ASK ME ANYTHING
QUESTIONS &
ANSWERS
We make sure that the rules of design are broken to create new ones every now and then.
This neccessarily means that we keep innovating and thinking about new concepts. At the
same time, we make sure that we keep inspiring ourselves with weekly sessions to learn
more on different verticals of design. Since the colors that we chose are trendy and modern, it
compliments us well too. Every team in directi does the same. Follow flock and Kapow team
on social media to get to know more about the other design teams.
How the design team(s) at Zeta collaborate with development/Engineering team(s) as a part of design thinking process?
We bring in developers into the design process much earlier to understand what’s feasible
and what’s not. Having a shared vision is essential to any product’s success. More
importantly, both designers and developers work with end users in mind. We also make sure
we are on the same page with respect to naming conventions, sizes, margins, paddings, etc.
What skill should a newbie product designer have?
Design is all about solving problems. A good way to start is by looking through different
mediums - digital products, services that don’t involve technology etc… Depending on what
you like and/or what suits the context, decide on the medium.
You can first start off by trying to understand what the “Design Thinking process” is, you’ll find
tons of resources online about this topic. Then apply the design thinking process and come
up with solutions to the day to day problems that you identify. To start off, you can take any
app / website you like and analyze it critically. Think about why certain things were designed
thew way they are. Check out for problems in the flow (if any) and devise solutions for them.
This will be a good exercise to improve your UX skills
How does Zeta manage to pull off such amazing visual designs? I'm
interested to know about your visual design process, and how did this
culture start? Is it the same in Flock and other Directi products?
talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
2
Given the breadth of work, we mostly don't do hands-on-coding. But, having a basic idea of
coding (HTML, CSS is a must) does help in better collaboration with developers. It's always
helpful to know the technical constraints while designing specific solutions.
Having to work in a big design team must be challenging. How do you decide who works on what?
Zeta is a huge product with solutions for HR, end users and merchants. And within those user
groups we have a set of products and features which each of us own. And we do jump ships
from one product to another when we need a creative break from the ones we own.
What is the standard design process being followed at Zeta?
At Zeta, we're all a part of UX team. And when we say UX, we mean it literally. So apart from
designing workflows and making sure that each and every pixel is executed to perfection, we
also take user research and user feedback very seriously. We regularly talk to our users and
visit our clients to see our product in live action. We also go through the support tickets to see
what are the pain points for our users are.Oh, and internally we have this culture of peer
learning wednesdays where each of us takes a session on something they've learnt or
something they're good at.
Do designer(s) at Zeta code?
3talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
What process do you follow when it comes to product illustrations and how do you tell the story in product illustrations?
We take real life objects as examples when we start with designing illustrations. Then we
make sure that we set a style for the same(this goes through multiple iterations). Once the
style is set, ideas are generated in groups to build the story for the same. Keeping the style
and content consistent are the most important factor.
Can you please elaborate on which user research techniques are employed to understand the user's need?
We apply both quantitative and qualitative user research techniques.
Qualitative research is when we go to the user and take feedback from them in detail, or go to
a corporate where we see users in live action using our product in the right context.
Quantitative being the score we get from various channels like app store ratings and support
ticket ratings.We use both these techniques to guage what user's feel about us, and take the
feedback to go back to the drawing board and rethink those features.
On how many projects does a Zeta designer work parallelly?
Every designer at Zeta work on multiple products at any given point of time. Even if we have
completed our daily tasks we make sure that we keep focussed on learning new things
parallely. This helps us to do our work faster and smarter.
4
How do you choose colors in your website or product design? Which website do you follow to choose color?
We usually get inspired from nature and things around us. The sunrise, sunsets, flora, etc
have such vibrant colors in them, so this becomes a primary source of inspiration for us.
Check this post on instagram for the inspiration that we took for zeta colors - https://
www.instagram.com/p/BKIKAlwjCJI/?taken-by=ramakrishnaux
talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
How do you balance between design which is targeted towards lead generation and still keeps the design good. Because in a design job, it often comes as a requirement to put as much as content as possible in the page by the stakeholders who won't care about UX that much?
Putting a lot of content on the page is easy. Arranging and composing it in the best possible
way and telling your story, well, that is hard. That’s why we as designers have immense
responsibilities on our shoulders. SEO doesn’t necessarily need to translate into bad design.
In fact, SEO is all about gauging a user’s intent and from our experience it is easier to design
for user’s who come(to a website/app) with an intent. Similarly, a lot of content is good too.
Creating content is much harder :)
5
What’s one thing you love and one thing you hate about being a designer at Zeta?
