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/design: build with empathy
70 Plays6 months ago
Ocean Eiler joins the team to talk about core philosophy: Everything is design. In this wide ranging discussion, Ocean, James, and Aaron talk about the importance of the DIY spirt in design and development, having empathy for your users, and so much more. Our guest turns the tables on the hosts as he brings some lightening round questions of his own.
Ocean is currently the Associate Director of Design and Sound for PBS Kids
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Transcript
Parents' Initial Feature Demand and Usage Dilemma
00:00:02
Speaker
that what we found out was that although parents clamored for it at the time, they were too busy. And at the time, I didn't get it. I wasn't a parent yet.
Empathy in Research Through Parenting
00:00:14
Speaker
When I became a parent, all of a sudden, all of that research made so much more sense. And there that's a whole other interesting aspect of
Designing for Unfamiliar User Groups
00:00:22
Speaker
it. It's like there's the building for a user group that you don't actually know.
00:00:28
Speaker
And then once you become a part of that user group and realizing how much of those tie in and you're like, oh, you get so much more empathy for like, why didn't you want
Parents' News Consumption Challenges
00:00:38
Speaker
to use this product? Oh, because you have no sleep and you only have five minutes to maybe check the news because the news right now is scary and I can't play the news in for my in front of my child. mean How
Humility and Empathy in Design
00:00:52
Speaker
wild is that? you know so it A lot of what I've learned is that going back to being humble, be humble, be empathetic, and try to think way beyond yourself and try to put yourself into like their testing shoes.
Introduction to Ocean Eiler's Design Philosophy
00:01:09
Speaker
Welcome to the fourth class, where we lean into the future of IT. Today, we have a special guest, Ocean Eiler, who is a designer based out of Washington, DC, who has gained recognition for his comprehensive approach to design and sound.
Ocean Eiler's PBS Kids Achievements
00:01:25
Speaker
based on a core philosophy that everything is design. Currently, he is an associate director of design and sound for PBS Kids, where he has been for the last 17 years. Among his notable achievements are his contributions to PBS Kids Go, CART Kingdom, which is a massively multiplayer online experience,
00:01:48
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The PBS kids talk about video series, which was awarded a daytime Emmy in 2021 and the PBS kids brand IDs, which were nominated for a children's and family Emmy in 2023.
Ocean Eiler's Musical Endeavors
00:02:03
Speaker
In parallel to his day job for PBS kids. He also hosts two separate live streams.
Introduction to Co-host James Carmen
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Speaker
The first is a three hour live stream on Twitch. The second is a half hour showcase on Eaton radio.
00:02:16
Speaker
Both shows are called From the Annex and focus on jungle drum and bass music. And I've given some of his tracks a listen and they are phenomenal. So definitely look those up.
Ocean Eiler's Name Encounters
00:02:31
Speaker
As always, I'm here also with my beautiful co-host, James Carmen. Hello. And welcome, Ocean. Thank you.
00:02:43
Speaker
I've never met anyone in my life named Ocean. that's Have you ever met another ocean like in in you know your travels? I have. I've met a few of them. And comically, if I had to like put a percentage on them, most of them are women. So there you go. I just want to go to a bakery with them so that I can have cake by the ocean. There you go. wow.
00:03:12
Speaker
ask that is that i You've set the bar high. Dad jokes are on. Okay, get them on. Wow. That's a good one Aaron. That's good. I love the puzzled look that I got when I was like, what? What? Yeah, that's that that. That's what you look for. Like, yeah, that was the. Explain the. Yeah, it was like real and you didn't know. Bam. That was well done. Mack great in the face with the dad jokes.
00:03:40
Speaker
See, you got to get the lean in and then the whack. What? Yeah. Yes, the man, the myth, the bad influence, dad. There you go. Cheers. It's my mug. I think it was a Father's Day present last year. It was amazing. That was like a ah figurative, like the what did the five fingers say to the face type joke. That's what that one was. you There you go.
00:04:09
Speaker
yeah can
00:04:12
Speaker
anyway We're off to a great start. yeah guess what i would love just i mean like this I really enjoyed, we've we've been talking to Ocean for already an hour. We started our recording like an hour ago. We've been talking about all kinds of cool stuff. So this this has been a real trip and and it's been a joy. Hopefully we sprinkle some of those conversations in some of the topics for sure.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, in and to bring back up one of the topics we were talking about was this DIY attribute of development of ah that we think isn't necessarily like being phased out. Like we were talking about back in the early days of development, the tools weren't there, things weren't there. So we had to create our own kind of like, you know, like George Lucas had to do with the original Star Wars. i the The special effects stuff wasn't there, so they had to create it. um
00:05:11
Speaker
And you know the beginning aspects of web development were the same way. Tools weren't there. We had to roll our own um and figure things out. DIY isn't gone. It's just evolved into something different, right?
00:05:31
Speaker
the DIY space, because even in the backend languages, like early days of C++, plus plus you had to roll your own containers for storing data. Like you had to create your own collection, you had to create the array, you had to create um a set, you had to, yeah in in those types of things, and even a string, you had to create your own string class, because those things didn't exist.
00:06:00
Speaker
and um But everybody knew about them. Like I had, I had textbooks that said, Oh yeah, here's how you read your string class. And you just go and have to do it. So here's like your DIY instructions for creating your, your collections.
00:06:16
Speaker
And it was like, okay, great. So I'm going to spend, you know, a week and a half writing my collection so then I can start writing my application and type of thing. Um, and it was just, it was, it was the the wild West. I remember, um, on, on the website, it was like, okay, how do we integrate this thing, uh, and, and make it visible on a webpage and the,
00:06:43
Speaker
the wildest one I ever had. It's like, okay, we want to generate pie graphs in real time off of data that's coming in. So we're monitoring data and we're going to do pie graphs. And we want those to be real time. So we had to figure out, okay, well, here's the information. We can get the information easy enough. We can do all the math. That's easy enough. But how are we going to generate this graphic that's going to change on a regular basis? ah So In, at the time it was, you know, okay, every time you load the page, you get new data. So here's the data, generate them. We ended up going to R, which is a statistical language that's used in labs and stuff like that, because they had a way of generating the pie graphs and use, set that to data. So integrated with R brought it back in.
00:07:38
Speaker
and populated the page with R-based pie graphs. And it was pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah. It was like, no, you don't do that. I was like, oh, I don't have a library to do that. So I'm just, that's not possible. is like what and But that's a really interesting point though, is like, there's so much of, you didn't know what wasn't possible. And the reason why it wasn't possible yet is because someone hadn't done it yet.
00:08:08
Speaker
but that didn't deter anyone. It was now, all of a sudden, that's the next level. That's the boss fight. And that's where like communities were born. That's where like online libraries where like started up, especially for me, like working in Macromedia and Flash, like things like Flash Dens and like you know chat rooms that were like dedicated to like people that were trying to resolve the problem, but then also make it modular enough and be able to speak to it that then you could teach someone else how to do it. And that was how I learned how to comment on coding was so that I could then you know add to the community. you know And so it was like, and then being able to speak and talk to i will the language is when I was doing enough, then helped me turn around and talk to the developers as I began to give up more of that responsibility as more talented people came about.
