In this episode of The Optimal Path, host Ash Oliver is joined by Amy Lima, formerly product designer at AMP @ Amazon Music and currently founder of Diversify Design. Together, they discuss the role of user research in building community products and how to start and scale a research practice inside design teams.
In this episode of The Optimal Path, host Ash Oliver is joined by Amy Lima, formerly product designer at AMP @ Amazon Music and currently founder of Diversify Design. Together, they discuss the role of user research in building community products and how to start and scale a research practice inside design teams.
About Amy:
Amy Lima is a first-generation Brazilian-American product designer, and founder of Diversify Design.
Her global footprint growing up between cultures and across continents brings an innate appreciation for diverse perspectives and a fascination for the human experience. To honor these values, her design philosophy is deeply rooted in ethical and inclusive design practices, with her work focusing on fostering community and social expression in a 0-to-1 design process.
Beyond her 9 to 5, she’s an active member of the design community and is often found hosting panels, giving conference talks, and writing articles on her experience pivoting into design from the music industry as a minority in tech.
Connect with Amy:
You can connect with Amy on LinkedIn.
Resources:
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See you next time!
Ash Oliver:
When Amy Lima and her team were designing a new product for authors to share exclusive content with their most avid fans, they thought they knew with certainty who their ideal end user would be, avid readers. They started to interview and conduct research with those users and came to a surprising conclusion, they were wrong.
Amy Lima:
Once we started hearing from readers, I was super surprised to find that even the most avid book readers, folks who are reading over a hundred books a year, they didn't necessarily have this strong loyalty or attachment to book authors. They did, they knew them, they sought out maybe books in their anthology, but they were kind of open-minded and wanted to discover things outside of that.
Ash Oliver:
Today on The Optimal Path, we're exploring how you can challenge your hypotheses for better user outcomes. I'm Ash Oliver, and this is The Optimal Path, a podcast about user research and product decision making brought to you by Maze. In this podcast, you'll hear from research, design and product leaders about the ideas informing decision making across all aspects of product development.
Our guest, Amy Lima, is a first generation Brazilian American product designer. Previously at Amp, a live radio streaming app from Amazon Music, and currently the founder of Diversify Design. Amy's upbringing in diverse cultures and across continents has sparked her profound appreciation for diverse perspectives and a deep fascination with the human experience. Her design philosophy is firmly founded in ethical and inclusive design practices with a focus on nurturing community and social expression in design. Amy, it's been so nice getting to know you recently. Thanks for doing an episode.
Amy Lima:
Oh my God, please. Pleasure's all mine. Likewise. So excited to be here to chat today.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah. We're going to get into your experience building community products and how you've introduced and influenced design culture in the teams you've been part of, how you've woven research into the process, but I thought maybe we could start with a bit of your backstory first. So you describe yourself as insatiably curious, deeply human and ethically minded, just kind of mirrored in your bio. So what about your journey has influenced you in describing yourself in these ways?
Amy Lima:
Totally. So yeah, first and foremost, I kind of put that at the forefront of any intro of mine because it really directly influences all of my design work, right? So yeah, a little about myself. As you said, I'm a first generation Brazilian American, so my parents immigrated to the states in the 70s. I'm an only child, so I really grew up kind of in this nuclear family split between two cultures, Brazilian on the inside, American on the outside, neither here nor there.
And because of that, I always kind of sought out community, right? With the people around me, friends, friend groups, bringing people together. Maybe it's because I didn't have any siblings, maybe it's because I didn't have any other family in the States besides my parents. Right? So I always sought that out, and that pretty much immediately translated to my career decisions, the gravitational pulls I had. I started working in the music industry kind of across the spectrum, but spent a lot of time in the live event and artist management space.
Because again, same thing, always loved connecting people with each other and the experiences that they loved, and being able to kind of weave myself through those spaces, communicate across different groups of people, be it artists, fans, music teams, that really kind of kept me nimble and allowed me to flex those creative problem solving skills that kind of brought me to design through that roundabout way. So that's kind of how I found myself in this industry, and still those values and early experiences throughout my life kind of influence my design process today.
Ash Oliver:
I love how your intersectional identity is kind of at the forefront, and this idea of community is kind of central to both your story and background, but also as your journey into design. When you talk about coming into the design industry from the music industry, are there any parallels that you can draw from working in music to now working as a designer? Anything that you think may give you a unique perspective or advantage?
