Deciphering Human-Centered Design and User Experience in Web3 with Vaishali Dialani: From Emotional Intelligence to Continuous Improvements | The Power of Vulnerability in Business | S3 E19

Vaishali: 0:00

There's one thing I can say for sure is that the traditional way is not going anywhere.

Joeri: 0:05

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Web3 CMO Stories podcast, season 3, episode 19. My name is Joeri Billast and I'm your podcast host, and today I am joined by a new guest that I met on LinkedIn, Vaishali Dialani. Hi Vaishali, how are you?

Vaishali: 0:25

Hi, so nice to meet you. I'm good. How are you?

Joeri: 0:30

I'm good. I know at your place it's already evening now. For me, it's two o'clock at the moment that we are recording this. Often, it's different for me than I record in the evening. My guests are from the US, so it's nice to be with guests from all these different time zones. Now, guys, if you don't know Vaishali, she's recognized as a CX customer experience, that is, as a CX Emerging Leader by CXPA in the Middle East. She was ranked among the top 11 CXM stars globally in 2023 and, with over 8 years of experience, she helps businesses in shaping strategies and crafting customer journey maps. Passionate about delivering human-centered experiences, she serves as a senior CX strategist at KonaBoss. I hope I pronounced that the right way. Vaishali emphasizes the blend of emotions and efficiency in customer experiences, research, and communication. Nice introduction, Vaishali, but it was short and maybe you want to give me some more information about yourself and your background.

Vaishali: 1:38

Honestly, it's an honor to be able to hear that from you, but I love how short and sweet it is and I think it's really to the point. One thing I would love to add is being blessed to be able to live and be born and raised in the Middle East, which is Dubai. I get the best of both sides of the world, which is the East and the West. That's quite a unique experience and I bring that into my work and my personal lives as well. To be able to understand different cultures, insights, and the way different people behave that's all a part of customer experience, so it's a holistic experience for me too.

Joeri: 2:11

Right, amazing when you are now in Dubai. That's also one of the centers of Web3, as they call it in the world. You are a seasoned expert in human-centered design, so I am curious how you see its role evolving in the Web3 era and compared to the Web2 landscape.

Vaishali: 2:35

I think with human-centered design, the first thing is it can go in so many directions. Many people claim it to be under the umbrella of UX, CX, and different types of experiences, but I like to look at it under the umbrella of an experience, a focus. When you call a human-centered design, it's about how you bring the human touch into the technology, into Web3, into different elements. There's so much that you can do with the evolving landscape of Web3, but I think one of the few points that I can think about on top of my head is, firstly, empowering users. The idea is to be able to design, and have human-centered design empowers users because In Web 3, you have to take care of the digital assets. You have to make sure that there's a lot of privacy involved. The design principles should really reflect the self-servient experience that the user has and the data ownership as well, as what they have with the platform and they should feel comfortable with it. That's where I see that principle of human-centered design kicking into the Web 3 space. The second one definitely is trust, and it's a huge element and a principle of why somebody would use your app or your website when it comes to the whole blockchain technology piece. In today's world with scams, AML and so much happening with money. It is crazy for anybody to trust somebody else with money. So trust becomes a key most factor and that too, virtual trust, building relationships, and exercise through human-centered design is extremely important in this case. And the last thing, is the community-centric design.

Vaishali: 4:12

Now, when I talk about the community-centric design, it is a byproduct of trust. If today, you recommend something because you have used it, I'm more likely to think about purchasing it because another human has told me, than an app telling me to do something. So you're trying to build a community. And what happens when you're trying to build a community is you're opening up a door of relationships by using technology, and that's huge.

Vaishali: 4:41

Today we all like just beautifully you mentioned we are connected through LinkedIn. We haven't met each other, we are in different parts of the world. It's such a simple thing. But today what brought us together is the community fact, the fact that I heard your podcast, I like something, I reached out, and one thing led to another. And the reason that we both are on this call today is because we have that community-centric focus. And that's what even human-centered design should have within apps and technology is to bring that human touch and community, feel that, oh, I know somebody else is doing it, I can trust that person and I know I'm safe and I'm betting safe. I'm playing safe with my money as well, which is huge.

Joeri: 5:20

Yeah, I love it. Actually, the aspect of community in different senses has been discussed a lot in my podcast, and also the aspect of trust. That's something that also is discussed a lot, certainly in the Web3 space. Let's talk about research in Web3. So, with the rise of Web3, how do you anticipate the methodologies of user research transforming? Are there any distinct challenges or opportunities on the horizon?