00:09:06
Speaker
But then also turn around and be a client side and talk about what is and isn't possible right now. But then also be like, you know, we could do R and&D, we could build it out. You know, anything's really possible. How much money are you willing to spend to make it happen? And like, that's an interesting ethos that I don't see as much, but I'm also not.
00:09:30
Speaker
As I've aged, I'm now hiring people. I'm not necessarily in deep with those communities still hearing the chatter. And I miss that. I miss the raw energy of like having a problem that hasn't been solved yet and putting really talented minds on it and all being in the same room and spitballing things. I mean, that's half the fun of like my back end of knowing how to code.
00:09:57
Speaker
but really focusing on design, which is why I got the dual degrees. It allowed me to...
00:10:07
Speaker
have both wow language models to talk. So when I'm talking to a client, when I'm talking to Dev, and striking that balance, I mean, especially the early 90s, I mean, websites were atrocious back then. So it was like, my whole thing was like, I'm going to go get a design degree, and I'm going to do web design, and I'm going to put them all together and make beautiful websites, and people are going to shower me with money. you know Yeah, it didn't happen. But still, good idea. That's a good idea. idea Yeah.
00:10:36
Speaker
ah Yeah, I like that that um that aspect of the, it's not that it's unsolvable. It's how much money you want to spend at it. We can figure it out. How much how much do you want to spend on it? Because, um and I've actually talked to this in and other groups as like lunch and lunch and things like that. It's like, there's no problem that's unsolvable. Like if you want to have like,
00:11:05
Speaker
100% VR you know type of environment that we do this in, we can do that. it is But it's going to cost you because it's going to take the time and research and in working with the different things and the testing and and that kind of thing ah to be able to make this available to your audience.
00:11:31
Speaker
and In when you can, when you spin it that way, it puts it in perspective that they understand. It's like, okay, it's not that you're saying no, because you can't do it. You're saying no, because it's. Inhibitive from a cost perspective. Then the thing to look at is that if you keep running into the similar sort of thing.
00:11:52
Speaker
does your company put in the R and&D to do it and then turn around and make that a feature? but you know And now it's like, okay, we've seen that this is a thing. Now we're going to build it out. Now we're going to charge you for it retrospectively, you know but not as heavily of a cost, if you will, because multiple people need it. But yeah, no, it's it's all fun. And then you add to that a nonprofit status and the nonprofit status with
00:12:25
Speaker
a legacy and in particularly a legacy of being trusted by parents, you know, and, and being a safe space for kids. And it's like, okay, we still have things that we can do. We have things that we want to do. And we have insanely talented people that could do the work too. But it's like, is that where we're going to put our money? Is that we're going to put our time? Are we going to write a grant for that?
00:12:51
Speaker
You know, because we have this idea that will be mutually beneficial for the entire country's youth.
00:13:00
Speaker
But we don't have the money to do it off the get in the station that we're working with or the interest group that we're working with. And by interest group, I'm usually talking about teachers, parents and teachers. you know They don't have the extra money to do it. I mean, they're, they're strapped already.
00:13:16
Speaker
And so it's like, okay, let's go out and find, let's find the grants. Let's find the, the federal dollars, the private dollars, the donors that, you know, can allow us to then turn around, create the product that America's use needs, I guess, you know, or that we want to provide to them. You know, those are all sorts of fun, like different aspects of.
00:13:44
Speaker
an ethos that a lot of us grew up in, which was that DIY, we can do it. And I think that's ah the fun part about my community and my, the people I work with. There's rarely a no, it's more of a win. We can't do that now. Put it in the bucket list. Now, sometimes we light the bucket list on fire and just say, okay, we're starting again. There are too many things in there, you know, or We pull it back out and we go, the need has been created by someone else. Okay, cool. Now let's go use that product. Is it still, does it still do what we needed or are we still needing a custom solution? And that's a whole nother story, which we could get some really talented PBS backend people to come talk to you and you could run down rabbit holes for decades on the stuff that we haven't made and stuff that we want to make.
00:14:39
Speaker
And I know James, you end up you end up talking a lot about the build it versus buy it type of paradox. It's like, okay, which is which is going to be better? If we buy it, what do we get? If we build it, you know, how much it's going to cost us over the buy it solution and customizing it to fit our needs.
00:15:02
Speaker
And some of that comes down to business mission. Like, is this is this our core business? Is this a true differentiator for us? You know, those sort of decisions, you got to think very hard about that when you're when you're running a business. Because you can do all sorts of things, as you said, Aaron, with technology. I mean, you've got enough money, you can do...
00:15:19
Speaker
Sky's the limit. You can do anything. But do you want to make that investment? Sometimes it makes sense to to disrupt or to to be the innovator in your field. Yeah, absolutely. But sometimes it doesn't. Do you feel like that's diminishing over time? Have we lost that? Or is it just a different DIY now? just like it It just builds on the the thing before, like, OK, everybody can make home movies now.
00:15:43
Speaker
What's next? What's the new echelon that we use? So maybe we can talk through that. I can't wait because i'm I'm ready to dive in on that one hard. Well, and it it relates to technology too, because we get to a certain level where it's like we kind of plateau for a little bit and we're like, okay, we finally figured that out. And now what's the next big thing? What is it? and Quantum? We can even tie it in with AI. Yeah. it was like
00:16:06
Speaker
Oh, that's a question. Like, are we, are we losing that DIY, you know, kind of ethos? I think we were talking about that it was, we we were very much built like that. And I don't know if that's an American thing or if that's just the, the, where we were raised, like, have we lost that? Is it, is it gone from our society now, or is it just different and not the same that we grew up with? And I'm going to counter and say that it's, or not even counter, I'm going to inject and say that it is different. Um,
00:16:36
Speaker
And I think a little bit when I'm thinking in particular of on a programming end of it, so much of it has all, we've already answered so many problems. We've answered all the basics, right? And so we're no longer having to build things from scratch. You don't have that initial HTML page and it's just fully blank. You can already start populating it right off the get. And I think,
00:17:06
Speaker
In that case, I'm going to keep um my kicking in already. Because we're not building it in off the Git, sometimes they're it's not as easy to be like, I've assembled all these pieces already. Now I'm going to inject my own code into it.
00:17:24
Speaker
um I'm going to take it, I'm going to modify it, I'm going to build it into actually what I really need. And so there's a laziness that can be there. But what I'm seeing now in particular on deeper creative ends of it, like when we're making videos, when we're making audio, and even now, in some cases, code, and especially on backend code, as we're reimagining, okay, you can do this with the CMS. What are our limitations? And then how far can we push those limitations to break it?
00:17:55
Speaker
And that those are all interesting aspects. But I recently toured a middle school, high school here in Washington, D.C. And I was watching kids building videos in front of green screens for a project in particular. And it was just kind of like this, like, Oh, okay. You've got access to tech that I didn't, I couldn't even dream about like in middle school and high school, but this is your starting point now. So much like on the programming end of it, it's like, here's your starting point. And it's more of opening the door more.