Amy Lima:
Oh, goodness, absolutely. So in the music industry, I mean, yeah, you just have to be so quick and on your toes. Again, that creative problem solving, you kind of have to be in a million places at once, and when something inevitably goes wrong, it's always going to go wrong. How are you going to fix it on the fly with very limited resources, be it the stage production is running late or something's going on with the venue or a release gets delayed?
I mean, there's so many things. So being able to be flexible and kind of maintain calm and trying to tap into some critical thinking when things get a little tough, like high pressure, high stakes environment. That directly translates to the design environments I'm in where it's like, "Cool, this didn't work, but there's always another path forward." And again, tapping into my fascination and draw to community and kind of creating those experiences.
That's really what I loved the most about the music industry, right? And particularly the live event space and working directly with artists is seeing the direct impact that would have on people, seeing those connections form in real time, strangers arriving to a show together and leaving as friends, exchanging numbers, the common camaraderie that happens in those spaces. I mean, it was so infectious and really was the most rewarding part of the job for me.
And then kind of wanted to have more impact at scale, which is really when I started exploring design. I was always interested in design and technology. I always had an eye for it and was kind of a quiet secret obsession really. And when I realized that, "Wait, hold on, my brain already works in this way, all these critical skills that make for a quality designer, I think I can do this. And it's exactly what I'm already doing, but in a medium that makes even more sense for me. So that's kind of how it came to be. But totally, every single day I feel that one-to-one direct translation to what I was doing. Now in the design space that feels more authentic to me.
Ash Oliver:
I love that. It's yeah, very clear, the resourcefulness, nimbleness, the swift agility that you have to have. You're definitely a person. You don't even have to look that far to see that you wear many hats. I think you've self described as a polyglot.
Amy Lima:
Yeah.
Ash Oliver:
Ranging interests from fitness to learning languages. So it's amazing to see kind of this tapestry and background make you the designer that you are today. I'm thinking about this crafting of experiences and how that kind of was in the offline space in music and how you've brought that into, especially in your work today at Amp, are there any kind of specific guiding principles that you think are informing how you create those same kind of moments or memories maybe in what that craft of experience in a digital sense? Is there anything that kind of guides you in that way?
Amy Lima:
Oh yeah, absolutely. For so long, I spent time kind of thinking about that offline space, and that's kind of where all my focus and attention was focused on. I still tap into that. And it translates, we're physical beings, right? So we're designing these digital products, but people are still moving through the world with someone on a crowded train. When they're accessing your product, are they with friends? How do they feel? What kind of day have they had?
Kind of these situational contexts that I'm always kind of thinking about because I've seen it and I've lived it, right? So that greatly informs my process as well, is thinking kind of beyond just the two-dimensional digital experiences that we're obsessing over and crafting and spending so much time and energy thinking about.
But it's holistic, you know what I mean? It's not experienced in a vacuum. So really thinking situationally and in context of what people might be doing, how they might be feeling, how they're moving through life, where they are. Is it a crowded city? Is it at home? How might that change the experience?
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, that's so cool. And I think incorporating that behavioral and kind of psychological elements into the design process just delivers a better end result.
Amy Lima:
Totally.
Ash Oliver:
Is there specific examples that you can speak to as to how you've brought in this contextual understanding of the user in this kind of environment into a design context?
Amy Lima:
Yeah, for sure. So I'm a freelance designer, a founding designer at a very early stage startup called Unconvo, and we're imagining a social bookmarking experience for book readers. So what does that mean? Basically, someone is reading a book and just as you would annotate maybe a book in real life, physical books, right? Maybe you're jotting down notes on the pages. A lot of people do this in Notion or Google Docs.
How can we bring that into one centralized app experience? So thinking about something like that, okay, social bookmarking, that idea of community. We've had signals through research that people want to be connected to like-minded book readers and discovery through a social graph to be able to discover new book and such. But reading is still fundamentally a deeply personal experience. Right?
So then you're thinking of privacy settings like, "Wait, hold on. You might not want to publicly post a bookmark or a note that you jot down from a passage." It might be deeply personal to you. It might be upsetting actually. There's so many emotions that can arise with that kind of intimate experience of reading a book that really resonates with you. So having that informed the design process of like, "Okay, hold on.
