Product Design Defined with Rex McKay

[00:00:00] diane: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of, I was about to say design recharge. Did you know that Rex was there when I started Design Recharge? Mm-Hmm. I mean, he wasn’t there, but he was here at school. He was one of my, um, seniors at the time. Well, I guess you were a junior at that point anyway. 

[00:00:20] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm.

[00:00:20] diane: But he graduated in 2013. So I again have another one of my alumni, which I’m really excited, but, uh, to have, but he is not doing [00:00:30] necessarily what I taught you to do. I mean, maybe some problem solving, but 

[00:00:33] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. Um, 

[00:00:34] diane: but. Tell them a little bit about your history, your design history, because now you work for Amazon Prime.

[00:00:42] Mm-Hmm. And you just called it Prime, and you’ve worked with them for a while. 

[00:00:46] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. And you’re 

[00:00:47] diane: in Seattle and you’re super happy, but tell ’em your start as a designer, traditional graphic design. Mm-Hmm. And then kind of what your career path has been. And it’s great to have you, Rex. 

[00:00:58] Rex McKay: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

[00:00:59] It’s, it’s [00:01:00] good to be on. Um, so I can maybe share my screen. Yeah. And that might help a little bit, uh, to get an idea of some of the things I’ve done. I realize that my trajectory has been erratic and random at some of the things I’ve done. 

[00:01:16] diane: We all have that though. I think that’s normal. 

[00:01:18] Rex McKay: So yeah. I’m Rex. Uh, I’m currently a senior UX designer at, uh, Amazon Prime Video.

[00:01:25] I originally gr graduated with a degree in graph design, uh, [00:01:30] with Diane in 2013 or under Diane. Um, 

[00:01:34] diane: yeah, I haven’t graduated yet. Yeah. 

[00:01:36] Rex McKay: Yeah, not yet. Uh, so I was originally a, uh, graphic designer whenever I first, uh, came out and those were the kind of jobs that I was looking at. Um, so originally my first job was working at a BM Industries in Atlanta, where I was basically the one designer for a whole national sales organization.

[00:01:58] And I did just kind of [00:02:00] random whatever things that sellers needed. So it was mostly print based, lots of like brochures, advertising, uh, new parking things or, uh, things for sellers to leave after meetings for potential clients to review, to highlight some benefits. I did like flip books, a couple banner ads.

[00:02:19] Um, 

[00:02:19] diane: Jesse says, oh my goodness, this illustration is amazing. 

[00:02:23] Rex McKay: So this is back when I did a lot of Illustrator as well of I love Illustrator, and that was my thing for a while. Were, were you [00:02:30] a lonely 

[00:02:30] diane: only at this company? Were you the only marketing person? Yes. Or the only designer? 

[00:02:35] Rex McKay: I was the only designer.

[00:02:37] Uh, so my early history is also used to being the one person who had to figure out everything. Mm. Which I kind of enjoyed. Uh, I like learning things. And so 

[00:02:47] diane: someone would say, Paul likes that too. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:02:50] Rex McKay: So someone real request like, Hey, can you make. Uh, animated banner ad or something, and it’s something I’ve never done before, but I’d always say like, let me try [00:03:00] and figure it out.

[00:03:01] And so I had the opportunity to try out a bunch of things. And also I worked with multiple people across the company because I was the one guy. Mm-Hmm. Um, during that time it was actually technically I did an internship at first to kinda get my foot in the door. Uh, and then I left to do a part-time job, and then I came back as full-time.

[00:03:21] So that part-time job is kinda one of the weirder ones where I designed t-shirts for Arsenal FC and Chelsea FC [00:03:30] fan shops as well as for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. And so I was basically a freelance designer who designed shirt concepts, so then pitched to teams and see if they’d buy it from us.

[00:03:44] That’s cool. Um, it is cool. I don’t think any of my shirts ever got made the whole time I was there. 

[00:03:51] diane: But you got paid? 

[00:03:53] Rex McKay: I got paid, yeah. Oh, still paid by the hour. I think my, uh, the World Cup stuff [00:04:00] got made. That was also the more generic stuff because there’s 23, 26 teams and so it’s just the name of the country, their cover scheme.

[00:04:09] Move on to the next one. Uh, what did get made was novelty. October Fest, rugby balls. I don’t know how well that did, but they let me get away with that one. I 

[00:04:19] diane: love those. Those are awesome. 

[00:04:21] Rex McKay: A beerstein and then a, uh, the 

[00:04:23] diane: corset thing, right? 

[00:04:25] Rex McKay: Aderal, yeah. 

[00:04:25] diane: Yeah. 

[00:04:27] Rex McKay: Aderal on one side later. Hosing on the other. I [00:04:30] see.

[00:04:30] That’s awesome. They let me just kind of get away with things. Uh, and then I returned to a BM full-time. Worked there for two years in national sales, and then because I was in Atlanta, I. I was super fortunate to be connected with the, uh, global sales team in Delta. Oh, my logo popped up real fast and now I gotta fix it.

[00:04:51] I still got this habit as soon as I notice something. 

[00:04:55] diane: Oh, good. Well you gotta fix it. And you’ve told me you’re like everybody in [00:05:00] Atlanta at some point has worked at Delta, right? There’s this 

[00:05:03] Rex McKay: either Delta or Coca-Cola. Yeah. 

[00:05:04] diane: Right. Yeah, for sure. 

[00:05:06] Rex McKay: Um, so I went from national sales to global sales. So kind of similar thing of I’m a designer who’s just serving for all the needs of a large number of sellers without an organization.

[00:05:20] Uh, I was one of two designers in this case, and so there was a senior designer I was able to learn from, uh, who helped me out, but I was still able to do a little bit [00:05:30] of everything. At the time I specialized in trans-specific advertising, so that would be routes and flights from the US to Asia or vice versa.

[00:05:40] Um, and what I kind of enjoyed about that was thinking about the different needs and preferences of those cultures as well, who would highlight various benefits based on the countries. Um, I still got to do illustrations every now and then. Uh, lots of print ads, lots of banner ads. We [00:06:00] did B2B, B2C, and also B2B two C, where we came up with marketing materials to give to a travel manager to then give to their employees.

[00:06:10] So it was a weird middleman type of thing. Uh, designing for, uh, events around the country. So we would host, uh, sellers or travel managers or partners. At various events, at various conferences, we would have, Delta would have a lounge or something. So I got to go [00:06:30] to a couple cities for. Three hours, take some photos, fly back to Atlanta.

[00:06:36] Um, and then I would come up with, uh, concepts for things for people to do during those events. ’cause even though they’re there for networking, we wanna make it immersive and fun. 

[00:06:47] diane: So that was something you were always really good at, was coming up with these ideas. And this is one thing I think when I was talking to you, you were like, I finally got to use, um, because I [00:07:00] wa maybe was better at coming up with these kind of crazy experiences and off the wall, but I couldn’t always produce it myself.

[00:07:08] Mm-Hmm. And so you, you kind of always had that, and you always, and I still use this of course, they don’t know who you are, but now they will. But you used to be, you wanted to go at the end and you wanted to have the Rex reveal because you always had the. Thanks. So I think it’s really neat though, and this is something in product design you’ve gotten to really embrace this.[00:07:30] 

[00:07:30] It is this experience, so you got a taste by doing this. Part of it was a lot of print, but you, so I just wanna make that point for people. So it was like these little breadcrumbs that were Yeah. Starting. 

[00:07:42] Rex McKay: So this was actually kinda my trick backdoor where I realized I enjoyed user experiences throughout things.

[00:07:49] Um, so I have in this like designs of the House of Blues outside of Fenway Park in Boston, uh, Atlanta, Mercedes-Benz Stadium. I could do [00:08:00] the Halo LEDs. And then for like the Henry Ford Museum, it’s the bottom right section. And really those designs are not complicated. And a lot of times it would just be like archival photos and I’m placing them, but I guess it was still.

[00:08:13] Exploring the experience in the sense of like being aware of the space people are in and how they’re walking through it and seeing how we can then enhance it. 

