Partnering with Berkeley Innovation

Berkeley Innovation (BI) is UC Berkeley’s student-run human-centered design consultancy that allows students to gain practical, real-world experience with clients ranging from physical to digital products, brands and experiences.

My colleague Wei Huang and I had the opportunity to propose a project for the BI team’s consideration for their Fall 2023 semester. This became the perfect opportunity to see how we could better support our small and medium business (SMB) merchants on Pinterest so that they can more easily get their products in front of shoppers on their path to purchase. We kicked off our partnership with BI and worked with six student design consultants from September to December 2023.

Collaborating with the students

We met with the team weekly to get progress updates and insights and to provide feedback on ways to move forward with the project. The team ran research and synthesis to inform designs that they ideated and then iterated, and finally presented us with final deliverables in the form of a competitive analysis, journey map, and final prototype and presentation deck. To see some of this work, check out their case study.

Takeaways and insights from the partnership

While the benefit of participating as clients was clear (a fresh perspective and designs for our product), what Wei and I gained from working with our BI design consultants stretched beyond the designs they worked on.

Sharing the business side of Pinterest

When you think about Pinterest, you may not immediately think of business tools or the merchants and advertisers that use them to connect their products to people on Pinterest. With this project, we were able to highlight that side of the company and show how this type of design work leads to tangible business impact. It was also an opportunity to share the business-focused side of the design discipline more broadly as a possible area of focus for our student design consultants.

Seeing that the design process is alive and well

We were curious to see how students today approach the design process and encouraged that some semblance of “discover, define, design, and deliver” persists in building a foundation in design. But the application of this process and the tools involved always depend on the project. Opportunities like this partnership provide invaluable lessons in how to tackle the unknowns and how to best apply the design process in various scenarios.

Our very own senior product designer, UC Berkeley alum and former BI consultant, Kenny Yeung, shared a notable takeaway from his experience: “The design process won’t always go as smoothly or linearly and being able to navigate within this ambiguity is important.” It was rewarding to help students navigate the design process, and it was fascinating for us to see that the core of the design process remains largely unchanged.

Mentoring as a two-way street

In an environment where there are endless product requirements and designs never feel done, it’s easy to get bogged down by the “jobs to be done” and decisions that need to be made. Getting to teach our design consultants what we know was a nice gentle reminder of the knowledge we’ve built. In return, we’re inspired by our mentees as they embark on the path we also once chose as product designers to use curiosity and thoughtfulness to inject user-centric ideas into products that people can love using.

Special thanks to all those involved from the Pinterest team to ensure that this collaboration happened without a hitch. And thank you to the BI team for partnering with Wei and I to explore fresh new ways we can improve our ads experience and support SMBs on Pinterest. This collaboration has been a very good reminder that we all start our design journey somewhere. And as designers working in the field, we have the opportunity to plant the seeds we want to see bud in the design community. We can’t wait to see how our design consultants will push our industry forward!

Berkeley Innovation x Pinterest Design was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ll be honest: I used to avoid ads as a user. They had a poor reputation in my mind. But a recent project shifted my perspective, and now I see that the complexity of the business-facing side of the product can truly drive creativity and innovation — and it helped me grow as a product designer.

Here’s some of what I’ve learned so far:

The project that changed my mind about ads

As a designer on the Monetization team at Pinterest, my work helps businesses connect with users, while also creating products that help users create a life they love by connecting them with the right commercial opportunity at the right time in their journey from inspiration to realization.

But I recognize now that when I first joined the Ad Formats team I came in with a bias. I heavily prioritized the end user’s perspective on what they found appealing or annoying. My background in graphic design and previous agency experience further influenced me to focus more on the user-facing side of the product and visual solutions.

But the first ad format I worked on changed everything for me. The project was Quiz Ads, where users can engage with ads in a playful way for personalized recommendations or entertainment and discover unfamiliar brands along the way.

Innovating for businesses also means innovating for users

While designing the Quiz Ad flow, I realized that while working to drive business value, we are still able to create visually compelling and useful content for users.

By getting the option to narrow their results through the quiz format, we’re helping connect users to what they’re looking for faster — and in a fun and engaging way.

Designing a new interaction like Quiz Ads was highly creative. While designing this new, visually engaging product we presented businesses with several opportunities:

• Build deeper, more targeted brand connections with their audience: This new, engaging format allows advertisers to create unique and memorable moments while reducing the friction to engage with content.
• Unlock scale and connect with users where they are looking for inspiration: Quiz Ads pull up and enhance evaluation that previously happened on external microsites outside of Pinterest that were costly and cumbersome to build.
• Better measure success: Advertisers can access more substantial post-campaign insights and learnings.
• Create Custom Audiences of Pinterest users: Businesses can create audiences who have interacted with specific events — these audiences can be used for targeting and retargeting.

I was beginning to see what it meant to work on creative solutions that deliver an excellent end-user experience while also unlocking business value. But this project led to another big shift for me — in addition to focusing on the end-user experience and driving value for our users, I also began to see our advertisers as users too.

What seeing businesses as users unlocked for me

With the help of my team, I transitioned from solving only end-user problems to solving advertiser problems as well. I learned more about their business needs, goals and how they operate.

Our team has a process for designers and researchers to convene and share their work in progress to collect feedback in order to think deeper through problems and make higher-quality design decisions. Our researchers occasionally invite Ad Account Managers to add visceral advertiser perspectives and pain points to the conversation. I benefited greatly from these designer studio crits and, through rounds of iterations fueled by qualitative research sessions, we were able to deliver a more polished experience for general access and a creation process for a brand-new format that was easy for advertisers to understand and use.

