Full episode transcript below
The local designer series continues with Lulu Pachuau giving a mother's perspective of the pros and cons of three different methods of family travel along with the little tweaks and wins that could really make for a more pleasant experience.
Highlights include:
💡 What are the risks of missing the "nested problems"?
💡 How do you design for the little touches people never forget?
💡 Which types of users should we pay attention to more?
💡 Why is it important to apply positive emotional connections with different experiences to what you're designing?
💡 What is the more important decision factor: the brand or how fast needs are met?
Originally recorded on 26 Feb 2022.
Who is Lulu Pachuau?
Lulu is a design director in New Zealand and longtime UX practitioner. She also runs UX training courses and consulting through Lushai and UX Gym.
Find out more about Lulu here on LinkedIn or lushai.com.
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And as always, just remember, you don't have to have a fancy job title to start noticing and improving the everyday experiences wherever you work...
Episode Transcript
Geoff Wilson [00:00:05] Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Experiences Podcast, where we uncover potential design improvements in the world around us by exploring one frustrating experience at a time. I'm your host and chief observer Geoff Wilson, based out of Auckland. And continuing our local designer series, introducing someone the design world at large might not know about yet, today I'm joined by Lulu Pachuau. She's a design director and longtime UX practitioner. She's currently running UX training courses and consulting through Lushai and UX Gym and working at Hatch. And most importantly, she's a mum! Welcome, Lulu.
Lulu Pachuau [00:00:39] Hi, Geoff. Nice to. be on your podcast. I haven't been one of these in a long, long, long time. Yes. And... ask away! I don't know, that was really weird! haha
Geoff Wilson [00:00:51] I love it, I love it. And as long as you don't mind, I'll keep the weirdness in there.
Lulu Pachuau [00:00:55] That's cool. I don't mind.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:57] So basically today in this episode, Lulu and I were talking beforehand and you know, we were both interested in vehicle design and I was interested in airline design and what it's like travelling. But then we realised it's about the context of the people, right? Because you can design features all day long. But unless you understand the context of who's using them or the absence of what you don't have, what you didn't think about because you didn't consider different people's needs. I realised in this case, she's got a family of five, and her needs of travelling with her family is far different than mine and my wife's. So in that sense, we wanted to walk through today, not just one experience, but a few different ones from booking hotels like we've covered in the previous episode to different travel methods of what it's like travelling with a family of five. So without further ado, you know, with any trip, it needs to start with, why? So what do you have for us? What do you what kind of trip do you have in mind that we want to dissect a bit today?
Lulu Pachuau [00:01:51] Well, interestingly, since this whole COVID thing, the way we've been planning our travel has been quite different because in other years we would have been going overseas, maybe at least once, every couple of years or once a year, somewhere closer, like Sydney or something like that. And 2020, we were planning to go to India. But then we had to cancel all of that, and then we ended up saving that money and also which cancelled New Zealand. They give us credit. So we ended up going to Queenstown and so on. So we've found that since then we've been craving to travel even more because you get cooped up in the house with the kids for so long. And and so we started planning and thinking about what kind of trips can we do. And it seemed like it would. The time that we need to travel has now lined up, if you like timing wise with kids holiday time, which is kind of nice because they have holidays and we kind of mentally prepare ourselves a little bit before the holidays start. And it's always like, All right, Airbnb. And so we start planning like that. So my husband is a meticulous travel planner, but seems like since we've not been doing overseas travel so much, I've been the one having to do that. And so as a designer, of course, I come across lots of little little things that frustrate me or like as well as surprising, I'm all about frustrations here. Yeah, yeah. That's what made this industry, I suppose. Otherwise, we won't have jobs, right? Everything was so smooth and no one complained we'd all be just like, boring. That would be super boring. But yeah, I think for me, it's been interesting observing it as from a designer, but also as a person in it. You realise how much you don't know about a person's experience and sometimes don't cover some of that stuff, either because you either don't have budget or you don't have time or you don't find the right kind of experience that you want to go and dig into. So there's lots of opportunities out there, I think from a design, his point of view. But as a mom, of course, it all starts from there, like two or three weeks before a holiday school holiday would start. The kids are already asking, Mom, where are we going next? And it's always fun to go troll through Airbnb. You make a list of things you want. Kids always want to see all the pictures because they can choose the rooms they want to be in. When my kids were younger, so I've got three girls ranging from she's almost 11, the oldest and the nine and then four, and they choose their bedrooms they love. And that experience is so fun with them. And it also already starts from there, which is, can I see the place? Can I see the room? Which room can I have? Or This one has a bunk room? This one doesn't have a bathroom to make sure we have a bath bathtub, things like that. And so that our experience, I think, already starts from there and it's become a bit of a ritual with our family.
Geoff Wilson [00:04:33] It's a lot different than the old school way and of, you know, you just the second dad or mom opens the front door of the hotel or wherever you might be staying in the suit like I had my brother and I. You know, you run to the bed that you want and just try to like, pile on it, clean your dress the bed and hold on. And then you're fighting over which one. And then they both yell at you and you're fine. You guys are sleeping together then, and
Lulu Pachuau [00:04:53] we still get that. But it's like this anticipation is really, really interesting for them. Like we we just booked one for this coming weekend because my husband's birthday and we want to do a big thing and then decided that let's go book a nice, nice, nice place. But then all the other criteria that come into place, right, we now have a bigger budget. That's great, but it needs to be not too far from Wellington. It needs to be easy enough that the place has to be self completely contained like we don't want to go out. We want to just spend two to three days without having to go out. And we love we like cooking ourselves. We both love me and my husband. We cook a lot, but we also like enjoying a little bit of going out. But because we know we want to teach our kids that it's important to cook for yourself and all those things, but also it's just cooking things that are familiar to them. It's just less hassle at the end of the day.