[00:08:23] diane: Yeah. And even lighting, right? You’re talking about the lighting of the one in the bottom, uh Right. Is [00:08:30] different than doing LEDs in a stadium.

[00:08:32] Like it’s just Yeah. But that’s something you were always in tune with, was. Um, the feelings and being able to be empathetic with other people and how mm-Hmm. They were experiencing a situation even that, that goes with the Rex reveal. Yeah. Like you, you always had something special that we were gonna be waiting for and you would keep it in your lap.

[00:08:52] Nobody was able to see it before. Right. 

[00:08:55] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. And, well, and especially for these too, is I’d always keep the like, event [00:09:00] design secret from the rest of the Delta sales org. It would just be within the design team. Oh, cool. Uh, so we did these big reveal, so like the bottom right one, it actually has the name of every single employee in our organization.

[00:09:12] See? So then they got there. I see. And got excited and they try to find their name. We encourage them to take a photo or post next to it. So that was fun. That’s cool. Yeah. Um, so, um, because I kind of learned a little bit that I like those challenges and considerations [00:09:30] for, uh, who I’m designing for more so than before I was doing print design where I would do like.

[00:09:36] 400 design requests a year and it would just be flyer change, name resize, send out, uh, which was not as fun. 

[00:09:44] diane: Right. 

[00:09:45] Rex McKay: Um, but yeah, conveniently I was already based in Atlanta. Um, uh, Delta had this opportunity to do some additional like education and training. So they funded me to go to General [00:10:00] Assembly to take a night course for ux, which I wanted to do to kind of test to see if that was what I did really enjoy.

[00:10:06] And I found out that I did like it. Um, so, uh, and General 

[00:10:10] diane: Assembly, just so people know, is just a online education platform for web and UX and ui and maybe they teach other things too. Coding, I don’t know, but some mm-Hmm. Are well known. Good. Yeah, online educator. 

[00:10:28] Rex McKay: So, and I realized, [00:10:30] um, that I liked it and I know that a lot of people are self tall or do the bootcamps exclusively, but I really liked going to undergrad and I liked going to school.

[00:10:40] Um, so you were a great student. Thank you. Uh, I decided to go to Georgia Tech, uh, to get my master’s in human computer interaction. The Georgia Tech program is broken up into four colleges, so it’s, uh, psychology, computer science, um, [00:11:00] I think language media and communication. And then I was technically in, in industrial design because they don’t have a visual design program at Tech.

[00:11:07] Mm-Hmm. So, while I was there, I was technically an industrial design student, and I became a graduate research student, graduate research assistant for the, uh, robotics and intelligent machines lab at Georgia Tech, uh, where I was working on trying to come up with ways to make. Really cheap robotic robots that we could then give to communities in the area.[00:11:30] 

[00:11:30] So I started off with a 3D printed template that I found open source, and then looked at how I could refine it and also change the material so it’d be quicker to produce and cheaper to produce as well. And then also I think, easier to assemble for those schools. 

[00:11:45] diane: And this was something else that maybe you didn’t know when you were a, I think you were always a really good researcher, but this is like even just pricing out or testing and finding even materials.

[00:11:57] Um, you were really good at that [00:12:00] part of the research, right? And you enjoyed it enough? 

[00:12:04] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I mean, um, my minor at at South was graphy. And I think what I liked about, or screen printing and what I liked about that is when I learned that I could design things in Illustrator and then just I. Shoot it onto a screen so then it would have the fidelity, uh, that I liked.

[00:12:23] And I was able to do graphic design through that. And so similar with this, uh, once I learned about laser cutting, [00:12:30] I realized, yeah, you can design it all on Illustrator, uh, and then just cut out wood or cardboard or plastic, whatever, and it’ll be exactly how you intended. Um, versus doing the manual craft to realize I wasn’t super good at.

[00:12:44] So I appreciate this one. We have a laser 

[00:12:45] diane: cutter now, so shoo. 

[00:12:46] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. Alright. So yeah, after you buy the very expensive laser cutter, you can make a robot shell for $2 and 15 minutes. 

[00:12:55] diane: I like it. Um, 

[00:12:57] Rex McKay: let’s see. So the Georgia Tech HCI program [00:13:00] is two years long. Uh, so in the middle, during the summer, I became a US Design intern at Roku in Los Gatis.

[00:13:10] Uh, they share a campus, at the time they shared a campus with Netflix. Um, and this is you 

[00:13:16] diane: going to California? This was not like a remote position. This was, no, 

[00:13:20] Rex McKay: yeah. At the time I had to go to California and spend a lot of money on housing on a student budget, but I was able to kind [00:13:30] of be more hands-on for the first time with an actual company, with an actual product.

[00:13:35] diane: Were you working with more people on the team for doing the UI or ux? 

[00:13:41] Rex McKay: Yeah, I think Georgia Tech in general was the first time I worked with a, a team in the sense of either other designers or, uh, what’s more common now and actual wife is working with engineers and PMs and actual stakeholders. 

[00:13:56] diane: PM Project manager, right?

[00:13:58] Rex McKay: Yes, yes. [00:14:00] Project man. There’s also DPM Star Design program manager, so I’ll try to be more explicit. Oh, 

[00:14:06] diane: I always like to do, ’cause my mom would’ve never known what those words were, so, you know, I just try to make sure if somebody’s watching, then they know and they’re not like, oh, this is all industry speak.

[00:14:16] I don’t know what PM is. Fair 

[00:14:18] Rex McKay: enough. 

[00:14:19] diane: Later in the day. Anyway, keep going. 

[00:14:22] Rex McKay: So yeah, at at Roku I got to work with an actual design team. At the time, their team was maybe about, the UX team was maybe 20 [00:14:30] people, including researchers and the UX engineers as well. And I worked on how to potentially enhance the, uh, out of box experience.

[00:14:39] So whenever someone first gets a new device, in this case there were sub wolfers and speakers that were coming out. Mm-Hmm. Uh, so we were trying to help people figure out how to connect those and then also how to better understand their screen resolution. Uh, ’cause this was a, on the top TV connected device, so it can only communicate so much.

[00:14:59] But I learned a [00:15:00] lot through that and working on TVs is always fun and that was kinda my first exposure to TVs as well. Then I came back to Georgia Tech to finish, finish my year. While doing that, I was working part-time at Honeywell on a new team they had in Atlanta. Again, I got super lucky to be connected with these folks 

[00:15:19] diane: and Honeywell just in case somebody’s from another country and doesn’t know what Honeywell does.

[00:15:23] What does Honeywell do? 

[00:15:25] Rex McKay: Honeywell is famous for thermostats, which is not a thing they own [00:15:30] anymore. Oh wow. Uh, they own, yeah, they sold that the logo stays. So Honeywell today does, uh, kind of enterprise or not enterprise industrial solutions. Okay. So they’ll make technology for aerospace, for buildings, for security.

[00:15:45] Um, and, uh, we were working on a design system to help our, uh, vertical markets internal teams create and design dashboards for their clients. 

[00:15:58] diane: So you’re going to school full-time [00:16:00] for your masters? 

[00:16:01] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:16:01] diane: And you’re working at Honeywell part-time? 

[00:16:05] Rex McKay: Yeah. 

[00:16:05] diane: In wi in a designer UX team? 

[00:16:09] Rex McKay: Yes. Okay. So that design team, there are maybe about four or five UX designers and three researchers, and so that was more experience of being, doing hands-on design 

[00:16:20] diane: and working for a bigger company.

[00:16:22] I mean, from a BM where you started, you were lonely only for a Mm-Hmm. A smaller company, but they, maybe they’re a bigger [00:16:30] company, but they have not a big design or art department. Right. Yeah. Now it’s getting really more niche, I guess, because you’re UX and the researchers and PMs.

[00:16:44] Rex McKay: So, yeah, I was fortunate enough to work there part-time, and I think at this time I thought I was trying, always trying to figure out what my, like design niche is too of now that I’m in ux, like which part of UX do I wanna maybe specialize in or tell people that I’m good at. Um, so from my [00:17:00] history doing international global design at Delta, I was thinking that I would do more internationalization and localization at Honeywells as well.