Vaishali: 5:55

Everyone has challenges and lots of opportunities. I think that every challenge brings in a lot of opportunities. I have been in the research space for almost seven to eight years now and I continue doing so, having conducted over 500 different types of research methodologies, from ethnographic to interviews, to focus groups, to observation surveys. There's one thing I can say for sure is that the traditional way is not going anywhere. It is the pillar or the foundation of research, so that's going to stay. You do need to learn about your customer's behavior. There needs to be constant UX testing and UI UX testing. They constantly need to observe the behavior of customers. You need to be in the room with them through focus groups or you need to be in the place they are and learn about it through ethnographic research because then you can empathize with the user. There's so much you can do when you're in the same space as them, especially in this virtual world that we all live in. It helps bring in that human touch and that understanding of human emotions as well as how they play into developing the technology from your perspective when you're with them as a researcher. Besides, these are a few things that really I think are a challenge but open up a gateway of opportunities in the Web3 space, and that's firstly when it comes down to the ethical considerations and assessments. When I say about that, it's more about how you're handling sensitive situations. What happens when, ethically, something's not going right? How do you then manage it as an organization? What do you think is the customer or the user's behavior, because that person's been impacted by it? There are a lot of privacy issues that need to be taken care of in this space as well because it's so virtual. You need to make sure there are not enough scams, there's no data preaching, there's the protection of information, there are privacy rights, and so on and so forth. So I think overall, businesses more and more are really focusing on that aspect of privacy, as the landscape's evolving and growing, more than anything else. So that's number one. I think research in that space has started seeing that a lot more in terms of the research.

Vaishali: 8:05

The second thing I would say is experimental research. People are playing more with designs, they're being more creative. It's not only about right. We have a technology and that's how we're going to use it as an X way of doing it, but now people are open to exploring. If Yuri feels a certain way, why is he feeling that way? Let's tune the design and iterate the design in a certain way to see will more people feel like Yuri's feeling or if more people feel like how Vaishali is feeling. So experimental design and research have become huge now in this space and people are actually investing in it more than anything else. The investment landscapes also become really big.

Vaishali: 8:41

Being able to test these different hypotheses in the Web3 technology space has opened up a lot, a lot of opportunities for creative minds to really come up with more things in this era. Also, that involves token economics or algorithms and behaviors and disease centralized applications. There's so much. They're playing more. So it's not just the creative UX UI space, but it's also the algorithms, modeling, and stimulation, which I'll come to in just a minute.

Vaishali: 9:08

And the next one, I feel, is the stimulation and modeling research. They're trying to work around what happens if X is done and Y is done. Does Z work the same way or does it? Does Z react to it in a different way? So the modeling and data structures in the background are also being played around with and people are spending time and the organization is spending time to test these more than anything else because it's also evolving and understanding the behavior and performances of these technologies. Now being able to have a platform like research or a forum where you can actually be able to test all these is big. Early research was not as prioritized a few years ago that it is now and it's only continuing to go and increase because people now understand that with stimulation testing it can help predict, like the network specialty or the security, the scalability of things, how last and watch can be continued to grow. People didn't talk about this in research before. I've been in the space for a while People haven't spoken about it.

Vaishali: 10:06

It's only now that people are like right, we know the normal, traditional methods work, but there is so much more to it that, as businesses, we now need to think of, because our customers are using us more and more and are trusting us more than anything else.

Joeri: 10:19

Right, Interesting changes are happening, as you say. People didn't talk about it. Another thing in Web3, which is a promise of Web3 is more control to the users to get again control. In what ways do you foresee that this is reshaping the customer experience?

Vaishali: 10:43

I can keep talking about customer experience on and on. It's literally my bread and butter. But I'll try and stick to the Web3 space. I think the first and foremost thing in this space that is reshaping it is its almost redefining user expectations experiences and needs. People didn't know they wanted this and suddenly they're like oh, I actually kind of like this, I like the gamification, I like how it's incentivizing me for something I've done, even if it's rewarding me. That kind of experience is really reshaping and redefining what I want now. If I wanted, like, 80% from an organization, or now I want 120 because now I know what the organization's capabilities are and now I know what they can offer me and I want more than what they can offer me. It also helps in understanding that these people, or the users, didn't really know what they wanted before. So now that organizations are more expanding and enhancing their gamification and incentivization, you know, making CX more an engaging experience and a really humanizing experience by power tokens and FTs and rewards and leveling up their game and all this fun stuff, it's like I really love it. Man, it's okay if I don't have a friend around me to spend the day. I was in the app or my phone and I could still feel like I had a community be, a more control over things. And three, I know how to do what I need to do. And that's huge because, in a customer experience, they didn't know that before.