Geoff Wilson [00:05:46] The fun part is I'm always the tortoise and not necessarily getting episodes out in a timely order of when I actually record them. So hopefully, for your sake, it doesn't sound like you're releasing this. Six months are now from a year from now. The world totally changed and you sound either crazy or like prepared or you're way ahead of the curve, but hopefully we'll get this out sooner than later. So it's quite actually relevant over that.
Lulu Pachuau [00:06:08] We're we're definitely a lot more. I think the more we've done this, the more prepared we get, I think and then we start looking at whether, you know, and then if it's a road trip or not. So if it's a road trip, we already anticipate all the things that would get annoyed within the car. But there are some things that just never change.
Geoff Wilson [00:06:29] So in the car, yeah, so what's what's going on in the car? What are the things? And so I mean, I guess in this case, how far do you usually go? Because I imagine that changes that car experience and we're all of what it's being like being in the type of vehicle you choose to take, how far you have to go to get in this case, what how long is it they have to go to?
Lulu Pachuau [00:06:48] We try to go to places that are less than four hours drive, which sometimes is not possible because the place we want to go further away. We really try and avoid airports at the moments during during the last maybe two years now, of course. But yeah, the next one going to is two and a half, maybe three hours away. But yes, I'm already annoyed at the idea of not being able to carry big, big bottles of water because there's never a space to put that bottle that's more than a metre big. I don't know about you. We've got a big people mover because one of the advantages of having a big car is you can put the kids in different minimum safe distance from each other so they don't annoy each other. But also, you think that there's going to be enough spaces, which is the other thing that I hate to. Out the cars is that the space between the car seat and the kids is actually really far away, so all the things that you would normally think, you can put things conveniently for the kids to reach, they can't reach it too far.
Geoff Wilson [00:07:48] I because the seatbelts, like the kids,
Lulu Pachuau [00:07:50] they sit at the back, they are strapped down. They can't reach any of the things that you would normally organise their things into, because that's I guess it's just made for adults who can move around while the travelling. And especially when you have a toddler who's sitting in another car seat, they can't move. So you have to give them everything through the front seat or your other kids have to give each other things and they drop things on the floor. It's just this big mess, which then leads me to my next thing of why are these cars equipped with some kind of rubbish bin in every corner that you can easily then take out when you're in a stop somewhere at a petrol station or something like that? So I have to always remember to carry a whole bunch of plastic bags, which you can't easily access anymore because the world is going plastic free. So and I'm cool with that. But at the same time, can you just give me something that I can just kind of tack on to the front of the seat that my kid can access or reach? So she because they're all good, you can tell them to put their rubbish in there. That's what you teach them all the time. But when you're in car, what do you do? They just stop and stick them on the side of the car door and they bring them up.
Geoff Wilson [00:08:52] As I say exactly that. I was like, Well, we've got four rubbish bins in our car. It's called the two centre cupholders to the outgoing cupholders, but you're totally right there that, yeah, it just gets our gunky after a while, especially if you spill in them.
Lulu Pachuau [00:09:04] Exactly! What if you forget them? What if there's a kid all the way to the back seat in the people mover car and it's been sitting there for what months? The other day, I found I was cleaning some dried up banana peel, and it's not pleasant, you know?
Geoff Wilson [00:09:19] So on that note, you know, because that's one little aspect of it, right? It's where you can line it with a bag, especially if you're going on a long trip. You got some really messy stuff like fruits and bananas. You know, if if those things could pop out, would that actually help you at all? So I think cupholders could pop out. You can take him to a bathroom sink in a restroom or or, you know, a service station or whatever and give it a quick rinse. Would that actually be something that functionally actually works for that?
Lulu Pachuau [00:09:44] Maybe not the cupholders, but I would definitely put them. And I have done this slightly unsuccessfully behind the car seat where you were sitting, as well as the parents there, because that's quite far away from the kid. There's actually enough space that you can kind of imagine if you could pull it towards you. And it's now big lot for close enough for the kid to then put their rubbish in. They can just push it back. That would be great because then you pull it out, put it play rubbish and close it again, something that's kind of clips on or something. Some magnetic thing. I don't know. Velcro, I don't care something they can pull towards you the rubbish bin. Push it back. Done. And then when you're ready to put it away, throw it out. And then just, you know, whatever air we get, things like that, I think, would be great. I can just see that being. I would buy five of 20 of those.
Geoff Wilson [00:10:29] Well, this is this is always the fun part of doing what we do because this that idea both of us know very well from the job. You never really take direct suggestions from the consumer, right? You never. It's the whole faster horse analogy for people who still want to use that. You know, you never want to, but that's exactly what we're doing. But that's what I enjoy in the show is still thinking. We're not saying that these are the definite answers, but it's getting that thought process going. What is the actual problem? No rubbish bins for various places, but they get sticky. Well, that's a new problem to solve.