[00:17:10] Uh, so while we were doing the design system, I volunteered myself to do documentation and stress testing for localization. So seeing how things look in German, seeing how they look in non-Latin characters with DIA critics and stuff, if we need to adjust our wedding. For things like that. Looking at what’s dia 

[00:17:27] diane: critics?

[00:17:28] Rex McKay: Dia critics are the little [00:17:30] accent symbols above and under letters. 

[00:17:32] diane: Oh, look 

[00:17:33] Rex McKay: at stuff. So you might have more wedding for things like that. Yeah, 

[00:17:35] diane: you would, you would have to. That’s awesome. 

[00:17:38] Rex McKay: Um, and then also doing right to left design as well. Mm-Hmm. For like Arabic and Hebrew. So that was fun. And then, uh, since I was going to school at the same time, I was also working on a master’s project and I saw you use this image.

[00:17:51] I realized I gave you zero context about what it meant. It’s okay. Um, so my master’s project, uh, at the same time I. [00:18:00] Me a researcher and a UX engineer. Were working with the Georgia Aquarium to figure out how we could enhance the experience for people waiting for their dolphin presentation. 

[00:18:10] diane: Oh, I love this.

[00:18:12] She becomes, or he becomes the person you become the bubbles or the octopus. That is clever Uhhuh. 

[00:18:20] Rex McKay: Yeah. So we’re trying to figure out how to make it an educational experience. This kind of ties in with that event design that I did previously where I think about how people are experiencing a whole [00:18:30] space, and then also, ’cause I was at Roku, I realized like, I like TVs too, so I wanna exercise that TV skill as well.

[00:18:37] diane: That’s cool ’cause then you’re learning about octopus. Coral, all six things that are crabs or whatever it was that use your melon. 

[00:18:45] Rex McKay: Yeah. I’m a sucker for animals. So we really enjoyed doing this. Uh, I learned how to do like animation and wire frames so that we could then map, uh, limbs to a, [00:19:00] like a Xbox Connect camera.

[00:19:02] So I can’t claim the credit for actually doing all the very smart tracking, but it was your idea stuff. I liked animals. Yeah. It was our collective idea. It was a good experience working within a a team. 

[00:19:15] diane: Absolutely. And also 

[00:19:17] Rex McKay: working with animals in a way. 

[00:19:19] diane: And I love the picture in the middle over there, uh, next to the animation.

[00:19:24] Mm-Hmm. Of people using it or interacting with it looks like, right? Nope, 

[00:19:28] Rex McKay: that’s just a girl playing. 

[00:19:29] diane: [00:19:30] Oh. Who you. These are just photos 

[00:19:31] Rex McKay: of the space. So we came up with this concept. We had an idea for multiple interaction spaces, and we designed one based off of feasibility. But I was doing this project in spring of 2020 and our project was focused on like, how do you entertain large crowds?

[00:19:47] So we were never able to test it or implement it. 

[00:19:50] diane: Yeah. Because that would’ve been hard and covid 

[00:19:53] Rex McKay: Yeah. When no one 

[00:19:54] diane: could go anywhere. 

[00:19:55] Rex McKay: The aquarium closed and we were not allowed to be near people anymore. 

[00:19:58] diane: Right. 

[00:19:59] Rex McKay: Um, [00:20:00] so it’s a thing that I really enjoyed doing that never saw the light of day, but it was a fun experience.

[00:20:06] Uh, and also kind of contributed to like where I ended up. So also because of the pandemic, um, I was working for, like I said, uh, Honeywell at the time. My plan was to convert full time there, but because they are a large industrial company that needs a lot of people on site for their actual business, they had a lot of layoffs, just like a lot of other companies, 

[00:20:29] diane: everybody.

[00:20:29] Yeah. [00:20:30] 

[00:20:30] Rex McKay: So, yeah, I lost that opportunity, but I was super lucky to very quickly secure an opportunity then, uh, with Prime Video. Because in the scenario of a global disaster, people will be on the internet and watch tv. So that worked out great for me. Right. And that’s where I am now. Is uh, and so 

[00:20:49] diane: that you had the TV experience, so this helped and you were going to a UX team, is that 

[00:20:55] Rex McKay: Yes.

[00:20:56] Um, so at the time I was on, I joined a [00:21:00] team called, like the acquisition and engagement team. Um, that was maybe four other designers. Um, and then quickly after we kind of reformed and I became part of a new global commerce design team that was focused on acquisition, uh, payments and checkout and management of, of offers.

[00:21:26] diane: Now, at this point, were you still in Atlanta? Because every, nobody, it [00:21:30] didn’t matter ’cause nobody could go any into the, any offices at this point. But, or did you, had you already moved to Seattle? 

[00:21:37] Rex McKay: I worked in Atlanta for the first year. 

[00:21:39] diane: Okay. 

[00:21:40] Rex McKay: And then I moved to Seattle afterwards. 

[00:21:42] diane: Cool. 

[00:21:42] Rex McKay: Um, and then, and when I moved to Seattle, the team, you, 

[00:21:45] diane: I’m sorry.

[00:21:46] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. Oh, uh, this is probably gonna answer your question. Uh, my team is based in Seattle, but no one was going to the office, so I moved to Seattle and then stayed home. 

[00:21:53] diane: So, so have you ever worked remotely where your team was in lots of [00:22:00] other cities? 

[00:22:01] Rex McKay: Yeah. Yeah. So throughout my whole experience at Prime Video, I’ve been working, even if I’m in an office, every now and then, I’m still jumping on video calls with partner teams, uh, which is more common with larger, more global teams.

[00:22:14] Anyway, even at Honeywell, we would have calls with teams in Australia every now and then. Oh yeah. Um, but at Prime Video we are a distributed team of, we are, our core is based in Seattle, uh, next to the headquarters because that’s where [00:22:30] most teams are based. However, because we are also a video streaming service, we have a team based in Culver City at the studio, and they can work more with the internal contractual things and also just, we have more folks there, and then we have.

[00:22:47] A product team in New York where there’s also a group of like media and entertainment things. Mm-Hmm. Centralized there. And then most of our engineers and product teams are based in London because we acquired a [00:23:00] company over a decade ago there. Oh. Um, and so we still work with them. And then I think a lot of teams have a satellite office in India as well, because that is a large emerging market and opportunity as well.

[00:23:14] So we wanna have boots on the ground, uh, for that region. 

[00:23:18] diane: So you have done projects when you were at Delta, you kind of, you were on a small design team and you would get to come up and do these experiences. Mm-Hmm. But then with this, it sounds like you’re working with, [00:23:30] um, and even when you were at Tech, you were doing, there was maybe researchers, there were UX and maybe, uh, people who were niche in certain areas.

[00:23:40] Mm-Hmm. And then you call yourself, um, UX Generalist, and I want you to explain that and how maybe this is a good term and because it allows you to kind of bounce from project to project. 

[00:23:55] Rex McKay: Yeah. Yeah. So I think partially because of my [00:24:00] experience and when I was a graphic designer where I was the only person I became accustomed to and familiar with, just learning things as I go.

[00:24:07] Mm-Hmm. Or being the only resource to get something solved. So I’ve always been open to and excited about kind of just owning something and figuring it out. Uh, also at Georgia Tech, you work with a bunch of teams, which you get exposure to working with a team where people do have more special skills, but also that way you, yourself are exposed to those types of things.

[00:24:26] So either you’re able to do it yourself to some extent, or you at least know how to [00:24:30] communicate with them. So I wouldn’t call myself a UX researcher, but I understand the concepts of how to word and phrase questions. And I could, if I needed to put together some sort of online unmoderated study, however, like when I have a UX researcher as a resource, then I’ll lean on them and we will collaborate to come up with what is the best way to frame a study so that we’re getting.

[00:24:55] The right kind of answers for what we wanna learn about. Okay. At least. [00:25:00] And then also I’ll do like, uh, self-serve prototyping within Figma, where I can do that for the purpose of a basic usability study. But for something more complicated, I’ll still run into, lean into a design technologist that can do code and do more complicated interactions.