Since Zeta has a pretty stringent process for hiring people, irrespective of their positions,
working with some of the smartest and brightest people across the country becomes one of
the biggest advantage. When it comes to state a disadvantage, one of the most obvious and
probably the most generic is that it might slowly make you live a sedentary lifestyle. Sadly,
when thinking about office work, one tends to think of routine as one of the first associations.
What should we look for when doing user research ?
First, look for the 'right' users ;) By right users, we mean the the target audience you are
catering to. Secondly, make sure you keep your biases away while interviewing users. Be a
good listener & make sure the conversation is friendly(for user interview). Your support team
has a treasure trove of information if you are looking for user painpoints. And, look at the data
to understand user behaviour pattern but always make sure to talk to them to understand the
'why' behind such pattern.
talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
I know it doesn't matter but still I was curious What design tool/tools do you use at Zeta? Are you guys Mac only or shifting to XD/Figma?
Our favorite tool is the ultimate superfast duo called pen and paper :)
For the final execution of design we use Sketch, and yes we all use a Mac. For animations,
its Adobe AE. As of now, we dont plan to move to XD/Figma.
Do a newbie product designer must have their old best graphic or web designing work in their portfolio?
A portfolio should be a reflection of all your thought process and showcasing what you are
good at. Be sure to design a portfolio displaying works related to the role for which will be a
right fit. Also, quality is important rather than the quantity of work you are showcasing.
I see a lot of nice animations in your dribble page, which are great to look at. While designing a product or feature, how do you decide how much animation is too much animation? How do you decide
Micro interactions is what we focus on for the product. This adds the delighter feel to the user
who uses zeta on a day to day basis. Sometimes the product flows become too lengthy for a
user to understand and it could be a business requirement. In situations like these, we make
sure to add subtle animations to keep the user on a happy mode throughout the entire flow.
We all know design is all about OK, GOOD & WOW. How do you decide between GOOD & WOW?
Good design is extremely functional, clean and needs extremely less cognitive effort to
understand whats happening, good design is something that even your grandpa will
understand, think good design as a highly functional german engineered Volkwagen car.
Wow design is a BMW 7 series, apart from being extremely functional, they're beautiful,
classily executed, and give an emotion of delight to the user.
How design team serve to globally by time? I mean 24hr team
available?
We have few nightowls in the team to ensure that we are always available for the team. But
this doesn’t mean that we need to be available globally since we now cater to only India.
How many projects should be there in a new product
designer?
Ideally, having 6-8 projects in your portfolio help. Your portfolio should cater more towards
the role you are looking for. That shows your depth in that particular domain. At the same
time, you need to show the breadth of your work which you could do by showing work from
related fields. Being a 'T-shaped designer' is what you should be aiming for. And, don't be
shy to show failed projects but make sure you mention the learnings from those :)
6talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
Who has the final say on design like who decide what gets shipped?
Design being a collaborative process, needs more hands to work on solutions. This being
said, we get the consent from the entire design team and from the engineering team to
understand what is feasible and what is not.
Where is the design team at Zeta strongest? Weakest?
We are a all hybrid design team where every member in the team is skilled at atleast 3-4
verticals of design. So that’s obviously our strongest point since one single person can
handle it when the whole team isn’t available. We never say no to design requests from any
team(HR, marketing, sales, talent, etc) in our company and even for wedding invite
requests :P. So this definitely is our weakest point - "We never say NO”.
What are the key visual elements to be considered while doing illustrations?
For illustrations we consider elements like colour, shape and balance. What's more
important is the message you're trying to convey through the illustration. We have
developed presets of various illustrations according to our brand styleguide which we iterate
and use it to convey the message according to the context.
What part of the design process does the team spend the most time on?
In any project the most crucial part is having the expectations clear with all the stakeholders
within the company, there's no point in designing a feature which is impossible to execute
by the engineers in the stipulated timeline. So for any feature, we spend most of the time
doing quick mockups on paper or greyscale mockups and constantly sync with the
developer and product managers to be on the same page and make sure we are solving the
right problem. Once we have the direction frozen, we have enough firepower to execute it to
perfection in record time! :D
7talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
How do you see design team growing by both quality & quantity?
By practising design more, you get faster at your work. And by taking up new challenges you
become smarter at your work. So both quantity and quality are achieved by solving more
problems in your leisure time.
Do you think shaping the design team in a studio/agency way of
working helps in improving the quality of work?