Lulu Pachuau [00:10:55] How do you see so many little nested problems, right? Because I get it. You want you want to understand the goal. Yeah, my goal now is to go and reach a destination that I can enjoy with my family. But all the tiny little steps you have to take to get there can ruin the goal of getting there in the first place. So I think if we took more care in understanding these more what I call nested problems inside the problem that would just take away the would make the next one better and better and better and better. So, you know, it's a little bit like, I guess when you're building a house, you always have to you need the scaffolding in the scaffolding, need some other support, net support, another support, whatever that little support was in there, the top thing will just fall apart. If you just focus on how beautiful the house can look all the time, how the hell are you going to start building it? If you didn't have that, that very small atom of a thing that makes everything up. So think about travel and those things, everything that makes it up. Where are the opportunities to make things better for the next thing? So it becomes a a non problem?
Geoff Wilson [00:11:56] I love it. I love this idea. But that's the problems. And I think going back a step to one of the ones you mentioned and that spawned to a lot of this is the the space. And so I do want to go back to the because you mentioned how it's big enough that luckily you keep them away from each other. So what are you first at minimum distance like minimum cover distance? Of course not the family. It's minimum slapping and hitting sisters, brothers distance. Yeah, but then you said that there the interesting part for you is then the things that you have packed for them to get, they can't actually reach. So going back to the solution, I think I guess I mean, what? What is that like for you? Is it bags that you've packed and you try to put between the seats for
Lulu Pachuau [00:12:34] you to have? I do that, yeah, we do, we have individual bags we pack for them, and as you've mentioned, great observation, they are far away from each other. But at the same time, you made it a a dilemma of Oops, we now have. We now need three or small bags for them to have their food and whatever else is in there. But I mean, they also don't like sharing, so that's probably not a bad thing. So then you can kind of customise it's all part of the experience of the trip that they like. Oh, my bag, my bag, my bag. And it's nice and they actually look after that. But then it becomes too hard and far for them to reach for the smaller ones. And then you then you end up getting either the driver having to reach to the back to give it to the child or I have if I'm not driving up to the reach in a very awkward way and is really dangerous, right? If you're in a in a position where you're driving or you're not quite right, you could get up accidentally come out of your car, seat or seat belt or something like that. So I think it's quite hazardous. And the kids, like, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. When the kids are hungry, you've got to give them something. I'll do anything to shut them up. So, you know, it's just really it's just all these things, all these frustrations. You get so stressed out. And then one of the things that we do a lot is try and make sure that our road trip always passes nice big playgrounds, which New Zealand's really great at that and which we always plan well before we leave. You always make time enough time for maybe an hour or an hour and a bit into our drive. We try and find a place to stop where we can clean ourselves the car a bit because I just personally, I just find it frustrating to be in a cooped up car that smelly or, you know, I can just hear all the chips and bits and pieces falling in the car. So I need to do a bit of that, but also just stretch our legs. And then we we often go past living, but there's a really big playground. It's beautiful, it's really nice. It's it's awesome. The kids look forward to that as part of our trip all the time. Then you go there, the facilities are great, but then you a craving for some coffee or something and there's nothing like, what the hell this giant playground and this one tiny coffee cart? Come on. I would pay $10 for a flat white right now haha.
Geoff Wilson [00:14:43] If there were... I don't know if they have a coffee vending machines. I don't drink coffee, so I don't really feel all right because, yeah, I think it playgrounds, it's one of those you might arrive at any point in the day. You might be in a long trip, you know, road trip in the early morning and late night. So maybe food carts and little coffee shacks and stuff aren't open yet. But I would like to think that maybe the it's just if you know you get a lot of traffic, they're put out some kind of instant purchase of a machine. It might, might not be the best, but it might suffice that aspect of it, at least now.
Lulu Pachuau [00:15:11] I think so, too. I think again, depending on the time of day we arrive around that place, I often see a line outside this little coffee cart and it's not the best coffee, but you don't care. You just want that coffee. And I always make sure I buy something because I just it's not actually the taste of the coffee at that point, it's the it's the representation of the of it. It means I sit down. I've got a little bit of time to myself, but the kids are hanging out. So I like you want to feel that you've done something that you're quote-unquote relaxing, you know? And so it's almost a it's a weird thing, but I like observing myself. Like when I do something, I go, Why did I do that? Why am I so grumpy that I didn't do this thing when I wanted to do it? And it's often not because of the thing itself. It's what it represents for me. And I also think other people feel the same way. They may not be able to articulate it, but I like observing my own actions and go, Why did I do that when I get upset? But why was I so happy when that happened? Oh, it's because of this, you know? And and I often try that with other people as well to go, Why do you think you did that? Use it because of this? Or did you really like having that break? And then and it's true, and I actually think it's true. I before I came, before I had kids a long time ago, I used to smoke a lot, but I was broke for ages. But one of the things I liked about smoking was not the cigarette. It was the fact that you took a break. And and I think it's a similar thing in this case too. And it could be anything could be coffee could be cigarettes for some people or e-cigarettes, I guess, or just taking that little break, kids.
Geoff Wilson [00:16:44] Yeah, kids are running off at this point. You've got your minute. They might call you, "Mommy, mommy!" "Just shut up. Shut up. I'm dealing with this. I'm just need me time right now; quiet for a minute."