[00:25:16] diane: That’s cool. Okay. So, um, I’ve been asking everybody how they define product design or product designer. Can you define what you think of? Because I think it’s [00:25:30] kind of a not clear. 

[00:25:33] Rex McKay: Yeah. I think it’s tricky because for all intents and purposes, if you see a job listing that says product design, it’s going to be digital UX design, more than likely.

[00:25:42] Mm-Hmm. Um, there’s also just a lot of different terms I’ve seen for product designers where Amazon, we call ourselves UX designers. Facebook, Google used product designers, uh, Roku used Interaction Designer. A lot of times it’s the same thing. They’re just calling it [00:26:00] something different. Mm-Hmm. Um, and I’ve even still seen the gamut where you say you are like a UX designer and feasibly could do everything, but really you’re just doing like wire frames or things like that.

[00:26:12] Mm-Hmm. So it’s just kind of a, a random word as far as job postings go? Yes. That’s 

[00:26:18] diane: kind of, so you kind of have to read the description and see Oh. Have you ever read some descriptions and you’re like, whoa, this is way more than one person’s job. Right. 

[00:26:29] Rex McKay: Yeah. [00:26:30] I’ve seen like full stack designer where like must be able to do like your own coding as well as interaction design and UX design.

[00:26:40] And that seems like too much. And I’ve also seen listings where we need a UX designer and it’s just design wire frames and that’s not really what I want to do. Right, right. Um, so, so 

[00:26:50] diane: what would be something you have to ask in an interview or if you apply, you need more clarification of what your role would be or what your Mm-Hmm.

[00:26:59] [00:27:00] Because you don’t really know, ’cause a lot of people are using these this term pretty loosely. 

[00:27:05] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So with the interviews I’ve done recently, I guess, of me interviewing before and then also now, me being an interviewer. Right. Typically what we do is we have multiple loops and rounds where we do an interview.

[00:27:20] So you’ll meet with the hiring manager, you’ll also meet with the actual designers on the team. You’ll meet with a product manager. And so talking to those actual designers who are not the [00:27:30] hiring managers is really helpful to learn more about their experience. And then I also like to ask them, like to tell me about a project they worked on, on that team that they’ve been really proud of or really enjoyed.

[00:27:40] And so if they tell me a thing that they were excited about and it sounds like something that’s not complicated or it’s not fun, then that kinda gives me an idea of maybe I’m not going to enjoy it. 

[00:27:49] diane: Hmm. Yeah. That’s a good question. I try to 

[00:27:52] Rex McKay: use that. Yeah. Okay. Then also people just enjoy talking about things they liked.

[00:27:57] diane: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you, so [00:28:00] just painting that picture again, so you Mm-Hmm. Had you were a designer, you figured out what you liked and you really liked the experience design. Mm-Hmm. And then from that, you got a master’s and you were able to start working in teams. Mm-Hmm. What do you like about working in teams?

[00:28:17] Doing the user experience stuff? 

[00:28:20] Rex McKay: So working with a team, I guess obviously kind of enhances the number of things you can do. If it’s a design team, you at least have more people who are like-minded [00:28:30] who can provide more accurate feedback or help bounce off ideas. If you’re working with an engineer, you think more about feasibility of things.

[00:28:37] So I’ll come up with an idea that I think is awesome and then I’ll talk with the engineer and they’ll walk me through like, okay, this is gonna take forever, or It’s really hard to do, so we need to think about how to actually phase it. And if I don’t have that engineer, like one I know pretty much nothing about coding, I can do HTML and CSS, which is not helpful.

[00:28:55] And then, uh. If I were to just take it to an engineer [00:29:00] without consulting them, I would’ve done potentially months of work to find out that it’s a thing that’s not really possible or not helpful. Um, 

[00:29:08] diane: so how often are you interacting, like in the idea phase, how, like do you just say, Hey buddy, let’s get on a Zoom and you talk it out?

[00:29:18] Or is this through email or how are you? Um, because if your team is, is spread, it would be, I mean, then you’re dealing, if you’re talking to somebody in Australia, your five, you know, I [00:29:30] don’t know, like maybe 3:00 PM for you would be 8:00 AM for them. And so that can be hard. Do you get on, uh, or like a video chat?

[00:29:41] Rex McKay: Yeah. Yeah. So we have basically planned reoccurring rituals so that we’re forcing ourselves to make sure that we’re meeting with people. So we have recurring design review meetings internally with our team. We have like how 

[00:29:53] diane: often is that? 

[00:29:54] Rex McKay: Um. So every Monday we check [00:30:00] our, um, Asana board or project board.

[00:30:03] Mm-Hmm. Seeing where we are on projects that we’re assigned to, what our progress is, talk through if we need help with anything, if we have questions. Uh, then on Tuesdays, uh, if you have something to share, then you can sign up to share the progress you’ve made on a project. And then we have these different levels of reviews too, where if you need a skip level manager to review something, uh, signing up for those as a planned thing.

[00:30:27] Also, if you’re working on a project, you’re always meeting with your, [00:30:30] I. Um, product partner as well as potentially your engineering partner at least once a week. Uh, just to talk through status updates and sharing back and bouncing ideas off, just so there’s not any time where you’re, or extended period of time where you’re isolated so that they know what you’re working on.

[00:30:46] And also so people can kind of help catch concerns. So you’re not like, like you’re 

[00:30:50] diane: saying you’re not working for two months on something and the engineer’s like, this will take 20 years, buddy. We cannot do this. Right? Mm-Hmm. Okay. So that’s good. That’s good to know. So [00:31:00] really it’s having those systems in place so that people have, uh, regular FaceTime with Mm-Hmm.

[00:31:07] People, whether that’s in the office or whether that’s, uh, remote, but going from, you went to Culver City and or Gate Ghetto, wherever Los 

[00:31:17] Rex McKay: Gaddes is, where Roku was. Los Gatis. I’ve been to Culver City too as well. Okay. 

[00:31:20] diane: So Los Gatis, and then you were in person, and then again, COV happens, and so you’re cold to remote.

[00:31:28] How? [00:31:30] Um. Did that help you? Because I mean, it was great. I didn’t have to drive, you know, like there were some awesome parts. Yeah. But, um, and I, if you’re working with somebody already in Australia and London and India, it doesn’t seem Mm-Hmm. Like, it was maybe that hard. I talked to somebody else and they were like, it really wasn’t any different.

[00:31:53] It was Mm-Hmm. No different for, for Covid or not Covid, like we were just busy. 

[00:31:58] Rex McKay: Yeah. I [00:32:00] think at the time when I first started try to use it to my advantage of, because most of my team was based on the West coast and I was the only person on the East Coast, then I became like a convenient resource or asset for the London teams of, I could take meetings two, two or three hours earlier than everybody else so they can move a little bit more quickly.

[00:32:18] So I got them to just naturally like me a little bit from that before I moved over. 

[00:32:24] diane: But it wasn’t hard for you. ’cause I would think sometimes people, especially if you’re doing ux, you the FaceTime [00:32:30] and you were, you were always a, you liked to get other people’s opinions. Mm-Hmm. So then going to mostly remote could be a challenge for somebody who was like, me and you, where we really Mm-Hmm.

[00:32:44] Head off of other people interacting. Was that a problem? Or, or it’s not? You’ve obviously made it work. 

[00:32:51] Rex McKay: Well, yeah, I made it work. Part of that is just because, like soon after I joined is when we reformed the new team and it’s pretty much just me and my manager for a [00:33:00] while. Uh, but once we got new folks on board, um, playing games once a week is a thing.

[00:33:07] So I think at Honeywell, one of the things I did is an, one of our engineering partners, our, our scrum leader, would bring board games every Friday. And so I just got some social time, which was nice. And so I tried to carry a, a virtual version of that over is every now and then we would play like scribble.io.

[00:33:26] Just like drawing games and guessing games. 

[00:33:28] diane: Yeah. [00:33:30] Yeah. That’s good. Just as an excuse 

[00:33:30] Rex McKay: to do something that’s not work related to kind of force some social interaction. Yeah. 