Vaishali: 12:15

Just like research is now being redefined with Web 3. So is CX being in the space for a while. I've not seen that before. It was earlier defined under the umbrella of customer success, because someone's downloading the app or having some X amount of engagement, but now the definition and measure of success of that engagement is very different. Now we actually think about how interactive is somebody with us? How do we define that engagement? Now? It's not only about downloading the app, but it's also thinking about how long it is staying with us, how much are they investing into us, how much time are they spending on our app? All of those measures of success are being redefined by organizations, and that is because of the enhanced gamification and incentivization of the experience that we are offering them. That's one piece, I think. The second one I feel is the personalized experience. When I say personalized, again it's huge. Today organizations have a platform where they can do A B testing. You can have a different experience than I can. My journey is different than how your journey is.

Vaishali: 13:16

It's really offering me to know how I can manage my NFDs, tokens, rewards in my own way, because I feel maybe keeping my money in a bank is more safer than for you, maybe keeping your cash out in a drawer is more safer. So, because you have that ability to choose how you define security and have that control to manage the finances the way you want, it really personalizes that experience because then I feel safe. I'm not forced to keep my money in out in the open in a drawer because I know how I can like manage it. So I think that personalized experience and that tailored investment strategies that different apps are offering as well, that's huge because if I feel I want to spend more in equity than in debt and you think you want to spend more in crypto or whatever it is, we both can choose our journeys and that really helps shape what that customer journey map looks for both of us on the same app. It's almost like an assisted personalized experience, even though, like, we're virtually using it all.

Joeri: 14:17

Yeah, yeah, there are indeed so many possibilities, like with all these new web-tree technologies that there are. Is there, like, for instance, also the metaverse, which is still evolving, and I'm talking a lot with now people that are building in the metaverse but those technologies, you know, they are still in this infancy a lot of startups, a lot of platforms that still need to be developed. What are the strategies that you would recommend to ensure a consistent and seamless user experience in this Web3 space?

Vaishali: 14:54

I love how, as much as Web3 has so much to offer, these technologies have so much to offer, they can get quite complex, and striking that right balance is by simplifying those complexities. And what I'm trying to say over here is, basically, it can be quite challenging for users who have never used it before to feel very overwhelmed with it emotionally and feel like, oh my God, is everything okay? This seems very complex or I don't know how to use this because there's an overload of information on the app or the you know. So I think being able to one of the key strategies is simplifying complexity, is being able to understand how can, as an organization, as a business, how can I provide communication, a clear message, a clear understanding of not overloading the user with a lot of information and overwhelming them with like technical jargons and feeling like you don't know this, it's fine, here's how we're going to send you an error and intricate details of also how you're dealing with the user on a virtual base. That is an extremely important piece of how successful Web 3 business will be, because the more you simplify it, the more you humanize it, the more you speak the right tone of voice, and the right customer journey mapping, making them feel like they are safe with you and they feel stable through your simplified, complex, simplified journey and design and human-centered way of doing things. I think that is huge.

Vaishali: 16:22

The second thing I feel with another key strategy is a feedback loop which leads to continuous improvement. Businesses need to know and be able to learn the best way to be able to collect feedback. If, for example and most of the things when it comes down to feedback, if not said, we need to understand as businesses that you're not going to tell me, you're not going to come and tell me look, I have a problem with XYZ and so I'm going to leave your app, it's for the business to figure out why Yuri is not being engaging with us over a period of time, and so you then do analysis and study about it. There are different ways of being able to conduct feedback loops. Say, you want to do an instant way of doing it. It's like you pop something, you get incentivized, you see the customer's reaction or the user's reaction to things and you know like are you happy, are you unhappy? You see how long they're on that page. For this ways, you can conduct these feedback loops and I think that is an important piece for continuous improvement for a business to be able to keep their roadmap in check, keep their development in check, because or else what will happen is the organizations tend to have a certain roadmap and continue proceeding the prioritizations level of it in a certain manner. But when you have these feedback loops and continuous improvement methodologies in place, you are saying, right, Next quarter we are aimed to design this particular feature, but let's review how that previous month went. Our previous quarter went and see what people liked out of it and if there is anything at utmost priority that needs to be fixed, that needs to be a part of the following roadmap. So that's that.