Let's really make sure that this social experience makes sense." Maybe it's conditional. We certainly want to, to some effect, have that be a decision that the users make. Maybe it's global, maybe it's situational on a book level. So really asking those deeper questions. It could be even smaller things, even visually, like often folks are reading books before bed at nighttime is a calming, quiet environment.
So we made the decision to design our app in dark mode, for example, just very kind of clean interface. We don't want it to be distracting or flashy. We just want it to be simple, elegant, beautiful, because that's often the environment you're in when you're reading. So things like that. Again, always tapping into the physical world, what you might be doing in that moment, and having that kind of guide you to the digital decisions you're making.
Ash Oliver:
Oh, I love that. Those are great examples. And I want to circle back to kind of the story of getting the design function started at Unconvo. I think that's a unique experience being the founding designer. Can you describe a little bit about what that look like in terms of the environment and how you started to build the practice of design there?
Amy Lima:
Oh, for sure. Goodness, it's been such an incredible experience. So yeah, exactly as you said, I started as the founding designer. It was a team of me and the two founders. So it was us three. And thankfully for me, which isn't always the case, but I was very grateful and one of the reasons I was so excited to take the job is that the co-founders were always really invested in research and always prioritize that, wanted to hear directly from users, from people who would potentially use this product.
And there was no product when I joined, right? It was just a concept. So early on, I would join in on research sessions led by the co-founders. Back then, we were more focused on book authors, so kind of having them be the cornerstone of the experience. The hypothesis then was that very avid book readers had an affinity towards their favorite authors, and how did those exclusive author to reader experiences.
So we were interviewing authors directly about how they interact with fans and where there are gaps in that interaction, what can make it better, more meaningful, how they currently use digital products, from Patreon to social media to that sort of thing. And all of that was good and well, and that felt like we were gaining some traction there. But then I kind of advocated for, "Okay, now we have to hear from readers." Right? [inaudible 00:12:22]
Even from the start, this was going to be a double-sided kind of marketplace. And once we started hearing from readers, I have was super surprised to find that even the most avid book readers, folks who are reading over a hundred books a year, they didn't necessarily have this strong loyalty or attachment to book authors. They did, they knew them, they sought out maybe books in their anthology, right? But they were kind of open-minded and wanted to discover things outside of that.
So that was really interesting. So again, early on, advocating for, "Cool. So far we're getting some positive signals that we feel validate our hypothesis, but let's try to challenge that a bit, challenge ourselves to kind of see if we can find holes in that, if it's maybe not that simple." But again, at the start, it was just me kind of leading those research efforts, and it was very gorilla style of scanning online design communities.
I'm a part of many of them tapping into my own network, connecting with book readers to try to understand their habits and gear their sentiments from them directly. And then after a while, I kind of kicked it on my own for about a year. But the product got to a point where we just needed more design support. And again, thankfully, because design was always a big priority, I got buy-in pretty easily to bring on a design advisor, which was amazing.
So someone to kind of oversee the greater design strategy and kind of help influence the product strategy as well alongside myself. So I tapped my good friend Liz Wells, who's a senior product designer at Squarespace. She's incredible. So it was her and I for a bit. And from there got into some interesting creative research efforts where we eventually brought on another designer who's now joined us, Ivan Jacobson.
So yeah, it's been kind of a long process of scaling this. But now we're a team of three designers, which is exciting and very different. Now suddenly the work is divided. I'm working on more long-term vision work, and Ivan is tapping more into immediate incremental feature improvements. And Liz is kind of overseeing all of that. It's establishing a process, a design culture from the ground up. And it's been such an incredible enlightening experience. Definitely learning a lot every day.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, what an incredible jumping off point. And one of my questions was going to be how did you champion or get the executive support for bringing research into the process, and I love finding out that that was kind of part of the seeds the three of you brought to the table right from the jump.
Amy Lima:
Totally.
Ash Oliver:
So it seems that research has really been woven into the design practice from the beginning, and it's starting to scale and evolve. How do you see the research kind of shifting from what you were doing initially to what you're doing now? Has there been any kind of foundational practices that you've put into place, or are there ways in which you have seen this kind of be incorporated in different parts of the process? What are some of the comparisons that you can see between now and then?
Amy Lima:
Yeah, that's a really good question. I suppose first and foremost, then we had more so kind of just a proof of concept. Right? We just had prototypes and Figma. We didn't have an actual product early on. Right? We were building it. But when you're starting research that early, which is great, we were just trying to get early insights. You can only gain so much quantitative data from something that's not quite real yet. So that's a big difference. So today we have an app that's in beta, that's in test flight.
