I’m working on projects outside of the main office. I mean not far away (around 20 min walk) but still far enough so I don’t eat every lunch at the office.
For some reason, I was at the office one Friday and I took the opportunity to discuss with one newcomer, let’s call him Daniel (name was changed).
MeHi Daniel. How is it going for you this first month? You arrived a bit more than a month ago, right?
DanielI mean that super cool. I learned a lot.
Me
I was thinking: let's make it more factual, what means this "super cool" exactly. Let’s use the same framework that I use for my coachees)?If you had to put a grade on your feeling of progression since you arrived? Let’s say it goes from 0 (no learning at all) to 3 (can’t dream of learning more, super nice feeling overall).
DanielI would say two!
MeTwo? And why not three?
DanielI mean… You can always learn more.
MeTell me more…
DanielYou know when you code… You end up doing the same thing again and again.
First time you learn, second time, I guess you learn too, then… well then, you know how to do the stuff and you stop learning. I mean, it is normal but I would like to have every ticket different.
MeDo you have an example of that in your last week?
Daniel(He thought for 10 seconds)
For instance, a button. I did a lot of them, now I know how to do a button.
MeInteresting example… I’m going to make you realize something that will maybe help you… I’m not going to give you the solution directly but make you think about it … through questions.
😂 …
So at Toyota, people in the shop floor, they do the same thing, again, again and again. For instance, the guy responsible for putting the door on a Toyota Prius do it in 53 secondes. Considering that he works 50 min every hour and 8 hours a day, that means doing it more than 450 times a day. Even if that calculus is probably too simple, Toyota employees do repetitive tasks at a much higher rate that us, for sure.
But they consider that they learn a lot. Making people think is part of Toyota moto.
But How ?
DanielI agree, that must be repetitive. Let me think…
A few exchange later...
MeHint: What makes Toyota different than other automobile constructors, let say Ford?
DanielMaybe… continuous improvement?
MeExact. When they start their job, they are formed to do 5S, which means in simpler terms that they appropriate their workspace every day a bit more and start organizing/cleaning it to eliminate waste. They also took part in. red-bucket analysis, and thus contribute to improving the process and the final product.
(Small break)
Coming back to your example… What happens when you click in your button?
DanielYou mean what the effect? It does call an API.
MeAnd when, you click twice quite fast?
DanielOh S☠🌩t! That’s true. We are making two calls when we should have done a single call to the backend.
MeImagine you do this in deliveroo! Double click, double burger.
In this case, you have to block button as soon as it is touched once, until the request (or an error) come back.
(Small break)
But there is more to learn for button only:
- how to provide native feedback (using so called “haptic feedback”)
- how to indicate loading state into the button
- what the difference between Material v1, Material v2 and human guidelines in terms of buttons
- how to provide accessibility in the button, for instance for deaf people
- …
DanielIndeed that is a lot to know…
MeThere is probably a lot more to know. Probably you can make a new discovery/good practice about button every day for 6 months.
And then one more year so every single button created at BAM is using your good practices. And I think it is a perfect Kaizen; it is simple enough so you don’t get lost, frequent enough so you have pieces every day and interesting enough for BAM so you can easily find a sponsor in the UX team that will you help push your investigation even further.
What do you think?
DanielIt’s inspiring!
MeThinking like this will make you happier if you eager to learn. There is room for learning quite everywhere :)
Hopefully, he will put 3 out of 3 to the same question if I asked him again in a few month