Willy Lai

I loved art and cars as a child, and I used to draw cars incessantly. My notebooks were filled with sketches of cars, mostly concept cars, throughout all my years of schooling. Without knowing it, I was already designing at an early age. Not surprisingly, I had often dreamt of becoming a car designer. When I was in elementary school, my classmates would often ask me to create drawings for them, not always of cars. I quickly became known as the class artist at 6 or 7 years old. I think that positive affirmation early in life encouraged me to keep drawing, to stick with art, and I became quite the prolific class artist. The demand for my drawings even got to the point where my Mom would regularly make photocopies of my artwork to distribute to my classmates. My Mom also signed me up for art classes outside of school, which helped to further nurture and develop my interest and skills in art. When I was voted most artistic in my middle school yearbook, that's the first time I seriously thought about pursuing a career in art and design. In high school, my Dad gifted me a "What Color is Your Parachute?" career book to help me decide on a career path. After completing the career quiz portion, the book pointed me to a career in Architecture because of my aptitude in art and math/science. From there, I pursued a degree in Architecture at U.C. Berkeley. It's there in college, studying architecture, where I formally delved deep into design, truly understanding the relationship between form and function, and the difference and relationship between art and design. As an Architect major in college, I thought I was going to eventually design physical spaces (e.g. buildings) in the physical world. However, after graduating in 1995, I ended up staying in Silicon Valley and instead became a "digital architect", designing digital spaces (e.g. websites) in the digital world, during the early days of the internet.

I currently provide the following design services: design advising and leadership, keynote speeches, and workshops. Design advising and leadership: While I've served as a design leader for many big tech companies in the past, I've recently been focusing on AI startups. As a design leader and executive design advisor to AI startup CEO’s, I’m leading design for next generation AI products and services. Keynote speeches: My keynote speeches focus on UX and product design, especially at the intersection of user experience and business strategy. These are typically 45 to 60 minutes talks, which I’ve delivered to a broad range of audiences, from professionals to students, from developers and product managers, to content writers, researchers, and designers. I've delivered over 60 keynote talks for corporations and conferences in England, Germany, Poland, Spain, Austria, China, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, South Africa, and the United States. Workshops: My workshops are effectively classes through which I teach design. Similar to my keynote speeches, my workshops are also focused on UX and product design, particularly at the intersection of user experience and business strategy. However, unlike my speeches which I consider to be more “inspirational” in nature, my workshops are more “operational” in nature. My workshops are typically 2-day sessions, structured around lectures, hands-on design exercises, and in-class discussions, all in a classroom-like setting. I like to include cross-functional team representation in these workshops whenever possible (e.g. developers, product managers, designers), to replicate real-life cross-functional team composition. By involving cross-functional teams in developing optimal process and collaboration in producing and shipping great design to end-users, the concepts and methodologies I teach in these workshops are not only meant to “inspire” great design, but more importantly, “operationalize” great design within organizations and at scale.

I'm glad you asked, as design can mean many different things to many different people and it’s worth clarifying what design means. There's design as a verb, and design as a noun. As a verb, design is about "designing", the act of creative problem solving. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the verb form of design as, "to devise for a specific function or end." Designing is the creative synthesis of the best "form" for any given "function", and this applies to just about any design industry and medium. Then there's design as a noun, which is the artifact or "form" that's created through the act of designing. Going back to what I had mentioned earlier, if design as a verb is creative problem solving, then design as a noun is the creative solution. Sadly, oftentimes design artifacts or "forms" aren't evaluated against their intended purposes or "functions", but rather subject to personal tastes or preferences that often have nothing to do with the problem the designs were meant to solve.

The answer for this question has changed over the years. As I mentioned earlier, as a child, I spent every waking moment designing cars. As a college student studying architecture, it was designing physical environments. As a design professional, I've spent every waking moment designing digital products and environments. That said, nowadays, because I spend so much of my day designing for digital, I like counterbalancing my free time with non-digital design. For example, I recently designed and built a custom, mobile half-wall to better utilize the space in my garage. That was a fun project with many aesthetic, functional, and technical considerations.