00:18:34
Speaker
and allowing people to then inject an ad on top, give you those flourishes that your basic you know plug and play doesn't have. And I'm going to jump to a reference of an artificial intelligence podcast you guys put together not too long ago. And you're talking about, I think it was music at the time, like making music and how they, I think in the control delete segment of it, you're like, okay, you know like Maybe it can get a pass. And because of making music and being a music producer myself, I will use it for to get my mind moving on a topic. It is my my blank piece of paper that I'm just starting. I'm throwing things in and I'm just trying to see if I pull inspiration and then I'll take that, remove it. Maybe I'll even inject it back in and have it edit and do other things to it.
00:19:33
Speaker
but in particular for my end of music making. my ability to go in and say, I need a Motown drummer and I want 30 seconds with a drum solo, go, and it will output a series of different versions of Motown drummers. And I could be more specific than that, but Motown drummer at the moment. And then I turn around and I add it to my MPC and I start chopping that up. And now I have free samples of someone that sounds like a proper drummer.
00:20:07
Speaker
The only problem is those audio samples or those clips are absolute garbage, like fidelity-wise. So again, it's a really good scratch point for me to start with to then replace and add on and embellish.
00:20:22
Speaker
um
00:20:25
Speaker
And so I think the ethos isn't gone. I think it's there. It's just changed in different ways than we have ever seen it. So love, dear, your thoughts.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, we developers but as you were talking, i like, my mind is racing. Us developers, we have a tendency to.
00:20:49
Speaker
That not invented here, I think, is the way people will describe it a lot of times. So there may be something like, oh, there's a library for that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I want to write that. Some of those things are kind of fun, right? So that's still there. But we would hope that you're building on the abstraction of like, OK, we've already solved that problem. We know how to deliver web responses. There's a library for that sort of thing. But some people still have that kind of like, I just want to open the hood and write it on my own.
00:21:15
Speaker
Maybe you tried it years ago and you're like, I want to rematch, right? Like, I want to try to tackle that problem again. ah So there's that that rematch aspect. But it so it can be hard sometimes to even let that that abstraction layer, like to to make that leap to the next, you know, that plateau, I guess. I don't know what's behind that, is it? It's easy, it's familiar.
00:21:38
Speaker
And then, you know, because once you get past that plateau and you put the abstraction on top of it and say, OK, everything below this line is settled. I'm going to build technology on top of this and not worry about the stuff below the this line anymore. That's the new frontier. Right. That's the scary. That's the leap. So I don't know. I think we we as developers tend to try to redraw that line because it's it's kind of fun to do that stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. And I think to also one of the things that some of these these different tools and starting points. I like that that concept of it resets your starting point. It's kind of like, you okay, now you have a head start. Because there's a quote from David Ayer, um who's an author, that the most terrifying thing and in my life is a blank sheet of paper. So if you're starting with absolutely nothing, it can be just, and with the song reference, it's kind of like, I have no idea where to start.
00:22:33
Speaker
You know, it's like, okay, I have this kind of loose idea floating around in my head on what I want, but I have no idea where to start. And so having um a starting point that kind of nudges you in a direction, whether it be AI or a sick track, you know, that just like, oh man, I really love that beat and that rhythm, but I want to adjust this, right? And it's it's kind of in, this is like in that DJ space.
00:23:02
Speaker
of, and I love hearing like DJs, like live mix, because they're just, they're free flowing. And that free flow is kind of like where I would love to get in development to where I don't have to think about the code as much or the syntax or tying piece A to piece B, but really flow through a problem set in just kind of free flow solutioning on this difficult problem that I'm trying to tackle. Right. Instead. Interesting that you bring up the flow state because that's.
00:23:42
Speaker
And you also reference DJs on that. And so I'm going to caveat on a point though that a really good DJ will have done their homework, will have that full solid baseline, and especially now that we've become digital and it's less tactile, which in some ways removes a certain level of
00:24:01
Speaker
physical writing not in the sense of like pen and paper but as in like I to touch I pull a record from behind me and my mind has every instance that I've ever played that record maybe when I bought that all those memories attached with a visual image you don't necessarily get that on screen with a little bit of text written across the front of it and so now as a digital DJ we've got all sorts of different tools that can tell us the BPM, the harmonic key. we can even like catalog i mean I've got my stuff cataloged comically using emojis, but it makes it in a visual reference. So I can very quickly look at a page and go, OK, that track is vocal. That track has lots of Jamaican references in it. um That track sounds like a robot, you know whatever it is. like
00:24:56
Speaker
there's a a sub-genre and drum base called Neurofunk, and it sounds like an angry modem. And right now, it's fairly popular. It's also known as JumpUp.
00:25:08
Speaker
and jump up from the 90s versus jump up now, people in the comments will say things. Anyway, I know they're two separate things, but I've got all those things keyed in such a way. And so ah last Monday, where I was doing a fundraiser for a friend who lost everything during in the hurricane, right? And so we're raising money and I didn't feel like playing high energy music. And so I went with my emojis, saxophone,
00:25:35
Speaker
uh bass guitar and something that looks like sparkly stars so sparkly stars are like more airy sounds it's a little bit more laid back a little bit more lounge the saxophone is definitely like as many jazz samples as i can put into it and then a little and then the bass guitar for me means funk and nostalgic because i'm a child of the 70s and like that bass that sound of a bass has a real deep resonance for me. And so I've like ah put all that into a playlist and then just said, go. you know I i've organized it by harmonic key and BPM, and I made a three hour set on the fly.
00:26:15
Speaker
Because it sure about what I was in, I was originally gonna play vinyl all night. And then, you know, this came up, the mood changed, be the same as like you get onto a dance floor and the dance floor is just on fire and you've brought nothing but down tempo like lounge tracks. And you got to switch gears real quick. And that's But what I'm saying is that like that comes with hours of back-end work to be into that flow state that you could just go, OK, let's go. Just like a skateboard will do hours of attempting a trick. And so that when they come to a new terrain, they've got all that mental mapping to then do the thing. And so when you're as a coder, you're facing a problem. And you've go, oh, I've done that millions of times before.
00:27:03
Speaker
maybe I can grab this piece here and I can throw it in as my baseline to get started. And then I'm going to add on top of it because I know that that particular module of code has flaws, has weaknesses. You know, maybe I'll update it and I'll throw it into like a repository somewhere else for someone else to download. But you know, it's all about that flow state.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, and one of those things that we use as coders in in that is this concept of of patterns. and And patterns have gotten, you know, they go through like some bad press and and there's like, oh no, don't use patterns, they're the devil, blah, blah, blah. and and But but that's that's that tool. It's like if you understand the pattern well enough to know where it should be applied and what problems it fixes, you can then,
00:27:54
Speaker
you can flow on that and say, oh, I can use a factory pattern here and it'll be a little bit cleaner and work a little bit better and I'll be able to extend it out in this direction where I'm going to need to next month when we do this other feature, right? So you do your homework on your patterns, you know how to use them, you practice them in in the backyard, right? And then when it comes time to show, it's like, boom, I put it in and I put it in the right context.
00:28:21
Speaker
And that's where patterns get a bad name is misuse and overuse. Right. It's like, I know how to do a singleton pattern. So I use it everywhere. know type like oh But yet those basic patterns, like we do it in the same in design, it's your eye flow. It's like, all right, I'm starting at the top of the page and I'm working down. And like, does that look like a button? Does that not look like a button um there? There have become.