Folks can actually download it, move through the experience and feel it, experience it in a much more tangible way, again, in context, in real life. So that's a big difference. Right? Just even having a product in beta for folks to test with has been hugely valuable. And getting a little more creative with how you source that research, right? So one thing I did that was quite interesting and led to really, really, really great insights that actually helped inform our decision to slightly pivot the product.
So it was no small consideration, right? We were in a place where our original beta product was kind of stalling in growth and engagement, and it was starting to feel, "Wait, hold on. Maybe this isn't it or we're potentially missing something here." So we needed research, and I kind of wanted to take it a step further. So my background, I took a design bootcamp, right? During the pandemic. So I was part of that network. And the best thing for students, most valuable thing that they can have during that experience is partnering with real clients. Right?
So having real client work for their portfolio, for when they go on to get full-time jobs after the program, have real users that they can interact with and drive that sort of impact, talk to stakeholders, all that good stuff. I was like, "Wait a second. So they need that. We need research insights. Maybe there's something there." So I kind of created from the ground up this partnership program with these bootcamp students.
Whoever needed a capstone project, wanted to work with a real client, we could partner that way. They could base a case study and project based on our product. When I walked them through the preliminary research we've done where there are gaps, some of our hypotheses that we want to validate or assumptions that we have, and they could just run with it. It would be their project, but whatever they come up with, they would present to us.
And that would kind of be insights that we could then use to maybe iterate the product further, et cetera. It got a lot of interest. Ended up having about a dozen design students partner with us. They were really excited about the product, and each of them brought a different kind of perspective, right? To the product, how they would iterate on it based on the research that they found. And that's really when we started thinking, "Okay, maybe we could take this a step deeper, go a little more niche."
A little further down the funnel before we were trying to do too many things in the author to reader experience. We were doing book tracking. It was too broad, frankly. And now we've kind of honed it in a bit on, "Okay, your physical book reading experience, we're trying to bridge the gap again between physical and digital." So not taking notes in an e-reader, people still like physical books. We want to tap into that, but still have that kind of social experience. And it was really the insights generated from that research process that all these bootcamp students undertook that helped.
And in terms of time spent as well, I mean, that's so much time because they were going through it all at the same time. We're able to chat with dozens of folks, each of them. And again, that's just another example of that resourcefulness, getting a little creative, a little scrappy with it. And it took some time for that moment, for that idea to kind of germinate and for me to be bold enough to suggest it. I'm like, "This is kind of crazy, but I think it might work." And it was one of the best things we've done for the product, truly. So that was a great experience.
Ash Oliver:
I adore that example. I thought this is such a highlight of the creative problem solving that I see emulated from you, and what a way to kind of bridge the gap, utilizing new resources, but then really acting as kind of a multiplier in the scale and the impact of the research that you're able to do. And to be able to tie that back to such a critical kind of pivot point in the product is massive.
Amy Lima:
Totally.
Ash Oliver:
Has there been any other kind of key decisions that you've seen research influence in terms of products directionally in strategy or tactically in design? I'm curious if there's any other places that are notable.
Amy Lima:
Yeah. I mean, truly the biggest one, which still it's a very nuanced site. So we know we feel confident. We've gotten enough signals to validate, "Okay, folks, they don't want to read entirely in solidarity." But at the same time, there's a lot of vulnerability with sharing books and book insight. So it's finding that balance, and admittedly, we're still trying to craft that.
We're still trying to find that delicate medium, that fine line of, "Okay, how do we empower you to share and connect and build that kind of social graph around reading while also honoring the deeply personal experience that it is providing those kind of signposts or those intentional barriers to you just sharing something very vulnerable in a context in which you don't feel comfortable?"
So it's very nuanced. So if you have folks saying one thing like, "Oh, yeah, no, I definitely want to meet like-minded readers and talk about books, et cetera." But then in another breath they'll admit, "Ah, but I don't know if I would though. I don't know if I would actually talk about that.
It would depend. I would need some sort of connection to them or feel comfortable, or it would need to be a smaller environment." So it's interesting, we're still trying to crack that. But that is probably the biggest piece of insight that we've seen throughout our entire product lifecycle that we're trying to hone in on. That's our biggest design challenge for sure.
Ash Oliver:
It definitely showcases the behavioral and psychological elements that are at play that could be completely overlooked.
