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Danny Setiawan UX and Product Coach

New York, NY

15+ years of experience in UX and product development. I have worked with Enterprise (The Economist, Yahoo! and Microsoft) and startups (GeoCV, Navigine and Contently).

Areas of Expertise

  • Reviews 13
  • Answers 3

I really enjoyed my chat with Danny. Danny is a true professional and very experienced and knowledgeable in the UX/UI design field and adds incredible insight. If you need a design professional to give you an outside perspective or feedback on your business idea or digital product get in touch with Danny. Highly recommended.

Source: Clarity Ryan Falconer Jun 8, 2021

After a call with Danny you see the best mirror of yourself and your company. A magic mirror with the possibility to act on what it's wrong and underlining what it's right. He let you think a lot. And we need time and space in our lives to think to improve the way we live and work. Absolutely suggested!

Source: Clarity Marisandra Lizzi Aug 6, 2019

Danny’s approach is socratic and effective. I reached out to Danny seeking advice on charting the long view of my product design career and he worked carefully to validate my stated outcomes and recommend a number of processes and paths to achieving them. I now feel confident about the direction I’m headed and know exactly where to place my focus as I move gradually into the next phase of my career. The next time I’m in a similar situation I will definitely be reaching out to Danny again.

Source: Clarity Julian sharifi Aug 3, 2019

Danny gave great input on how to look towards the future of UX both for my organization and myself as a UX professional.

Source: Clarity Christopher Martuza Aug 1, 2019

VALUE. -Danny took over an hour to explore, understand and make recommendations for my product, -and his recommendations were spot-on. My team began implementing some of his suggestions for improvement as soon as we got off the phone. I would HIGHLY recommend Danny for anybody in need of a high-level, qualified UX consultation, and we'll certainly keep working with Danny going forward.

Source: Clarity Adam Ray Jul 27, 2019

I first got introduced to Danny through his UX Support Group meetups, which I have found to be extremely useful, so I was eager to book a coaching call with him. It was honestly great getting to chat with him because he was readily able to offer, well, clarity. Starting out in UX has been a continually confusing process and Danny was able to offer lucid, pertinent, and actionable suggestions for next steps that I found really helpful. I highly recommend booking a call.

Source: Clarity Alexander Iadarola Jul 23, 2019

Danny is an expert at stakeholder management in product development. As a fresh product designer, I am constantly challenged by stakeholders regarding my design decisions. Danny helped me to understand the perspectives of different stakeholders, and gave clear directions of how to communicate with their language. He also gave great career planning advice. Highly recommend!

Source: Clarity Yunqiao Wang Jul 19, 2019

Danny gave actionable advice and was great at understanding the root of some problems I was experiencing. He was able to bring in contextual examples and experiences in order to help me approach a problem from a different perspective.

Source: Clarity Katherine Chiu Jul 19, 2019

Danny managed to understand my vague ramblings and not only understand what I was asking but give me a clear answer. He explained different solutions and what he thought was the best and why. On top of that he warned me about potential pitfalls to be aware of. He left me with a clear direction and a sense I can actually accomplish my goals. Highly recommended.

Source: Clarity Abraham Friedman Jul 18, 2019

Danny gave me several approaches to 2 questions I asked regarding utilizing feedback from employers and introducing myself in interviews. After the call, I am able to identify my next steps.

Source: Clarity Alison Zhang Jul 17, 2019
Danny Setiawan , UX and Product Coach answered:

We deal with this issue at The Economist and in the past couple years, we've been able to implement some lean thinking to move things along faster.

At the core, what you're trying to change is the culture.

Culture has 4 components that a group of people (people in your org) share:
1. Value system (what they consider important)
2. Belief system (how the believe things work)
3. Behavior (habits, rituals)
4. Artifacts (manifestation of the above)

You need to start addressing the first 2, then you'll see the progress (or lack thereof) in the last 2.

Here's an example: a bad approval process that makes product development move really slow. We discovered this happen because the stakeholders want to show that they're contributing to the project. Because of this, they want to make sure they get to review the project and give feedback. This way, they can show their contribution for the product's success and this would be good for their performance review.

From this example, the value for these stakeholders is recognition. Their belief : giving feedback (even if it's superficial and immaterial) shows that they're contributing. The behavior: blocking process in order to get a chance to give feedback. The artifact: feedback for the product in email, request to do reviews, meeting invites.

How to start:
1. Find your allies. These are people who also want to move faster. Ideally people who work in your team
2. Show real value. The reason why you want to work fast like a startup is so you can deliver value to your customers faster and more often. What can you do to give other people around you (who you want to influence) a taste of what that's like? One thing that we did was to do rapid prototyping (without code) and do usability test, then shared the video highlights with the stakeholders.

I'll be happy to share with you the way we did this at The Economist mobile team and offer some actionable ideas to help you move forward with the transformation.

Danny Setiawan , UX and Product Coach answered:

The best way to get in is to offer what they you know they need.

Try contacting accelerators/incubators and offer free/discounted accounting service for their startups if that's what you can leverage to get in.

Another way is to just go to startup events to find out what the needs are (i.e. you keep hearing the need for UX design), then figure out a way to develop the capability to offer that.

Danny Setiawan , UX and Product Coach answered:

I don't understand the last bit of your question "so reviews can't be used", so I'll answer the first bit about building trust.

For the to-be-married couples, trusting who will come to their wedding is really important because of the potential risk associated with having their event ruined by "bad guests".

Building trust = reducing that risk.

How? Couple ideas:
1. Require the guests to link their social media presence. It's functions like a background check. One filter that could be useful here is to only allow linking to accounts that are at least a year old (or whatever period you choose )

2. Video interviews could be a good way to build the rapport also

Beyond the trust building, you can also reduce the risk by doing things like the following:
1. Have the guests join only part of the festivity that are less risky (bachelor's party) but still part of the culture
2. Have them seated in an area that can be controlled
3. Make explicitly clear that if the guests do any disruptive behavior, they'll be removed from the event
4. Have a representative of your company be present at the wedding or stand-by in case problem arises

Hope this helps.

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