Host Michael Meyers interviews UX/UI experts Andrew Glassett and Pilar Belhumeur on Tag1 Team Talks to challenge the myth that design is only about aesthetics. They move past surface-level looks to discuss strategic design elements like research, user interviews, and testing.

Learn how effective design is a collaborative process—involving stakeholder engagement, competitive analysis, and iterative problem-solving—and why balancing constraints and managing team collaboration are essential to achieving both business and user goals. Discover what effective design truly is and how it drives long-term success.

00:00 Introduction to the Importance of Design

01:48 Meet the Experts: Andrew and Pilar

03:44 Understanding the Role of UX/UI Design

05:53 The Design Process: Research and Ideation

10:00 Collaborative Design and Client Interaction

14:22 Balancing Constraints and Achieving Success

26:27 The Importance of Continuous Improvement

32:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:08] It's invisible, like flipping a light switch. You don't even think about your wiring or how power gets to your house. You just expect it to turn on. But when design misses the mark, when it's confusing or hard to use, people feel it. You felt it. And when it's really bad, that frustration is real. It's intense.

[00:00:50] Creating great design requires real effort and expertise, research, strategy, testing, iteration psychology, business thinking, and yeah, it has to look good [00:01:00] too. But if you're not deep in the design world, it's easy to see only that final product, that picture. That visual layer is just the tip of the iceberg.

[00:01:27] We're gonna go beyond Pretty to talk about the real work of UX and UI design, the thinking, the research, the strategic problem solving that happens before a single pixel hits the screen. And that should continue to iterate and evolve long after launch. I'm, Michael Meyers, and this is Tag1 Team Talks podcast by Tag1 Consulting.

[00:02:03] Andrew Glassett: Thanks for having us, Michael.

[00:02:23] These guys have amazing experience. I'm excited about today's episode. Um, The work that goes on behind the scenes that goes beyond making your site look good is a really big part of what they do. But before we dive into the conversation, let me tell you a little bit about Tag1.

[00:03:00] We apply that architectural expertise to many technologies. We're a full service technology partner from discovery and design to identity and branding, to building and scaling complex applications. We lead AI strategy and implementation, design and manage infrastructure, and do performance tuning across a wide range of platforms.

[00:03:40] That's TAG the number one.com. Let's get into it. Uh, so, you know, why do you think, uh, that people have this like really common misconception that the job of UX and UI designers is just to make things look pretty?

[00:04:29] I could focus more on like what a user is seeing. There's a little bit of getting into seeing like what a business is wanting to do, while you're making an ad, but really you're just focused more on that surface, uh, level, um, of the design.

[00:05:07] Um, and that really goes beyond just knowing. You know, picking a stock photo or, um, you know, slapping a headline on without any thought for the fonts or things like that. So, um, it actually goes so much deeper, I think, especially product and service design. So,

[00:05:42] Michael Meyers: I think people who work around designers, um, you know, even they don't have a really clear picture of the actual process, right? Um, I don't interact with you guys every day or day-to-day on projects. Um, but before we dig into the process, you know, just at a high level, um, could you guys walk us [00:06:00] through, um, what happens before you even, you know, open a design tool?

[00:06:08] Pilar Belhumeur: I think you have to, you have to learn about the clients. You have to learn about the problem that they're asking you to solve. You have to understand users, um, and really dive into what their needs are. And I think, you know, understanding that client, their problems, the business, and balancing that with kind of user needs, uh, and having those two things top of mind when you are designing is critical too.

[00:06:52] Andrew Glassett: Yeah, you gotta clarify business goals at, at the very beginning.

[00:07:15] Michael Meyers: So before you can solve the problem, you, you need to identify. What the problem is. Um, how do you go about doing that?

[00:07:57] Pilar Belhumeur: Yeah, there's a lot of investigation and research I think that goes on at the beginning. Um, and it's, it's so important to talk to those stakeholders, as Andrew said, because you really need to understand their business and understand their pain points. Um, and then looking around, looking around at best practices, doing, you know, competitive analysis, looking at the competitors, you know, what are they doing, um, why is your client different?

[00:08:50] Michael Meyers: So when you guys send out a survey, um, or you're doing these interviews, like ultimately what, what are you trying to discover or understand?

But then also we're trying to help to define the requirements of the project. You know, so that is, that's crucial, uh, to creating, the right design, and building the right product or service.