Lulu Pachuau [00:16:53] Yeah, yeah. And this place in particular is, I think, one of the reasons we love about it is that it has great facilities to toilets, great place, very open space to wash your hands. Everything is really, really well designed in that area, except for I wish there was just more options for coffee or a little bit of snacks or something like that, and I'm sure this person is making lots of money. I hope they do. And the same goes for this other place we like going to and everyone park they they have no, there's no coffee cart. It's a huge place. There's lots of parents go somewhere else and come back so inconvenient. I don't know what the council is doing about that kind of stuff.
Geoff Wilson [00:17:33] What's the great story? Because it's one of those. Things just like this, nobody might be considering that aspect if they haven't actually talked to people like this, you know, as somebody who doesn't have kids right now, that that's my same interpretation if we talked about a trip for work, for whatever we were doing. And I go, Where did you go? Oh, you went to hear, Well, OK, cool that you got a to B and maybe your maps helped you get there. But nothing about thinking to ask somebody, Oh, did you? How did you stop? Where did you stop? Why did you stop it? Not only where did you stop, but then what do you want to do when you actually get there? Like what is? So I'm going to make an assumption here that when you stop at the playground, is it like you said one to give yourself just a mental break off the road, relax fresh air. But then also it's it's like we're out the kids like get some of their energy down, at least before you put it back in.
Lulu Pachuau [00:18:18] Oh, it's a huge, huge part of that is that most parents, if you asked them past the toddler age, you need them to get that energy out of the car. And that's the same reason we do. Even when you're not travelling, you need to take them out, get the energy out and then you come back a bit more relaxed and they can calm down a bit more. They need that. We need that, you know. And the other thing when you're it's if it's about the travel, because that's not the destination you, you have a small amount of time there. It's it's maybe anywhere between 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes tops, I guess half an hour. If you're if you're if it's part of lunchtime, so you don't want to spend too much time there. Otherwise, obviously your actual destination, you might get there too late. So you have to bear that in mind. So we have to try and make sure that that time is accounted for. When you leave, leave the place and we often use it as a as a way to hassle the kids to go, Hey, guys, if we don't leave now, we can't get to that to live in on time, things like that. So it's part of that whole experience. It's an anticipation that kids have that we're always going to stop someplace like that. It's an expectation now.
Geoff Wilson [00:19:21] So what about, I guess, yes, on these road trips we've we've heard some of the things about driving in, at least a few of them, you know, some stops along the way, things you need. Is there anything else on a road trip specifically that typically ends up happening? Well, anything else you have to deal with as a family and it might be a little bit different from others?
Lulu Pachuau [00:19:39] I think the other thing is actually music in the car entertainment. Entertainment is actually important. We've been very lucky that our kids like the music that we like, which as is a tip if you if you don't have kids, it's actually you can actually teach them cool music. Oh, I don't know what your taste in music is, but you don't always have to listen to wheels on the bus or or, you know, those what are those kids listen to? I can't remember because our kids don't really listen to them. But you can teach them so. And it's quite fun that we try and do that a lot. And we also listen to audiobooks a lot instead of just music. And most recently, we've been listening to podcasts, kids podcasts for the kids, and we actually all have fun listening to it because it's also quite interesting. So those are quite interesting things that we have to prepare for a lot mentally because depending on how long it is we have, we we want a variety of things, not just music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.. Yeah.
Geoff Wilson [00:20:38] Because I guess there's also different ages than right. And so unless you've got like triplets, then you got different audio ages, different needs. And so the smallest ones might just be, you know, cooing and calling in their little cot car seat. But then the other ones might be like, Well, maybe they want to physically play with toys. Maybe another one is comfortable just looking at the window, but maybe they want to interact. Maybe they want to jump around. So is there anything else? Is there strategies for that at all? I mean, I don't want to make this a parenting podcast, but in terms of, you know, car features and space to do things because I know for a while, you know, there was the back of the headrest kind of monitors and things to certain cars would have. I'd see them in the U.S. at least. And I know there's a chip shortage that's happening right now in vehicles worldwide, where basically they don't have the chips that they can make a lot of these special features for things like that. So if you've got a model that happened to have a lot of these gizmos and tech and navigation equipment and things like that, those are actually harder to find now in the brand new car. But where I was getting to that whole ramble was the in. I keep saying in-flight entertainment. I'm just ready to get
Lulu Pachuau [00:21:43] kind of similar. Yeah, it's going to save. A lot of cars do have that, but we haven't gone down that path. While one would try as most parents will. We'll try to keep your kids of digital. You are also me saying, let me say you are, you know, screens as much as possible. So our strategies have always been to plan mentally as well as make sure that there's enough things to switch between. So it's mostly audio, though the things that we do, we actually tried ones with the screen stuff with my oldest and my eldest, but it didn't work because we had to still help with a lot of things which you can't do when you're in the car. So I suppose the ones that have those in-car entertainments, they probably have those facilities. But I have no, I haven't. I don't have experience with those, so I can't really comment on those. But one thing that we have done a lot that has helped is create a playlist before we go and the kids have their own playlists and then we take turns with the kids. So the kids will be like Alex, which is the youngest. She'll she'll have her playlist and Jojo has her playlist and Sam has her play as parents. We just go with, Well, you know what? We just have to deal with the thing that they're listening to. Like the last time it was mostly Beatles, we listened to a lot of Beatles and before them was David Bowie. And so we tend to try and rotate those things, and we tend to do a lot of games with the WHO sort of says what the name of the song. Things like that. So so we kind of again, it's part of that experience that we've developed our own tradition, I suppose, as a family. But I did ask my daughter just before this podcast, I'm going to I'm just going to ask me about travelling in the car. What's your least favourite thing? She says, You know, Alex always has her turn more than me. Oh, OK. Because she's the youngest, you know? And I said, Do you not like her music? She say, No, I don't. I don't. I don't hate it. But sometimes it's just too often to play the same song, like 100 times. So live. Learn their own tactics of what to make her listen to. So it's not something they don't like. Yeah. So it's an interesting thing. Human beings are really good at adapting. I think this is again, as a practitioner. There's something I've observed over the years is we are so good at solving our little nest of problems that you could potentially, you know, come look at solutions in a very weird way. Instead of just going with that, you go, Wait, why were you? Why did you do that in the first place? They could have been avoided altogether. But at the same time, they could also pose a new opportunity, I suppose.