Amy Lima:
Totally. It's so interesting because it's, to your point, it almost can feel contradictory. It could be the same folks, the same people who are kind of saying different things, you know what I mean? So that can feel like a bit of a dead end, but I kind of see that as an opportunity. I mean, a challenge really to probe a little bit deeper.
I just consider it as nuanced, and we are nuanced beings. Right? Things are seldom black and white, our own opinions, our own feelings as humans moving through the world. Right? So it's kind of challenging yourself with going one step deeper and be like, "Okay, maybe there is a solution that can accommodate for this complex kind of ever-changing sentiment."
Ash Oliver:
I think this is a perfect demonstration of how that really comes into the actual practice, where the rubber meets the road. Our products really should be nuanced to reflect the nuance of the human experience. So it's incredible to see that that's really kind of driven the practice, not just of research, but design across the company and the product.
How have you seen, because it sounds like, especially early days, a lot of this research was around kind of the qualitative understanding or maybe the quantitative substantiating of the early concepts and prototyping as you described. Has there been a change or an adaptation to kind of the research that's run across the team? Are you incorporating different methods or have the methods kind of stayed the same, the cadence changed at all, or the frequency? What does that look like?
Amy Lima:
Yeah, that's a good question. So now that we have a beta product, we have quite a few test flight users, now we're doing more user testings, a little less hypothetical of what would you do in this scenario? How do you do this currently? And a little more like, "Okay, does what we currently have even make sense?
How do we optimize what currently exists and then kind of incorporate those qualitative research methods into that process?" And we have a pool of users to be able to tap into quantitative research insights just from the behaviors that we see on the app. Like, "Oh, this is how people are currently using the features and functionality that we already have.
No one has done this. Quite a few people have done that. That's interesting." So kind of leveraging the actual product we have now and just incorporating that more frequently into our product development process for sure. So now we're actually trying to currently establish a regular cadence and process for having those research rounds to constantly incorporate.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, I love how this is just, in my mind it kind of seems like a snowball. You kind of build on this from the early days, it's the habits that get built into the team. This kind of encourages and fosters the process to continue going. You see it kind of picks up steam. And then as you've describes, it's now being kind of incorporated at different places and through different modalities.
You can kind of pair the quantitative understanding from maybe product metrics to tie back to some of the qualitative insights that you can gain through these conversations maybe with actual users. So it's great that you've really been a steward of incorporating this process from the beginning, and it's really started to take shape, clearly influencing the product, clearly influencing the culture there.
I'm curious, has there ever been an instance where you maybe had to quantify the value of research or have had any kind of conversations around its impact? I think a lot of teams are trying to showcase just how much impact the research has driven, and sometimes it's not as easy as a straightforward metric. I'm wondering if there's any way that you've kind of shown a demonstrable, measurable, maybe impact that's come from the research that you've generated?
Amy Lima:
Yeah, definitely. Thankfully, the leadership team at Unconvo has always been a huge proponent and supporter of research, that being a very research driven product. But even so, there are sometimes where it's like, "Okay, we did the research and that's enough," kind of thinking to that earlier example of the first kind of proof of concept we had where it was very author driven, but we kind of want to hear from the folks that they would directly be communicating with. Right?
This product has to work holistically and in partnership. We have two distinct users here. Let's hear from the other side and see what that helps inform. And at that point, I was just kind of advocating for how ultimately that would save us time. Right? If you incorporate research early on, yes, you have to invest some time upfront, but it always saves you time down the road where you at least have more confidence starting out that you're building something that actually fulfills a user need, actually solves a problem, or you're building the right thing specifically or at least closer to it.
That's kind of the angle I took there. So again, it's really evangelizing the process early on and being mindful of not blindly following the data either, both when discouraging and might be disproving your hypothesis and assumptions in some way, but also when it's validating it, can we try to challenge this in some way just to feel even more confident that we're headed down the right path? Right? And ultimately saving ourselves some time.
Ash Oliver:
That's so well said. Yeah, incredible that the work that you've done has hedged such a monumental impact on the direction of the product and the company, thinking about your past experience as well. What do you think are some of the key factors that are necessary in order to get products off the ground and on the right track for success?