00:28:50
Speaker
mental cues for us to realize you know what is the largest thing on the page that we need to pay attention to and then work down accordingly. there are very classic maps, visual mappings, like are you building a triangle? Is there an inverted triangle? How is your eye flowing down the page? You can build something that the main point of that you want people to go to is at the bottom of the page. But then you have to structure everything down to that point. And now with you know every mobile device under the sun, you also have to think about how that is going to shift
00:29:27
Speaker
as your design becomes more liquid you know it's like how's it gonna look on that weird little folding you know android phone when does the fold you know is it gonna look okay still and we've got this joke at pbs about the um the eyepole. You know, it's this like massive yard long iPhone. And it's like, our designs have to look good in that. And if we can make it look good in that and as landscape, okay, cool. You know, we the design has passed the test. Now, mind you, that's a running gag.
00:30:04
Speaker
And we've made it into a comic, like a little cart comic illustration that every once in a while will come out with. But recently we had a device that was, it was already in a landscape mode. We already, because of the PBS Kids homepage, we've got this circular arc right at the front door. And it's got all the characters in it and kids can like rotate. It kind of looks like an old rotary phone in that regard, right?
00:30:34
Speaker
But when we do a takeover, we have to put everything around that. Now take it and squeeze it to the smallest imaginable height. And we call that the neck pillow, right? Because if we're working around the arch, we have to make sure that our designs will work in that.
00:30:52
Speaker
And so it's like, it and there are all sorts of patterns that we've already developed and created through user testing. And user testing, we do so much of it that we know that, okay, the iFlow will work in such a way that we can drive the child to content to be like, hey, here's a brand new show. You should come try it out.
00:31:12
Speaker
But we don't get in the way of the child that just wants Daniel Tiger, and they're going to go right to Daniel Tiger no matter what. You know, it doesn't matter how shiny, how beautiful like my designs are. Nope, Daniel Tiger, that's it, done.
00:31:26
Speaker
Yep. And who doesn't want Daniel Tiger? I mean, let's be honest. I mean, Daniel Tiger's parents have taught me more about parenting than I care to shake a stick at. So I mean, like good on them, like Papa, Mama, Tiger, big ups. Yeah. So I know in design iconography is is really big, at least for the adults. How important is it in the kid's space to like introduce kind of the common iconography that we use in design um and for like an adult experience.
00:32:01
Speaker
It is, I mean, it's foundational because these kids can't read at this point. And so, well, to start the lowest end of our demographic cannot read. I mean, two years old, if you're reading at two and good on you, you know, but it's like two to eight is our sweet spot. And then we, we do kind of tend to float up. Olders, we might get into the tens, but really at the tens we're cutting off pretty hard. They've gone on to bigger and better things.
00:32:32
Speaker
And then depending on the, you know, the household and family, sometimes we'll also get some of the younger, but in the main front two days, is our our main sweet spot and making sure that. not only is the iconography clear, it can be read at any size, but also that we're pairing it with something that will immediately, you'll get the jump as to what it is. And sometimes it might be a little bit of a luring. It's like, is it a game? you know Is it video? And I mean, thanks to Netflix and being that little triangle, I mean, everyone knows what that is.
00:33:10
Speaker
ah and you could even say that really iTunes had kind of said before that and the VCR before that and you know go down the line but it's you know building those in and then like figuring out which controller is going to resonate with a child. When I first started a joystick would but joysticks no longer mean anything and now it's like it's more of a PlayStation Xbox style controller that has become more of the default, you know.
00:33:43
Speaker
And this has become the save icon. Yeah, I was about to say it. How in the world did the floppy disk like keep its, its rain as the save icon forever and ever? Yeah. And and for those of you playing along at home, i I actually have my, what I now call my, my 3d save icon, which is a three and a half inch floppy, which is what it used to be. It was the symbol of a disc because you were saving it to disc.
00:34:10
Speaker
And at the time, this is what you would save it to. And I still have a huge library of them and I pulled one out and somebody goes, Isn't that a save icon? Do 3D print that? and I'm like, yeah, 3D printed it. Wow, that's amazing. I think the reason that it survived is because it is clearly recognizable as a tiny square. And you know as a designer, if it works, if it reads, I'm not going to change that.
00:34:41
Speaker
like but it is amazing that that that particular artifact has survived so many years. I mean think about it like there were jumps from like it went from that it went to the zip drives it went to the quad drives now it's usb sticks you know but putting a little usb stick as a tiny rectangle won't be nearly as readable you know you might be able to get away with it sorry i'm gonna pull one out just for reference um You might be able to get away with by just using the part that you insert in, but that's not nearly as visually iconic as the floppy disk. I do have one interface that I use that uses a thumb drive icon for being able to access the USB stick, but it is but it's more of
00:35:39
Speaker
like a file explorer reference, not a save. So, you know, and that was, instead of using like the USB symbol, like I've seen in certain interfaces, like if you're, if you're going to read something from USB or utilize the USB, it's got the little USB symbol on it and you click on that. um So I thought that was, that was an interesting um design choice on their part.
00:36:04
Speaker
um The other one that has got a physical artifact behind it, that's an old reference, is the print icon. It's a dot matrix printer, right? Nobody has a ah ah printer that spits out paper out of the top anymore, right?
00:36:22
Speaker
that's ah But that sound is so iconic. eat ink but It's also the best tactile experience is ripping the edges. I used to do that for my dad all the time would just sit there and casually just rip the edges for him.
00:36:38
Speaker
It was, uh, you know, the beginnings of ASMR, right? it was there We might need an appendix for like publish this to like explain, okay, VCR, that is a video cassette recorder and that's, we had magnetic tapes.
00:36:54
Speaker
that were wound up inside these little boxes. and be Right. Yeah, three and a half inch floppy was how we used to save data on old computer systems. yeah You never wanted to get it anywhere near a magnet. Oh my gosh, no. main actually or Or slide the door open and yeah and touch the disk. Don't touch the inside.
00:37:16
Speaker
One of my first jobs outside of university, I was living in Geneva, Switzerland, and every night I had to back up the server, which was on magnetic tape. I'd make two copies and I'd put one in a safe and I'd take one in my pocket and I'd take it home. So kids, before there was a cloud, there was magnetic tape. Oh, and it was so slow. So slow.
00:37:44
Speaker
Because I remember having to do tape backups and and rotating the tapes because you usually had like, you know, a three to five set of tapes. and that Every now and then you'd have to um replace them because they would wear out over time. Yep. All right. So you've mentioned like, you know, designing for kids and all of that stuff. I'm just curious, like,
00:38:12
Speaker
Pretty much all the kids growing up these days or their first tech experience is usually going to be, it's going to be an iPad, right? Some sort of a touch based interface. How does that change the nature of design? is it you know Do you think, are we at the point where we kind of have to start from that point and and that's how we have to design because they've all grown up that way? Or are we getting there? Like where where are we at on that? Or is that even a thing?