As I began to work on the back-end of the advertiser experience for Quiz Ads, I discovered my interest in designing tools. As I learned more about the hoops and hurdles advertisers had to go through on ad creation tools on any platform, including ours, I developed empathy for their pain and frustration.

This helped me further recognize advertisers as users with more specific needs and goals and learned that their needs are not always in conflict with end-user experience.

Advertisers’ needs for tooling felt more specific and measurable, making the resolution of their issues and meeting their needs highly gratifying. While advertisers’ objectives are often straightforward, designing scalable solutions that fit within a complex system presented a compelling challenge.

My perspective on ads now

This project helped me realize that creating solutions that work for both the user- and business-facing sides of the product truly drives creativity and innovation. Solving this complexity helped me grow as a product designer, and the solutions my team and I deliver are helping drive significant business impact, which is enormously rewarding.

How we drove business value and innovation on user-facing experiences from the business-side of the product

• Delivered new experiences: Before we launched Quiz Ads, advertisers on Pinterest had fewer ad format options to choose from, let alone ones that can drive deeper awareness and engagement through interactions. We created a whole new interaction pattern that opened up different ways users can engage with an ad, and delivered a new experience on Pinterest.
• Continued innovation: We’re continuing to innovate our Quiz Ads to bring more visuals and personality into the experience. Our vision is to enable advertisers to show up in exciting and interesting ways to connect with their audience, learn from their interactions and enhance their creation process so that they have more control and efficiency.
• Increased revenue: We’ve helped drive significant revenue already since the limited launch a few months ago.¹
• Increased value for advertisers: Our Beta test showed an increased completion rate and significant increases in brand awareness and action intent.²

I’m very excited to continue working on the next iteration of the Quiz Ad format. We plan to evolve into a more visually engaging and seamless experience on Pinterest. Tooling will be enhanced to accommodate more specific advertiser needs and make the creation process more comprehensive and efficient.

Working on the Ad Formats team has helped me develop a deeper understanding of Pinterest’s mission to bring users inspiration and allow them to take action to create a life they love. Ads on Pinterest will continue to mature to become an enjoyable part of the experience that empowers users to take action while enabling advertisers to explore creative and performant ways to show up and inspire their audience. Today, I see ads as an opportunity to innovate.

Footnotes
¹ Pinterest Internal Data, Quiz & Showcase Beta, Q3 2023.
² Pinterest Internal Data, Quiz & Showcase Beta, Q3 2023.

The project that shifted my perspective as a designer was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’re sitting at your desk.
You’re staring at your screen.
You’re waiting for an idea.

We all know the feeling: You’re stuck, but you want to tap into your creativity and unlock a new solution.

We shared some ideas on the science behind inspiration and how to design more of it into your life, and, of course, we always recommend opening Pinterest to help you find inspiration. But for moments when you’re staring at your screen and staring down a deadline, here are some quick tips to help encourage creativity while you work.

Put some music on.

Listening to music boosts divergent thinking.¹ Putting on upbeat music can make it easier to think through your problem and come up with creative solutions.

This is a favorite work-from-home trick: I keep a record player in my office. Putting a record on not only reminds me to listen to music throughout the day, but the fact that I have to flip the record to listen to side B forces me to get up from my chair and move around for a moment. Whether you put on a record or listen to music on your phone (or the radio — a great opportunity to introduce chance and discover new music), putting on your favorite upbeat songs can help you solve your problem faster or come up with your next great idea.

Stretch your body to stretch your mind.

Research shows that stretching improves the mood and cognitive function in people who spend a lot of time sitting.² The benefits are clear, but it’s so easy to forget to stretch during the day. Another work-from-home trick of mine (thank you PinFlex!) is to lay out a yoga mat near my desk. Having a visual queue helps me keep the habit of stretching at the beginning and end of the day. Whether you do some quick neck rolls and arm stretches, opt for chair yoga (there are tons of tutorials online), or stretch out on your yoga mat between meetings, simple movement and stretching can help you think more clearly and creatively.

Keep a notebook out just for doodling.

Maybe you doodle your ideas longhand before moving over to a design file on your computer, but if unstructured drawing is not already part of your day-to-day process, here’s an invitation to start. A 2017 study showed that a doodling session activated the prefrontal cortex and increased participants’ perception of their ability to solve problems and generate ideas.³

Taking a pen (or crayon, marker, charcoal — you name it) to paper can help you work through your block and come up with a creative solution. Keep a notebook on your desk dedicated to freehand drawing, and try turning to it anytime you’re feeling stuck or want to generate a new idea.

Design work requires a lot of creativity and problem-solving. We hope these tips will help you the next time you’re feeling stuck.

To learn more about Pinterest Design, follow us on LinkedIn.

¹ PLOS ONE vol.12, 9, “Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking.” September 2017.

² Perceptual and Motor Skills, 127(1), 142–153.“Effects of Acute Stretching on Cognitive Function and Mood States of Physically Inactive Young Adults.” November 2019.

³ “Functional near-infrared spectroscopy assessment of reward perception based on visual self-expression: Coloring, doodling, and free drawing,” The Arts in Psychotherapy, Volume 55, Pages 85–92. United States, published May 2017.

Three easy ways to boost creativity while you work was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our Inclusive Product team’s mission is to ensure that everyone feels like Pinterest is a place for them. We’ve shared deep-dives of some of the team’s work: skin tone ranges in search in 2019, hair pattern search in 2021 and body type technology in 2023 and an overview of our inclusive research practices. On the occasion of the latest launch of body type ranges — which gives users the choice to self-select what body types are featured in their search results for women’s fashion and wedding ideas — we thought we’d ask the team to share more about what it’s like to be a product designer, researcher or content designer on the Inclusive Product team. How is designing for inclusive products different?