Amy Lima:
Yeah, that's a great question. Top of mind really is as challenging as it is, removing yourself from the work as much as you can. So it's very easy to be like, "Well, this is how I do it. This is how I would use this." Or, "When I'm using these types of products or this type of interaction, this is what I do so obviously that's the way forward." It's like, "Okay, yeah, you're one person." You're as close to the work as you could possibly be.
You really kind of need to take yourself away from that and try to approach it with an [inaudible 00:27:20] of objectivity while also leading, again, with empathy, trying to accommodate or at least acknowledge different experiences. Folks might have the nuance that come with how people use products and how people feel about them, how it makes them feel. So that's kind of first and foremost what I think about.
And then beyond that, yeah, again, just driving with humane and human-centered holistically ethical design practices. I think this is so important and challenging, truly, because it's often in direct conflict with business holes, is really thinking about how the collateral effects these products have on people. Right? It's like, okay, ultimately at the end of the day, we're being honest. What are we asking for? People's time. Right?
Often it's engagement, it's time spent using the product. Sometimes of course, it's money, it's revenue if that's with advertisers or you have some sort of paid model, sure. But that's what they're giving us. But what are we kind of taking from them in turn? Right? Do we want people to be in kind of like an endless funnel of rolling and spending all day kind of glued to their screens?
Again, what's happening in real life today? The world today is really crazy, really stressful. How can we bring a little bit of joy and humanity to the experience while also, again, providing those meaningful and intentional points of friction that might allow people to take a breath, leaving the experience better than when they came in?
So it's kind of thinking beyond just again, the surface level of what you're creating, what you're asking folks to do, but really how you're making them feel, how that impacts them after their session. So I think those two aspects kind of work together, tandem and I think helps pave an optimistic, maybe idealized but optimistic path forward in developing great products.
Ash Oliver:
It's not lofty to say that we have the capacity and the power to be ever mindful of the things that you're making mention of here. It's just great to see it exemplified in your process as you really kind of live out that guiding principle as you've described.
Amy Lima:
I do think we as designers or product people more generally do hold that kind of responsibility. Right? Not all of it rest on our shoulders, of course, but to some effect, yeah. I think it's fair to say that you should kind of assume that responsibility.
Ash Oliver:
Agreed. And I think ultimately, as you've kind of described in the case of research that you've run, for example, and how you've brought these practices into the design culture, it ends up creating more successful products anyway. So the business wins in the end. It's not a sacrifice. Sometimes these things might be an opposition or have different challenges or constraints, but that's that kind of creative problem solving that's at work to be able to kind of bring the two together so that you have the user impact and the business impact.
Amy Lima:
Exactly.
Ash Oliver:
I'm wondering if there's any kind of key lessons you've taken away from starting and scaling the practice. Is there anything in particular that you would say is kind of like the big bullet points from your time doing this work so far?
Amy Lima:
Yeah, so I think something that I always kind of preached is that products are always better built in collaboration, not in a silo. You need different perspectives, different lived experiences from folks inter-sectionally to be able to weave that into the process. Right? So again, I mean, even at Unconvo, I think each of us is from a different country or a different background, and those diverse voices and perspectives and in turn approaches in a room, I think is hugely valuable.
And once we started again to grow the team, scale the design team and culture and introduce these processes, et cetera, you could see the direct impact of that. We're moving faster, we're thinking more critically about the decisions we're making. We're thinking several steps ahead. It's just been a more holistic, thoughtful product building process. So I think that's really the biggest lesson I've learned that I've always kind of preached, but now can do so more confidently is you always want to lead with that.
Ash Oliver:
It's cool to see that kind of being the core and you having such a direct hand in those building blocks. Yeah, I mean, it's very obvious to see how community and the human experience is influenced and kind of reflected in your work. I think that's such a great place to leave it, but I'd be remiss to not ask about Diversify Design. I'm wondering if you could just share how that came to be and what it's currently up to.
Amy Lima:
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, Diversify Design is an online design community for underrepresented and historically marginalized designers. So it started as this double-sided marketplace for candidates to be connected with design orgs that were intentionally and specifically seeking out diverse talent to hire on their teams, which is hugely important. Our industry needs so much more of this. And again, from my lived experience, I'm a first generation American, first in my family to go to university.
Right? I don't come from a traditional background. I didn't go to design school. So kind of had this very nonlinear path to this world. And now that I have just even one foot in, sometimes it feels like it's not even the full foot yet. I'm like, "Oh, am I here? Did I get through the door? Is it still open behind me?" I'm trying to get as many people in as I possibly can, or at least amplify their voices, champion them and help support them in any way I can.