Before you get into actually talking to, um, potential customers or, or doing like traditional user research, you can figure out some of those pain points and that can help you frame your conversations that you have with, with the actual customers or consumers of the site you're working on.

[00:10:10] Um, so typically the, the talking to the end users is something that happens after you talk to a lot of the folks internally?

[00:10:46] Michael Meyers: Yeah, I, I hear you saying things like user interviews, surveys, like, um, not necessarily like what I would first think of when I think of like, uh, you know, UI / UX designer, um, is this something that you guys are leading the charge on? Does it depend upon the project? Like who's, who's putting, you know the questions together?

[00:11:10] Pilar Belhumeur: Yeah, we, I mean we, we do that, we actually are doing it right now for one of clients, um, on multiple projects. So we actually collect all of that information. It's super fascinating and actually interesting. Um, another thing that we could do is like usability testing or baseline usability testing to test how their product is doing Now, see where the pain points are, understand what users need and what they're not finding.

Um, and so all of that information is taken back just like with the stakeholder interviews that we do, and really synthesized into, you know, this is what the product should be, this is where we're gonna fix things. If there is an existing product, this is where your business goals are. Um, your users are not getting what they need and here's how you can fix it.

[00:12:26] It's a longer process. Yeah. Nice.

[00:12:31] Andrew Glassett: Oh, uh, I was just gonna say like, I've worked in, uh, several different contexts where we had a dedicated user researcher. Um, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't involved in, and figuring out what we should research. It's like they were then tasked with doing the actual, like interviewing of people.

[00:12:59] Pilar Belhumeur: Yeah, true. Yep.

[00:13:18] Pilar Belhumeur: Yeah, exactly. And, and it's true, like if there are, um, you know, it's great if you have someone that is a, you know, dedicated user researcher. Um, you're also able to do smaller things too. Like if you don't have, uh, the budget to do something larger where you're hiring a user researcher and a vendor that's helping you, um, there are websites that you can kind of, you know, test on your own, um, and moderate your own tests and then collect the information that way.

[00:13:54] Michael Meyers: Yeah, we're gonna talk about constraints a bunch throughout this conversation. I think, um, there are some really big projects we do where you can have, uh, you know, uh, dedicated people in these roles. Um, but often, you know, and for a lot of organizations, um.

[00:14:33] Andrew Glassett: Yeah, I would say that, um, I believe that it's, that it's always better to have some user research than none at all. So even if you're doing stuff like a hallway test where you're putting some just ideas down and even showing it to somebody you work with or, or something like that.

[00:15:20] Michael Meyers: I know there's no, yeah,

[00:15:24] Pilar Belhumeur: Nope. Go ahead. That's a, I that's a great point, is just getting, getting feedback, uh, from the people around you. It's a great point. Yeah.

[00:15:53] Andrew Glassett: Yeah. I think that once you have as much research as you're able to get, it's like you are then put into this mode of, uh, ideating, exploring, uh, potential solutions to the problem. And you, you're doing brainstorming at that point. You're doing sketching, you're doing wire framing, and you're encouraging, uh, divergent thinking before narrowing down.

[00:16:46] And so that way you're getting like a, an idea of a, what the group is thinking. That might be a good solution to the problem.

[00:17:01] Pilar Belhumeur: Yeah, totally. Like, I mean, I think that's where some of the best solutions come from is because you're not in a silo. You're engaging with others, you're encouraging other ideas. Um, and that's where I think some of the best ideas come, come from is like when you're building on each other's energy, uh, and creative thinking and ideation.

[00:17:35] But I, I know that you have to follow things like brand guidelines. There's certain business rules that are gonna influence what you do and, and how you approach this. Um, you know, do you view these as constraints? Are these helpful? You know, how does it factor into the process?

[00:18:12] Um, so many times it's, they're great guardrails. I think if you have no, um, no guardrails for someone's brand, then it's like you can. It can be all over the place. There's so many, so many choices, but you wanna kind of align with that business and make sure that you're expressing their brand properly in everything, every design.

[00:19:04] So that's also a possibility. Sometimes we're extremely strict about follow the brand guidelines and sometimes the clients open to us. Kind of exploring a little bit more, uh, and slightly evolving some things. And that's really fun actually.

[00:19:25] And it's always fun when they are open to it because then you're like creating something new with them. And I think the end result is always better in that situation.

[00:19:49] Is there an ideal and, and how do you handle, you know, exceptions to that?