A few members of our Inclusive Product team shared their perspectives with Katie Elfering, Senior Staff Qualitative Product Researcher on inclusive products: Corrine Aberdeen, Senior Content Designer; Jose Hernandez, Senior Staff Product Designer; and Chloe Ng, Staff Product Designer.

Their conversation has been edited and condensed.

Katie Elfering: Why do you work on inclusive products? Why does it matter to you to do this kind of work?

Chloe Ng: I got into design because I wanted to make a positive impact on people through tech. At school, we called it human-centered design, and I think on the Inclusive Product team, the “human” part of human-centered design is more emphasized than ever compared to all the other teams I’ve been on. I feel it’s such a unique opportunity to work on inclusive products, and I’m really grateful to do that.

Corrine Aberdeen: Like Chloe, I want to be a part of making people feel good and seen and centered in tech. The opportunity to ensure that there isn’t just one perspective and one identity that’s centered has been core to everything that I’ve done in my life pre-tech and now several years into content design. So it’s really just a natural extension of who I am.

Jose Hernandez: For a lot of the same reasons just mentioned — the impact, the positive impact. It’s not often that we get to have such a direct impact. It’s also been really nice to learn and become more aware. I think we could all use a little bit of that.

Katie: I agree with you Corrine — I really believe that tech can do good and that there’s so much potential to do good, but it has to be done intentionally, and this team includes a lot of intentionality in our work, especially in the way that we design inclusive features.

Katie: What do you think makes designing for inclusive products different from other design efforts in tech in general?

Jose: I think one of the main differences, at least from my experience here, is we don’t often get to design for a marginalized group. We’re always focusing on a larger cohort, and this is one of the biggest differences I could find during the process.

Corrine: I think a big difference was how much I had to intentionally de-center myself. A lot of times I am the expert on an experience, not because it’s specific to my lived experience, but the way we do work is: you have the expertise on this function. So you bring that to this product, you know, the words, the way the experience should be mapped from end to end.

And this time around [with the body type ranges launch], I really had to take a step back because I’m not the expert here — I might be one of many people, I might have some part of my identity that we are trying to include here. But this is not just about me, it’s about a much larger community. It’s a community that’s usually been forced to the margins. So how do I make sure that I am never making a decision that is grounded in what I want?

It requires relying a lot on research, which we were lucky to have a lot of really great foundational research to refer to, but I would say that was probably the biggest difference — at every single moment checking in and making sure this is what the product needs based on what our audience is saying they need.

Chloe: I totally resonate with what the two of you just said. Coming in, I felt like I didn’t know anything here, and that put me in a very nervous state. But also I realized, in a way, that’s a great way to approach the space because users are so central to it, and we involve people in every single decision we make. It’s coming in with a very humble approach and really letting the users and the people who we are designing for guide us.

Katie: Completely agree — I think the thing that sets working on inclusive products apart for me is the reliance on designing with people, not for them. And that means listening to people, checking in constantly, doing more research than in many other situations and consistently validating that what we are building truly meets the needs of the people we are building it with.

Katie: How do you take some of your own biases out of the design process here? How do you do the work to sort of counteract unintentional biases as you start designing in these inclusive spaces?

Corrine: Rely on the research. It was a lot of relying on the research. It’s so easy to think that you found a good solution and that you have considered every potential pitfall and every way that you may be being insensitive. And then the research will tell you, hey, there’s an entire thing you have not considered.

There are probably a million and one things we have not figured out yet and as we keep going, we’ll keep listening and making improvements.

Katie: As much as I love the research appreciation here, I also really agree with this point. There is an intentionality to this work that requires extra effort — ensuring we have the right people in our research efforts, doing more foundational research than we usually would, validating and re-validating ideas with different audiences to ensure that the right voices are being heard.

Katie: Let’s talk a little bit about how we put into practice what you just talked about — that listening to people and that learning. How was the process of building and designing body type ranges different?

Chloe: The timeline. I’ve been on teams where we’re constantly launching and then looking at metrics. On this team, we’re very intentional. We’ve had so many rounds of research, and in that process we’ve learned so much.

At the beginning of this project, we had a crash course in size inclusion, and before we even started sketching anything we had foundational research. When we started putting concepts together, we had Katie’s amazing eight-week research study. (Also the longest I’ve done a research study for a project.) That was super cool — every single week we got to talk to people on Pinterest. Overall we spent more on the preparation and design phase.

Jose: I would agree with all those things. There was an eight-week sprint, but I’d like to emphasize the word sprint. We worked pretty hard and pretty quickly and turned around things fast. I’ve been in sprints before, but that was a long one. It turned out great though.

Another thing I would say was different for me in this experience was working outside of our norms. We are focusing on the margins and the research uncovered specific needs, and a lot of those things had requirements that made us go out of our established design patterns. Having to navigate that with the rest of the team and explaining why we aren’t doing things in the way we’d normally do them was much more a part of this project than others — it was interesting to navigate that.

Katie: I think that’s a super interesting point and you all have very generously mentioned research many times. From a research perspective, this is more research on a feature launch than I think I’ve ever done in my entire career as well.

And I think it’s interesting — maybe more so in inclusive products than in other spaces — how we see research really informing design decisions. Like Jose was just mentioning, acknowledging where we need to break some of our systems or where we need to really think differently about how we might design things, given who we’re designing for and with, what the end goal is, what they’re looking for.