Geoff Wilson [00:24:17] So with that, I guess the comparison since I did accidentally mention in-flight entertainment, what about what's the difference then in, you know, riding in a car together, which obviously is your thing, you've got control of where you stop, you've got control of what the entertainment is inside. How does that work for something else like a plane?
Lulu Pachuau [00:24:34] Why do you ask? Because the last time we flew, we had all three girls. The reason why we took that long to travel because my youngest, Alex, she was just almost two. We waited that long because the previous time we flew a long distance to India with my other toddler at the time before I had my third one. She we couldn't get a we couldn't get flights for her without the bed, without using the bassinet because of her age. So you had to use a bassinet to use the Senate seat. I don't know what it's called when you're under 18 months, so you travel. When she was 16 months, I think, but she was already too big for the Senate, so I could. She couldn't have her own seat because it was the rule, the policy for her age. And of course, she was walking and talking. Almost. She was quite a fast growing kid, so she wanted to be two or she wanted to have her own seat. So anyway, we went to Japan in 2019 and we decided that year because Alex was very close to two and so she could have her own seat. And also, we made sure that we took that. We've got there. What she called the air couch is it called Spanish Sky Couch? Yeah, that was a boon to was so good. I wish they had it for before.
Geoff Wilson [00:25:47] Well, let's see. Let's explain what that is because I know in the states I haven't seen in the American Airlines at least that have it, and I haven't used the Air New Zealand one yet my parents had. But for everybody else? Explain what that is. This glorious, glorious decision that it changed air travel.
Lulu Pachuau [00:26:01] I still think for poor parents and I bet I think if I was travelling by myself, I'd probably buy that as well. If you're travelling long distance. Yeah. So it's it's basically a three in one row of seats can be transformed into like a bed. So imagine all the seats below each of the seat. You pull out something and then imagine all the three seats. All the thing at the bottom comes up and then becomes basically a tiny little bed and and kids can play on it or sleep on it and just hang out and chill that thing right in first class. Maybe. I don't know. But yeah, it was. It was a boon because I asked around my friends and they said, Definitely get the sky couch. And they they they have it in the flight to Tokyo. So we did that on both sides. And it wasn't that much more do pay a little bit more, but it's totally worth the price.
Geoff Wilson [00:26:53] It's yeah, it's the price versus how do you want to do you want to arrive with your entire family?
Lulu Pachuau [00:27:01] My last time, I'll tell you, my husband always jokes that the last time we flew with a toddler, he said he walked from New Zealand to Singapore because he was just because the baby didn't want to be in the back seat and it was too small. And then when there was any turbulence you to have the baby on your lap, so she was hardly on the best ever say was just so bad. And so I had to hold her or walk with her up and down the plane. So he always says he walked all the way to Singapore.
Geoff Wilson [00:27:29] Yeah. So you've got some ways to to make your seating a little bit more comfortable. Some place spaces. What about the rest of it? I mean, so what's it like even getting them onto the plane, getting them situated, you know, for takeoffs and landings and stuff?
Lulu Pachuau [00:27:43] Again for us, Alex has allergies. She's allergic to eggs and dairy, which is technically growing a little bit out of. So our trip this time literally started before we wanted to make sure that the plane had soy milk. The plane had food that didn't have eggs and all of those things, and that was actually really, really, really hard to coordinate and find out. And so because otherwise we would have to bring our own food, which was which we were fine to do. But then, of course, you forget that and no one told you. And I guess in some ways, maybe it's not their job, but I also feel that maybe it should be to remind you when you feel allergies, you can bring stuff to the plane, but make sure it's within a certain type of container. I don't know whatever because you get to the gate because you're trying to overpeck for things. You're going for a very long trip so you have bags full of soy, milk and so on. And then you get to the gate to customs and they're like, Sorry, you can't take that on the plane. Of course, you can't get it on the plane because it's more than 100 mills or whatever it is. And so you feel so awkward checking in. But I just wish that there was some either a checklist or something that would have really helped us as parents with three kids. I mean, getting them on and off was actually fine because they're all carrying their own bags. Those were the stress points for us was trying to make sure either the plane had things that our kids could eat and also if we were, if you were going to bring them on, how what was the requirements around how much you could take in and what type of container? Yeah. And then the same thing on the other way is when you get off the plane because our customs are quite strict, we would stress out was, however. Ouch. Know, because he can't bring anything in. And I remember this was ages ago now we got caught with a banana peel we didn't know was at the bottom of the bag.
