be the one who's going to, go into a data set or a database and play with it and do something, but because you have to be the one that if you are given like a dashboard, you need to be able to understand it. And make decisions with it.
So it's not that you're going to take the rough data and do something with it, but you need to, our job as designers is to make informed decisions. And this means whenever you get, you're facing against a data set or a dashboard or whatever try to understand the data, like in a broader space and use the data for decision making.
So that's one short piece of advice. And the other the other advice that I would like to give to whoever is watching this conversation is a book that has has helped me to apply all this. Design stuff, service design stuff, how to do this, because I found that there's a lot of information on what it is if, it's not that easy to explain what it is, but there's a lot of theoretical information out there, um, but I found a book that I have it right here, that is called, This is Service Design Doing, I'm going to show it to you guys, This is the book and I use it a lot because I find that this book not only teach you how to, what is it about, like what's design what's service design, but it gives you a lot of different and really easy tools that teach you how to apply it, how to use it in your daily basis, how to use it in your work, how to use it if you're mentoring somebody.
How to use it if you want to come up with a business, how to use it, how to apply knowledge. And for me, being able to apply knowledge is really important because we need people to do stuff. We need thinkers and we need people to understand stuff, but we also need people to apply stuff in companies.
Like in their specific market, in their specific country so this book for me is a must read and a must have for service designers, and whoever wants to jump into this business. Spectacular career.
Daniele: I think that's one of the strongest book recommendation I have ever heard. So I hope people will see the passion that you have for the getting Things Done approach.
That is also given in that book. Definitely. And yeah. For people who might say, oh, but where do I get free courses on how to read data and this kind of stuff, a good place to start is some courses that you can find on platforms, like Coursera, where you know that it's a university behind, so you know that they the knowledge is good enough.
Plus often these kind of platforms, offer also free courses. And introduction courses, which often As you say, for service designers, a good introduction is good enough, because we are generous, we don't need to be able to do all of the complex statistical analysis ourselves, but we need to be able, when we receive a report, to ask questions about But how is it that this and this correlates and understanding the difference between correlation and other things and causality and say, ah, okay, when people say correlation, it's not the same thing that causality, ah, okay, now I understand the thing and but you don't need to be the one being doing then SQL stuff and this kind of fancy things.
And I think this is also a good element that might count people a little bit like, I don't know anything about data, it's so huge, it's okay, just have a good introduction and it's good enough, because as you say, We're doing we're, we are in the practice stuff and therefore the books on the practice are very important.
## Last advice: build a service
Daniele: Before we come to a close is there anything else about the book or about service design in general that you'd to share where you say, Oh, we didn't have the time to speak about that, but that I'd love to share that.
Nicolás: Is there something like that? Yeah, I would say that service design is something that you learn by doing.
So if you want to go into into learn more about this, into. More practical stuff I would say that now we have a lot of easy tools to create a product, create a service try stuff, use AI, or whatever is out there once again, this didn't exist 10 years ago or even five years ago.
So just try to do stuff. Learn by doing ask for a lot of feedback look for mentors. I find that this is actually how we met, right? Because I was, I saw your content, I fell in love with it, and then I were, contacting you every now and then to ask questions and to do stuff. I find that LinkedIn has a lot of people.
willing to teach stuff they have like proper mentorship programs, like paid programs, which are amazing. And then there's other people that, you can reply a message or a 30 minute call for free, whatever. Just jump into this have experience, and yeah, service design is about, for me at least, is learning by doing.
Do stuff, learn about it, iterate, prototype, learn stuff every now and then if you have a new project, you're going to learn so much about it just jump into it and. And do it by yourself.
Daniele: Excellent advice. I would call it Lemon stand advice, which is basically saying, people say, but, ah, I don't have the possibility to work in service design.
Build a lemon stand outside of your house and sell lemons lemonade, and you'll learn something and people will complain that it's not enough bubbly, or that the price is way too high, or something else, or the police will come, and then you will say, oh, there is a backstage. to take into consideration.
There are processes. Oh, fuck. Or if you are afraid of doing it in the real world, you still can do it digitally. And today you can create tiny apps, create tiny digital services where you will do all the possible mistakes, which will show you, oh, it's a bit more difficult than we think. And you will then have the language when you will go back to a bit of what the theory is saying.
Ah, that's what they mean with backstage. Okay. Oh, that's what is a customer journey. Okay. So I think this is a great advice which I'd love to give to to push even more, which is really, hey, build. A service, even if you are a service designer in a company, build your own service because there are parts that you have never worked on, which you will only discover once you have put your hands in it.
And it doesn't have to be something complex. It doesn't have to be something that you do for your life. It can just be something for a few days, a few hours even. And
Nicolás: you live and learn things like how to sell, how to do marketing, how to communicate, because sometimes we as designers or, doctors, I think they have the same thing.
Lawyers have the same thing. They just learn and do, whatever they're educated to do. But in the real world, you need to be able to sell, to be able to communicate, to, so when you build something for yourself you're going to learn so many things.
Daniele: So there's a great call to action here, is build something and then send it to Nicola and say, I'd like some mentorship, could I maybe get a bit of feedback?
And I'm sure that obviously if your work is interesting enough, you might have some opportunity there. We'll be
Nicolás: happy to help anyone.
Daniele: That's really cool. These moments are always elements where we say we, we share a lot of knowledge, but I'd like also to have the opportunity for you to ask for something to the people watching can be, interacting with you on LinkedIn, can be anything else.
## Get in touch with Nicolás
Daniele: What is it, something that you'd like to ask to people? Because you gave a lot, and so what can people give back to you?
Nicolás: Yeah that's awesome. So I would only ask to follow me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active. I like to share knowledge. I like when people, contact me about feedback, about mentorship.
I do a lot of mentorship nowadays. And the people that I mentor now I like to call them product people, because it is product people, designers, product managers. Service designers, strategic designers, everybody that is about how to do services, how to do products. So follow me on LinkedIn give me a thumbs up every time you like a couple of comments and send me a couple of messages.
I'll be happy to help, happy to engage in, in interesting conversations. So yeah just give me a follow up and let's contact on LinkedIn.
Daniele: Awesome. I hope you will receive a lot of very good requests and and that your mentorship will become so big that that suddenly you will have to create a program that will be
Nicolás: smaller.
I hope so. I hope so.
## Closing words
Daniele: We come slowly to a close, but I'm extremely thankful to. That we had this time to, to meet a bit deeper than what we do usually, in written in written conversations. So thanks so much for agreeing for this moment and also for all the very good advice that you shared, for all the knowledge that you shared, I'm extremely proud to you.
No, thanks.
Nicolás: Thanks to you. I enjoyed this so much. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure and an honor. So thank you again.
Daniele: And have a lovely evening. Bye bye. Thank you.