Katie: Are there other things that the combination of research and design working so closely together changed for you? Was it the colors or the themes or the layout? Are there things that you were like, we wouldn’t have made this decision had we not been doing all this intentional work to really understand the audience we were trying to design with?

Jose: It feels like in retrospect, almost all of it. A lot of it, maybe not all of it, but a lot of it — maybe 80% of it felt net-new or if we didn’t have the research, it would have been a completely different thing.

We probably would have gotten it wrong on a lot of different levels if it weren’t for the research foundation — also the consulting with our partners.

Chloe: I want to give a special shout out to the color, the rainbow gradient. When Jose added that, I was so happy. I was like, oh my gosh, this just feels so happy. Even though people in the research might not have said I want color, I do think there was some element of them telling us, hey, this feature makes me feel seen or I want to feel happy looking at it. Hearing from people on Pinterest talking about how this feature impacted them really made me feel like I wanted to make this feature feel like we put care into it — because we care about the people who are using it.

I think the animations and the gradients, all of the emotional aspects of it that might be pushing our design system — that emotional aspect I think naturally came from just talking to people so often about it.

Katie: Well, I love that you call out the animation and the color because in the last round of research we did on this, the amount of people who would open and say like, oh look at that little wiggle or oh look at how, how these colors really like set this apart or oh, this looks like somebody actually thought about this and they match these things and they did this in a way that’s really intentional. There’s that sense of intentionality. But to your point, Chloe, there’s this sense of happiness that comes from this as well because I think one of the team mottos as we were doing, this was like: optimize for joy. And we really want to make this a joyful experience, especially for people who don’t always see themselves represented online. So I feel like everything — the colors and the animation and all these little touches just add a little bit of care.

Thank you all so much for your work on this project and for hanging out and chatting about it. We’ve all worked so hard on this process together, and it’s nice to sit down and reflect on how we did it and what makes it really unique.

Read more about the body type ranges launch.

Designing intentionally inclusive products at Pinterest was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We love to share insights and resources for researchers at all points in their career. We have a deep dive on quantitative research, so we thought we’d share an overview of qualitative research as well. Let’s dive in.

“….So what exactly do you do?” is a question I get asked often. And depending on who’s asking I have different answers: “Do you know what focus groups are? I basically conduct those” or “I collect consumer feedback and tell people what’s working and what’s not with their products” or “I help companies understand their consumer needs and pain points.” And while all of that is true, there is also so much more to the job.

What is qualitative research?

Qualitative research is a method of gathering people’s experiences and feedback by talking to them (in person or virtually) to improve a product, service or brand. Unlike data analysis and quantitative research (which also focus on understanding people’s behaviors at scale), qualitative research can help gain an in-depth understanding of why people behave the way they do. Numbers and data help you understand what’s happening; qualitative research helps uncover the why behind those behaviors.

There are four key tasks that a qualitative researcher needs to accomplish:

1. Building a research plan
2. Coordinating and conducting research
3. Gathering and analyzing the data
4. Socializing the research across the organization

Building a research plan

While this may seem like the simplest task at hand, it can make or break a crucial research project. There are multiple tools available to qualitative researchers to talk to people: diary studies, 1:1 interviews, focus groups, immersion workshops, etc. Each tool has its own strengths and weaknesses, and identifying which tool will help get to the right answers is key to success. To get it right, it’s important to deeply understand why we are doing the project in the first place: What are the business needs we’re trying to solve? What kind of decisions do we need to make with these insights? What’s our timeline like? Why do we need to understand this problem? Why now?

Qualitative researchers do this by first talking to people who commission the project or who are directly impacted by the project, i.e. clients, stakeholders or other researchers. Once we have a good sense of the context around a project we build our research plan — this includes the project scope, research goals, methods we will be using, deliverables, audience and timeline.

Coordinating and conducting research

Once we’re aligned on the research plan, it’s time to start setting up the research.

• We first create a screener with questions that will identify the right participants for the study. We either work with vendors or find people for the study ourselves. This stage includes a lot of logistical project management — checking and rechecking participant details, protecting people’s privacy, NDA/Consent Form signing, setting up interview slots/virtual study launch timings and creating discussion guides.
• Once that’s done, we do what’s most commonly associated with qualitative research — actually conduct it! This can look like us sitting with people across a two-way mirror and asking them questions, going into their homes and meeting their families, going shopping with them, brainstorming and sketching together with consumers or virtually following up with them.

The difference between just anyone talking to consumers vs. qualitative researchers talking to consumers is the training and skill we utilize to ask the questions the right way. Qualitative researchers ensure that we make participants feel comfortable, build enough rapport to have them answer honestly, and ask questions in interesting ways to tap into their subconscious and avoid biases. Remember, it’s not about what questions are asked but how we ask questions to get the answers we need.

Gathering and analyzing data

Once we are done with all our research, we are left with all kinds of data that aren’t numbers on a spreadsheet — transcripts from interviews, quotes, sketches, photos, videos, etc. So how do we make sense of data that can’t be processed in data models?

This is the stage where art and science combine, and it’s personally my favorite step of the qualitative research process. Either collaboratively or individually, qualitative researchers use interesting techniques to make sense of this data — affinity mapping, walls (IRL or virtual) with sticky notes, brainstorming sessions, messy Miro/FigJam boards and tagging tools on digital platforms. The goal at this stage is to identify patterns that ladder up to the big picture. What differentiates an average qualitative researcher from a good one is the interpretive skills. A good qualitative researcher is able to get deep in the weeds of why those patterns show up, understand which patterns need to be prominently highlighted, and skillfully explain to stakeholders/clients why these patterns matter to their business questions.

