In conversation with Ana Arriola

AA: Yeah I did, seasons three and four, right before I graduated High School. I was really keen on becoming a storyboard artist and so I became a production assistant for the studio. I would drive around LA and pick up scripts from writers. I was taught how to break down scripts and things like framing out key scenes. It was really fun.

AA: I am not necessarily a fan of modern anime. I went to Japan thinking I wanted to work in the animation industry and I realised that it was an incredibly difficult career, a sweatshop environment. What I do love about anime, and animation in general, is the amount of thinking that has to happen.

AA: The first thing was a work ethic I had to unlearn and relearn. When I moved to Japan I was like, oh everyone works really hard. People put their company first.

I was calling up one of my creative directors at 3am saying, “I need those files, wake up and get them to me.” And I really regret that. I learned from that, and I am now really an advocate and an ally if I see other people doing it. I will call them out and say, “That's not appropriate for your team, that’s abusive.” You have to make sure the studio and the culture is representative of everyone’s needs.

The second thing was their concept of the intangible tangible, what the Japanese call Omotenashi. That comes in different forms. I buy something there and I get this immaculate gift wrapping without even asking. Or the high-level white glove restaurant service at the lowest level restaurant. I had that instilled in me, and I apply that level of delightful heart-string-tugging experience when I am thinking about platform design.

What does it mean when you pre-sell something? What’s the out-of-the-box experience, to using the product, to end-of-life-ing the product? A lot of people seem to be angry or scared or disillusioned with technology at the moment but you seem very upbeat about the future…

There is a lot of doom and gloom about technology and Big Company among the general public and I’d be the same way if I wasn’t doing what I am doing. That’s why I feel so motivated, with such a sense of urgency, to be part of riding this wave of trying to fix – in particular with AI – the past 65 years, where the patriarchy has created the biases in the systems today.

My hope is that we can democratise all the important work that is happening in AI so we can become even more inclusive, to allow under-represented communities to help shape what this bleeding-edge technology becomes.

AA: We have to. If we don’t, we’re all fucked! Otherwise a new era of patriarchal colonialism will gravely impact marginalized communities around the world.

AA: Radical inclusion. Radical intersectionality. We are going to allow those communities at the fringes of society access to the shared benefits of AI, whether that’s using AI in healthcare and medicine, farming or urban development. That's a huge motivator to us, making sure there is equal access.

AA: We shouldn’t be creating with the intent that we’ll have a need. Rather we should start with asking, what are the fundamental human problems, real-people problems, within a given area? And then we should go after them, solving for them through traditional design approaches, where we are not trying to force-fit a solution, but rather using the need to craft the direction in which we are going, and making sure everyone is included as we go along this journey.

We should also be empowered to shut down efforts that we are working on if there isn’t really a need for it. We should invest that energy and those resources into something that’s much more meaningful for any given population.

I think we have to look at it through a lens of always asking, why is this important? What problem are we solving? Or are we just creating for the sake of using a technology, which should never be the case

AA: Is it what people want? The only way you can find real-people problems is by going into the field and talking to people who are potentially using your experiences or interacting with your designs. It’s through that ethnography, that deep cultural understanding, that you can glean insights into what these real-people problems are and what you should be creating for.

Bill Buxton (Microsoft’s principal design researcher) and I came down to a word –“ubeity” – which really talks about the hyper local context. We should be looking at every design challenge with this sense of ubeity.

AA: It shouldn’t be, but it is. Because people have been taught to follow the Apple approach – create it and the masses will follow. It’s like, no, not really. In hindsight, having been on the original Apple iPhone team, and now being a mother, did we foresee the radical impact of the attack on human cognition, on distraction and the further encouragement of Attention Deficit Disorder with our mobile devices?

No. We just wanted to have a real desktop experience, of access to the web and always-connected communication.

These are the sorts of things I think we should be asking ourselves. What’s the societal long-term impact if we solve for these problems? What might be the side effects, and how can we be accountable, by putting in place checks and gates that as we go down these processes, we can have plans if stuff goes sideways?

AA: No, I think we need to return to the days when you had to understand industrial design, you had to understand form and function. As a creative you can’t only be thinking, “What does my app experience look like? What does my web experience look like?” You have to think about how each of those become better, or amplified, from the experience of the hardware through which they will be consumed. That’s something a lot of people don’t spend any time thinking about.

AA: It depends on the school. On the flip-side, we have a whole population of designers now in their first experiences of work but they don't know the history of design. Sometimes they don’t know who Paula Scher is, or Neville Brody, or Erik Spiekermann. They know a lot about the technology, but they don’t know about the culture, about where the design has come from. Who is Mies van der Rohe? Why did Bauhaus exist?

AA: We have to not be afraid to tackle these big gnarly problems. A blank page can be very scary. How do we encourage the grit, tenacity and resilience in designers and future creatives to be able to embrace that blank page, to not need a creative brief?

AA: It’s hard! Everyone is intimidated. Some people get locked up and can't comprehend it. And that’s where, as leaders, we have to lean in and allow for ourselves to be an example of being vulnerable, to show other people that it’s ok to feel scared, or hesitant to engage.

AA: I’m still working on being a leader to be honest with you. I think that anyone who thinks they are a great leader, that’s fleeting. We need to be thinking about what it means to be a vulnerable leader, an authentic leader, who ensures a culture of belonging for Gen Z and the Alpha generation.

We need to be thinking about how we can make sure this creative journey is inclusive of all types of identity as we go along together. We should always be taking an internal poll, questioning ourselves about what we need to do better and what we need to learn next.

That’s such an interesting idea, that what a good leader looks like is a fluid concept. I think too many people have a set idea of what a good leader looks and sounds like…

For me, one of the most important aspects of being a leader in today's creative studio is you need to be able to create a space of safety, security and belonging.

Where people can speak their truth, and be open to give critical feedback but also willing to receive critical feedback, and learn from it, and grow from it, without taking it as harsh criticism. That’s something you don’t see a lot of companies doing.

AA: Oh I don’t think any fights have necessarily been won. Look at what’s happening in China, what's happening here in the US, in Japan, and with you all and Brexit. I think we are going backwards to a degree.

We used to talk a lot about diversity, and then we talked about diversity and inclusion, D&I. And recently we have been trying to change that narrative, and say it's beyond just having a diverse representation and an inclusive community. It doesn’t matter where you are from, who you are, how you express or identify yourself, there needs to be a sense of belonging. Belonging is the next step in the journey of D&I.

Identity means many different things to different generations. I have three little Alphas, I work with Gen Z. They move between identities and they might use different Instagram accounts to take on these different personas.

It takes time for individuals to try on different identities before they figure out one they really love that sticks. Myself, being a trans non-binary woman, as a Mexican and Latinx, my process of transitioning was a series of steps, and society wasn’t encouraging of that. But now we are grateful that we can help other under-represented folks to live authentically.

We need to make sure we have these radical inclusive spaces, whether you’re a tiny two- or three-person studio or a large multinational corporation. Otherwise you are not going to be able to retain and recruit the talent of the future.

AA: There is a backlash, not only here in America but I’ve seen it in Japan as well. We made such great progress and now there’s a sort of radial conseravtive side which is playing from our original handbook. It’s claiming #metoo movements and feeling like they’re under threat, western culture is under threat, the patriarchy is under threat.

But the world is expanding, modern families are being created and next generations are being brought into this world that are radically different from what were the norms of 20,30,40 years ago. I think that’s beautiful and catalytic and additive and explosively creative. We should all embrace it. We have to stay optimistic.