Naming a favorite design is tough because I believe each design is a unique outcome due to its own set of circumstances, constraints, and context, and should be judged accordingly. It can therefore be difficult, maybe even unfair to judge a design when you're not privy to all of that. That said, if I were asked which of the designs I've worked on is my favorite, I would probably say it's either the "clock UI" dial design I came up with while I was at Samsung or the "customize clothing" design I came up with while at Macy's. Both of those designs were simple, fun, and innovative. They solved their respective design "functions" through novel design "forms" that were highly engaging for users.

The first thing I designed for a company was an interactive television graphical user interface. It was a Tivo-like set top box television programing guide. I had just graduated UC Berkeley and designed this in my first job as an interactive product designer at Orbit Interaction, a product design firm in Silicon Valley.

As you might have guessed, my favorite medium is digital/tech. As a designer, I like envisioning and shaping the future, and the kind of innovation, scale, and impact I can have in this medium keeps it interesting for me.

This is difficult to answer. I'm not sure I can pinpoint when I feel most creative, as I have literally come up with the most creative solutions at the most unlikely hour. For example, I came up with the "clock UI" dial design at Samsung quite literally in my sleep. I remember waking up one morning and being so excited that I had literally dreamt up a design solution. In my sleep, I had figured out a design solution for the user challenges we had faced with the existing dial design at the time. Of course, we would later prototype and user research that design, but the creative inspiration literally happened in my sleep. My experience with creativity is that my best, most creative ideas don't always happen when I set aside time to "be creative".

The answer here depends on the what phase of designing is taking place. I generally subscribe to the 5 "D" process (discovery, define, design, develop, deploy). You can overlap this with the double-diamond process where the first diamond is about discovering and defining a problem, and the second diamond is about designing and developing, or solutioning for a problem. Put another way and echoing what I had mentioned before about "form" and "function", the first diamond is about figuring out the intending purpose or "function", and the second diamond is coming up with the best "form" (e.g. artifact) for that "function". The end result should be the delivery and deployment of the design artifact. Deployment (e.g. shipping and measuring design through analytics) then overlaps with and becomes discovery for the next design cycle.

I feel inspired, hopeful, empowered, and free. I often tell my designers that as designers, we have superpowers that no other functions possess. We have the power to turn dreams into reality, and bring the future to present day. I can't think of any other skill set or function within a typical organization that can have that much empowerment and impact.

In addition to what I feel when I design, when my designs are realized, I feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. As a creative with entrepreneurial spirit, I love the idea of creating "something" from "nothing". That sense of accomplishment that comes from creating "something" from "nothing" or creating "something better" in the case of a redesign is incredibly fulfilling.

It goes back to what I had mentioned earlier about how we define design. A successful design is a design that's been successfully devised for a specific function or end. That means the "form" supports it's "function". Hence "form" follows "function". Those specific "functions" or "ends" include user functions, business functions, and technology functions (e.g. think venn diagram of user desirable, business viable, and technology feasible). A successful UX or product design therefore is a design that is user desirable, business viable, and technology feasible. Within each of these categories may be specific KPI's and metrics by which you determine desirability or viability, but at a high-level they ultimately roll up to these success determinants.

It's been shown in studies that our perception of whether a design is good or bad happens even within the first 1/20th of a second, when we're merely processing the very first initial impressions of a design (e.g. how a design looks). Therefore, when judging a design as good or bad, I factor initial impressions based on how a design looks as one of my first considerations. While how a design looks isn't everything, how a design looks does matter.

As a digital designer with formal training in environmental design (e.g. architecture), I believe environmental sustainability and social good are the primary responsibility of a designer for society and environment. Going back to my point about the overlap of user desirability, business viability, and technical feasibility, if a design is not environmentally sustainable nor promotes social good, then that design is not user desirable and potentially not business viable in the long term, and therefore should not be considered successful.