At the end of this stage, we not only report what we found but also build a strong case for what we should do with these insights and why.

Socializing the research across the organization

Qualitative research is most successful when the people who are invested feel empathy for their audience and have a clear sense of what actions need to be taken from the research. This is the stage where storytelling and showmanship come in. Good research is engaging yet thought-provoking, easy to understand yet thorough, and simple to grasp but filled with all the necessary details.

Inspiring people to take action on research is challenging. I’ve found that using interesting visuals, movies, interactive games, immersive techniques and workshops can often be more successful than simply sharing a document report or slide deck. Or sometimes I involve stakeholders in the early stages of research by giving them small “tasks” like taking notes during the research sessions, building their own set of insights, or making them “in charge” of bringing one participant’s story to life. My goal at this stage is to empower others to feel confident enough to evangelize the research insights themselves. Conducting the research project is one part of the job, but constantly socializing the insights and building buy-in for research is equally important.

Why qualitative research is important…

Qualitative research is crucial to understanding people’s behaviors. So while the job may seem simple enough on the outside, there are many layers and skills to it that may not be immediately obvious. But hopefully, this post helped you understand a little bit more about what the job entails, and encourages you to explore the field more if you’re interested in pursuing a career as a qualitative researcher. There’s always more to uncover.

To learn more about Pinterest Design, follow us on LinkedIn.

What exactly do qualitative researchers do? was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’d never imagine I’d end up here. I recall the conversation as though I had it yesterday. As a researcher, you never forget one of your first interviews. Mine was about elder and palliative (aka end of life) care. My first job out of college was at a startup providing telemedicine solutions to nursing homes in New York. This meant that I spent countless hours talking to nursing home residents, doctors, nurses and loved ones.

As a young person, bright-eyed, naive and excited about life, spending time with folks at the end of theirs was not only eye-opening but humbling. It often surprised me when people were willing to share their story with me, a stranger. I’d hear the end-of-life wishes of someone vulnerable and decades older than me and feel helpless and introspective.

But after years in the field, I’ve learned that embracing that feeling and seeing my discomfort as an opportunity to connect deeper has taught me invaluable lessons and made me a better researcher. Good interviews should feel organic — there should be moments when you are uncertain. You engage in conversations where you learn and develop empathy for your interviewees’ story. Here are three lessons that have stuck with me over the last decade-ish of being an interviewer and researcher who embraces moments of uncertainty and unease:

Keep an open mind

Even after I’d changed jobs, I went on to interview more elders in ethnic communities in neighborhoods like Chinatown, Crown Heights and Harlem across the five boroughs of New York City. I learned that culture, language and elder care varied by occupation, lifestyle and personal dreams. I had to think of new ways to ask questions and approach delicate, and rarely straightforward, situations arising from health care, upbringing, immigration and culture. The added layers of interviewing someone in person, on camera or with other people observing presented their own challenges and new angles of a story unfolding for each interviewee.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I tend to get very focused on what I want, as a researcher. However, as I learned the hard way, it is important to be an active listener and stay open to what your subjects are actually saying and not constantly fitting their stories to your own preconceived notions. Good interviewers embrace diverse viewpoints, even if they challenge the foundation of their research questions. Keeping an open mind is your most powerful tool as an interviewer.

Embrace nuance

Outside of my role as a researcher, I’m also a freelance journalist. All this interviewing people also meant figuring out for myself how to make sense of my own community in New York and the world I live in. I covered stories around issues plaguing my neighborhood such as food security, transit and poverty. With each story, it could have been easy to think everything was set up in a black or white manner, but it taught me the importance of nuance — a principle that sticks with me to date.

As someone interviewing many people who are passionate about ending inequity — their own and others — sitting with discomfort becomes a second language. Early in my career, I once interviewed a woman who pushed back and didn’t like a question I had asked her. Her immediate response was something like I wasn’t expecting this type of interview or question and she went on guard for the rest of the interview. With any inquiry, a good interviewer is prepped with a list of questions in each scenario but is also willing to take risks and go off script when needed. Confrontation, whether to the interviewer or interviewee takes courage, but gathering the truth and reality is part of your job.

Sometimes your user of a product will be confronted with their own mistakes mid-interview or during a usability session. They may say something like ‘it seems so obvious to me now’ and in that moment leading with empathy on their own self-confrontation to an issue is key.

Discomfort, confrontation, silence and tough conversations are all part of the job. While researchers may have an innate talent for active listening, with experience comes the wisdom and discipline to practice finding nuance and feeling comfortable and growing in that discomfort — this takes you to the next level as a researcher.

Find the whole story

If you’ve read this far, you are probably a researcher looking to be a better interviewer and storyteller. When you want the whole picture sometimes that means digging for stories in the right places — even if they don’t want to be found. From unconscious biases to personal preferences, every interviewee comes to an interview with their finite set of knowledge.

Researchers swim in ambiguity. We ask questions and are ready to read between the lines. You think beyond the words that are said to you to how they are conveyed, the shift in body language, eye contact and what’s not said. The prospect of the unknown should keep you excited and curious. While the unknown can feel uncomfortable at first, it’s sometimes where you can unlock the bigger picture.

Recognizing the power of diverse interactions in my community — particularly the ones that made me feel uncertain or uncomfortable — ultimately made me a better researcher.

When researchers are open to new insights that may shape their research questions, seek and recognize nuance in their findings and build a whole story, it can lead to better outcomes for their organizations and themselves. It also makes them successful and sought after.

To learn more about Pinterest Design, follow us on LinkedIn.