[00:33:35] diane: And build bonds that are Mm-Hmm. Yeah. That’s awesome. Okay, so I’m gonna go back to the question. Okay. So did you, did you answer the question about defining product design?

[00:33:47] I, 

[00:33:47] Rex McKay: I did product designer, not product design. Okay. 

[00:33:50] diane: Okay. Product. Yeah. You did okay. No, I’m good. Product design 

[00:33:52] Rex McKay: I feel like is a little bit tricky ’cause I guess than it is technically more open-ended too, is it could be physical products. I think also what’s [00:34:00] gonna be more explicit is if I were to say I’m an industrial designer, then it’s more obvious and I’m working with physical products.

[00:34:06] Physical 

[00:34:06] diane: products. Right. Okay. So, so you told me about the most fun part of product design for you is. 

[00:34:15] Rex McKay: You have to remind me now. 

[00:34:16] diane: Oh, it was problem solving. I told you already. 

[00:34:19] Rex McKay: Oh, it’s problem solving. Yes. So you is I enjoyed the complicated projects. 

[00:34:24] diane: So explain a little bit. So I’m trying to think about if somebody else who’s listening is also a [00:34:30] graphic designer and they’ve also like, really, like what you’re saying is really triggering, like, oh my gosh.

[00:34:35] Yeah. I like ex doing the experience and I like to see people’s faces and just how you wrote everybody’s name on that place, uh, wherever that was, and they had to go find their name. It was like there was, you were trying to connect to that employee so that they realized they meant something to the company and Mm-Hmm.

[00:34:52] And those are just the little things that I love. I think those are the details. Um, but, so at this point, if somebody’s [00:35:00] like hitting, you’re hitting, it’s scratching an itch in their brain. Um. Then they’re like, yeah, I like the problem solving too, but explain some, like maybe something you did at Roku or Honeywell or Amazon.

[00:35:13] Mm-Hmm. That has been these problems because they’re not like, oh, I just solved that today and now I’m onto the next problem. I mean, some of these are longer problems, right? 

[00:35:24] Rex McKay: Yeah. Um, or 

[00:35:26] diane: projects, 

[00:35:27] Rex McKay: I guess. So I guess like for like the Georgia [00:35:30] Aquarium, the thing we wanted to work on was like crowd control and crowd experience.

[00:35:35] Um, and so we had an idea for an opportunity, but we really had to understand the space that we were in. Mm-Hmm. And so it’d be things like, uh. We were granted permission to enter the aquarium whenever we needed to. So we’d go in there, I’d sit on the floor with, uh, like a counter. Every time a guest would walk by, we’d count and see how long it took people to pass things through, areas, get a better idea of how they’re using the space.

[00:35:59] Mm-Hmm. [00:36:00] Um, I think the thing I enjoy just in general is the learning in general I really like. And so like observing people, learning about the exhibits and animals, learning about the problems that the aquarium themselves have or what opportunities they see. Mm-Hmm. So we talked to dolphin trainers, we talked to security, we talked to, uh, guides and educators as well as we had a point of contact who was managing the aquarium.

[00:36:23] So getting to understand all those facets and aspects. And also trying to think about how you then marry all of those [00:36:30] together because you’re, because they didn’t have 

[00:36:31] diane: a solution. Right. They were coming to you. And I think some of it is you coming up with ideas. Solutions for different ways 

[00:36:39] Rex McKay: maybe. Mm-Hmm.

[00:36:40] Well, and a lot of times the problems that each site is facing is not the same thing. I think that’s gonna be the most common thing of the aquarium. Their goal is they want people to come to the aquarium a lot. Uh, the people who are waiting in there are not thinking about, I wanna do something fun while I’m waiting.

[00:36:58] They’re thinking about, I just wanna see some [00:37:00] dolphins. And so we’ve tried to figure out the intersection of how can we help both sides so that there is a cost effective, feasible thing the aquarium can do that’s not gonna be something wholly impossible or be a huge risk to them. And then also able to, uh, expose guests to it, to a thing that they didn’t know that they were interested in because they’re not thinking, oh, I wish I could be an interactive octopus right now.

[00:37:27] Right. Yeah. Um, and then also trying to think about like, [00:37:30] that’s a fun thing. How can we make that fun thing also educational? So we trick them into learning as well. Mm-Hmm. 

[00:37:35] diane: I love that. Okay. So those are things that you have enjoyed 

[00:37:40] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:37:40] diane: From the research standpoint and from the learning standpoint.

[00:37:44] ’cause you love to learn. Um, so here at Prime, what does the team you work with look like normally? Like what? I, I, I don’t think I wrote that. Well, what does the team look like? You normally work with, like [00:38:00] what kind of people are on that team? How many researchers, how many UX designers, how many engineers?

[00:38:06] Rex McKay: Yeah, so I think the design to ratio, design to engineer ratio is there might be like 10 engineers for every designer. 

[00:38:13] diane: Wow. 

[00:38:14] Rex McKay: Um, and then maybe five product managers for every designer too. We’re, we’re definitely the minority. I guess there’s fewer researchers than designers. Um, so my direct design team, we [00:38:30] just grew more, we might be like 12 or 14 or so designers working within what we now call the, uh, customer lifecycle and commerce team.

[00:38:40] Um, and then that includes, uh, a manager, two design program managers, uh, and then we also have one dedicated, two, two dedicated researchers, uh, to our team. Which researchers at Amazon are also not necessarily common. A lot of times it is the design team [00:39:00] themselves having to do the research or just. Not getting any qualitative research at all.

[00:39:05] It could just be quantitative AB testing. 

[00:39:08] diane: Right. Okay. 

[00:39:09] Rex McKay: It’s only the larger teams that have the fortune of having research 

[00:39:12] diane: because you may not have, you may have a problem that you’re solving, but you can only have a two hours of a researcher’s time for the whole project maybe. Mm-Hmm. 

[00:39:21] Rex McKay: Okay. Yeah. And then, yeah, we work with multiple product partners, scattered throughout multiple engineers.

[00:39:29] We don’t meet [00:39:30] with the engineers as often. Um, well once a week. You said they’re always busy coding? Well, 

[00:39:35] diane: no, not 

[00:39:36] Rex McKay: program product managers. Always once a week. Engineers, it’d be like for a engineer review that happens every now and then. Okay. We bring ’em in for bigger reviews, uh, maybe for like a kickoff, and then they’d be looped in later for bigger reviews since the way design involvement usually goes down over time, and then engineer involvement usually goes up over time and product is just kind of a straight through line.

[00:39:59] diane: Okay. [00:40:00] So, um, what type, well, you’ve actually told us this, oh, sorry, I’m gonna scratch that one. Um, do you think having the traditional graphic design, I think most people have a traditional graphic design. I know there are some UX programs 

[00:40:14] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:40:15] diane: But they’re not as common. Um, so somebody who’s wanting to pivot, so say they’ve been a traditional designer, um, um, how do you think, uh, those traditional [00:40:30] design or problem solving helped, um, lay the foundation for you to then know some other things to study or do general assembly or something?

[00:40:41] If somebody was gonna pivot, what would you tell them to do? 

[00:40:45] Rex McKay: So. I think like the thing that, again, I got lucky to be exposed to it is just those little bit more complicated projects or maybe try to find opportunities as well within the projects you’re working on already. Mm. [00:41:00] To try to make them more aimed or specific, uh, to something or you can kind of come up or pitch a project yourself.

[00:41:08] There were some kind of like side pet projects that I worked on at Delta as well, um, where I was able to kind of flex UX muscles a little bit more. And then I also, because it is a large company, um, kind of introduced myself to people who are working on the app and the website, even though they weren’t designers, learning more about like what, what kind of things they’re working on or [00:41:30] trying to get out for those products.

[00:41:32] Uh, as well the skills from graphic design that helped me, I think the main one is actually like storytelling and defending a design and pitching things to people, which I also kind of call like being able to BS reasons for stuff. Yeah. Where someone would ask like, why are we having this button be this size?