AI is rapidly changing the design field, and will continue to do so going forward. AI is reshaping design, both how design is practiced (e.g. design as verb) and the artifacts that are created (e.g. design as noun). The rise of AI is quickly evolving the design field, and will continue to do so going forward. However, at least with my experience and understanding of AI thus far, I believe that there will still be a place for human creativity in the design field, even as AI becomes more and more commonplace. The more tactical and production-like aspects of design will be easiest for AI to replace and automate, while the more strategic and creative aspects of design will be more difficult. As with any maturing field, the bar for good design will continue to be raised and AI will be powering a lot of that bar raising.

Design inspiration can come from many sources. Current trends, history, and other designs I like, whether they're within my industry or not, online or offline, physical or digital, can all serve as design inspiration. I think the specific design inspiration for any given design project comes down to what problem that design is solving, and what similar designs have either solved or could be used to solve similar design problems.

I'm definitely a minimalist. I believe for the most part, that less is more. As a digital product designer, this is especially true when you observe how people use digital products. I gravitate towards clean, simple, and elegant designs - my time at Apple has definitely left an indelible mark in how I think about design and designing. I'm a strong believer in "form" follows "function" - I think my formal training at Berkeley is derived from that school of thought, a very 20th-century modernist architecture type of design ideology. I understand what people mean when they say "form" over "function" or "function" over "form", but to me, "form" and "function" are one in the same. "Form" follows "function", and "function" follows "form. "Form" is "function".

I live in Silicon Valley. I think that living here in the United States, and particularly in Silicon Valley, definitely influences my my designs and how I go about designing. Having spent my entire adulthood and career in Silicon Valley, I realized that while I was living and breathing cutting edge technology and digital design, I was also potentially running the risk of becoming too myopic in my views about technology, design, and the world in general. Hence, I spent a year traveling abroad teaching design workshops across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Africa to not only share my perspectives with the world, but to also gain a broader global perspective as well. I proactively sought to counterbalance my views on design with those outside of Silicon Valley to develop a more balanced and multi-cultural perspective.

As a design leader or design advisor, I work with companies as either full-time staff or as a consultant on a part-time basis for either a specific project or set hours. As a speaker or workshop instructor, I'll work with companies on a project-by-project basis.

Finding a good designer includes screening for technical skills, soft skills, and cultural fit. Companies must have a clear vision for where they're going (vs. where they've been) to know how to look for the right designer. For example, I once worked for a company that had hired very "order-taking" designers and deemed them to be cultural fits with their "order-giving" product managers. When the company realized they needed to empower their designers and drive transformative design change, they didn't make the necessary changes in hiring because the decision makers were still of the mindset that "order-taking" designers were those that best fit their culture when in fact, "consultant-like" designers were really what they needed going forward.

As mentioned before, I generally subscribe to the 5 "D" process (discovery, define, design, develop, deploy). You can overlap this with the double-diamond process where the first diamond is about discovering and defining a problem, and the second diamond is about designing and developing, or solutioning for a problem. Put another way and echoing what I had mentioned before about "form" and "function", the first diamond is about figuring out the intending purpose or "function", and the second diamond is coming up with the best "form" (e.g. artifact) for that "function". The end result should be the delivery and deployment of the design artifact. Deployment (e.g. shipping and measuring design through analytics) then overlaps with and becomes discovery for the next design cycle. The goal for design in all of these phases is to devise the best design that's user desirable, business viable, and technology feasible.

Stay humble and hungry throughout your career - that will be key to growth and elevating your craft. Be user-centric and know why it's important - this seems obvious, but I still come across so many designers in the field who aren't. Know how to conduct user research. Learn the art and science of design - as a UX / product designer, it's not enough to be a strong interaction designer, you must be a strong visual designer as well. Learn how to collaborate with stakeholders. Learn how your designs impact users AND business. Learn how to code. Learn the art of storytelling and how to present and "sell" your designs.

Positives include what I mentioned earlier about the ability to turn dreams into reality, to bring the future to present day so I won't delve to much on the positives. Negatives include the political and collaborative aspects of the job. Unfortunately, everyone has a design opinion, and they're not all going to agree. Obtaining approval and consensus for large scale designs or redesigns, especially in large organization, can oftentimes feel like an impossible task even when you're armed with compelling data.

I'm most easily reached via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willylai/ or via email at willylai@willylai.com.

