Interview with Amy Lau a UX Designer

When visiting a website you read the words within the context of the design and if done well your experience is a positive one with little friction. The overall user experience (UX) is where Amy comes in by helping narrate the story of the website for the visitors.

Hey Amy,

Thank you for joining me in this interview. We first met recently through a mutual friend and fellow expat Tim Uittenbroek over brunch after a stroll up Pearl Hill.

I was excited to hear that you work in UX design as I am always looking to improve the user performance of my website. I developed my e-commerce website and so was keen to discover your thoughts.

So, Amy, I am excited to learn more about your journey and how you can improve our web experience. Let’s jump straight into this with my first question.

It would be great to get a little background information from where you were born to where you live today. What’s your backstory?

Yep, sure. I was born and raised in Hong Kong. Moved to Penang with my family just 1.5 years ago.

You have recently moved to Penang, what motivated the move and how’s your experience so far?

I have been to Penang a few times before actually moving and I always love Penang, with the amazing colonial architecture and history, of course, it's a food paradise as well!

And since my husband has got a job offer from Penang, we were more than happy to move here.

How did you get into UX Design?

I used to study Graphic and multimedia design and I was a game designer before. There was a time we (while I was working in a gambling company in Hong Kong) had a crossover project with another company about data research/ qualitative research. It just impressed me a lot with all the user data and feedback we have gathered to help us make decisions and create future planning.

After that, I started to learn about “User-centric design”, and “User research” on the internet, like Youtube and Medium. Tho back then “UX” wasn't really a big thing in Hong Kong, I couldn't find any courses or job opportunities to learn more about UX.

So I started to look around in other countries.

God bless me, I've found my first UX title job in Singapore as a junior position.

That's how it started.

So, what does a UX designer do?

There are so many different types of UX designers. Hence many different titles can come across with similar job descriptions.

For example, some would prefer to be called a UX specialist, Product designer, Researcher, UI/UX designer, or hybrid designer!

Mostly also depends on what kind of products you are focusing on. It could be hardware as well.

But for me, mostly Mobile App/ web design.

So no matter what product it is, it has to be a user-centric design to support users’ needs. We need to understand users’ pain points and identify the problems than improving the current design/ ideas. It’s more than just interface design, it's about the whole product’s life cycle.

And how do we do it?

To be more technical, we follow different research methodology and theories, and depending on budget and time, we need to choose the best way to bring the most positive impact to the users and business.

I was a web developer for many years and so worked with business owners building websites. It’s a challenge. So, I am very interested in understanding your process when working with a client?

Similar to the above.

We should always listen and understand the problem. If we don't understand the problems, there will be confusion and we won't see the outcomes.

First, identify the problems, and understand the pain points (thru research/ interviews, etc.) Next, you can do some sketching or unfurnished design. Then test it. (test it with the right methods.) Analyze the results, and refine the design. Usually, I also like to do a metric mapping for the next action to understand the efforts & cost to prioritize and make a decision.

Usually, a client would say I don’t like the current design/ it’s just not working/and it just looks dull. And my questions would always be “Why”/ “Then what would be the first change you want to make” there should be many open questions while you are trying to understand clients/users' perspectives. Then follow up…

Somehow we would find out it's actually not just the feeling about the visual design but about the hierarchy, functions, placing, fonts and the user flow could be just too complicated.

What are the common UX design mistakes that you see with e-Commerce brands?

I think they don't understand what is user experience and user-centric design.

And the most common mistake would be assuming.

For e-commerce brands, probably the structure of the content.

They assume what would be the most important information that users want to see. And when users drop off from the page, they would assume because users weren't interested or busy.

A cheeky question for you here, after looking at my Supergreen Tonik website, what is the most obvious thing you would suggest we changed?

I remember my first impression was about the content being too long as I was a new user, I did try to read about the Supergreen Tonik details. But then I gave up haha.

So yah I suggested modifying the contents.

When implementing UX design changes do you split-testing the changes? If not, how do you confirm changes have made a positive impact?

Split testing is only one of the methods.

There are other frequently used methods as well, like interviews, quick click tests, card sorting, etc.

• Interviews -> you can share the prototype or the actual products to the users and ask the right questions to get feedback, and sometimes we create different tasks for them as well to create a completion rate.
• Card sorting -> you can just write down/ print out the names of all the categories, shuffle the cards, and ask your friends or actual users to try to place the cards in the piles.

For different products would be different features and contexts.

But those methods will always help you find out if users are using your product correctly and if it's easy for them to use.

And in general, there are two different types, Qualitative or Quantitative.

Split testing is mostly Quantitative. So if you only use split testing you might miss some quality insight from the users.

Interviews, and focus groups, could be considered qualitative in that you would likely see the behavior and feelings, etc.

You tackle UX projects for both Phone Apps and websites (I think here you meant desktop), apparently from the obvious challenge of a smaller screen, what are the other issues?

The gesture would be one of the big differences, the thumb gestures and those short cut you use with your laptop and phone.

Moreover, the navigation style, most likely mobile app users prefer the vertical style, and desktop users prefer the horizontal.

How do you see UX design changing in the next few years?

It's been changing every year.

Recently there’s a new term “UX psychologist”. Emerging psychology in UX. That sounds make sense, sometimes you have to learn the emotion and the brain's reaction towards different things.

Also the new trend of VR/AR and 3D design. Using these technologies to create new experiences for users.

Some properties’ websites would allow you to use their VR/ AR feature to make you feel like you are in the selling unit, and when you are in the street you could just use your phone to scan around to see which units/ houses are available for sale.