00:38:35
Speaker
I don't know if it's necessarily a thing. I think it was a huge innovation move forward. I mean, when I just started at PBS when the iPhone came out. And so the initial ripples of that weren't affected, like weren't really visible until a couple of years later. And what we very quickly watched in testing was like, you know, kids trying to zoom in on paper testing. So they reached down and they touched the image on the paper and tried to zoom in on it. I was like,
00:39:05
Speaker
Oh, okay. But all of a sudden, it it allowed for far more exploration. And so kids, natively, I mean, they are explorers, and they are very tactile explorers. And so conforming them to a mouse, and if they had a trackpad, that was even better, but really conforming them to a mouse, especially one with a scroll wheel, and a secondary click that may or may not help them get anywhere, you know, was I was impressed that they were able to do what they were able to do back then. But of course, they're quick learners. I mean, they're little sponges. It's amazing. But then you give them a tactile experience, especially now that it's got some haptic feedback to it. And it's a whole other world for learning. I mean, we have our ability to drive children to a
00:39:56
Speaker
learning topic and to give them feedback on what they're doing is right or wrong or I mean to say pleasurable stuff where it's like you know we've given them the incentive to say that like okay you're building your matrix of success in this game you are learning these learning blocks along the way in the end here's the payload of you know whatever great learning initiative we have at the time for that particular game, I think it's only beneficial. And I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm curious to see how things like artificial intelligence, virtual reality will play in. But that all comes with questions about brain development and when to introduce that, um especially as
00:40:50
Speaker
children in our two to eight, the brain development of that time period, sorry, I've gotten a little off track, but the brain development that happens within that time period is monumental. I mean, you've gone from a child that is just learning to fill and dump to reading, writing, and arithmetic.
00:41:09
Speaker
you know, it's like that sort of jump is insane. I mean, the synapses alone that have been built and rewired over and over again is impressive. And so I think it's only going to be built built upon that. And when it's the thing that we need to figure out and navigate as a society is when to inject all of those things into our child's daily you know life. Now, I'm going to make a quick caveat here. I'm speaking for myself. I don't get to speak for PBS. I'm not a spokesperson for them, but I work for them. Cheers. Disclaimer. You mentioned the haptics. and and you know This is a technology podcast, but that's that's very important. you know how How do we let our users interface with what the solutions we're building?
00:42:03
Speaker
i It reminded me, but just recently, a friend of mine was like, oh, you've got to play this game Astro Bot. And I'm like, OK, the new PS5. Not the intro one that they give gave you years ago with the PS5. But he's like, you should see this thing. So of course, I dropped 60, 70 bucks and went and bought this thing. He was talking about, and I got to see it. What he was talking about, he was explaining the game. He's like, I was watching my daughter play this game. And there's this spot where like the the robot like kind of takes his hand across the wall. and And she just pushes in on this brick. And he's like, what?
00:42:33
Speaker
How did you know to do that? How how do you know to do that? And it was it's haptics. It's in the controller. and And as he was taking his hand across the wall, one brick, when you put your hand on it, vibrated a different way. To me, when I got to that point in the game, it was almost imperceptible. But she just like, that's the one. Yep, press this one. And we're like, like they're attuned to that. like and And I'm almost 50.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was weird. but yeah The matrix of success that they built up is like they've given you little hints along the way that might have been. Haptic and audio, it might have been even a ah heavier haptic response you know to begin, and then they might dial it back. But that's where that's kind of actually how i I fell into doing audio for PBS Kids was that we needed sounds to go along with the visuals. And we needed sounds that were on brand. And they also just had a need at the time. And I raised my hand and said, yes. i mean
00:43:29
Speaker
If I look at my entire career journey for a brief moment, it's because I raised my hand and said yes. Now, was I qualified to do all the things? No. Did I do a lot of learning along the way? Yeah. And each project I did molded, you know, my what I am now in that regard.
00:43:52
Speaker
um But then going back to the the haptics and sound, like those are all those are the different ways that we need to engage with our youth that can't read yet, you know that may not necessarily understand. you know So it's like you give them a pleasing sound. You give them a pleasing sound that for PBS is more of an organic nature. We don't have very too many robotic sounds, too many things that are like overloaded since, although I love me some since. I'm just going to say that.
00:44:24
Speaker
But, um, you know, it's really the, what would could a child go out and make that same sound? That's what I'm constantly trying to strive for. So when you're on the, uh, OTT, the Apple TV device, and you're scrolling through, right? It's a wood block playing the PBS kids theme song, no matter which way you go in the grid, it'll play the PBS kids theme song and give you a little bit of a shake on your stick, letting you know you're doing the right thing.
00:44:54
Speaker
You're going, you're going along. It's all good.
00:44:59
Speaker
And those are the fun problems that we get to solve. And ah it's, it's, I have one of the cooler jobs. I think most people have in that, like, I get asked to do a lot of things that I, I may not be qualified to do, but on the other hand, I've got a strong enough team behind me.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I've got enough historical knowledge and that DIY ethos that I'm just like, yeah, sure, let's go do it. Like, heck yeah, we're going to go do the thing and we're going to figure it out. I mean, the first time I cut, uh, I did Theo recording for PBS kids. It was in an old office, hanging a sleeping bag off the ceiling. So it could deaden all the sound in the room and then just hung a mic in the middle. It was very cheap. Um,
00:45:55
Speaker
But it was because that's what we had. We we didn't have a budget, but we needed new voiceovers because we had new shows that were coming up. We had someone in the office that could do the talent and it was, okay, let's go. And then someone along the way also said like, Hey, you know, we need some music to go along with this. I'm like, I could do that. And I jumped and I did it. Then somewhere along the way, they offered to buy me a license to Ableton Live, which is like my DAW of choice.
00:46:24
Speaker
And then somewhere along the line, I became the director of design and sound. and So, Hey, not too shabby. So I'd like to circle back a little bit. Uh, you're talking about kids like trying to zoom in on paper. And I imagine that was probably from some user testing and which just baffles my mind because you know, one of the famous quotes is never work with kids or animals. And.
00:46:52
Speaker
User testing with kids seems like one of those things that could be ah amazingly enjoyable or completely frustrating. How's that experience been for you, user testing with kids? Column A and column B. um When I first started, ill yeah I told you the story of a previous, but I'll tell it again because I love it. If anyone's ever heard me talk, I think I tell it in every story.
00:47:21
Speaker
um
00:47:24
Speaker
I think it was like week two on the job. Maybe it might've been a month. it Time might've flown. I was working on the PBS Kids video player. Now this is like early days of YouTube. We're trying to create a place that was safe for children to watch video clips because at the time we couldn't provide a full clip yet. I'm not sure if that was licensed or just technology, but we couldn't. Anyway, so I built this video player. It's meant for the the older audience of PBS Kids, PBS Kids Go.
00:47:54
Speaker
my first testers in, I'm front row, I'm right behind the the glass mirror. I've got my boss on one side, my boss's boss on the other side. Now i'm I'm just like, this is my first day. You know, it felt like that. It was like my first day. I'm all excited. And the child goes, this sucks.
00:48:14
Speaker
And it was soul crushing to me, just like. And I immediately went into the classic problem solver mode. Okay, cool. I'm going to get in, I'm going to fix it on the fly. Like I'm taking notes, but also coding at the same time. And my boss, Chris Bishop, bless his heart, comes up behind me, puts his hand on my shoulder and goes, it's just the first child. It's okay. There are more to come. And that, oh, totally.