Vaishali: 17:57

And once you obviously have that piece and scalability is a huge element of being able to balance between the two analysis. You know you're, there's a constant competition every single time. Every time you think you've got a great product, there's some other product out there that has nothing better than you, and so you're like, oh my God, now we need to get this feature too, because we want people to stay engaged on our app. And today the attention span is also quite low for users, you know, because of the opportunities and options available, be it in your, you know, in social media platforms, in these decentralized apps, or call it, in anything. Today, you know we have so many options. So I think really having the right plan and a strategic plan to be able to accommodate users' needs as they're evolving will help strike that kind of right balance between consistent and seamless user experience.

Joeri: 18:50

Yeah, but you know users are people in you and beings. We are all emotional, we have emotions, so that can also be a challenge, of course, if you need to marry those emotions with efficiency in customer experience. Maybe you can talk a bit about that.

Vaishali: 19:10

Yeah, so I was working at a Fintech organization earlier before my previous job before my current job, sorry and the customer segment was low income migrant workers, and these guys only own about 1500 at their homes and they would spend almost 80% back home. So you can imagine they keep very little with themselves. So every time they would send money from the app or, you know, had some you know issue because it's not our problem, but it was like an external party or a third party the customer support team would be rattled. They had continuous calls. They're like, oh my God, where's my money? What have you done? Is it going to be safe? Like you can imagine, these guys won't work nonstop for like six days a week. They won't have enough breaks, they live a really, really tedious life and you know only just to provide enough for their family back home in South Asian markets. So, when it comes down to these emotions, I have seen them cry, I've been with them. It's one of the most difficult experiences, that's you know, just to be able to really feel and being helpless at some times, but at the same time, knowing that you did everything in your power. And it's just because it's a bank holiday, for a matter of fact, and the money couldn't reach and they would panic. So it's nothing has even happened wrong, it's just that the money is not gone. So that money is such a sensitive topic for anybody because we all work very hard towards it, and so I think that's the same thing when it comes down to Web 3 as well.

Vaishali: 20:38

You know, the biggest problem is that many organizations and I'm talking about 95% of the organizations lack three things, and I think that's also going to be my key strategies. To focus on is emotionally intelligent training is to focus on right. You know, first time response is important. It's a great major for customer support, but at the same time, are you empathizing with that customer? Have you learned how to talk to that customer instead of being frustrated and say I completely understand you, I know, please don't worry, we're here, we're going to take care of you? How are you going to comfort them? Emotionally intelligent trainings are not something that many organizations do, unfortunately, and that's why you see the customer experience success rate go down. It's not because they don't like your application or they don't have any problem with it. It's because how you deal with them when a problem comes and you can't take care of their emotions. So emotional regulation falls beautifully into into this space, and I think that's one of my key niches is to inject emotions into the world of business. And so when we what we did with them was, you know, had sessions and training sessions.

Vaishali: 21:44

If someone behaves in a certain manner here, this is what you do as as customer team support, customer support team. This is how you deal with them. This is how you comfort them. This is how you make them feel heard, understood, and say you know, we'll give you money back. There's nothing. That's happening is just a matter of fact. Give us some time.

Vaishali: 22:01

Second thing is clear communication is you're obviously giving them that reassurance, but how you're giving it to them in the tone of voice and the language they want to hear it. You do not want to use like if it's a loan from Eigen Worker in this case, for example, you don't want to say like and you know somebody who doesn't understand English. You don't want to like, show off your English just because you want to make sure that your, if your stakeholders hear it. They know how well you speak in English. But it's more about how you comfort them in their language and tell them look, I understand you don't worry.

Vaishali: 22:33

You know sub- peak hojaya go and that's a huge, clear communication is talking the language of the customer, talking the tone of voice of that customer, not your organization at all times.

Vaishali: 22:44

And conveying the right information sensitively, because you know it needs to be handled and taken care with care. And, lastly, alternative channels. You need to be able to make them feel like they can reach out to you anytime they need. It's being able to understand that these emotional interactions can come in different pieces, but today we're going to post something about you in social media. Obviously, you as a business is going to like go. Oh my God, they did this and now we need to action. But let it not escalate to that far, because a customer has a voice and remember, when your time comes, your customer will show you like, can show you what they can do. So that's why they say customer is king, no matter what you do, and navigating challenges comes with its own bits and pieces of everything. But if it's taken care emotionally very if it's taken care emotionally everything else will definitely work out in terms of your interactions with them.