[00:20:17] And so many times we actually skip over wire frames, but usually you do kind of create wire frames to ensure that, um, we're going in the right direction. And things are kind of mapped out, uh, before we go into kind of the details and the deeper design. Um, but you know, it really depends on the client. It depends on the situation.

[00:20:45] Andrew Glassett: Yeah, you just, it really depends on the, the client or the situation. Like in that, what you were just talking about is, we know this client now very well and because of that we can like, [00:21:00] skip over steps. Like that's, clients are always gonna like, if you can be more efficient.

[00:21:23] Michael Meyers: When we sat down and, and we first talked about doing this episode, you guys said something that really stuck with me. Um, you called design a team sport. Um, and we talked a little bit about, you know, uh, you know, working collaboratively with clients. You know, we're gonna talk more about working collaboratively with the team.

[00:22:11] Andrew Glassett: Yeah. I would say that, um, especially like you had mentioned like the. When, when you have multiple designers, like there's always gonna be a more senior designer is always gonna be more of like a player coach kind of situation. And the more junior designers often fall victim to staying in their own world and not communicating and just kind of doing the thing that we're talking about of just trying to make something pretty.

[00:23:14] Pilar Belhumeur: Exactly. I think that that's, you know, yeah. You're saying a, a coach. Um, I think that's so true. Like young designers especially, they, you know, they're creating beautiful things so they fall in love with their design. So I think that that's really on point, Andrew. Um, and, and you know, they have to kind. Hone their skills.

[00:23:57] So, um, and that's how you learn. You learn from others, you learn from. You know, being on that team and watching others and what they do and their knowledge and, uh, I think it's super important. Yeah.

[00:24:19] And, and I, I think in addition to the, you know, the misconception that designers just create pretty things is that they then just hand these pretty things off to developers. Um, how does it actually work or, or how should it work when you guys are, are coordinating with and, and collaborating with the development team.

[00:25:02] Engineers and developers to be involved as early as possible, like even in the ideation phase because they're the experts on knowing like more of what is feasible in the, the context that they're currently in. Um, and also like they are the ones that can tell you if something is scalable. So effective communication is going to prevent major issues down the line.

[00:25:58] And, um, and then I learned something like, right. So I feel like it's invaluable that connection early in the process to run your ideas by them. And then they may have ideas for you that are, you know, mind blowingly amazing and you're just like, oh my God, I never thought of that. So again, it's like the melding in the minds and the building on each other's kind of thoughts ideas and skillsets. It's so critical and it's, it's fun actually. It's fun.

[00:26:43] Um. There are times where, you know, some of this has to happen more in parallel. Um, what are the, what are the main risks or concerns that, you know, surface and, and how do you try and address them when you're forced to do more of this design process and development process at the same time?

[00:27:14] Uh, if we're jumping into development too early, it's can be tricky to back, back out from that, uh, design or that development process. And so. There's a lot of, there's a risk of duplication of work. And, and yeah, I would say that it's,

[00:27:50] You know, so they're, they're really rushing into a solution and I think, um. You know, as Andrew said, if you're parallel pathing, you know, you've got dev going, they're already starting to code. You're trying to find out what the business problem is or user needs, and then you end up in a place where, yeah, maybe Dev has built something already and you're like, wait a minute, this is the wrong solution.

[00:28:40] Um, you know, it does happen, but there is risk and there may be, yeah, there may be rework as Andrew said. So, uh, there are ways to. You know, try to, try to make it as efficient as possible. Um, and I think it really depends on the situation, the client, like all of that, the budget, they have endless budget, then maybe that they don't mind that you're redoing stuff.

[00:29:11] Michael Meyers: Um, yeah. I'm curious, and I know it's hard to answer this in the abstract, but it, it really does seem that. Balancing requirements and constraints. Is a linchpin to your success, right? You guys are strategic problem solvers. If we had to identify another, like, key responsibility of what you're doing as part of this project, um, you know, you mentioned you don't have the budget you want most of the time.

[00:29:58] Or is it all really just driven by Okay. You know, in this client, in this instance, at this time. Like, here's how we're gonna make the most of, of, of what we have.

[00:30:34] The goal line towards, towards that. Um, and so, yeah, it's, I think as long as you're keeping helping others, uh, keep a, the user in mind as you're going through the process, you'll, you're gonna end up with a better user experience. But hopefully if there's not budget for it, you're being like, more efficient as you're, you're moving through it.