[00:41:53] And like you had a general idea and reason for it, but you didn’t think about it too deeply. So being able to pivot really quickly and say, well, I [00:42:00] think the hierarchy looks better with this so that we have first landing page focus on this thing. And by this being a little bit smaller, it’s the secondary action, but it’s still accessible.

[00:42:08] But people can still see it and it’s like available to them if they choose to it, but it’s not gonna distract them from their court journey. Something like that. Hmm. 

[00:42:15] diane: That’s good. 

[00:42:18] Rex McKay: Where like in graphic design, it used to be someone would ask me for something unreasonable and then I’d turn in like the jargon mode where like, well, I’ve kind of forgotten it now, but I would [00:42:30] reference Pantone colors a lot and card stock and weight to try to confuse them a little bit to give more justification for why I did something or why I don’t wanna do something.

[00:42:39] diane: Oh, that’s good. Okay. So I, I, so there was some, but I think you just, in doing the experience really helped you in this taking on a role as a product designer and a UX designer. 

[00:42:51] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:42:52] diane: So this is a red flag question. Okay. Because you worked at lots of companies, um, and I always think it’s good. So think about that person [00:43:00] who’s, you’re scratching the itch in their head and now they’re thinking about pivoting.

[00:43:04] Um, I want to give them, ooh, let’s ask this question. Or if they a answer this way, this is a red flag. So, um, in your experience, you must see, have seen some red flags. When working or when you’re interviewing, maybe not so much when you’re the interview, you’re at Amazon and you’re interviewing Mm-Hmm.

[00:43:23] Someone else. But, um, uh, what are some of the red flags of teams that people [00:43:30] could look for or of companies? 

[00:43:33] Rex McKay: Yeah. So, uh, Amazon, we have a very structured process of, we ask a lot of behavioral questions to try to learn more about, uh, potential, um, candidates to try to see better about how they handle situations and then also kind of vice versa.

[00:43:49] I think one of the examples I gave just earlier was asking somebody about a project they worked on they’re proud of. Yeah. If it takes some time to think of something that was fun, that they’re proud of, that’s probably a [00:44:00] concern. Um, but one thing we ask or that either they might ask or that you might ask is our questions around, like, I.

[00:44:11] How do you handle a stubborn partner? Because if they’re asking that question, that’s a sign that stubborn partner to deal with somebody have partner. Yeah. They wanna know of like Amazon has like this whole like, uh, have backbone and disagree and commit and earn trust, which all like makes sense. And I think those are good things to have, good skills to have.[00:44:30] 

[00:44:30] But if they lean kind of too heavily, if any company leans kind of too heavily into like asking about how you deal with problematic partners, which they need to know to make sure you’re successful. But also that could be a sign that that deal with they have a lot of problematic partners. Yeah. Or like how do you deal with limited resourcing?

[00:44:46] Mm. 

[00:44:47] diane: Oh, 

[00:44:47] Rex McKay: that’s 

[00:44:48] diane: good. That’s good insight. 

[00:44:50] Rex McKay: And then you can maybe ask like, how long do projects typically last? Um, how long 

[00:44:56] diane: do they typically last? Like at Roku, how long was it, did you [00:45:00] finish a project? I. For a summer maybe. 

[00:45:04] Rex McKay: I mean, it was an internship, so it wasn’t as strict, but it could be things where there’s some orgs, because it’s different from each team within a company too.

[00:45:11] So Amazon, there are good teams, there are bad teams, and it just kind of depends on their own culture. Mm-Hmm. And so one of the signs for a team that you may not wanna be a part of is one where they say like, uh. High pressure, a lot of focus on this project, quick turnarounds, type of things like that. Um, those could [00:45:30] be concerns.

[00:45:31] And then there’s some teams that maybe move too slow and that could be harmful both to your own enjoyment and also for your kind of portfolio or experience if you’re not really able to have anything come out that you’re able to then reuse. Right. And there’s some products too, where they need a UX designer, they’re gonna pay you the same amount as all other UX designers at the company, but their product is really simple and they don’t really know how to fully use you.

[00:45:55] And so when you go to that next interview, they might ask you about, like, show me [00:46:00] your recent work. But that recent work is not complicated enough to be impressive. Mm-Hmm. Or it’s not visual enough to really apply to what they’re doing. So those are also potential, just career risk. 

[00:46:10] diane: So, um, have you overseen a project?

[00:46:14] I mean, I think you’ve been at Amazon for a while, so Mm-Hmm. Maybe not in the very beginning, but. Um, I think you’ve, you told me that you’ve like, I wanna do the, I wanna be on this team, and you pitch sometimes for internal, another project. 

[00:46:28] Rex McKay: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:46:29] diane: [00:46:30] Anyway, um, what does overseeing a project or a product, project, whatever product I have, product maybe it’s project look like, and what’s a Yeah, 

[00:46:42] Rex McKay: yeah.

[00:46:43] So typically you have a product manager who’s overseeing a project. However, uh, one thing that our team has been doing and a thing that’s healthy with a good design culture, a mature design culture, is the design team being able to be equally able to contribute ideas, uh, because we’re the ones [00:47:00] who are also most.

[00:47:01] Empathetic and exposed of engineers know all about like the backend functional things and front ends and all the coding, and they’re experts on that. Product managers are going to be experts in how to get things done, but then the design team are the experts on what are things that customers might enjoy at least.

[00:47:18] Mm-Hmm. Um, product managers also help with like monetization and growth and revenue. They deal with a lot of the numbers. Um, so it can kind of vary. [00:47:30] Ideally, when you’re fortunate enough to have a design led project, it’s, we identify a problem area or maybe we’re tasked for the general vague problem area from a product partner.

[00:47:39] And then by ownership we basically. Come up with a plan for how we’re going to solve that problem of like, um, kinda like at 

[00:47:47] diane: the, uh, um, at the aquarium. 

[00:47:50] Rex McKay: Yeah. Yeah. So like, we’ll ideally draft a design brief, say, all right, here’s the problem. Here’s the things we need to know to be able to or do, to solve it, is we need to [00:48:00] understand our customer, understand our current experience Today we need to plan in some testing, both usability testing and then, uh, quantitative testing.

[00:48:09] We need to like loop in a whole bunch of teams and we’ll help with that management of the design process, which, uh, the kind of common way of doing it is like a double diamond. You see a narrow idea, you expand to all big ideas or possibilities, narrow again on a concept you wanna explore, expand again [00:48:30] on different ways to present that concept.

[00:48:32] And then narrow in on your winning concept, um, is typically the process for UX design. Um, so. 

[00:48:40] diane: Let me ask you this. What is a typical day as a product designer? Like what, is there a typical day or is that what you like, that everything’s different? 

[00:48:50] Rex McKay: It kind of goes both ways of a typical day, ideally is like I jump on some calls with, uh, my product [00:49:00] partners, check in on where things are.

[00:49:02] Um, and then I’ve kind of built out or planned out enough time to have heads down, design time, and then I’ve planned out. So 

[00:49:10] diane: focus, like how, how, how many hours is focused heads down, design time? 

[00:49:17] Rex McKay: Great question. Uh, I think in my current role, ideally it’s maybe about four hours or so a day. 

[00:49:25] diane: Oh, that’s good.

[00:49:26] Rex McKay: Being able to do that with the other times, being meetings. [00:49:30] 

[00:49:30] diane: Yeah. 

[00:49:31] Rex McKay: Um, and then I think I’m able to do that partially because since a lot of my partners are in London, they all log off by nine o’clock anyway, so there’s no one to talk to me after that point in time. Um, that makes it helpful. So typically, yeah, I try to be heads down design stuff, so then the next morning if I have questions, I can then send it over through Slack or whatever.

[00:49:53] diane: Okay. Um, okay. Now I’m asking you about your favorite now in your whole career, [00:50:00] what has been your favorite project or, or product or proudest achievement thus far? 

