This is the Nielsen Norman Group UX Podcast.
I'm Therese Fessenden.
Accessibility is not a new concept,
but a term that's become increasingly popular in the field
is inclusive design.
This renewed interest in designing experiences usable by all
is a great thing for the UX industry.
It allows design teams to serve even more people than ever before.
Still, it's often easier said than done,
and it takes a lot of effort and persistence
to make accessible design happen.
That said, there are things that designers can do
to cultivate a mindset of curiosity and positivity,
which makes accessible design possible.
To explore this concept, I decided to reach out to Ryan Hudson Peralta.
Ryan wears many hats,
and as he often introduces himself,
Yeah, I always say that, you know, my intro is
I'm a father, husband, international speaker, and designer
who just happens to be born without hands.
Because I don't let my disability define who I am.
It is definitely a part of who I am,
but I don't let it define me.
Ryan was born with a birth defect called congenital limb deficiency,
which gave him severely shortened arms without hands
and legs that stopped growing above the knee.
Despite these odds, Ryan's persistence and resilience
have enabled him to build a successful career
in visual design and design mentorship.
Now, he leads product design
as a principal experience designer at Rocket Homes.
In this conversation, we discuss how Ryan got into the UX field,
how he cultivates a positive mindset toward problem solving,
how empathy is key to designing anything
from design systems to military inventory systems,
and finally, some recommendations
for building inclusive workplaces
and for starting a new career in UX design.
With that, here's Ryan.
I've been doing UX and design for 20-some years.
I started designing websites in high school in 1996,
when whoever invented the internet and websites were getting popular.
I was making websites for local restaurants, tattoo shops.
My uncle was doing websites,
and I started helping him with companies' websites.
That's how I got into it.
Nineties. So, yeah, this is probably the GeoCities age,
when there was lots of...
It was like the Wild West of web design,
but, yeah, that's awesome.
So you got a chance to work with small clients, I take it,
and larger clients as well came along at some point.
Yeah, actually, I got to work with some pretty large clients early on
because the internet was in its infancy,
so I had already a couple of years of experience building websites
and making things easy to use,
and so I linked up with some really big companies actually pretty early on,
and a lot of small companies that helped pay the bills,
but, yeah, it was pretty cool to be able to work with such larger companies at the time.
I've seen some of your portfolio.
You've got these beautiful graphics.
So is graphic design part of how you found your way into the UX field,
or did that kind of come after the web design?
No, I've always been an artist.
My entire life, I used to draw with my feet when I was little, little,
and then I realized it was going to be difficult jumping up on counters to sign things,
so I started painting and drawing and writing with a pencil between my chin and my shoulder,
and I would always draw, you know, draw, paint,
and then I got into graphic design, designing business cards, logos,
and, yeah, then that's how I found, you know, web design and just it all.
I always tell people, like, I can teach you how to make a website,
but if you're not a designer and you're not really an artist,
I feel like you need to have some type of artistry,
some, you know, some passion for art and design to make it look really good, so.
On the topic of, like, what can and can't be taught, right,
you have a couple of really inspiring talks that are, you know, out there and published,
but you have such a positive mindset,
and I wonder how much of that can be taught or, you know,
what would you say played a role in shaping that mindset that you've carried out throughout your career?
Thank you so much, by the way, and absolutely I believe that a positive mindset can be taught.
It just needs to be practiced.
You know, I, at a young age,
I realized that people are not going to be able to be doing things for me my whole life.
I have to figure this out on my own. When I was eight years old,
I came home from school, and my grandparents,
I was so lucky to have them live across the street from me at a young age,
and I was crying because I can't remember,
I try not to think of the negative things or remember the negative things,
but I can't remember what someone said to me that I wasn't going to be able to do,
and I told my grandpa that, and he said,
Ryan, in life, people are going to doubt you every day.
We only need one person to believe in you, and that's yourself.
And honestly, at eight years old,
that's when I realized that I don't care what anybody else says that I can't do.
I'm going to do whatever I want to do and figure out a way to do it.
