Erica Heinz, Founder & Principal Product Designer, 4D Thinking Studio (edited)

Alex Smith: Design Leader Insights is brought to you by Fuego UX. Fuego UX is a leading UX research, strategy, and design consultancy. Hey, Erica, thank you so much for joining the show today. 

Erica Heinz: Hello, good to be here. 

Alex Smith: Yeah, for sure. And to get started, can you tell us a little bit about your journey in UX? 

Erica Heinz: Sure. So I've been a web designer or design consultant in New York for most of my career. So started off in the era where you could kind of do it all and then came to focus on UX as I realized I cared most about kind of what was going on on the screen, where, why. And again, development was definitely its own specialty and visual design branding was becoming its own, its own thing, so.

Alex Smith: Nice. And then where, where are you at now? 

Erica Heinz: Went back to my own consulting practice. But I've worked at various agencies and some different tech companies throughout the years, but yeah, D Thinking Studio is where I'm trying to spread the word. 

Alex Smith: Sweet. And you're also a teacher, is that right?

Erica Heinz: Yeah, I'm teaching a summer class at School of Visual Arts. That's on July 16th in person. So that's a good, like, five session intensive where we get to kind of work together. And then I'm also launching online, another on, I have had online classes on Skillshare, but I'm going to have a 40 thinking class on Maven shortly. 

Alex Smith: The main thing I want to talk about is your book. Like, that's awesome. Your, your book's out. Tell us about that. Tell us, what is it about and what made you write it? 

Erica Heinz: Yeah. So it's called Think in 4D. And so the thesis is that even professional designers, we get really stuck on the 2D layers where we see these things in front of us. And we just kind of maybe get stuck there, you know, analyzing the UI and analyzing the colors and the branding. And so we can start to advance by thinking more in 3D, which like is where people start to learn about inclusivity and usability and personalization and all these sort of the nuance of like real world design. But the thesis is really that this overlooked layer is often the 4D, what I call the 4D layer. Which is these relationships that you're creating with the user with like the patterns that happen over time with the specific path that they're taking and then the memories, the moments that they have, because they don't remember every little detail in every little word but how do you create some sort of a flashbulb moment that they'll actually remember.

Alex Smith: Like what, what are some examples of that that you point to when people are like, well, who does a good job of that? 

Erica Heinz: That's a good, yeah I think it's, well, it's anybody that's really yeah, trying to start with user journeys, like proper kind of mapping. And I think for  those high points and low points. A project I did last year with an agency called Runyon was this company called TrueCar, where they had this whole car buying experience online. And wanted help improving it and as we talked to, you know, we did a ton of generative user research and saw that people were just stuck for sometimes months because they couldn't get to those points of even knowing what they wanted. They couldn't much less like deciding like which model, which like specific like newer used car they were going to buy. And so again, it was number one, like identifying even the moments that they needed to get to and then creating kind of the UI that made that feel magical and like, wow, I did it. Like I got, I got, you know, I know what I want. So that was one where I was happy to be a part of it and it was something where we were like. You're not like saving people hours. You're saving them months. It can be really major. 

Alex Smith: And so how can design teams and design leaders like, how do you tell them in the book to actually begin a practice around this, because it's so easy for design leaders to just get stuck on the next, you know, thing in the product roadmap or the next thing in the backlog. How do you evolve to thinking about the users in the way that you're reporting? 

Erica Heinz: Yeah. Well, one way other, you know, big hills I will die on is reducing the fidelity that going back to these old school kind of low fidelity ways of working so that you do have the time to explore more options and think a little, little bit bigger and a little bit messier and just see what like a piece of paper can let you do versus like, oh wow, we can do this super high fine mockup and use AI even and have it done fast and not realize it's like not really solving user problem and it's not really, again, as as innovative as it could be. So I think that's step one is just like how you're approaching the problem. But within the rhythm of big tech companies, I think sometimes it has to come at, like, your annual team retreat, you know, that you, you take some time and you do some ideation sessions and you kind of really take a pause to zoom out a little bit. That's just really hard when you're just like trying to get stuff out like week after week. So I think, yeah, building in those pauses to kind of think a little bit more deeply would be the way to start. And then again you know, the agency I was working with while I was writing the book, they started to be like, well, that's not 4D thinking. So I was like, it starts to work overtime as you start to remember these kind of invisible pieces more and more often. But I think at first you kind of have to drill in a little bit. 