I loved art and cars as a child, and I used to draw cars incessantly. My notebooks were filled with sketches of cars, mostly concept cars, throughout all my years of schooling. Without knowing it, I was already designing at an early age. Not surprisingly, I had often dreamt of becoming a car designer. When I was in elementary school, my classmates would often ask me to create drawings for them, not always of cars. I quickly became known as the class artist at 6 or 7 years old. I think that positive affirmation early in life encouraged me to keep drawing, to stick with art, and I became quite the prolific class artist. The demand for my drawings even got to the point where my Mom would regularly make photocopies of my artwork to distribute to my classmates. My Mom also signed me up for art classes outside of school, which helped to further nurture and develop my interest and skills in art. When I was voted most artistic in my middle school yearbook, that's the first time I seriously thought about pursuing a career in art and design. In high school, my Dad gifted me a "What Color is Your Parachute?" career book to help me decide on a career path. After completing the career quiz portion, the book pointed me to a career in Architecture because of my aptitude in art and math/science. From there, I pursued a degree in Architecture at U.C. Berkeley. It's there in college, studying architecture, where I formally delved deep into design, truly understanding the relationship between form and function, and the difference and relationship between art and design. As an Architect major in college, I thought I was going to eventually design physical spaces (e.g. buildings) in the physical world. However, after graduating in 1995, I ended up staying in Silicon Valley and instead became a "digital architect", designing digital spaces (e.g. websites) in the digital world, during the early days of the internet.

I love creating. When I create "something" from "nothing", or make something better, it's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment. I want to make the world a better place, and design is an area where I can be most impactful.

I definitely chose to become a designer. Growing up, my family and friends were all from STEM backgrounds. As a creative, I was definitely the oddball, and if anything, I was often urged to pursue a more STEM-oriented career path as well.

To me, what distinguishes a good designer and a great designer is their craft and how they go about achieving that craft. A great designer actively develops and elevates their craft, constantly seeking to raise the bar, developing innovative and creative solutions that result in tangible improvements for users and businesses. They not only seek to improve the design skills, but their soft skills, collaboration, and process as well. This is important because these things impact how well they'll ultimately be able to ship the designs they create. A good designer, on the other hand effectively solves problems with good solutions, but just doesn't go that extra mile to continuously improve their craft, collaboration, and process.

A successful UX or product design is a design that is user desirable, business viable, and technology feasible. Within each of these categories may be specific KPI's and metrics by which you determine desirability or viability, but at a high-level they ultimately roll up to these success determinants. The better the design, the better the design achieves that sweet spot of desirability, viability, and feasibility. Meaning, better designs are feasible designs that have greater positive impact on users and business.

It's often said that good design is good business. That's especially true in the digital age, where the user is always only a click away from leaving your app or website for your competitor's. Investing in good design isn't just a nice-to-have, it's a necessity.

Stay humble and hungry throughout your career - that will be key to growth and elevating your craft. Be user-centric and know why it's important - this seems obvious, but I still come across so many designers in the field who aren't. Know how to conduct user research. Learn the art and science of design - as a UX / product designer, it's not enough to be a strong interaction designer, you must be a strong visual designer as well. Learn how to collaborate with stakeholders. Learn how your designs impact users AND business. Learn how to code. Learn the art of storytelling and how to present and "sell" your designs.

If I hadn't become a digital designer, I would have either designed the built environment as an architect or designed cars.

I'm glad you asked, as design can mean many different things to many different people and it’s worth clarifying what design means. There's design as a verb, and design as a noun. As a verb, design is about "designing", the act of creative problem solving. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the verb form of design as, "to devise for a specific function or end." Designing is the creative synthesis of the best "form" for any given "function", and this applies to just about any design industry and medium. Then there's design as a noun, which is the artifact or "form" that's created through the act of designing. Going back to what I had mentioned earlier, if design as a verb is creative problem solving, then design as a noun is the creative solution. Sadly, oftentimes design artifacts or "forms" aren't evaluated against their intended purposes or "functions", but rather subject to personal tastes or preferences that often have nothing to do with the problem the designs were meant to solve.