That's where it started, and I teach that in my talks,
and I teach that when I mentor kids and adults,
that you just have to practice this positive mindset every day.
Something happens to us in a day and we're like,
oh, today's going to be a bad day, right?
That's the first thing we say, today is going to be a bad day.
Why is today going to be a bad day?
Because one thing that happened in one second in your morning,
that's not going to cause the bad day, right?
It's your negative mindset of thinking,
thinking this is going to happen,
this is going to be a bad day.
So the sooner you get that negativity out and you start realizing,
hey, that was just a bad moment,
and you move forward on with your day.
You're right, it is one of those things I totally can relate.
Maybe it's like a small thing that's just like,
well, it's one of those days and I've totally been in that position.
But yeah, in a way,
you're deciding what that day is going to be,
and you can decide what else you want to do,
and how you are going to make that day better.
Yeah, we're the author of our own lives,
and we're the artists behind our own palettes or canvases.
If you're writing a book and you're having a bad day,
the next day you have a new one, start over.
If you start realizing that those are not full pages, they're not full days.
That's just one little page that you can rip out and move on to the next.
This is definitely a philosophy that you've cultivated as a child.
Has that philosophy evolved or changed over the years or has it stayed the same?
No, it's definitely evolved.
I'm trying to learn and evolve every single day.
I mean, if I go to bed and I don't realize I had a lesson today or I learned something,
then I won't fall asleep until I realize that this is what I learned or this is what I figured out.
I remember being younger and letting things get to me a little bit.
I always had that positive mindset,
but something would happen and it would just stick with me,
and I'd be thinking of somebody said something or whatever.
Now, I have a thing where it's more like I give myself a couple of minutes to get rid of it,
30 seconds to get rid of it.
If I can't fix it, then I forget about it,
and that's definitely evolved.
Now, that's something that is really tough to teach people because all our entire lives,
we're used to the opposite or we hold on to too many things.
But that's definitely something I work with people
and help them learn that they can get rid of it.
If you can't fix something in your life,
you can't change it and you have to live with it.
Every single day of my life,
I could totally be upset that I was born without arms and unable to walk, right?
But it's something I have to live with.
I can't change it.
I can't go to the doctor.
I can't take a magic pill and grow arms and legs and be able to walk.
So I live with it and do the best that I can with what I have.
I think that's really helpful advice, too.
Just thinking about, I mean, everyone's got their thing at the end of the day.
Like everyone's got something.
I mean, obviously people can be in very different situations,
but what we do have control over is kind of what we do with it.
So, you know, thinking about like even in,
I'm just thinking about like UX related, like UX workplaces
I've been where I might be very frustrated.
I'm like, wow, well, if only I had, you know, the co-workers or stakeholders
or executives that would just, you know, do X, Y, Z things like,
oh, I'm limited by this and technically, yes, that's there.
But on the flip side, there are things that you might be able to do within your control
or within your current influence.
So yeah, I appreciate that perspective as well.
Yeah, and you mentioned control.
I have this saying, don't let something that you can't control, control you.
Because like we were in a meeting last week and somebody was like,
oh, they were mad at somebody about something they said.
And I said, so you're going to let that ruin your day?
I was like, you can't control what that person said.
So why are you going to let what they said control the rest of your day?
And they were like, yeah, you know what, you're right.
Like, I just need to get rid of this.
And that's what they did.
It's funny when you say control of your day.
There was like this one meme that was floating around a while back
that was like the most honest email ever.
And it was like, sorry, I've lost control of my day.
So sometimes it's relatable.
But yeah, it is kind of thinking about what you're directing your attention to,
what you're prioritizing and taking up,
what is taking up your mental space
and what you're allowing to take up your mental space too.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
So on the topic of like kind of philosophical perspectives,
like this is certainly making me think of philosophy and you know,
what ultimately matters in life.
But, you know, thinking about, you know, design philosophies, right?
Because obviously we can go through life,
we can have certain perspectives of how we personally want to live.
But of course, our designs end up impacting people as well.
So could you talk to like, when you're doing UX design,
like what would be your design philosophy?