00:48:45
Speaker
But kids are the best at finding bugs and the best at noticing the one thing you don't want them to notice, whatever that might be. You know, whether or not it was a poorly rendered version of Daniel Tiger in the background.
00:49:03
Speaker
whether it goes like, oh, that doesn't look right, you know or a bug that you already know exists and they will immediately find it no matter what it is, you know because they are the original button smashers. you know And so that if there're if you don't have clean, simple design and clean code, they will crash your system and stop. And I love that about them.
00:49:31
Speaker
And now that we've, you know, after COVID, we've kind of gotten more into this virtual testing scenario, which has actually broadened our testing bed, which has been amazing. And we've come up with some great kind of DIY ways that parents can either like hold a phone, put a phone so that we can also see what they're doing, you know, whether or not that's on the computer or whether or not that's on a tablet.
00:49:59
Speaker
And the part that's actually the hardest is to get the parents to not inject and try to support their child and just let them explore. Silence is key. Like when they're really thinking about a topic and and the room just goes quiet and you don't see the mouse moving yet. And all you can see is the screen because you can't see the kid at that point. It's the best.
00:50:29
Speaker
Because it's where are they going to land first?
00:50:34
Speaker
There's this game that you played in the Midwest. It was like cow bingo. Where's the cow going to leave the payload and within like a square chunk? It was the things you did at fairs. Yeah, the county fair game. It's kind of like that. you know And we're like, which graphic is he going to choose first? So I don't know. It's all exciting in that regard.
00:50:59
Speaker
Yeah, I tell you, man, i and we talked about this I think the other day, but I i don't know that I could do your job. I think if if a kid came in and was like, this sucks, I would have gone full Ace Ventura mode. Like, yeah, and you're ugly. You know what I mean? Like, that I think that's what my response would have been. I probably don't have the maturity for for your job. thank Thank goodness I do what I do. It's constantly humbling. And I think that's the part that right around the time, I think I take myself too seriously.
00:51:29
Speaker
I walk into play testing and I go, you know what? I'm making beautiful graphics and beautiful interfaces for children to learn. And they are the most persnickety client I've ever run into, but and they're cute. yeah Yes, so that's kind of a defense mechanism for them, right?
00:51:52
Speaker
know um Yeah, it's kind of, it's interesting because you you bring up like, you know, the the parents jumping in and kind of helping them and and kind of polluting your your feedback, that if you will, I guess is kind of, um I'm paraphrasing, you didn't say that, but yeah the same thing happens, I think, for us as we, even with adults, right? So we have to stop ourselves from like jumping in and like, well, we'll just just click over here, right? Like that, but no, don't you want to know, can they do it intuitively without you guiding them? So it's hard for us as watching people you know using your your so your software to like shut up and let them let them do it and learn. You learn more in silence than you do with helping you know guiding them, right? And they I mean, you could take that to so many levels, but especially for me, ah as I've kind of aged into management, the biggest thing that I've taken away is that not only am I listening more and actively trying to listen more, but also not form responses.
00:52:52
Speaker
Initially. And so I'm very actively just like taking it all in and then giving it an account and be like, okay, cool. Now let's give you some evil thoughtful questions to ask. Why is usually the thing. I mean, why is much like any child and we're always asking why so that we can get to the core of it. Um, especially as a designer who is trying to read people's minds.
00:53:22
Speaker
I'm constantly sitting there being like, okay, we've got this design problem. You want this thing, you know, what color do you want it to be? What, um you know, whatever those aspects may be. And it's like, you have to extrapolate and ask why and ask why and ask why so that by the time you're done, you've collected enough information and then ruminated with them and done that critical thinking part.
00:53:48
Speaker
that we all worry that we're losing, but you do that critical thinking part, and then you can be their hands to create whatever they need. And that's the big part about being a designer is like, very rarely do you get to design your own stuff. You're always working for someone else. And i I love that aspect of it because it's like that the puzzle pieces, the challenges, you're trying to solve a problem, but you're also not trying to pollute it with what you think it is.
00:54:18
Speaker
Because the moment you inject that you may not be actually solving their problem. You might be solving your problem. Yeah. it Yeah. i mean ah You learn, you know, it's kind of like my kids, my own children. Like you learn so much about yourself working with them, right? And have but have there been any lessons like that as you're as you're working with kids? Because they're, you know, they're they're they're pure, right? they' They're unadulter, right? Their brains are they are not polluted with all of the the pessimism that we grow into over with age. Is there anything you've learned about yourself as you're working with these kids and you're like, oh, man.
00:54:57
Speaker
I really look at that the completely wrong way or in ah just ah just a negative Nancy kind of way, whereas they look at it very positively. Anything like that? Oh, totally. and i mean As a parent, I run into it a lot. It's it's a ah constant conversation within my own house. I mean, I grew up on the more extreme sports ends of it, and so I'm definitely injecting that into my daughter. And I remember the first time she bombed a hill.
00:55:24
Speaker
You know, and I'm like proud father, like walking behind her and got my wife next to me. And my wife is like, I'm so thankful she can't see my face. And I realized that right there in that moment, we had the two extremes. She's terrified that, you know, at any moment she's going to crash and burn on the skateboard. And I'm just like over the moon because she's like taking all the fundamentals that we've been working on for years. And it's just now like,
00:55:50
Speaker
hucking down a hill and power sliding into a corner. And I'm just like, yes, you know that's great. you know i And I didn't say, oh no. you you know And so it's when I've got kids now that are testing my product and they take a feature.
00:56:11
Speaker
that was fundamental for a product in a blog. Comments. Okay. In our online MMO car kingdom, our users figured out that the best way to get in contact with us and to get in contact with one another was through the blog comment section. And so much like old school message boards, they would log on to the latest blog.
00:56:41
Speaker
posts that we'd put out. and We had like this whole elaborate story. There was a reporter that would like go out and like check on the community and would like take pictures of people in the community and like there would be events and all that. Sometimes the kids reacted to it. Oftentimes they did, but they would also list out the clubs that they had created and the different chart server charts that they would be on. And so they would set up events and be like, okay, you know, like,
00:57:12
Speaker
sparklepony42 we're all gonna meet up in like shard number three at 3 p.m eastern standard time and then they would list all the members of that party And it was just like, there's this whole other world of like communication. And they were like chatting back and forth. And if they would see someone one that was an admin that was in the game, they would be commenting, Oh, I saw so-and-so over in the deep, you know, or like someone was over in Grand Glade and, you know, Chris Bishop showed up, Oh my goodness. And they're like, we were like, many.
00:57:45
Speaker
rock stars, right? And this is the first time in, um at that point in time, I've been at PBS now for 17 years. We sunset that project a couple of years ago. So like the first time in like in my first 12 years that I had almost daily interaction with our user group.