Geoff Wilson [00:29:25] He had banana peels everywhere in your daughters and your.
Lulu Pachuau [00:29:29] Well, you know, this is what happens. And then you get distracted with the kids, you know? And so anyway, I guess there are things you can't avoid, but there I think they. But I totally see that there are things that could have been that can be better for parents travelling with toddlers, especially because after a certain age is definitely easier because they can watch TV and they they're really good at accommodating kids. And then the other funny thing is when you're under two or under 18 months, if you're a kid or a baby on that, on that ticket, I think they just assume they just all eat baby food like the food they gave us on the plane, at least at the time. I don't know if it happens now. They gave my toddler literally baby food out of a jar. My baby can eat sandwiches. You know, she's 16 and 18 months old. She can eat solid food, proper food and like, what is? She didn't. She didn't want to eat anything. Yeah. So and we had to give some of our food, which obviously was fine, but it was just not expected. And so you're not prepared and and so on and so forth. So yeah, so we, whenever we've travelled, have been domestic. We always carry a small pack of sandwiches every time you travel, just in case because we don't know what's going to happen. And of course, this allergy stuff happening as well. The breakfast is always difficult because all the breakfast, I think they assume either you just want things with eggs or things with milk. And neither of which apply to us. So again, you don't want to be an inconvenience. But but at the same time, you just go. This is just so bad, you know, sitting in this small space and you just worried about all these things. So, yeah, I
Geoff Wilson [00:31:02] now wish instead of airline, you know, breakfast foods like eggs and pancakes and things I wish they had like leftover pizza because my mother chicken wings, leftover pizza that fit my life a lot, you know, a lot.
Lulu Pachuau [00:31:14] I could see all the Asian airlines were so much better. Again, the Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific that we used to travel and they would have a two minute, you know, cup noodles for snacks, which I would rather have our kids. None of those things have eggs, and all those things have milk, and it's super easy to make an easy to eat because they're just in the cup. And so I just wish all aeroplanes had something like that that are just easy and convenient for for parents to go and make
Geoff Wilson [00:31:41] from a service design perspective. What I want to break down there is I always try to wonder, Well, why might a night? And I was thinking, Well, cup noodles, I guess you do have a lot of water that for people who don't eat it, they don't drink all the broth and stuff. Now you have a lot of water, you have to figure out how to dispose of it. So there may be this complications in that versus, you know, it's mostly if it's solid sandwiches and apples and stuff, you can just toss it onto a hard bean closed up easy. You don't have to worry about dripping in water, splashing around. And I guess also there's less risk of, you know, if somebody knocks a sandwich off the tray, it's not really going to stain semester's clothing where as if you had a cup of noodle broth, that's hot broth that gets burned in another passenger now.
Lulu Pachuau [00:32:26] Have you had Cup Noodles? The water gets absorbed in the thing it does, it doesn't, it's not that watery.
Geoff Wilson [00:32:30] That is if you're doing it right haha
Lulu Pachuau [00:32:32] Haha OK that's fair.
Geoff Wilson [00:32:33] If you're not like anxious. So I just want to eat it now. Just I can't wait. Just eating the brick of noodles hard.
Lulu Pachuau [00:32:38] Now my kids would do that. My kids would need just a brick. They would prefer to eat that. But yes. But jokes aside, it's it is, sir. That is a consideration to make, I suppose. Yeah. I think the other thing for me again, before we had kids would daughter and I have a husband. I would love trebling, of course, and we racked up lots of points and then we would be, you know, in the best seats and everything. We'd look forward to having that wine and everything would kids. There's a girl that said goodbye to those things. Don't even think about opening up that magazine, you know? So one thing that has really been a big thing for us is as a big family, when you get off the plane, you need a bigger car to take all your luggage in one thing. So when we went to Japan, we had to wait in line for way longer than we would have if it was just a couple because we needed a car of a certain size and we needed one that would take us to the place we wanted to go. And also for us, we lived actually quite close to the airport in Wellington, so we often feel bad to to get a taxi that only takes us, what, two minutes or five minutes or less. And we actually experience that. We came back from from Sydney one time and even from Japan as well. But one thing we always every time it's funny is, Oh, I just wish you could just pre-book an uber or something. And they would be they would be able to know that you've arrived and you're just there. So it's a win win for everyone. They don't have to wait for you for ages, and you don't have to wait in line for hours when the kids are tired and you're just trying to figure out where your hotel or wherever you're going to stay is. And it would just remove those things so much. And because I have heard from other cab drivers where one of the. Problems about taxi or being a taxi, the airport is them having to wait as well as in, you know, if you're unlucky, you could get it. People, passengers who just want to go short distance like this. So but if you could kind of pre-book some things like that, I would love to do that. I would pay a little even an extra just for that because it means that it saves me time and stress, and I would get home early or faster and not have to worry about which card to use. Yeah, just thinking about that. But the best one we've had was, I think we went to Auckland. It was a short trip and we thankfully had it was like it was just like our car was waiting for us. It was just right timing. Oh my God. It's right there. Take it, take you. Take it before someone, Jemison. But the guy actually read it for us because there was another couple of something. They went and got the small car and then we got to the big car, and so we pre-booked him on our way back. Nice. Nice. The same guy. And there was so much better. He was happy. We were happy. We kept about the same car that we had and all that stuff. But imagine if that was the same same every time there would just be stress free. Yeah, you know,
Geoff Wilson [00:35:23] yeah, there's an opportunity there. Anything else on the airline side of things before we move on from that one? Any other interesting aspects of I mean, I guess if you've gone to Japan, how long of a flight is that? Because some flights are doing this overnight to their sleeping and stuff, there's there could be, I guess there could be more options. There are more interactions or interesting circumstances that with a family of five, you might have to go through that other people might not.