[00:50:07] Rex McKay: Oh, you’re putting my question back on me in a way. Yeah. Um, so I guess there’s kind of two things of the project I probably enjoyed the most is working at the aquarium because I just like animals and I like just sitting on the floor taking recordings and videos of fish, learning about how they swim, and trying to figure out how to animate that.

[00:50:27] And then because we were students, we were [00:50:30] kind of like unmanaged and not committed to anything necessarily. Mm-Hmm. Of like, if we didn’t deliver something, there wasn’t some huge risk on the line for anybody. The 

[00:50:40] diane: responsibility was low maybe? Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Yeah, 

[00:50:43] Rex McKay: the responsibility was low. It was just as fun as we can make it be.

[00:50:46] Um, I think for things that I’m proud of, it’s more of, now that I’m at Amazon. The cool thing about it is Prime video is in like 160 territories, so massive global impact and [00:51:00] consideration. And then also we typically run, uh, quantitative ab tests. So anytime you’re on Amazon, anywhere, on any web part of it, there’s always multiple tests running concurrently that you’re probably not aware of where there’s been some tweak to the header or to a button or some spacing.

[00:51:15] Mm-Hmm. Or a new tag there. Um, and because the company is so big, you run that test for two weeks and then you get like 3 million results back. And so you’re able to get statistical significance pretty easily and quickly. And if it [00:51:30] is, yeah. And if it is a helpful feature, then you’ve realized you’ve helped a couple million people.

[00:51:37] And then also, like the amount of money that you generate, even though you’ve done something small, feels weird of like, oh yeah, we did this, so now we’re making 5 million more dollars a year. Uh, that’s 

[00:51:48] diane: amazing. Which 

[00:51:49] Rex McKay: is a unfathomable amount of money and that is, I think, not a lot. 

[00:51:53] diane: Alright, so let me ask you this.

[00:51:54] So one other reason you had talked about, um, and I hope it’s okay, I [00:52:00] think, um, so we talked about, um, sometimes traditional graphic designers don’t make as much as maybe ux. So this was another kind of factor in wanting to do more, not also, it was just that you enjoyed that and you enjoy this part. It’s not, you shouldn’t do it if you don’t really like learning about, uh, other people and how things are really, you, you do kind of have to have that empathy bone, I think.

[00:52:24] Uh, but it does pay better, um, because of [00:52:30] the, um, you do have to do some research. You, it’s more niche. There’s our, our elements to it. Um, and I’m just, I just wanna. Is that correct? That they normally make more money and then 

[00:52:45] Rex McKay: that is Yeah. Generally going to be, uh, correct of, like I said, I, the main thing is I knew I wanted do something more with design in general, and I’ve happened to discover it and, and incentive for me to leave my [00:53:00] job and go to school was to, knowing that I could make that money back afterwards, the ROI on switching Right.

[00:53:07] Would be pretty decent where return on investment where, yeah. Even if I wasn’t working at Amazon right outta school, if I was still working in Atlanta someplace, I’d be making decent enough money that I would not be in debt and I’d be able to recover from not being a full-time worker for that time.

[00:53:22] Right, right. Um, 

[00:53:24] diane: is product design like, because it’s so, uh, vague, [00:53:30] is it. It’s pretty much a UA UX designer or maybe Mm-Hmm. A lot of times. And, but I’m just wondering, is it like UX and then product is more here or it’s just really the, what they’re asking you to do. 

[00:53:45] Rex McKay: Okay. They’re the same thing for the most part.

[00:53:48] Sometimes it’d be something different, but it’s not because of the word. It’s just because of how they chose to interpret it. 

[00:53:53] diane: Okay. And, and that’s one thing that we’re learning that lots of people maybe are using the word, um, [00:54:00] but they’re using it in different ways. So it’s really important for you to read the description Mm-Hmm.

[00:54:04] And understand what would be way too much to ask one person and then what might be too slow or too 

[00:54:10] Rex McKay: Yeah. ’cause if I saw in job descriptions, references to coding, then I wouldn’t. 

[00:54:14] diane: Right. It’s not worry about 

[00:54:15] Rex McKay: it too much. I wouldn’t apply for it. Yeah. Right. 

[00:54:18] diane: Okay. So, um, um, what are the challenges? Uh, well we’ve already kind of covered that.

[00:54:24] Um. Is there any, okay. When you’re working with teams that are in, [00:54:30] uh, England or Australia Mm-Hmm. You’re in lots of other places remotely or even just remote. Some people are in, uh, California maybe. Mm-Hmm. And you’re in Seattle. You’re on the same time zone. What are some of the workarounds or some of the challenges you’ve had to come with just working remote.

[00:54:46] Mm-Hmm. Instead of like, you can just go over to the, their office and ask them a question. There’s something that was, that I’ve missed about not Mm-Hmm. Having that, but there’s other good, there’s good and bo bad of both, I [00:55:00] think. But 

[00:55:00] Rex McKay: yeah. So I think the convenient thing is because everyone went remote simultaneously.

[00:55:07] We’re all kind of on board with whatever at the same time. Mm-Hmm. Um. Then I think that kind of coincided with the rise of Figma being the preferred tool because it was so much easier to share and collaborate where right before the pandemic, everyone was using Sketch for the most part ’cause I had more features.

[00:55:26] Um, but being able to use Figma to share your [00:55:30] designs directly, have people work in it directly, have people follow you around, that’s really kind of changed how we collaborate. ’cause even if we’re in the office together, we’ll still like shoot a Slack link over to somebody of it in it. Or while we’re in Zoom doing review again, still in the same room, we’ll share it so that we can still walk through it together.

[00:55:48] Hmm. Uh, I think that has been a huge part of it. Um, the other thing is typically, unless the meeting is, is too big, uh, having my camera on at all [00:56:00] times just to kind of remind people that I’m here. 

[00:56:03] diane: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Uh, 

[00:56:04] Rex McKay: that kind of helps you get equal kind of weight and attention, uh, as needed. Um, and then it’s also just building in those fun activities and opportunities.

[00:56:16] Yeah. Um, our, our previous DPM would have like an hour of whimsy planned where we would just get into Figma together and do something dumb. So we came up with a mascot and every month we’d do a themed poster of our mascot doing [00:56:30] something. So we had a, a platypus and so for Chinese New Year, Valentine’s or Halloween, we would design stuff to go with him and then, oh, that’s 

[00:56:40] diane: fun.

[00:56:41] Rex McKay: Then have that, and then now, every now and then we do some sort of design led activity with each other. Uh, sometimes it’s a cool like brainstorming thing just to get your mind jogging. I do a lot of trivia for some reason. Um, so does everybody 

[00:56:59] diane: lead [00:57:00] their own kind of thing so that everybody gets a chance to 

[00:57:03] Rex McKay: Yeah, we, we rotate.

[00:57:04] Oh, that’s cool. Rotate. Typically so everyone, uh, is able to contr, contribute and kind of choose the thing they want to do. 

[00:57:11] diane: All right. So I have a question. Um, Mm-Hmm. This, I have two more questions and then we’ll be done. Yeah. What kind of companies? If I was, I mean, I’m not, but pretend like somebody listening.

[00:57:20] Mm-Hmm. Is looking, they’re like, Ugh, I think this is what I wanna do. And maybe they have some experience already. What kind of companies hire product designers? Like [00:57:30] where do you look for if you were looking for a job? 

[00:57:32] Rex McKay: Yeah. I would say it might be a pretty good overlap with the companies that hire.

[00:57:37] Graphic designers or visual designers. And a lot of times there are still visual designers on those teams or at those companies. It’s just they’re working on a different product or a different part of the product. Uh, so even at Amazon, we’ll have visual designers who, like as a UX designer, all design all the interaction in the screen.

[00:57:55] And then we need someone to create, uh, a graphic or [00:58:00] background or something to go with this new release. Um, I think a good overlap would be, uh, design systems. A lot of times, uh, sometimes you’re just doing UI and components, but it helps to have somebody with a visual eye. Mm-Hmm. Uh, to help with those as well, to make everything that can be delightful, be delightful or practical.

[00:58:19] Um, yeah, I think generally it’s overlap is going to be, I. 