Embracing discomfort can make you a better researcher was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nurturing a sense of community outside our regular workplace gatherings to foster trust and psychological safety is a principle I’ve always valued. In my experience as a UX Designer, mentor and manager, I’ve witnessed the profound benefits of strengthening understanding in each other on a more personal level. This process of investing in genuine connection not only nurtures empathy and compassion but also becomes a platform for individuals to express themselves and be acknowledged within a secure environment. Frequently, in formal meetings, individuals may withhold their thoughts for various reasons, such as fear or a sense that their ideas lack significance. However, by fostering camaraderie, we can alleviate apprehension associated with holding back, creating a space where everyone feels valued and heard. Here are some ways I build community on our Design team:

Dedicate focused time for relationship-building

Prior to the pandemic, I would organize “Feelings Meetings” to provide a weekly platform for sharing where active listening was integral to participation. In this hour-long gathering, I would present a topic and participants had the opportunity to share stories and thoughts centered around the theme, uncovering insights that wouldn’t typically surface in regular meetings. There was one rule: There are no solutions. We have so many meetings where we are problem-solving. This was an opportunity to practice listening in a supportive space, free from the expectation of resolving each other’s issues. These sessions played a crucial role in fostering a sense of humanity among coworkers, allowing us to see each other beyond our professional roles. Some example topics include:

• What are you grateful for?
• Tell us about an “aha” moment
• What is one piece of advice you received that has helped you?

This meeting format can still work in remote-first environments, but we’ve also found success in establishing ways to build or grow connections without adding additional meetings.

Carve five minutes out from recurring meetings to connect

In the current era of remote work, we’re exploring ways to reduce the frequency of our meetings while preserving avenues for team connection. Since we have a weekly UX Design Crit, we reserve the last 5 minutes for a “Mindfulness Moment” where we rotate through each member of the team and take turns bringing an activity that allows us to connect within and with each other. Here are some examples:

• Listening to a guided meditation online
• Sharing an object in our office that brings us inspiration
• Guided chair yoga
• Sharing what we are grateful for
• Finding a recipe on Pinterest that we are going to try to make
• Picking a card from the Let’s Get Closer Team Edition deck by Intelligent Change

I aimed to broaden this connection across the entire design organization. However, the challenge was to achieve this without adding extra commitments to our already hectic schedules. It needed to be entirely optional, yet inclusive enough for anyone interested to participate. Seeking a lightweight solution, I opted for Slack, a platform everyone was already using.

Build low-lift ways to connect into existing channels

This year, I launched “Wellness Wednesday,” a new initiative where each week in Design’s Slack channel, I share a simple prompt, activity or thought-provoking piece of content. The goal is to foster our well-being, strengthen connections within our organization and empower us to enhance collaboration and business impact. Participation is entirely voluntary — all it takes is a pause in your day for a mindfulness moment, then responding with an emoji or a comment each week.

Here are some examples of Wellness Wednesday prompts:

• In one word, how are you feeling at this moment?
• Did you know pets can positively impact mental health and watching videos and images of cute animals can help reduce stress levels by up to 50%?¹ Share a photo of your pets or an animal video that made you smile. (This was a really popular one!)
• What is your favorite fall food? Better yet, share a link to a recipe!
• As we approach the end of summer, share a photo(s) from your summer experiences.
• Pause. Take your eyes off the screen. Take in a deep breath. Repeat as necessary. Click the emoji below if you did this. You should be proud of yourself!

The business impact of building connection

The American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America Survey found that 92% of workers said it is important to them to work for an organization that values their emotional and psychological well-being.² Discovering moments to pause throughout your day, fostering connections with your colleagues and incorporating mindfulness and wellness into your work routine are essential — and they can be simple and require minimal time and planning. I’ve implemented these practices in-person, in virtual meetings and even through messaging services. By gaining a sense of community and seeing each other as individuals, you foster mutual appreciation, leading to improved communication and collaboration.

While it’s common to wait for organizational leadership to drive such initiatives, the most successful efforts often originate from individual contributors. I encourage you to experiment with these approaches, remaining receptive to what resonates with your team. Much like the iterative nature of the design process, be open to refining and evolving until you find effective solutions. Give it a try, and may you experience positive outcomes.

I am not a medical doctor or in any other medical or health profession. The information in this blog is not medical advice but is for informational purposes only.

¹School of Biomedical Sciences News, Research study conducted by the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom in partnership with Western Australia Tourism, October 2020.
²American Psychological Association, 2023 Work in America Survey, United States, July 2023.

Wellness at work: How to build connection on remote teams was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was the mid ’80s, I was in junior high school and I was stoked to find out that we had a substitute teacher for one class that day. At least one hour of the day would be a breeze. Somehow my friend Ricky and I ended up chatting with the sub during class. We both loved to draw and mentioned we were thinking of graphic design as a career.

“Oh, don’t go into graphic design,” the sub responded. “I studied that and here I am. It’s hard to get work and when you do, you barely get paid. I make more money being a sub.”

That conversation and many others deterred me from pursuing a career in design after high school, and I didn’t take it up again until much later in life. It wasn’t the only reason — I frankly had too many interests to make up my mind. But, as an adult I told myself that I would never be a bummer and discourage kids from pursuing whatever inspires them.

I live up to that promise as a parent every day, and recently I also had the chance to encourage students’ ambitions as a first-year mentor for Woodside High School’s Graphic and Technology Academy. This included being a guest speaker for one of the Multimedia classes. It was a very rewarding experience, and I’ve signed up to do it for a second year. Here’s why.

I got to connect with my local community via a well-designed program

The program at Woodside is very well organized. Mentors are matched with a high school junior who’s interested in the industry the mentor works in. For example, Isaiah, my mentee was into designing logos, creating videos and coming up with ideas for fashion brands. So a designer who worked at Pinterest was a great match.