Joeri: 23:35

Okay, say Vaishali, I also read that one of the things that you find important is embracing vulnerability, and so I'm curious how embracing vulnerability, how does it manifest in your work? And, yeah, and if you see some significance in Web 3, yeah, curious to hear your thoughts.

Vaishali: 24:00

I don't think people talk about it enough in the space that we are in, and the reason I want to emphasize on that is because I'm a mid career level professional. I'm not someone who has like 15 years of experience and always know what I'm talking in terms of I might not know everything no one knows everything even though you're in the industry for about 40 years. Doesn't matter, because you have to constantly evolve and learn. So I think that's one of the phase I feel I always want to be vulnerable, because it opens a side of my emotional side of me that allows me to be Seeking information or seeking feedback at all times. I never feel like I'm too big or I've reached a certain stage in my career, but I don't think I can learn more, connect any more feedback, and the same thing that applies to, you know, in the web Three space. If me as an individual can do and I as an individual, even in an organization where there's an open culture to things, I am bringing a change in the culture, because if I, one person's enough to start something new. So I feel that if I bring in that Seeking feedback mindset, then I am really helping the business shift its mindset to being able to open, be open to customers and being able to learn that the information and insights are we gather from like. I do that from my personal life, I'm gonna do it and my profession space too. That's one way I definitely think I bring in Wondribility at my workspace.

Vaishali: 25:21

Second thing is with that obviously also comes the openness to be able to learn, because you know you don't know it all and you will never know it all. Everything's changing so Dynamically and so quickly in this era that we all end today. It is crazy. So I think the open nesting, openness to learn, but also transparency. Today you can be open and say you know I don't know something and I'm sorry, I made a mistake and that's okay, that is okay. Why is it not okay to say you're sorry? Or why is it okay to say I'm sorry, I didn't know this and I'm open to learning? That's how organizations and businesses should be. They should be okay to say, listen, I'm sorry, this is not how a certain experience was designed for you. We are sorry that this didn't work out or we will fix this for you.

Vaishali: 26:08

Acknowledge that you can make a business mistake to as a business. So that's embracing Wondribility in a professional space as well as an organization. I've Rarely heard businesses apologize and be like you know it's a chat box that usually answer, but have you heard a human person say from a business is not something very calm? And the last thing I feel is, as a person, I'm very empathetic and considerate, so I think that's what I bring on the table in my organization as well, and that's what I think web three Technologies and businesses should do is empathize with their customer is understand what their needs are, do the right kind of customer journey mapping, understand that community is a huge part of where they are and that community will drive success to the business. So your, your focus should be keeping your community happy, keep them, keeping the relationships happy and keeping it authentic, because and that authenticity will only and only come if you understand where they are coming from first.

Joeri: 27:12

Great, I love this. This is really a great message I would say to end this podcast episode with. But before we really ended, Vaishali, I bet that people that are now listening and then they say okay, we still have some questions for Vaishali, or we want to reach out, or they want to follow you. Where would you like to send them?

Vaishali: 27:32

Yeah, there are two ways they can definitely reach out of the more than happy to connect. The first one is LinkedI n and it's with Vaishali Dailani, and the second one is at konabos. com, where they can learn more about everything that we do in terms of digital transformation.

Joeri: 27:45

Great, like, like my listeners to know, there is always an article linked to the podcast. There are always show notes, who will, of course, put your links in there to gather with some, you know, remarkable quotes and so on. If, guys, you know where to find me it's Web 3.net you will find it in the description of the podcast. So thanks, Vaishali, it was really a pleasure to have you. Thanks so much.

Vaishali: 28:11

Thank you so much. It was such a fun conversation. I absolutely loved it.

Joeri: 28:16

So, guys, and if you love this conversation too, and you think, yes, this is really useful, really interesting for people around me, be sure to share the episode with them, be sure to share the podcast with them. If you're not yet following, I think this is a good moment to do this and, of course, I would like to see you back for the next episode. Take care, bye, bye, bye, bye. Web 3 can take your biz to new heights and you're ready to harness its power, but feeling lost and overwhelmed. Therefore, join my W3X Web 3 mastermind. Send me a personal message for more info. You can find me everywhere on social media. There's only one person with my name Joeri Billast. Talk soon.