[00:58:24] diane: Are there small companies than higher? Or, or, 

[00:58:29] Rex McKay: [00:58:30] yeah, I, I guess that’s the, is like, I feel like generally it’s gonna be larger companies that have a website or app that need help. Mm-Hmm. Uh, for smaller companies that don’t have that, they would still need an outside agency potentially.

[00:58:41] Uh, and those agencies can still be smaller. So Delta, I don’t know if they still do, worked with a KQA in downtown Atlanta and they did the, the mobile app and website, and that team was relatively small. So if you wanted to work on Delta’s product, but they themselves don’t have that design team. [00:59:00] Mm-Hmm.

[00:59:00] Uh, you could potentially still work with somebody who’s able to help out with that or contributes to multiple companies still, uh, that maybe don’t have their own resourcing is an opportunity. 

[00:59:10] diane: That’s a good, those are good, um, ideas for, so would you, because, so you’ve worked at big companies, I mean Honeywell, um.

[00:59:21] Roku, Amazon, those are big companies. So what about a startup? ’cause sometimes people Mm-Hmm. Will have an idea for an app [00:59:30] or, um, a product like that that’s solving something. What maybe look to, what would you tell somebody to look for? For some, that’s a much smaller team. 

[00:59:43] Rex McKay: Well, I guess for, for startups and smaller teams in general, they’re gonna be more likely to need someone who is a generalist and capable of doing a wide range of things, as well as also leading the design for that group.

[00:59:57] Uh, there might be a founder who knows they want an [01:00:00] app and they know they want these features, but they need someone to tell them like how to actually implement it and how it should work and to help guide it. ’cause if you just do what they want, it may end up being an unsuccessful, unsuccessful thing that doesn’t perform well or that they’re unhappy about.

[01:00:15] And it would’ve been better if. They have, uh, a designer on hand who is able to represent and be the voice and advocate for the, for the customer as well. 

[01:00:26] diane: Hmm. Okay. Alright. Last question. You ready? 

[01:00:29] Rex McKay: Yeah, [01:00:30] sure. Um, 

[01:00:30] diane: what is next? Do you have a big dream like, uh, working for a certain company or a type of project or product that you would like to work on?

[01:00:40] Rex McKay: So I feel like my, my dream has shifted since of, I’ve been fortunate enough to, as you mentioned, I’ve already worked for a bunch of big companies and so I thought, like before I graduated, I thought my comp, my dream would be I wanna work at a big tech company and now I’m already at one, uh, and I’m older and I have a, a child now.

[01:00:59] And [01:01:00] so now my priorities are shifting to, like, what I would wanna do in the future is somewhere where I, maybe I. Commute less or, uh, are able to have more work life balance. Um, so what if you 

[01:01:13] diane: have that, what if you have work life balance, but what about the projects you’re working on? Would it be something in education, like learning or, um, or would it be with animals?

[01:01:24] Rex McKay: I mean, I think the animals would be a fun thing that doesn’t make a lot of money. Okay. That would be eventually down the [01:01:30] line of when I’m not concerned about it. Uh, or when I have time. I think right now what I’d be interested in is just getting more exposure to things I haven’t done before. Um, so like I really enjoy doing B2C work because that people actually see in use because it’s kinda a weird, nice feeling of being able to point to a thing in real life and say, I work on that.

[01:01:53] Right. Um, especially when your mom can understand this. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and I guess now to the point [01:02:00] where like, I. Um, kind of emerging trends of people call, keep talking about generative AI as part of like, what can you do with features like that. And so it’s kind of turning more into, oh, there’s a new tool available, basically.

[01:02:14] So do you, what can we do with that new tool or new resource? 

[01:02:17] diane: Are you always kind of have your head in looking at some of those resources and seeing, thinking about how you can use those in either products or are you just, is there [01:02:30] something that you tap into, you’re a newsletter you always read, or a blog or something?

[01:02:35] Rex McKay: I, I feel like I’m not a good designer because I do not read anything anymore. When I was, no, you’re a dad, 

[01:02:41] diane: you’re a new dad. That is your, 

[01:02:43] Rex McKay: now, now I read children’s books. Um, I think it’s more of either way, like through the zeitgeist or somehow through osmosis. Uh, people are talking about the people you talk 

[01:02:51] diane: to.

[01:02:52] It’s that you’re having conversations around those people. Yeah, I mean, around those things, not those people, like a design 

[01:02:57] Rex McKay: technologist will come up with an idea for how we [01:03:00] can kind of automate or personalize something for somebody. Uh, and so then we think about like, okay, well now how can we create surfaces and opportunities now that we have more personalization opportunities?

[01:03:10] Thanks, capable. Or there might be some new device where like, whenever the Quest came out for a while, it was fun to think about what would it look like if we had a, a VR app or something, or a LinkedIn vr, just to see what that would look like. Um, one thing that I don’t have a lot of exposure to, which is weird ’cause it’s the thing that most people are exposed [01:03:30] to is, uh, phone design and mobile design.

[01:03:33] And so that’s also a thing I wanna potentially do more. And it’s something I can still do at Prime Video because we do have a mobile app. Yeah. Which is playing around with, um, what are some opportunities and cool things you can do with phones and how are they different and how can you take a advantage of them.

[01:03:49] diane: Yeah. That’s awesome. All right, Rex, thank you so much. I wanna make sure everybody knows how they can get in touch with you, which they can go to your website at. I’m gonna put hit return ’cause I already have it in [01:04:00] my thing at, but these links will be at the top of the YouTube and they will be at the top of the, wherever you’re listening.

[01:04:06] Mm-Hmm. To this podcast if somebody wants to do it. But Rex, R-E-X-M-C-K-A y.com. That’s your website. Or you can, um, check ’em out@linkedin.com slash. IN slash R-E-X-M-C-K-A-Y. Rex, I’m super proud of you. I can, couldn’t be a prouder design mom. I’m glad you still [01:04:30] are doing the Rex reveal and mm-hmm, that you’re always learning.

[01:04:34] I think that you have such great energy and, um, you really do wanna help people. And I think that’s probably one of the things that makes you such a great, um, designer and a UX designer, and it makes you a great dad and a partner and a coworker for all the people that you work with. 

[01:04:51] Rex McKay: I, I feel like I just lucked my way to the top of like, I had an idea for a thing I wanna do, and somehow I ended up there and I don’t know why anyone chose me for [01:05:00] anything.

[01:05:00] Well, uh, I’m glad I made it somehow. 

[01:05:03] diane: I, I, that’s humble. Uh, but I think that you’ve worked really hard and, um. You’ve always been a hard worker and you are interested in other people, so you’re not selfish and um, not self-focused. So you’re, you climb but not on anybody’s back. You climb by lifting others with you.

[01:05:23] And I think, anyway, couldn’t make, I couldn’t be prouder. Thank you. 

[01:05:27] Rex McKay: I appreciate it. 

[01:05:28] diane: Well, I am thankful [01:05:30] that I got to interview you and it’s been a long time, but I’m glad that I got to see you and I hope that you have a great week and next, next week we’re off ’cause I’m going to a conference and then we have two shows, just so everybody knows.

[01:05:47] On October 30th we have a show, and then on November 2nd we have a show. So it’s a double duty. And these are product designers that are designing physical things or [01:06:00] selling physical things. So, um, real excited to have Tim Baron on and he’s designed. Things that people, again, you can point to and say, Hey, I mom, I did that.

[01:06:13] And it’s stuff that, like Tony Hawk skateboards and stuff, he’s drawn a lot of stuff, uh, for Tony Hawk, um, and some other famous like surfer people maybe. I don’t remember exactly everything, but it’s stuff I had seen and I was like, wow. And then, um, [01:06:30] anyway, I’ll tell you about the rest later. But Rex, thank you.

[01:06:33] Thank you. And I am super proud of you. 

[01:06:36] Rex McKay: Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate the time. 

[01:06:38] diane: Absolutely. And I’ll see everybody next, next, not next week, ’cause I won’t be here, but the week after. All right. Have a great, have a great week. I’m hitting [01:07:00] stop.