Once matched, the school year is a good balance of learning about our personal goals, the design industry and crucial career skills like resume writing, elevator pitches, setting and tracking goals and interviewing for jobs. The pace isn’t too burdensome; about 90 minutes a month from October through May.

It was especially nice to take a break from my home office and corporate headquarters to go somewhere that was brimming with youthful energy and felt — I hate to say it — more organic and less “designed.” There’s something nice about an older high school campus where every teacher and student group gets to add personality and creativity to their spaces without worrying too much about a corporate brand.

It’s also really nice to help out a local high school. I am lucky that Pinterest not only encourages volunteer work, but donates to the school for every hour I volunteer there. Finally, meeting and talking to other local professionals and parents helped me feel more connected to my community. We also got to share ideas for improving the next school year’s program.

I introduced students to digital product design as a career option

Part of what stifled me when I was young was that I didn’t know about all the ways to make a fun and decent living as a person who enjoys drawing and being artistic. As a guest speaker and mentor, I was able to show students a side of graphics and technology that they maybe weren’t aware of: creating and maintaining design systems for popular apps like Pinterest. It was especially fun seeing the students’ eyes light up when I told them the average salary for a product designer and how good the lunch is at the Pinterest office.

Both my mentees mentioned that visiting the Pinterest headquarters in San Francisco was the highlight of the program. They got to hear from designers from both the Product and Brand teams who not only shared the work that they do, but perhaps more importantly, their journey to becoming product designers, which isn’t always a linear one. We also did a bit of hands-on experimentation with our Risograph printer. And, of course there was the cool office decor, the free food and snacks‌ and the video games.

I learned how to improve my pitch

Talking to students about technical things like digital product design systems wasn’t always easy. When I first met Isaiah, I started going through Gestalt, our open source design system for Pinterest products, including some of the details around UI components. I could tell I was starting to bore him and once I was done, he asked “So, have you ever worked on any logos or products like clothing or other physical products?”

During my guest speaker session, I tried to connect design systems to science, since my younger daughter had recently learned about ecosystems in science class. That also fell flat maybe because elementary school science is far from multimedia design students’ minds. What students wanted to see was inspiring design work and a compelling personal story. They also liked sharing their work and getting feedback.

So, it was a lesson for me to present what I do in a more compelling way that can meet my audience where they are. It’s easy to forget that when, on a day-to-day basis, you are talking with people who are already familiar with the world of digital product design.

I got to learn from a variety of students

One of the final activities was helping students with mock job interviews. This included not only students from the Graphics and Technology Academy, but students from the STEAM program in Menlo/Atherton. Here I got to listen to students from different backgrounds with a variety of interests. While my mentee was very focused on getting a soccer scholarship while also working on his design and video projects, other students were interested in careers in radiology and already working part time, while others were considering taking a break after high school to work at a bookstore.

That was another learning moment for me. I assumed all of the students in the program were set on pursuing careers in design, so I was giving advice on the more relaxed atmosphere of product design where you can wear a T-shirt and baseball hat to an interview and no one is going to care much as long as your portfolio is good. It turns out that some students, though currently in the Graphics program, were considering other, very different careers. So, again, for this coming year, I’ll broaden my advice to be less focused on design.

Looking forward to the next mentor session

In short, I learned a lot and had a blast during my first year as a mentor. I was able to connect better with my local community and get a sense for how educational programs are designed. I also introduced students to product design, design systems, open source technology and accessibility while helping them plan for their future careers via goal-setting, elevator pitches, resume writing and mock interviews.

I hope that my work makes a difference to the students at Woodside High School and inspires them to continue working towards their goals. Maybe they’ll even land at a place like Pinterest, with a flexible schedule, free lunch, old arcade games and awesome teammates and leaders who are more than willing to share their design knowledge and experience with visiting students.

If you are interested in being a mentor or guest speaker for Woodside High School’s Academy programs, contact whsmentor@seq.org.

To learn more about Pinterest Design, follow us on LinkedIn.

Reasons to mentor high schoolers: Reflections from my first year was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Advocacy and education are two pillars of design systems work, and the team behind Gestalt, our design system here at Pinterest, are champions of both. At the end of 2023, the team hosted the second-annual Design System Day (DSD) at Pinterest, an internal mini-conference dedicated to talks, networking and knowledge-sharing with fellow Pinterest employees and others from the design community.

The team gathered nearly 150 people both virtually and in-person and brought in external guest speakers from companies like Grammarly and Sprout Social to share insights.

In the spirit of sharing insights, we’re giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the conference and why we put it together in the hopes that it inspires other teams to think about ways they can get their teams excited about the systems world.

What happens on Design System Day?

The team constructs the schedule for DSD to create the right balance of informational sessions, open conversation and laid-back networking and connection. DSD is open to cross-functional partners, so the team selects topics that are valuable to designers, engineers, product managers and everyone who touches Pinterest’s product experience.

The schedule for the day was packed, and of course attendees had the option to jump in and out of sessions as their schedule allowed. The team booked a conference room at our San Francisco headquarters for anyone who wanted to attend in-person, and all sessions streamed live virtually. The day was full of:

Presentations:

• We had the honor of having Greg Storey, an internationally recognized designer, writer and speaker, open the event with a keynote talk on how to shift your perspective and ways to think about your impact on a product team. Our former Pinterest colleague, Ayesha Mazrana (now a Design Technologist at Grammarly) presented on design tokens and Koji Pereira, Chief Design Officer at Neon, spoke about design excellence at scale. Mary Heer, Product Designer at Audible, presented on creating inclusive and accessible experiences. In the afternoon, Ravi Lingineni, Design Technologist at Pinterest, and Alberto Carreras, Software Engineer at Pinterest, spoke on topics in design system engineering.