Lulu Pachuau [00:35:47] Well, our family of five John is a giant, his six foot three and really short five something, right? And so we have in terms of the seats, we had to be very careful in booking the air catch with me and the kids because no way you would have seen that the kids. So those are the little things that you often don't think about. But I don't know. I don't know how you would solve that problem at all. But it's just interesting thing for us to consider and also other parents out there. Think about this what we did a lot of research about that. I think the other thing for us was one of my kids. She has a tendency to throw up on the radar, so I'm just talking about really gross things for you.
Geoff Wilson [00:36:26] So that's fine. I'm not bothered with everybody listening, but listen to this.
Lulu Pachuau [00:36:32] Any Zealand there are so good they just make me not stress out. I think that was something that was a surprise because as soon as he saw that happen, they came and gave me hot towels with eucalyptus. And to me, that was that just really removed a lot of the stress I had as a mom. A kid threw up all over my body and which also happens. And other times it's just it's like they aim for me or something. But yeah, they were so good. It was like, No, it was. I don't think half more than half of the passengers didn't even know it was going on. They were so good at that. So I think I definitely commend him for that. In terms of my experience, that's that's on the top of my. It was a bad experience to turn into a good experience that it didn't take long for me to be embarrassed about and all that stuff. So I think that is good to know and consider. You know, you talk, you research, you talk to your customers and people. You focus a lot on the bad things. But I think it's good to sometimes talk about what's good and what could kind of override bad experiences as well. What could what could possibly be something that would just mitigate a whole bunch of bad things that you just can't control?
Geoff Wilson [00:37:40] That's one of those, like, planned. Yet I'm unplanned a brand touchpoints, right? And so it's not like their brand strategy is going to dictate that we specifically need a measure and a metric. OK, are for puking children on flight? Exactly. It's probably one of those staff. I mean, this is, I guess, how I'd hope it come up is the staff might have had, Hey, here's the story that happens. Here's what I had to deal with as a flight attendant today. And then if that works its way up, it maybe becomes like an official procedure. But one of those things that we've planned enough that if this thing happens, we can do that. And then by making you feel good, I mean, that's a brand touchpoint that nobody the brain department would have ever thought about. But here you are, talking about it and saying the name and being happy to say they make me feel comfortable as a mom. They they get rid of my worries. That's stronger than saying, Oh, the flight was on time. Oh, the seats were nice. This is, it sounds like way stronger of a feeling overall.
Lulu Pachuau [00:38:33] Oh, absolutely. And they were just working in sync. Synchrony. It was weird because it was about and it often happens when the plane's changing its its height, right? Because it's getting ready to land, and that's when the body changes and you're getting sick if you're going to force it, if you're going to stick and throw up, that's that's around the time. So these guys are trying to make everybody sit down. And so we couldn't get out of our seat. But man, it was like, Bam, bam, bam. They just knew exactly what to do, cleaned me up, clean my daughter up, gave me stuff, and I smelled fresh because of all the things I had on these hot towels. They already they put. I saw them someone who was like putting eucalyptus tea tree oil on the thing. And it felt familiar because I used it with the kids to other parents. But I but you know, it's just. Was like we got back on the ground and we just felt, oh man, that was so good. It was bad, but it turned into a, you know, a a bitter experience that you would have thought because you just get so scared that you're going to derail the plane or whatever. But it's a big because it's very memorable, as you can hear me talk about because we often talk about that my husband and I.
Geoff Wilson [00:39:34] And that's where I'm going to shout out to one of both of our mutual colleague friends, Nick Bowmast in New Zealand, because one of the best things in his book "USERPALOOZA", he's got a little triangle. I think it was, and he's always talks about don't just study the people that are the average, the easy people to study the people that you can find a really easy study, the outliers study, the Freaks Geeks and everybody else. You know, everybody else on the outside think even use the term Freaks and Geeks in that. But like this like study, the mom with five kids and figure out like, what kind of things is she going through because it goes back to that accessibility kind of angle if you do something well for her, if anybody else has an issue, maybe they throw up or maybe they spill soap army, not soap soup on themselves or whatever. Yeah, it's like that same procedure can be reused, but you make this great thing for everybody by studying the outside. And again, nobody's ever going to hear that story of the airline journey experience without hearing real life story. So what actually goes on?