Alex Smith: I like that. I want to talk about like, I think it's great in practice and I think it's needed. It's absolutely needed with all the software we use. But then you see things like, like this week, Adobe is now being sued by like the DOJ or something for dark UX, for not letting people unsubscribe for the opposite of a moment of delight and a delightful UX. So I feel like there's this conflict that is sometimes seen at big companies where, you know, let's, let's actually trick the user or let's, let's get them to add something to the cart that they don't need or subscribe to something that's, that's, you know, like helping revenue. But ultimately what's the, once the user consumer realizes that they're kind of taken aback. 

Erica Heinz: Yeah, I think that, well, two things come to mind. One is kind of there can be a huge focus on just KPIs and these metrics that, you know, I'm sure you've heard the, yeah, designers, the big companies are just again, given, given assignments to just move this metric and it's very detached from like, you know, your understanding of the user, the user needs. And again, it could, you know, there are win-win solutions. Again, I think that's what we're all looking for is things that make the business sustainable and also like yeah, make, make the audience happy. But yeah, like that, that kind of focus on metrics and maybe they're not, you know the right metrics to be chasing is something that, that's really hard.

Alex Smith: Yeah, I think that's true because I think like thinking in 4D involves a little bit of thinking long term, thinking beyond the next quarterly profits, that next KPI. I'd be like, you know, who, who is a company that, you know, I've really enjoyed these experiences for a long time. And I think it's like such a good investment because there's so many alternatives to so many consumer products now, right? Like I'm a Spotify person, I'm an Apple music person, like things in those experiences that keep people on one side. And if you think long term about that versus, hey, let's, let's triple the price next month. Like, yeah, I think there is a long term part of 4D thinking that makes a ton of sense.

Erica Heinz: Yeah. And also yeah, just the detachment from like design and strategy sometimes that, again, strategy of like the bigger picture thinking is sometimes like sitting over in product. And so again, the executional stuff is a little bit, you know, I think we forget how hard it is just to keep communication, like decent communication with everybody at a big company. It's like everybody's constantly kind of unaware of what other people, like essential work that other people are doing. So I think it's just, it's a challenge again. I think these big, you know, big companies, it's a lot more about people's issues as much of like the conceptual issues. But yeah, I do think, you know, back to the dark UX patterns, it's again, well, how, you know, what was the rationale, what was either the metric or the design principle or the approach that was like leading to that being the decision. Like I was just talking to a friend who said you know, a lot of industries are freaking out about, you know, social media crashing right now and AI replacing like all these different sites. And so they're focused on email newsletters as like a core thing of like, just get the numbers up, like get more subscribers, get more subscribers. But now they're finding after a couple of years of that, they've got very low quality lists. So now it's like they're sending out stuff and it doesn't resonate with half the people. And so now they're having to kind of circle back and be like, well, wait, it's about engagement. It's about like, you know, how, how do you get people like when they get something in their inbox that it's actually good. So I think it does speak to this relationship, right? It's not just like the number went up, we have more subscribers, we're doing great, but it's like, they like us. It's a much better metric. 

Alex Smith: Much better metric. Yeah, they're happy. They want, they're not stuck with us. They actually chose to be with us. Yeah, totally, totally agree. I want to switch gears to advice you have for, new designers and or researchers that are looking at entering the field today?

Erica Heinz: Yeah I think the big one is kind of what I mentioned earlier about like, you know, maybe working in low fidelity. I think designers, yeah, as you start to master the craft and that, you know, and at junior levels, that is kind of what you're responsible for as much more of the executional stuff. But it can be, I think, with my students, the biggest barrier I see is just getting too attached to your first idea, right? You're just like, I got one, like we are in love. It's perfect, you know? And so it's really hard to like, go back to the void and go back to like, wait, there's so many different ways this could be done, which could also inform your brilliant idea. 

Alex Smith: Erica, where could people go to find the book and your course and all those fun things you're up to?

Erica Heinz: Thanks. Just thinkin4d.com is the book. And then my sub stack is the same, Instagram's the same, thinkin4d or they can follow me on LinkedIn if they're hanging out there. Yeah, I'm trying to release like some templates and things along with the book. I've been doing some like free workshops through Creative Mornings. So yeah, that's all kind of announced on those different channels if they're curious. 

Alex Smith: Awesome. Erica, thank you so much for joining the show today. 

Erica Heinz: Yeah, thank you. So enjoyable. Thanks. Take care. Bye.