Discussions:

• Each presentation ended with a Q&A to allow attendees to dive deeper and further the conversation. Also, Layla Leal, Product Designer at Pinterest on our Gestalt Design System team, moderated a panel discussion with Alex Rice, Staff Product Designer at Sprout Social and Michael Diaz, Principal Product Designer at Dell, to talk about the intersection between systems and feature designers and cross-functional partners. They shared different perspectives regarding collaboration, the design process, the journey to component adoption and metrics — and, of course, opened the discussion to audience questions.

Networking:

• The day ended with a happy hour and networking activity led by Cíntia Romero and Kate Halvorsen, product designers on the Gestalt team. They led conversations by asking things like, “How do you keep yourself creative when using design systems?” and engaged virtual attendees with an activity hosted in FigJam, Figma’s online whiteboard tool.

Why we host an internal design systems conference

The team puts together the day-long event to highlight Gestalt and provide an opportunity for design colleagues to learn new skill sets, deep dive into the systems world and find new ways to elevate their design craft.

The day aims to contribute to:

• Better collaboration: By discussing system topics that connect Engineering, Product and Design, the team learns how to better engage and partner with each other on projects.
• Expanded networks: Discussions and networking opportunities allows for connection between teammates org-wide and with other folks from the industry.
• Faster workflows: Spending a day thinking about design systems and learning how to use system components, patterns (in Figma and our codebase) and documentation helps make design and development seamless.

Why it works

We heard from Pinterest staff and guests alike that the conference is an invaluable opportunity to level-up on systems knowledge and connect with the larger design community.

Here are some highlights of some of the feedback we received:

“Events like Design System Day are very important as the design system community evolves. It was great to connect with like-minded folks and hear their perspectives on inclusive design, accessibility and design at scale. Sharing our struggles and victories makes us stronger!”
– Koji Pereira, Chief of Design Officer at Neon (Design System Day 2023 speaker)

“Only Pinterest can make an online event this much fun! … I met a lot of people and learned a lot at the event; it felt like I was there in person. This should happen every year!”
–Arthur Pesco, Product Designer at Pinterest

“The speakers provided insight and wisdom into how to be a better design system practitioner or how to start becoming one, and it was so encouraging to hear accessibility and its importance brought up repeatedly throughout the day. Can’t wait to attend again next year!”
— Alex Rice, Staff Product Designer at Sprout Social (Design System Day 2023 speaker)

“Design System Day was the best virtual/in-person event I’ve ever attended, where equal attention was given to the online and in-person participants so everyone felt included. Design System Day was the best event I’ve been to all year, and I can’t wait to attend next year!”
 — Sasha Bajzek, UX Engineer at Fairer

“Pinterest’s design system conference was incredibly refreshing! The team was very intentional with their balance of speakers and networking.”
— Nadine Sarraj, Product Designer at 365 Retail Markets

We want to share a huge thank you to all of our presenters and the entire Gestalt team for dedicating their time and sharing their expertise and insights with us.

How do you engage your team to learn more about design systems? What topics do you think we should include in next year’s edition?

We’re excited for Design System Day 2024!

To learn more about Pinterest Design, follow us on LinkedIn.

Why we host an internal design systems conference was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Have you ever scrolled through an app and thought to yourself, “Wow, this is an awful UI”? Or watched an interview on TV and thought, “That’s a great insight”? Sometimes, unknowingly, UX researchers apply research principles to their everyday lives. I loosely like to call that the “UXR lens” — in other words, how researchers view the world.

Recently, I threw my first party in my apartment, and it occurred to me that, from start to finish, I planned it like a research project without realizing it. Here are three ways that the researcher within me took over:

1. Stakeholder collaboration: From day one, I knew I had to keep my fellow event planners (aka my partner and best friend) up to date with all aspects of the party. From decorations to menus, I knew this party had multiple moving parts that had the potential to get lost in the sauce. To prevent them from getting lost, I created a shared document that detailed the high-level vision, timeline, itemized task list and more. It didn’t occur to me until afterward that it resembled a research plan. In the end, this document ended up being the glue that held it all together on the day of the party.

2. Reflections: It may be a bit hard to accept, but I had to learn that no amount of planning will result in the perfect event. Really, all we can do is Win or Learn for next time. After the party wrapped up and all was said and done, I found myself jotting down notes for future me to remember what to do (or not do). From setting up more than one speaker to buying another piñata, I wanted to provide my future self with learnings to help me refine and make my next project (I mean, party) even better.

3. Feedback collection: I’m not saying I treated my guests like research participants…but I definitely reached out the next day and asked questions like, “how would you rate your overall experience?” and “how satisfied were you with the beverage selection?” What can I say? I’m already planning the next party and these questions helped me gather feedback and insights that will make it even better!

Overall, between the themed decorations and amazing playlist (humble brag), I’d say the party was a success! Not only did we have a great time, but it also highlighted how the principles of UX research can seamlessly integrate into our everyday lives. It’s incredible how our research skills can enhance our day-to-day by helping us to remember to invest in ways to work and communicate better together, build in moments to reflect and open dialogues.

So, whether navigating through an app or throwing a party, remember to embrace the “UXR lens” and watch how it transforms the experience!

To learn more about Pinterest Design, follow us on LinkedIn.

The UXR lens: Applying research principles to everyday life was originally published in Pinterest Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.