Or how do you go about approaching different design problems?
Yeah, I would say I have like maybe three or four different like design principles in my philosophy.
I would say UX must be simple and easy to use,
including and most importantly, accessibility for everyone.
And I know we're going to talk about that a little bit too.
But it must focus on the primary task.
So many times like you visit a website or you open an app
and it's like the tab bar on the bottom is like so many different things.
Like you don't even know, sometimes when you give too many options,
you know, people don't know where to go.
So it must focus on the primary task for sure.
And communicating effectively.
And I would say I love content.
Content is so important, right?
But like sometimes too much content is, it hurts, you know,
like we have content writers here or I have content writers on outside projects that I work on
and they'll send me headlines or button CTAs and they're really long.
And I'm like, oh, just you know, maybe just you know, you don't want to say click here to do this.
You just want you know, what's this button going to do?
What's this headline for?
So, you know, communicating effectively.
And honestly as an artist, like I said earlier, I would say my biggest thing is it must look great.
I mean, it's so many times where you can follow this rule and this rule and this rule
and then at the end you're like, wow, this doesn't actually look that good, you know.
And so to me, it's like yes, you know, spacing is important and so many things are important.
So, you know, all those things and philosophies and principles, you know,
you can use those all day long, but if it doesn't look great, then you know, that's not good.
Yeah, yeah, and I think that really is the art to UX is yes,
we can follow these principles and we should in order to make it usable, in order to make it intuitive.
And then the hard part is crafting it in such a way that it still looks aesthetically pleasing
and not just, you know, boring or not just cookie cutter because we followed everything to the T.
So yeah, that absolutely is probably the most difficult part of doing visual design.
I remember a lesson, I was like in sixth grade
and we had to write directions to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
and that has stuck with me forever because, you know, you say like, you know, take the bread out,
you know, take the knife out and so many people would follow what you wrote
and they're like doing, you're like, wow, that actually, you're actually following it to a T,
but it's not the outcome you want, right?
So you just have to like get, you know, when building a design system,
we're building a design system right now and yeah, I can make all these pieces of the puzzle,
but if I don't make them, if I don't know for sure that they fit correctly,
you know, and they look good when they are put together, then the directions are bad.
So that peanut butter and jelly sandwich is going to be terrible.
Yeah, it might end up being like missing an ingredient.
You know, when you got two ingredients, it can still happen.
Yeah, documentation, especially with design systems.
I can imagine that's really challenging, especially with like large organizations,
if you got a lot of people using a design system.
So yeah, like what, how did you figure out like the best way to tackle that particular challenge
or, you know, if you were working with others on a design system,
how'd you guys tackle the documentation part?
Well, what I like to do is I like to, when we're writing something,
documentation or when I'm building an app or whatever,
I love giving it to somebody else that has no idea what it is, you know,
and watching them use it and then you figure out, okay, this is how this person is using it.
This is how this person is using it.
And then now, you know what you have to write to make it better and make it more usable.
That is good practice and like especially if there are co-workers,
ideally co-workers who haven't helped build the design system, right?
They're going to be the ones who need to reference it and need to be able to find what they need.
Yeah, and that's honestly something, you know, I use every day of my life, not just design,
but it's like seeing other people's perspective, like seeing life from somebody else.
Like I think unfortunately as a society and as humans,
we're really selfish and we think so much about ourselves and how we do things.
So when somebody else's perspective comes up, it's like nah, that's not, I don't believe that or whatever, you know,
like so I tried to like whether it's design or whether it's whatever,
I always try to see, you know, life from their perspective and see how it is.
Because life, I'm three foot six, life from my perspective is way different than most people.
So I see things that way differently.
For sure. So thinking inclusively, it seems, I mean, especially lately,
this is something I'm glad that's become a hot topic.
You know, I'm glad that it's something people are talking about now
and really starting to embody these principles.
Because I think before it was, yes inclusive design is important,
but a lot of people were largely paying lip service.
Just because that was, we all knew it was important, but we didn't know how to do it.