00:58:05
Speaker
in that regard. Now, was I messaging them directly? No, but I could see the output of that. It was amazing, these super users. And then they start creating Wiki pages. And then they would link to the Wiki pages. And when car Kingdom was sunsetting,
00:58:23
Speaker
I mean, these kids were also like little hackers. I'd love them to death. They were going into our system and extrapolating all the original source art and trying to grab as much code as they could so because they want to make their own version of Card Kingdom so that when Card Kingdom was sunsetted, they would still have it, right? And just like how insane that was. To then just recently, Chris, who's also a painter,
00:58:53
Speaker
Having a gallery show downtown unfortunately I didn't make it for that event but a super user found out that we were gonna all be there and on a whim showed up and introduced like herself to everyone and Everyone that happened to be there there was a part of our kingdom at that time said it was like the most touching thing that that it ever happened because we hear we've we've got face-to-face time. It's gone from this virtual abstract text in a comment section to now we're meeting the people that like be yeah that they interacted with our content on a daily basis. And evidently, still like that those groups are still chatting with one another, which that's even more mind-blowing. I mean, we sunsetted that like five years ago, maybe seven.
00:59:41
Speaker
um
00:59:44
Speaker
Please understand, my understanding of space and time is a little loose. It comes with ADD. Yeah, I understand that. It also comes with age. ah yeah I've always just blamed on ADD, but fair enough. Well, you brought up an interesting thing. So that one of the things we talk about in part of our onboarding program at Caliberty is ah you know about being able to observe your users and and what they're doing with the software as opposed to asking them. you know Because a lot of times an adult, they can articulate and they'll say, oh yeah, I definitely want that. And there's a long story that Aaron and I probably both know from our former employer that we wasted a lot of money building a feature that we we thought. you know We say, hey, would you like to have this feature? Oh, absolutely. We would love to have this. We spent a lot of time and effort building something. and
01:00:37
Speaker
it turned out only one person ever used it. So I would imagine because of the nature of your audience, children probably aren't able to articulate things as well. You know, if you're dealing with a two year old, three year old, whatever, you probably have come up with some techniques of of observing them. Is it, you know, speak to that a little bit? Is there anything there? I can speak to that, but I can also speak to building projects that people requested, but never used.
01:01:06
Speaker
um But going back into like looking at it, as far as techniques go, oftentimes when we're dealing with interactive content, especially in interactive content, it has such a and powerful draw. I mean, Daniel Tiger being, you know, let's just put it, he's the elephant in the room. He is the magnet as far as like we're concerned. So when we build new features, but we don't want children to get lost down the rabbit hole of
01:01:39
Speaker
you know, a game that they know and love and play on a daily basis, we've now started building originally we were doing just paper testing. And that worked pretty well because they can't obviously click and link and go into the game. And we can get a little bit more reactive feedback. It's not necessarily distracted.
01:01:58
Speaker
But now we've also started creating, using Figma and Figma prototyping fake games. So it looks like brand new games that they've never seen before, but we'll give them like snail race. We actively try to like make it sound maybe not so fun, but still make it look pretty.
01:02:17
Speaker
um A lot of them are also inside jokes for us, but it allows the child to stay more on focus onto what we're trying to get them, the direction that we're trying to take them in. Look at this feature graphic, not necessarily all the other feature graphics that are around it that they may know and love. Now, going back to programs that we've built and things that we've made that were either ahead of their time or Although they said they wanted and they didn't actually use, we used to have a product called Parent Vision. It was like supervision or something like that. And the whole idea was it was this whole backend to the website that parents could interface and interact with. And at that point in time, we still had a login for kids that we've since gotten rid of, but it would allow you to identify yourself as a parent and tie it to their child. And then you could create time limits.
01:03:17
Speaker
and customize time limits, time to go to bed, time for dinner, time for whatever it may be. It was a mobile app, if I remember correctly. And so you could have your child be playing on the PBS app, on the website, wherever it was. As long as they were signed in, and you went up five minutes to dinner, you could set the timer, and then the whole site would just lock up, put up a screen, time for dinner, you know ah time to go to bed, whatever it was, whoops,
01:03:48
Speaker
And we had all all sorts of analytical data that we we wanted to build it out. So it was like a child could be playing a game. And if the child got stuck on that game, we could feed them or give them learning lessons for the parents to then turn around and give to the child to help them get beyond a point. If it was like, maybe they're having a hard time with their times tables, let's say. Not really something that PBS kids would do, but you know, times tables.
01:04:14
Speaker
And we could say, oh, yeah little Billy is having a hard time with his eights. Here's something that might help him step up into that matrix of success.
01:04:27
Speaker
That what we found out was that although parents clamored for it at the time, they were too busy. And at the time I didn't get it. I wasn't a parent yet. When I became a parent, all of a sudden all of that research made so much more sense.
01:04:45
Speaker
And there that's a whole and another interesting aspect of it. It's like there's the building for a user group that you don't actually know. And then once you become a part of that user group and realizing how much of those tie in and you're like, oh, you get so much more empathy for like, why didn't you want to use this product? Oh, because you have no sleep.
01:05:07
Speaker
And you only have five minutes to maybe check the news because the news right now is scary and I can't play the news and for my in front of my child. I mean, how wild is that? you know So it's a lot of ah what I've learned is that going back to being humble, be humble, be empathetic and try to think way beyond yourself and try to put yourself into like their testing shoes.
01:05:33
Speaker
And also realize that there are going to be some kids that will roll into a test and they're, it's just not their day. You know, and you can't take that personally. And it goes back into that, you know, never work with, you know, animals or kids. Man, some of them are going to be sweet, warm and wonderful and tell you more information than you've ever needed to know. And then there's going to be, you know, little Billy, I'm going to pick on little Billy today, but little Billy is just going to tell you everything is horrible. Maybe add too much sugar.
01:06:03
Speaker
before he came, maybe he was sugar lowing. He hasn't been fed yet. You don't know where they're coming from. They might've been gone to this user testing instead of going to the soccer game that they wanted to go to. Who knows? So, a smile and nod and work out the averages. li Just came from the store and he couldn't get the Hot Wheels that he wanted. is say Now he's pouting. Yup, I've been there. Why don't we go ahead and move into our lightning round?
01:06:33
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:53
Speaker
as As you may know, every episode we do a lightning round. We'll ask you a series of questions. These are not technical in nature. Some might be slightly, but not to meant to be long drawn on answers, just whatever pops into your mind. um And we will rapid fire these. Each of us will ask you five different questions. Are you ready for the lightning round, Mr. Ocean?
01:07:20
Speaker
I am as ready as I can give B. Let's go. All right. James, do you want to kick us off? Sure. Do you know how to salsa dance? No. Invisibility or super strength?
01:07:41
Speaker
I'm going to go with super strength. It'd be really weird not to be seen anymore. I've grown used to it.
01:07:50
Speaker
um It started back in high school. My theme song is Mr. Sullivan from Chicago. say
01:08:01
Speaker
That's a trip, man. All right, so yeah how many redheads are you friends with? And you realize why that's a funny question. Seven? Seven. We would have also accepted eight or nine. Okay.
01:08:20
Speaker
yeah What's the most boring thing ever miss besides this podcast?
01:08:29
Speaker
Wow. The most boring thing ever. You know what? Waiting for paint to dry and as a painter, that's a real thing. Since you're a sound guy, what sound does a seal make? It's more of a bark than like ah a cry. and It also depends on which seal you're talking about, but I'm going to go with bark.