Lulu Pachuau [00:40:27] Oh, absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. It's that extra thing that they used to do. I don't know if they still do all did with, you know, just having the kid carry that the the sweets across to play the seats. Oh yeah, those types of things. Those are little touches that kids never forget. The Oh yeah, I remember when I did that, I distributed sweets to people, and it's such a strong memory for them, those that type of touch. It's opportunities, like with the the mom with three kids thing. I think the other thing that came to my mind was the opportunity you have there with the brand Typekit. Or they may not have thought about because if you as a mom can afford three three kids can afford to travel to Japan for one month, come back with a decent thing. That means it probably are quite influential. They may have lots of friends that can help you. So there's, you know, if you think about all the things around that looking purely from a brand point of view as a service, you might be hearing something that you might not have realised that this one person could influence with more people than the two people that your standard procedure catering to. You know,
Geoff Wilson [00:41:31] I like it. So I think that's enough for airlines. Maybe one last travel thing you did tell me, you also took a trip on a boat. And yes, the most I the most I generally go on is like, you know, a ferry that's like a forty five minute travel. Yeah. So what's your boat travel experience to to which land, sea or land, air and now sea?
Lulu Pachuau [00:41:49] I know I wanted to. Could you talk about that? Because. It was the one travel experience that we didn't have any of these problems. Because it was lots more space because kids can run around. They just had a lot of space for kids to hang out and the food was decent that lots of coffee, lots of wine for parents. And yeah, just generally you just it was just so much more relaxing. And of course, it took longer than you would on a plane or driving. But I don't know, there was something about that travel that was an experience in itself. But just compared to the other travel, the space, all that stress that you have as a parent, it's not there and it's safe because you're just inside the space, so you go to jump off the boat or something.
Geoff Wilson [00:42:36] Yes, it is. It is it like the combination of all of those things that just went really well on this trip?
Lulu Pachuau [00:42:41] I think we were probably lucky because of course, I know with boats with depending on whether it can go very badly. And that's probably why I think they try to make the travel as comfortable as possible. So but I think there is something to be said for other forms of travel. Is there anything here as again, as a researcher and a designer, why is this so much better than air travel? Why is it that? Is there something we can do at airports when they're waiting for stuff? Is there something we can do at these stops where you know, we're on our way to back and forth or in between travelling and taking a pitstop? Is there something that we can do is an opportunity that for someone to go and accommodate people travelling with family, things like that, that you could apply the same things that you might have experience in the really nice place to another place, you know, is there ways to kind of cross and learn from each other? I mean, that's that stuff that I I often do it with my with my team is that what are the things that you like outside? You just come back from some lunch or walk just to work or whatever. And I think that if experience that's been really good, how can we apply that feeling that emotional connexion with the thing that you just had to what we were doing to what we're designing? I try to help have that conversation with my team a lot and just taking things out of that genre out of that category and apply it to what we're doing because there's a tendency for us right to go and do research on the same area all the time. It's like, why do you designing for a bank? Why look at other banks, look at other things outside. There might be other things you can apply.
Geoff Wilson [00:44:17] I think there was a I think it was in Jaime Levy's book "UX Strategy" that talked about the three areas that, you know, you can study direct competitors, you can study your indirect competitors, but they can also study your influencers. And so groups like that that they they have no, they're not in your market at all offer what you're selling, but they're things that they've done really well. As you just said, you might be able to take some cues from similar experiences, similar emotional journeys and try to figure out what does that mean for your product and service area?
Lulu Pachuau [00:44:43] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Because people don't compare brand to brands, sometimes they compare the thing that they need to do at the time with the thing they have to do in another time. And they'll just, you know, more more often than not will choose the one that meets that need faster than your brand. I'm not going to choose KFC over McDonald's because they have better things, but it might be because they're closer to me. You know what I mean? I don't. I don't eat those kinds of foods you say. But it's it's really I think it really comes down to what is it that that person is trying to solve for themselves and that nested problem all the way down to what exactly are they trying to do? How is that compared to something else that they like, you know? So I think there's so many things that they were still don't really cover very well or sometimes miss the point because we're just so focussed on that industry or that particular category that you're researching.
Geoff Wilson [00:45:34] I think that sounds like a great place to wrap up. It's a it's a good lesson for everybody to take back to your own workplaces wherever you might be. Lulu is how would you like people to find you? Chat with you. Anything you want them to do?
Lulu Pachuau [00:45:46] Oh, well, I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn. I don't tweet so much anymore as I used to. But if they find me on LinkedIn or lushai.com from our website and yeah...
Geoff Wilson [00:46:01] Well, thank you. This has been great. And with that, folks, thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope you see the design of our everyday world in a new way. To see examples of what we were talking about today and to keep this conversation going, you can find and follow us at @EverydayExpPod or myself @geoffwilsonHCD. Please consider leaving us a rating and subscribing to the show on your favourite podcasting app and checking out our previous episodes. And as always, just remember, you don't have to have a fancy job title to start noticing and improving the everyday experiences wherever you work. Thanks and we'll be on the air again soon.
Lulu Pachuau [00:47:04] It kind of started with us last year. We were supposed to go back to India, which is where I'm from.... Sorry, just stop for a second. Is it really noisy? Cause I can hear the aeroplane?
Post-credits bloopers
Geoff Wilson [00:47:13] I can hear it on my side, so it might be?
Lulu Pachuau [00:47:16] Interesting because it hardly ever happens. And this is like the only time it's happening right now. I mean, seriously. Typical. All right. Where was I?