So, you know, I'm wondering since it is often easier said than done.
Do you have any tips for folks trying to like craft inclusive and accessible designs?
Yeah, you know, I recently spoke on a panel for a really large shoe company.
I signed an MBA, but and it was about design and inclusive design.
And I said, you know, having a panel with people with disabilities is great.
But how many people in your company have disabilities?
And they're like, oh, we have someone that's deaf.
And I was like, okay, you know, that's great.
Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is they're not designing shoes necessarily for somebody that's deaf.
They're designing shoes for someone that's missing a limb or, you know, has mobility issues.
And I asked them, I said, how many people in your company do you have that have those issues?
Do you have any designers that have those issues?
And they said, no. And I said, that's where it starts.
Like, you know, Ford and GM and Chrysler,
they're not going to have people that never have driven a car before start designing their cars, right?
You have to know what you need and people with disabilities know what they need.
You know, I've been adapting my own clothes my entire life.
I'm adapting my home and everything.
So it's really important that if you want to truly be inclusive, you know, hire people with disabilities,
you know, maybe they're not designing there, but maybe they're sitting next to the designer figuring things out.
Absolutely. And thinking about who is designing just as much as who you're designing for.
It's all part of that same process or thinking more co-creatively, like, who are we involving in this decision?
And, you know, who is ultimately has the expertise? It's probably people who live with it all all the time.
Yeah. Yeah. So on that topic, then this kind of takes us to inclusive workplaces.
You know, I do think overall, we're starting to be a lot more cognizant of workplaces
that aren't just tolerant of different conditions, different backgrounds,
but, you know, really trying to embrace it and welcome that diversity.
So I'm curious, you know, what do you think UX teams can do to foster more inclusive or accessible ways of working?
Well, I think hiring people with disabilities, obviously, is a huge thing.
And, you know, I always tell people, like, before I worked for Rocket, I worked for the US Army
and I worked for a couple other smaller companies.
And Rocket has been the most accommodating company I've ever worked for.
Anything I need there to make sure that I have it, you know, but in the past and other companies,
you know, I would ask for something and it was like, I'm like pulling teeth, like, I really need this.
And honestly, I go my whole entire day without any assistance.
The only thing I use at work that is adaptive is a bidet toilet seat.
And people are really shocked to hear that. They're like, wait, you don't have an assistant?
You know, like, somebody doesn't help you with food, you know?
So, yeah, I mean, it's just like hire people with disabilities.
And I don't think legally their companies are allowed to ask somebody with a disability what they need,
but they should just let them feel comfortable asking, you know?
You know, there's been times in the past with other companies where, like I said, I would ask for something
and it was like, what? You need that? Like, yes, I need that.
Like, you know, and here it's like all open, you know, and anybody. It's not just people with disabilities.
If anybody needs something here, and that's how it should be.
I speak at an event called ISMS Day and I talk about our culture once a month with new team members.
And over the pandemic, there's been so many new team members reaching out to me, you know,
saying that they're disabled, they love it here, they're able to work from home.
No other company has given them opportunities like this. And I love to hear that.
And because when I was younger, when I was 18, 19, you know, after having years of doing web design experience,
I went to companies looking for a job. And I might as well, I always tell people,
I might as well show up without a head because, you know, my portfolio is great over the phone,
I'm the right candidate for the job. And then I get there and that's, you know, it's some excuse,
something's not going to work out. So I love the, you know, and there is people with disabilities that
they can work, but they have trouble getting to work, they have trouble getting around the office,
they need more help. And, you know, being able to work remote is extremely helpful for people with disabilities.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that remote work has made, and not just remote working,
but even remote like usability testing and remote research. Like it's opened up a whole new world of research that
we've realized that, you know, at least when I say we, I'm referring to like the collective UX industry,
like there's so many people that haven't been in these conversations and it's so, it's like a breath of fresh air
to finally get to talk to people where, you know, they're able to take calls, whether that's in their car
or their house or wherever they might be. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
Nice. You said you used to work for the Army. So what did you use to do with the Army?