It depends on the type of work you do in the studio/agency. The good part of Agency Model
is the multiple verticals you get to work on. Your breadth of skills improve pretty well if you
work on multiple projects from different genres. On the flip-side, you don't get to work on the
complete product cycle. Design,being an iterative process, is never completely finished.
That's something you will learn a lot better in a Product-based company compared to
Agency. Both the skills being necessary, it's completely upto you to choose based on your
preference.
Is the UX design process differs in a Product company than any IT company?
In an IT company(Services/Agency) you will get to work on a great breadth of projects.
However, in terms of design, you are just scratching the tip of the iceberg. Working in a
Product company requires you to challenge and validate your assumptions over and over
again and get deep into the problem you’re solving. Also, you get to work on the complete
product lifecycle. So, take your pick ;)
What traits make someone successful in Zeta Design team?
“To create great designs” is not enough. A good designer will be able to articulate how their
designs communicate your brand’s vision and solve practical problems. And that's what we
appreciate the most!
8talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
Having to work in a big design team must be challenging. How do you decide who works on what?
We are a 10 member design team where everyone's opinion matters equally. The product
offerings we have is huge and we make sure that we assign ourselves to the ones that we
know that we can add enough value. At the same time for unassigned tasks we huddle up
and decide the member who is willing to pick it up. And since we all are hybrid, we don’t
depend on others for designs but only for feedback and iterations.
Do you guys follow the principles of animation to give it a natural feeling? How do you ideate for any animation/microinteraction? Any particular source for inspirations? Or is it hit and trial?
Yeah, there are many sources for the 'standards' that you can find online. One of our in-house
designers have done a detailed research for a talk on UX Choreography. You can go through
that for a quick summary :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpz5jpRnEho&t=817s
The key is to mimic the real life motion of physical things around. Regarding ideation, we keep
our eyes, ears and (most importantly) mind open all the time :) Later, we try and relate our
microinteractions and animations with them.
For amateur designers, what other websites would you recommend for creating designs besides Canva?
To start off with design, it is always good to use pencil and paper for ideation. If you want to
get a digital shareable version of the same, use mockflow.com or wireframe.cc to get started
with a simple design workflow and low fidelity mockups. As you grow, you can get started
with tools like Adobe XD and Figma. Canva is a mix of all these tools with many free design
templates. We would suggest you to do it from scratch by taking inspirations instead of
designing in Canva.
9talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
What is the vision and/or mission of Zeta for the next 2 years? For the next 5 years?
We target to solve the problem of corporate benefits with the best customer experience
possible. We also aim to integrate with the multiple banks to scale ourselves. The other
visions can't be shared here due to confidentiality :)
Do use any AI technique to get some unique design like we have generative adversial networks to generate very unique and unimaginable animations by are you using some kind of that. how does directi uses state of the art AI technique for there improvements in graphics design or any other products.
You must have heard of "The Grid" a few years ago, a website development and design
system (Squarespace) powered by AI where the site components and other interaction
patterns design themselves, without the need of a designer. But according to the sources,
this was a disaster. When you think about design, things are more complex than what AI
can do. Humans have a unique capability to create empathy for users. So we won't be
exploring AI, at least not in the near future.
10talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
What kind of advice would like to give to a newbie product designer?
A good way to nurture the interest in design is by trying to solve problems in day to day life.
You could be solving problems through different mediums - digital products, services that
don’t involve technology etc… Depending on what you like and/or what suits the context,
decide on the medium. You can first start off by trying to understand what the “Design
Thinking process” is, you’ll find tons of resources online about this topic. Then apply the
design thinking process and come up with solutions to the day to day problems that you
identify.
11talentsocial.flock.comTO PA R T I C I PAT E , V I S I T
How can a graphic designer convert his/her career to product designer?
There are many stages of product design. Right from chalking out an idea in your mind, to
making beautiful visuals - everything pretty much falls under the hood of Product Design. As
a designer, you may choose to draw your line wherever you wish to. Graphic design is a
subset of product design. In addition to conceptualising and designing screens, Product
Designers also brainstorm on how to make the user 'feel' good while he/she is using the
product. There are many ways of making a user feel good. A simple illustration, nice
colours, witty copy, funny animation, automated steps and fast loading are just a few of
them. The challenging part is the ability to decide on the best thing to do in a particular
situation.. I'd suggest you start making some personal projects which have end to end
design flows, and face the challenges where you need to figure out the trade-offs. Also I'd
suggest that you start reading books like: Design of everyday things (this is a designer's
bible), Elements of form, Psychology of Persuasion, Designing with the Mind in Mind, Dont
make me think, and Badass: Making users awesome.
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