[00:31:26] And when we come up with great solutions, that's when it's exciting because suddenly you have something that really works, looks great, obviously, uh, and solves, you know, problems and fulfills user needs. And then, and it's almost like, yeah, it's almost like a game like this, you know, mystery of like trying to find, you know, you have this, but you don't have that.

[00:32:03] Michael Meyers: How do you guys know that you're being successful? Um, how do you know that you're not introducing subtle problems or glaring problems? How do you know that you're making end users happy? How do you know that you're meeting your stakeholders goals? And how do you do that on, you know, a, a budget with all of these constraints?

[00:32:26] Pilar Belhumeur: You want me to take a stab at it? Okay. Um. I think that, you know, there are best practices out there. You know, there are, um, things that we were constantly educating ourselves on, on, you know, how user interactions evolve, on design, best practices, on design thinking. Um, and so we really leverage those and um, and those are proven.

[00:33:23] Get those tested. Um, and we can show, you know, over time like that things have improved or, you know, there's more, uh, interaction. The form was filled out, they've gotten more leads. Um, you know, they were able to, uh, complete more transactions. Like, so I think that it's really, um. You know, that knowledge, that expertise, following the best practices out there.

[00:34:08] Andrew Glassett: Yeah, hopefully we have agreed upon a certain metric before the project even starts.

[00:34:14] And make sure that kind of interwoven in the process, that we're keeping that metric in mind and have a way to measure that, measure the impact in whatever it might be. Um, like it's nice to have like the, the hard analytics, but sometimes you don't have that and you're. But you do need to gain, get some, at least, uh, qualitative feedback from customers.

[00:35:06] What the design should be.

[00:35:10] Michael Meyers: Organizations face a lot of constraints, you know, difficult, you know, challenges with respect to how they allocate their budget. Be honest. How often do clients prioritize and do the validation process after initial delivery?

[00:35:59] Michael Meyers: Yeah, exactly. Do you think it's just difficult, like budget constraints and they're forced to make impossible decisions? Um, do you think that, you know, is, you know, not understanding the importance or something, you know, they intend to come back to any insight or, you know, as to why it's not prioritized enough?

[00:36:42] Then you want to, you know, continuously improve or evolve whatever you're building. They should, clients should definitely, um, consider into, you know, thinking of that when they are doing their budgets, it's like, it's not a one and done. It's like you're gonna be constantly evolving because, you know, users change like the, you know, how people are interacting with, uh, products and services change all the time.

[00:37:42] Michael Meyers: This is. UI / UX design, the things that you do are, are one of the fundamental pillars of success. And, and we, you know, we started by talking about how even subtle problems erode, you know, and, and, uh, impact your, your business goals. Um, uh, I see another, like a direct parallel with performance and scalability, right?

[00:38:20] And they also don't, you know, tend to do that ongoing, you know, um, you know, performance integration into their, you know, uh, build process to avoid it moving forward, and yet they spend a tremendous amount of money on things like advertising to increase conversion rates. Um, and it, you know, it, it just, you know, it boggles my mind why, you know, uh, you could spend less on advertising, address these fundamental aspects of your site and see a, you know, which has a, uh, you know, a better return on investment financially.

[00:39:14] But I, you know, I do understand that everybody has to make insanely difficult decisions with respect to where and how they allocate their money. And in an ideal world, I'm sure most organizations be like, hell yeah. Let's, you know, let's totally do that. Um, before we wrap up, you know. We talked about so many different things that, that you do, managing teams, you know, cross-functionally, clients, uh, you know, surveys, user research.

[00:39:54] Pilar Belhumeur: Um, single factor that drives success. Um. I think collaboration. I think collaboration with the client, collaboration with the team. Um, you know, if you're not talking to each other, you really aren't talking to the client, don't understand them, don't understand, you know, what's happening with them, their business problems, don't talk to users.

[00:40:26] Andrew Glassett: Yeah, I agree. I, it's, it's about that collaboration and communication. And the real work though is, is more, um, more about building trust, I would say, uh, with the people you work with and trust with the, the users that are gonna be using this stuff and with the client.

[00:41:03] Michael Meyers: Andrew and Pilar, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, thank you everybody for tuning in and listening. You can check out our past team talks at tag1.com/ttt.

[00:41:35] We're available via all of the main podcast distribution channels as well as YouTube. Again, Andrew, Pilar, thank you so much. Look forward to having you back to talk about more topics like the developer design relationship. We'll see you soon.