So I was with the Army for five years as a civilian employee and I designed user interfaces.
We designed things for soldiers to be able to inventory weapons over in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And before they were like extremely clunky experiences where they'd take their gloves off.
And what I did was I designed an experience where they can use their gloves and get in there
and do the inventory that they needed to do fast, easy. And then I also did things like we designed,
or I designed a like a help desk service for help desk tickets coming in for IT.
But I loved it. It was, I loved everyone there. It was, I felt like I always said like when I was a kid,
like I would have loved to have been able to be in the military and obviously because of my disability,
I couldn't. So I felt like I was doing something for the country. So I loved that.
Actually. Yeah. Even thinking of that too, like design as a service, like I often think that as designers,
it's easy to like get in your own head about creating something that's beautiful.
And yes, like at the end of the day, we do want something that's beautiful, but we're also designing for people.
And so often when I talk about design, I know I say it as like we're serving a user.
So I don't know if you can speak to that too, like what it means if you're really thinking about who it is you're designing for.
Because like you're saying, it's often a bit difficult. Like, you know, we often get into in our own heads.
And while we try to empathize, we might not be as empathetic as we could be. So, yeah.
Do you have advice on like being more empathetic? I guess I know it's kind of a weird question, but like, do you have tips?
Yeah, that kind of goes back to what I was saying about like putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, you know,
and really like when you're designing for it with accessibility in mind, you can literally, you know,
there's blindfold goggles. There's different things that will impact your vision.
So you can see why people, you know, these vision impairments need these things.
And, you know, like it's crazy because I'll be somewhere and there'll be like an automatic door button and it'll be like in front of the door.
And like obviously the person that designed that or had that idea to put the button right in front of it.
So I have to hit the button and then back up really quickly or the door hits me and my chair is pretty fast.
Other people's wheelchairs are not. So, yeah, it's extremely,
extremely important to put yourself in other people's shoes and start thinking like that user when you're designing for that user.
If you could give like a younger version of yourself advice, what advice would you give yourself or maybe younger designer?
I know. I mean, I like the idea of giving myself advice.
I always recommend people are like, what's the biggest tip that you give somebody?
And I always say, do it like just do it like go to a website that you think is bad.
Take it, screenshot it and rebuild it. Like do that over and over again.
I can't tell you how many times where we've seen people's portfolio or I've seen people's portfolio and they really didn't have much.
Like they have a use case of something they worked on in school. But like, why not do your own thing?
Why not go to this website and say, this is this is how it could be better.
I mean, we I would say I personally hired like the last two or three people that have showed me that they made like five, six websites.
And they showed me why they made it better and what they you know what, you know, what changes they made to make it better.
So just do it like dig in and start doing it. Do it as much as possible. Just like being positive.
Just you've got to do it. You just got to continue doing it. And that'll grow your talent and your and your mindset will grow.
I would say keep doing what you're doing and believe in it. You know, believe in what you're doing because it does work out.
I mean, I have two amazing, incredible kids. I'm married. I have a great job.
And then I also get to do I get to travel around and mentor and speak to people all around the United States.
You know, I've traveled to Dubai speaking. So, you know, I remember being a kid saying, wow, I'm doing these things.
I'm being positive. And is this really going to work? Is this going to work? And yes, it does work.
You know, and when I tell people, you know, to be positive and they're like, oh, yeah, but you know, that's hard.
And then, you know, I'm like, listen, I was born without hands and unable to walk.
And, you know, I do I've done everything in my life that I've always wanted to. And so can you.
Absolutely. I think that's a really great note to end on, because I cannot top that.
But I yeah, if anyone wants to, like, follow you and your work, where could you point people to?
I do funny and cool things on Instagram. Look mom, no hands. And also my website, look mom, no hands dot com.
Nice. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ryan, for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
That was Ryan Hudson Peralta. You can learn more about him and his work at look mom, no hands dot com.
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This episode was hosted and produced by me, Therese Fessenden. All editing and post-production is by Jonas Zellner. Music is by Tiny Music and Dresden the Flamingo.
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