So you have that direct financial mobility access, right? Connecting these folks with job opportunities, which is really empowering and exciting, but inadvertently, you have a community there. You have all these people who are part of this network. It's over a hundred folks, and surely they can learn something from each other.
But yeah, Diversify Design has been such a rewarding and empowering, exciting initiative that I'm still constantly learning from and trying to improve and iterate on. That comes with a lot of research as well. I talk directly to the folks in the communities, hand out surveys. They're probably tired of hearing from me, but yeah, that's a big part of my life right now as well.
Ash Oliver:
Absolutely incredible work. It's so needed and I couldn't think of a better person to be heading up such an initiative. So what an exciting project to be part of. Talk about impact.
Amy Lima:
Means so much. I appreciate that.
Ash Oliver:
I want transition to our hat-trick questions.
Amy Lima:
Oh.
Ash Oliver:
We ask these questions of every guest just to get a little bit closer to the person behind the work. So my first question for you is, what's one thing you've done in your career that's helped you succeed that you think few others do?
Amy Lima:
Ah. Oh, I love this question. Something I attribute a lot of my early, we just say success, right? But a lot of my early traction to is kind of just putting myself out there, right? Is kind of tapping into my vulnerability, stepping outside of my comfort zone, sharing my story. A mentor of mine, Dann Petty, it was actually, he said early on-
Ash Oliver:
I love Dann.
Amy Lima:
Oh my God, what a legend. Just the coolest guy ever. Dann, if you're listening, I changed my life. Thank you for everything. But he said something so simple, it's almost laughable that it was this revolutionary, but he said, "Let people know you exist." Right? You could be the best designer in the world, but there's so much noise out there. People are busy. They're not necessarily seeking you out. So I was like, "Okay, hold on. Let me start sharing scrappy work."
I didn't even have a portfolio yet. I didn't even have my first design job, and I just started kind of putting myself out there, sharing openly and vulnerably, and people started to notice. I was able to build connections that way, make friends, get connected with incredible people. And I really think that that's helped me in my career as well with the jobs I've had, friendships I've made. So I think that's an invaluable, a hugely important skill and tactic.
Ash Oliver:
It's tremendous advice. My next question for you is what is the industry related book that you've given or recommended the most?
Amy Lima:
Oh, it's a tie. Okay. First one is Mismatch by Kat Holmes. So and it's all about the building blocks of exclusion and how to design, again with inclusive principles from the forefront. And of a similar vein, I would say, Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil. That's a bit of a punchy one. It's basically a book about the societal impacts of algorithms.
Many of are opaque, we don't quite see them or understand them. I mean, everything from credit scores to getting loans for a mortgage to getting accepted into universities, personality tests, right? For job applications. So all of these systems that kind of control and govern our lives and impact them directly that we don't really have control over. It's a critical read, in my opinion.
Ash Oliver:
Super recommendations. That's excellent. My last question for you is what is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?
Amy Lima:
Oh, this is a good one. Oh my goodness. I love, absolutely love those city bus tours, those big red ones with all the tourists taking photos. They're actually lit, would recommend anyone. And I be traveling. I've been to a lot of places. Go to the local spots off the beaten path, sure. But those bus tours are amazing. You get to rest, sit down, hang out. You see the city, the whole city. You see all the landmarks. You have so many different people on board. How did we get here? What are we doing? Where are we getting lunch? I think it's hilarious. I have the time of my life every time.
Ash Oliver:
I want this as a TV series.
Amy Lima:
It's so funny.
Ash Oliver:
This would be amazing.
Amy Lima:
Netflix, my phone line is open.
Ash Oliver:
Oh, Amy, you're such a force. Honestly, it's been so great to connect with you. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your experiences and perspective. It's tremendous.
Amy Lima:
Oh my God, likewise. Thank you so much for this. You're amazing. Huge fan of all the work that you do. It's my pleasure, honor, truly. Thank you so much for this.
Ash Oliver:
Thanks for listening to The Optimal Path, brought to you by Maze, the continuous product discovery platform designed for product teams. If you like what you heard today, you can find resources and companion links in the show notes. If you want to hear more or subscribe to the podcast newsletter for exclusive content, you can find The Optimal Path by visiting maze.co/podcast and send us a note with any thoughts or feedback to podcast@maze.design. And until next time.