01:08:51
Speaker
I was going to say Kiss by a Rose. ah ah ah Dad jokes of plenty. Oh, well played. All right. What is your favorite martial art? um To do or to watch? Okay, Kung Fu is the most beautiful to watch.
01:09:21
Speaker
um
01:09:24
Speaker
I want to say it's Wushu, but I'm not sure. Um, but then as far as doing, uh, I was raised doing Taekwondo. So I had been doing that for, I think 16 years before I quit. All right. What is the lamest, and I'm going to do air quotes here, dessert that people try to pass off as a dessert that you don't feel is. This is highly controversial. I Uh, chocolate.
01:09:53
Speaker
So I've got an interesting thing flavor profile wise, I can eat a little bit of chocolate and it's okay, it's delicious. I like it. But I can't eat like a full like, Twix. So it's like, you know how there are two bars, I have to give one away every time. Because by the time I get to that second one, it actually is a I taste a bit like coffee and dirt all at the same time and I just lose it. I'm just like meh, I'm done. Which is fabulous for everyone else in my house because I want all the sugary treats and they want all the chocolate. So hey, it works. You're like the best Twix friend ever. You know what, when they started making the one on one, the little guys, I was in heaven. that was Like the perfect amount. I could pop one and be like, done.
01:10:42
Speaker
You can stock up Halloween's coming up, but they give us half a little like, you know, two inch long ones. You know, those are, those are now they're green. So are you a right or a left guy? Oh, right. Right. Totally right. ah Yeah. That makes sense. Um, that was an also accepted left. Yeah. That wasn't my lightning round question. That was just a follow-on because I was interested. Uh, so you didn't burn your question there. as but No, I did not burn my question on that one. Okay.
01:11:09
Speaker
Okay, go for another one. Define the word zeitgeist. I believe it's zeitgeist. Zeitgeist? I like zeitgeist. I don't know. Obviously, I don't know the definition of the word. I was going to say German and origin. um It sounds like a really expensive synth.
01:11:32
Speaker
is by someone who knows something about apothecary and may have some sort of ah a hammer that triggers the sound. That's going to be my guess. I know that there's a real meaning. I have no idea what it is. Just make it up. I love that. Yeah, why not? I like that. so zone If there was a hair in your soup at a restaurant, would you return it? No. It's probably my own. It's probably my beard.
01:12:00
Speaker
ah
01:12:03
Speaker
Um, all right, since we were talking about chocolate, dark chocolate or milk chocolate, milk chocolate, Cadbury in particular, preferably imported from England. Uh, I do not ah prefer the Canadian brand that they attempted to spin off and then Hershey bought that. And so, yeah, no, it doesn't taste right. Cadbury all the way. do you have any great po No, but I do like mustard. I will mustard over ketchup any day. Amen.
01:12:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's preach, preach. Scale of one to 10. How good are you at wiffle ball?
01:12:43
Speaker
Two. Two? Okay. Not going to the pros, I'm guessing. Oh, no, no, no. I wear glasses, depth perception, not my bag. You get a lot of action on a wiffle ball too. A lot of groundbreaking stuff coming at you. yeah yeah Especially if you you know how to pitch yeah like if you know how to If you know how to throw how to grab those folds just right. Oh man, you can make that thing dance.
01:13:10
Speaker
Are we at five apiece? yeah I think we are. I think that was it. So ah yeah I definitely burned my five plus one questions out of that. so So I want to say thank you to our guest ocean island. Wait, wait, wait, wait, if we're gonna outro, no, no, no, time, hold times. Here's the reason, because if we're doing lightning round, you get to yourself. Oh, who all right see James. Yeah, here's the question. I'm gonna start with you. domestic or craft beer.
01:13:44
Speaker
oh
01:13:47
Speaker
I don't drink any longer. I met my quota at 35. So, uh, but I, congratulations I do drink non-alcoholic beers. I probably would have to go craft. I probably would have, cause I enjoy a good flavored beer. Uh, I don't know how to like, like if I were to drink beer again, I wouldn't be just like pounding Bud lights or something. I do. I actually do enjoy the flavor of beer. Awesome. Well, A congratulations.
01:14:13
Speaker
Cause those are milestones. So good on meeting meeting my quota. That that was yeah for definitely for for recognizing that you have meeting your quota. I mean, that's a whole, that could be a podcast in itself. yeah All right. Aaron. Hmm. All right. What is the top eighties pick in your playlist?
01:14:40
Speaker
Oh boy. That's a big playlist.
01:14:45
Speaker
Um, I'm going to go with Panama classic BH 1984 album. Okay. Which I think is smoking cigarettes on the, on the cover. I love that. Yes, i've got the elbow right here baby.
01:15:13
Speaker
Oh, That's awesome. All right, James, one more for you. Okay. And one from both of you, but going back to James. Now, I've definitely thought about this one, which if you had to choose one video game system to play from now until at the end, which system would it be? Not a game, but the actual system. System.
01:15:42
Speaker
Um, let's see, I probably, I don't know, I think that hard time coming up with something other than like the PS5. I think I probably spent like the most time on like the super Nintendo though. So I probably would have to go old school and just say, I could, I could probably, I could probably jam on someone in the old games for forever and ever and be fine. All right. Aaron, what is the BMX brand that you are most Nostalgic for kuhara.
01:16:18
Speaker
Nice. Now I'm going to break into a sweat. That a quick answer well because that was my wishlist bike back in the day. I used to build my own bikes and I wanted a kuhara so bad. It was like, that's awesome. Yep. The GT performer was the one that I wanted so bad as a child.
01:16:40
Speaker
Nice. Yep. the by my The second one I was looking at was a diamond back. That one I like the diamond back to, or the Haro. So, but man, yeah, the Kuhara, I just, there was a pink and white Kuhara that I remember in the window of the bike shop. I'm just like, man, I want that bike. So bad.
01:17:04
Speaker
Did you say pink and white? I was gonna say, was it splatter painted? No, no, it was a solid pink frame, white highlight lettering in white mag wheels with white tires. Oh, that sounds beautiful.
01:17:20
Speaker
Yeah. It was, oh I can still, I could still see it in my mind ah because you know, it was the eighties colors were all the thing. Right. And it was in pink was, was it man. And that was, that was the bike. I ended up with a,
01:17:47
Speaker
white frame with, uh, which rims did I put on that? I think I put a a few different rims on it's ah it. had some type of, you know, mag wheel on it. I think I had the blue mag wheels on it. And wow I think I painted the handlebars pink. So it was, yeah, it it was all about the show, man. It was flashy. Trapper keeper wins. Oh yeah. Oh, Trapper keeper. Great reference.
01:18:19
Speaker
old school yeah to sta everything yeah are we ready to outrow this song yes let's call it thank you for euologyy me and that by the way that was cool i appreciate that but You're the first guest who's done a lightning round back at us. I love it. Yeah, it was great.
01:18:37
Speaker
All right. So wrapping things up, this has been the forward slash where we lean into the future of it. I want to say thank you to our guests. Ocean Island. Also check out the librarian from the annex. Give, give him some likes and subscribes out there. And as always, my beautiful co-host James Carmen, I am Aaron Chesney. Stay tuned for future episodes of the forward slash. Thank you very much.